January 10th-11th 2015

I roll out of bed and emerge from my mosquito net cocoon just after 6 in the morning eager for what the day might hold.  After a quick stretch I’m out of the dorm and quickly heading over the bird tower, camera in hand.  I’m not the first to arrive and right away there’s a little action with a smaller breed of toucan in a tree just a short distance from us.  I snap a few pictures but they are instantly made irrelevant as the larger white throated toucan and they sit there for a while in harmony before continuing their morning constitutionals and flying off over the thick green canopy.

Tons more birds show up, and Willian finds still more out of range of the binoculars and by 7:30 we’ve seen countless parrots, a flock of 5 chestnut macaws flying off, parakeets, an awesome woodpecker and another small toucan breed.

Despite the wonderful show by 7:30 our numbers have dwindled to Matt, Willian and Myself.  Well the jokes on them because stuff’s about to get good.

I’m about to go down when we notice a big black shape just a few trees out from our tower.  It creeps closer and then takes a seat on a branch and starts feeding.  By this point I know it’s a monkey but it takes Willian to tell me that its a saki monkey.  It’s fur is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on a monkey, drenched by the overnight rain and hanging in loose drying tufts, faming the beast lovely face.  It regards us for a good long while before moving on.

 

Of course it is almost immediately followed by a pair of acrobatic and much faster moving squirrel monkeys in the same tree.  They also linger and put on quite a show, extending for leaves and fruit and flipping around the mostly bare branches seemingly just for fun.

Then when they leave, boom, three more saki monkeys arrive, alongside a beautiful green parrot a little ways back.

To be honest I’m pretty sad by the the time 8:05 rolls around and I’m called down already late for breakfast.  The bird tower makes Guacamayo the best choice for jungle lodge in my opinion and that doesn’t even take into account the wonderful staff.

At any rate after a tasty if rushed breakfast we’re piling into the canoe on the way to visit an indigenous village of the Siona Tribe.  It’s a good long boat trip though, and I’ve already picked up that’s never a dull time when you’re in the amazon.  We see so many more monkeys, more Saki’s and Squirrels monkeys, and they are joined by more Capuchin’s as well as more yellow handed titi monkeys, and a tiny pygmy marmoset, and a family of golden mantled tamarin monkey’s.  The marmoset is tiny ( 18-24 cm from tail to head)and only can be seen with the telescope so all I have is a blurry photo, but it was very fascinating to see a primate so small that feeds almost entirely off sap from the tree.

Before arriving we also catch sight of a huge lizard up on a long, for some reason very different from any animal I expected to see in the Amazon, but still beautiful.

Then we arrive in the tiny encampment, one of three of the Siona tribe, totalling only around 200 people between them.  Climbing up the embankment, we’re greeted by dogs and a soccer field.  No matter where you go outside of North America, futbol seems more like a religion than a sport.

While we wait for our hosts Willian climbs a tree and brings us a Spanish name,  Guava, different from the North american one.  We all delight in the sweet fruit that looks like a giant bean pod but tastes like a much improved lychee until Anita shows up and takes us back into the farms of the village showing us how to pick and replant yuca.  It’s surprisingly hard work pulling the huge root vegetable out of the ground and most of us are sweating by the time we return to the bread making hut.  A semi domesticated parrot follows out to the field and back, always watching, and posing for some nice photos.

We then watch as Anita makes Yucca bread and even help her grate the Yucca, then we enjoy the spoils of our hard word (mostly hers)  enjoying the flat pita like break with tuna, friend rice and pineapple jam, all separately of course.

From there we practice our blow dart shooting skills, the Argentinians and Willian prove to be excellent at it, the rest of us, myself included, not so much.

We then head out from the village and through some well maintained paths under banana trees where Willian shows us something cool, definitely the best fake nails I’ve ever had.

