June 23.Our last full day in Ecuador starts with a mile walk uphill on a road in an attempt to see Mountain Toucans. As I’ve always said, sometimes when you set out to see Mountain Toucans you see them and sometimes when you set out to see Mountain Toucans you don’t. This was one of those don’t times.
Breakfast at the lodge, then we drive back up the road to try to see Mountain a Toucans again. As I’ve always said, sometimes when you set out to see Mountain Toucans you see them and sometimes when you set out to see Mountain Toucans you don’t. This was one of those do times. I didn’t really get that good a look, but Carol and Josue did.
We drive down to a private site Josue knows about, which he says is just down the road a little way. Well, the little way turns out to be half an hour down a very bumpy road. When I confirm with Josue that we will need to drive back up to the lodge to get our bags, then drive back down the same way, en route to Quito, I allow as how I think this is crazy. Josue volunteers to drive back up himself to get all of our bags and then return to join us. While Carol is a bit reluctant to agree to this, I accept immediately.
Carol and I spend a very pleasant hour watching birds at the reserve Josue has left us at. He returns with box lunches that the lodge has prepared, which we eat outside, while watching more birds. Here are some of the birds we see.
              We take a pleasant walk down by the river in search of some terrific ducks, which we do not find.
 Then we set out for the approximately 2-hour drive to Quito, enjoying the spectacular mountain and forest scenery in the sunshine.
We arrive at our home, the Casa Gangotena around three, and say fond farewells to Josue, who was fantastic. He vows to stay in touch, and my bet is that he will.
We rest and clean up, then set out for a large artisan market. Carol is in her element, bargaining in a way that I need to walk away from, and winds up getting a slew of stuff from five or more separate vendors for about seventy-five bucks. Wouldn’t be a trip without Carol doing her thing in the market. (I do my own damage, buying a small leather pouch in which to keep hearing aid batteries. Egads, it’s come to this. Cost is one dollar, and I’m quite thrilled with my little pouch.)
We take a taxi to a restaurant tat Josue has recommended, with great views of the city, but it’s hosting a noisy bus load of people, so we walk out. We wander next door to Vista Hermosa, which is quiet, and has even nicer views of the city. The only trouble is that it up has strings of blinking white, sort of Chrismassy lights, that we are quite sure will cause us to have strokes. Our solution: we don our sun glasses, which work perfectly. I tell Carol that I am in my Ray Charles period. After a very good meal, we taxi back to the hotel, read/blog, check out the Cubs score (0-0 in the top of the first, against the Dodgers) and retire.
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June 22.
This morning is a change of pace, moving from just birdwatching to exploration of nature more generally.
We start with about a 10-minute walk to a place where you can zip line on a wire above the trees over a portion of the forest. You are fastened into a harness, which is attached to the wire, step off the edge and zip to the other side. Carol is ambivalent, but after I go, she agrees to do it behind Josue, which is why you can’t see her in the photos. I decide I’ll do my Tarzan act swinging out and back over an open area, holding onto a rope, but there is no way Carol is going to play Jane. She does have video of me, though, which I’m planning to send to studios who may need a senior citizen Tarzan.
  We then walk back about an hour through, beautiful, cool tropical forest. The few photos don’t do it justice. There are ups and downs along slippery muddy dirt and rocks. I don’t do well on the way down on slippery muddy dirt and rocks, but fortunately had Josue to assist, or I would now be wearing very muddy jeans, perhaps in a hospital bed. I don’t plan to do anything like that again for a good, long time; maybe never.
     Okay, it’s not that we’ve given up birdwatching entirely. Both before and after our nature exploration, we spend time seeing some great birds around the lodge. Here are some examples.
               Okay, do there’s a squirrel. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
Before lunch at the lodge, Josue gives us a comprehensive, but concise overview of the geography of Ecudaor, including both where we’ve been and where we’re headed, on a large map at the lodge. After lunch, we chat briefly with Luis and Sylvia, who have gone off on their own birding adventure this morning, then say goodbye to them, as they are staying on. We’ve exchanged contact information, and may well stay in touch. We drive into Mindo to look at shops, and spend maybe five minutes there, a waste of a half hour drive to and from Mindo.
Returning to the lodge, we pack up the truck. (I should admit that “we” is an overstatement, as Josue, sometimes assisted by lodge personnel, has packed and unpacked us, including taking bags to and from all the lodges. C’mon, give us a break. We’re old, I mean we’ve been married for over fifty years.). We head from our lodge up the mountain on a very bumpy road, moving from the tropical forest back up to the Bellavista Cloud Forest, with it’s cooler and thinner air. We stop a few times to spot birds, with only modest success. It’s a whole lot easier to find them around the lodges than it is in the forests.
We check in to the Bellavista Lodge, where we have a large second-floor room in a separate building. There is a patio around the room and it feels like we’re living in a treehouse; it’s modest, but funky, and we like it. We have a couple hours to relax before dinner.