We then get to the Shamans compound where he shows us the famous ayahuasca route before taking us into his healing chamber and giving us an example of the song he would sing before taking ayahuasca in order to diagnose the problems.  The man speaks quietly and quickly but with my improved Spanish I follow well enough and when he asks for a volunteer and no one steps forward I figure why not, taking a seat on a plank of wood in front of him.

He sings another song then I’m told to remove my shirt.  This is followed by him rubbing poison ivy (not the Canadian kind) all over my back as he sings.  I bite my lip and buckle down to let him finish, not wanting to let the significant pain bring a stop to his healing.  It’s sharp pins and big needles all over my back and the feeling continues for 10 minutes after the ceremony until somehow my entire body turns a very pleasant warm and I feel some clenched muscles relaxing in my back.  Pretty cool.

The other good thing to learn was that nowadays when he encounters someone with a major problem or disease that might require an operation or other serious treatment he refers people to the hospital in Lago Agrio. Probably a good thing in the long run, at least in terms of keeping people alive.

We say goodbye to the Shaman and pay him the 3 dollar fee not included in the 260 USD i paid to Cuyabeno lodge, another 3 went to Anita earlier and then we’re boating back to the lodge for a quick rest.  A few monkeys surround us, but no sloths which both Matt and Willian seem to be hoping for.  That said we do encounter a butterfly cocoon on a fallen leaf, or at least some creature halfway between it’s initial stage and it’s full magnificent bright blue form.  hard to imagine this thing turning into something breathtakingly beautiful.

Back at the lodge I fall into  hammock and do some reading but before long we’re heading out again, searching for anacondas.  Sadly it’s not to be but as we make our way out across the now much bigger lagoon thanks steady overnight rain, we are gifted with the beginnings of a truly wonderful sunset.  Willian sees some Red Howler monkeys in the distance but they move to fast to catch much of a sight of them so we head back not the centre of the lake and relax in the canoe.

We’re treated to one of the better sunset’s I’ve seen in my life and it seems a perfect way to spend my final night in the galapagos. Skies afire, bird calls all around us, the mirror calm lake reflecting the light in intoxicating patterns.  A photographer’s dream, and while I might not quite be that, I’m getting closer. Practice makes perfect right?

The sunset done we head back to the lodge for our last dinner and I head to bed, waking up the next morning at 5:30 to watch a muted sunrise from the bird tower and watch for more wildlife.  I’m called away at 6:30 having seen some cool birds but nothing compared to the previous day, but we’ve got an early start since it’s our last day.

The six of us pile into the canoe for the second last time, heading out in the early morning to observe some wildlife in their most active hours.  We see more monkeys from the canoe, lots of them in fact, three different species but none new and none in a posing mood.  There’s also tons of birds of course, and lots of butterflies too of course but it shows how wonderful the past few days have been that this morning feels like a disappointment. No sloths, no Anacondas, and as expected, no pink dolphins.

We’re almost back to the lodge when something breeches the surface in front of us and instantly William is up and signalling for us to be quiet.  “It might be a dolphin.”  he whispers to us.  I had my heart set on pink dolphins since missing the river dolphins of the 4000 islands in Laos, and since my brother expressed a love for them.  Got to one up your siblings after all.

 

Sure enough it comes up again, behind us this time and Willian confirms it just as my eyes do the same.  It’s only slightly pink, more grey really, which tells us it’s a juvenile dolphin, and it’s hunting for catfish so it doesn’t leap out of the water but still circles around the boat and puts on a little show.  I’m grinning pretty wide by the time we head back to the lodge to pack our bags, eat breakfast and be on our way.

My original plan was to return to San Rafael Falls, and Magica Falls, but the expensive hostel there coupled with my ticking clock to get down to Santiago changes my mind so instead it’s a long day of travel.  2 hours in the canoe.  2 hours in the bus back to Lago Agrio. And a merciful less than expected 7 hours back to Quito.  I arrive tired out but utterly exhilarated by the last week, and now that I’ve finished writing about the adventures it’s time to get out and have some more.  Watch this space.