Dinner with Josue is quite acceptable. As we complete our dinner somebody comes in to ask if we want to come try to see an Olingo. Of course we do. What’s an Olingo? A rare animal, sort of looks like a combination of animals, including a wombat, a lemur and depending on your imagination, a bunch of other animals. A new species of Olingo has been identified recently, so, as you would expect, there’s quite a bit of excitement about that.
Anyway, we troop out to an area and dutifully look up into the trees. Nothing. A bunch of bananas has been placed up in a tree. Our patience is rewarded, and, eventually, the Olingo shows up. Here are my best two Olingo shots (of probably twenty-five or more). Good night now, and enjoy the Olingos. (When we get up to our room, we discover that we could have benefited from the services of an entomologist to help identify the co-occupants of our room. Oh, well, it’s only one night.)
 
June 21.
First, a report on last night’s anniversary dinner. Food (and company) were terrific. The restaurant comped us on champagne cocktails and dessert, which was nice. Very good view of Independence Plaza. We had not anticipated that a husband and wife operatic duo would serenade the guests with a (too wide) selection of arias. They weren’t bad, and had a nice presence, but there was too much of them for the talking we wanted to do about the many highlights of the fifty years we’ve spent together.
Up at 3:30 for our 4AM pickup by Josue. We continue to find Josue completely delightful, amazingly mature (he’s 22 years old), knowledgable on and interested in a wide array of topics and completely committed to do whatever it takes to make our trip enjoyable. We definitely would not trade him for a more experienced guide. When we get home, Carol,and I are going to contact an ornithologist we know at The Field Museum to see whether there’s any possibility of making an arrangement for Josue to spend some time at the museum. Probably a big long shot, but worth a try.
We drive a couple hours to Paz de las Aves Reserve, where we are led by the amazing Angel Paz, whose reputation as a “bird whisperer” we’d heard from three sources and was fully confirmed by our morning with him. There were two other couples, one from Barcelona and one from England with us. Angel led us on hidden, muddy paths to see the spectacle of male cock of the rock birds screeching and showing off to try to attract the female. This lasted for over half an hour as we watched and tried to find spots to take photos of the red, weird-looking birds.
After this, Angel led us to other spots we knew, where he called three varieties of Antpittas by the names he’d given them, and coaxed them out of hiding. Some of the hiking was a challenge and, in fact, one was steep and muddy enough that I stayed with Josue and looked for birds (a good decision, Carol said, though she liked what the group saw. Carol took video throughout the day.
After three hours, our group went up to a spot that was the headquarters of Angel’s birding operation, where we had breakfast, chatted and saw an amazing array of Tanangers, Hummingbirds and some other birds. After lunch, Carol, Josue and I drove to the Sachatamia Lodge, where we will spend the night. Our room is not ready, but we drop our bags and drive on to Mindo, where we visit a butterfly preserve (two photos, of us and Josue, below), then have lunch at the restaurant attached to the preserve. From the restaurant window, we are able to observe more species (we are up to fifty for the trip, so far) and photograph them.
We drive back to the lodge, wait for Carol and my large third-floor room to be ready, check in and spend three hours getting settled, emailing, blogging, etc before going down to meet Josue and the couple from Barcelona we met this morning for dinner at the lodge. Luis is a biologist who spent years putting a world bird guide together and painting birds. He now runs small trips all around the world. His wife, Cecelia, is a gastroenterologist. That just spent 19 days in the Galápagos.
This was a long, successful and fun day of birdwatching. Though I haven’t yet learned the ins and outs of my new camera and there is one significant problem with it–it is slow to focus (which I’d read about in the comments on the camera)–on balance, I am very glad that I bought it, as I’m able to take photos of birds that I simply could not have taken with my regular camera. Though I’m not about to become a committed bird photographer, taking photos adds a big element of pleasure for me, and some of the photos I’ve taken are not too bad. Here’s a rather large sample from today.
                    
June 20.
A rather auspicious day–our 50th anniversary. Yes, we think it’s a bit amazing, too. I feel so fortunate–blessed–to have gotten into something neither of us could possibly have anticipated or understood fully at the time that turned out so incredibly well. It’s been quite a ride, and, after some deliberation, Carol and I have decided to go for fifty-one.
Now, back to the business at hand. Morning birding was supposed to be on the beautiful Guacamayos ridge trail, but, because the rain will have made the trails extremely muddy and difficult, we change our plans and head to Puembo Birding Garden. It continues to rain and we pass many landslides that have been cleared from the road. There are many groups of men and trucks who patrol the roads to clean up the landslides, much as we would have snow removal crews. From time to time we are delayed by theses landslides as only one lane is cleared. The experience is actually sorta interesting for us, a view of Mother Nature wreaking havoc. The landscape is covered by clouds, but we get glimpses of how beautiful it would be in the sun.
     Puembo Birding Garden turns out to be a great choice, far better than trying to schlogg through serious mud. The sun is out–really, really good news, so we shed several layers of clothes. The Garden is run by a dynamo named Mercedes, who spent time in the US at age five, and so speaks perfect English. She and her husband run a small inn, attached to the beautiful gardens and have a business running birding trips around South America. Judging from the time we spent with Mercedes, these trips would be a gas, and staying in their inn would be a pleasure. The garden is a haven to numerous species of birds and we spent about three hours there, eating a delicious lunch (that included a drink that mixed, orange, carrot and pineapple juices that I had three glasses of) and looking at birds. Here are some photos.
        We drove the hour back to the Gangotena Hotel, chatting with our delightful guide and listening to music. We sign back into the Gangotena and are told, “Welcome home.” I told Carol that I think I want to live in this place. Spectacular in its own tight, the contrast to a place that had no heat, electricity or hot water for a day and a half is, shall we say, dramatic. We have three hours to clean up, relax, repack (I’ve decided that I’m going to figure out a way not to take my large suitcase for the next three days we’ll be away) and do internet and blogging stuff.
Around 7:45, we’ll walk three blocks for an upscale anniversary dinner at La Belle Époque, which I’d asked our travel agent to book for us. I’m going to go ahead and post this now, and report on our dinner tomorrow.
june 19. Up at 5:30. No electricity and therefore no hot water. We later find out that a landslide has wiped out electricity and it’s unclear when it will be restored. We start out on a walk, but soon it begins to rain, so we decide to turn back. I guess it’s supposed to rain in the cloud forest.
At 7:30 we take a short hike to a place near the lodge where we see a really neat and rare bird, the White-bellied Antpitta, which doesn’t really fly, walks on the ground. The lodge has habituated them (which took eight months) by feeding them earthworms in a small clearing area. Fortunately, the rain subsides for this venture.
We have breakfast, then set out for a walk. Again, though, it begins to rain, so we head back to the lodge. This turns out to be quite fortunate, because not only do we avoid the rain, but we see a wide range of great birds from the deck around the lodge, including the Blue-winged Mountain Tanager, Subtropical Cacique, Russet-backed Oropendola, Pale-edged Flycatcher, Rufous-collared Sparrows, Blue-and-White Swallow, Pearled Treerunner, Crimson-Mantled Woodpecker, Mountain Wren, Inca Jay and the following Hummingbirds: Fawn-Breasted Brilliant, Gorgeted Woodstar, Collared Inca, Bronzy Inca, Chestnut-Breasted Coronet.
Here are photos of some of them. I had varied success in photographing them because it turns out that birds are often small, fast-moving and distant, making it difficult to see some of them, let alone photograph them.
        After a very good lunch at the lodge, an eggplant appetizer and a cocoanut soup with tilapia and rice, I nap and Carol and Josue go for a walk. As they’re not there when I awake, I walk for about 45 minutes and see some birds before it starts to rain again. We have no electricity and will not have any tonight. Mudslides are making our route tomorrow a bit iffy, but there’s nothing we can do about it–así as la vida–so we find a deck of cards and Carol, Josue and I play gin rummy by candlelight, listening to folk and country songs from my iPod, played through a small speaker that Josue has with him. This works out well (I win). No doubt this will be a memorable part of our trip. Hardships, in moderation, are often travel highlights.
Really good typical Ecuadorian dinner, by candlelight, augmented by a cinnamon-based tea with liquor provided by owner, Alejandro, who is a staunch conservationist and very personable fellow. He was very concerned that a family of five, with three young kids, who had won a prize of a couple nights at San Isidro and who were going to celebrate the wife’s birthday had not made it or been heard from. He was hoping that they’d sensibly encountered the mudslides and decided to return to Quito.
From Alejandro we learn that we were not unlucky with the weather. There are two seasons, he explains, the rainy season when it rains all day, every day, and the dry season when it merely rains every day. We are in the dry season. I have not mentioned that the weather is very chilly, so we are layering clothes. I’d say it’s been in the fifties during the day and forties at night. The cabins have no heat, though last night we were given hot water bottles (which reminds me of Africa, where we would get them often).
After dinner, Carol, Josue and I play traditional Ecuadorian card games–Crazy Eights and Casino–while listening to the likes of Lyle Lovett, Paul Simon and Joan Baez on my iPhone. For light, we use candles and the headlamp with elastic band that i’s purchased from REI after seeing two fellow travelers using them on our Namibia trip. Good buy. Around 8:30, the family of five arrives, to everyone’s relief, and after their dinner, the mom is serenaded with happy birthday.
My headlamp and I act as a flashlight for Carol on our way back to our cabin, where we retire early, but do not sleep very well because of the constant drumming of rain on our roof.
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