By mid-morning Kathleen and I had breakfast and packed up for our move to Jatun (Hot-toon) Sacha (Sah-chah) Biological Reserve. The proprietor of Hostal El Paisano called us a cab which arrived almost instantly. For $5 the cabby drove over the bridge at Misahualli crossing the Rio Napo (Nap-oh) and bombed down a dirt road that came to a very nice paved road. We rocketed east on this road for nearly 20-minutes before screeching to a halt and making a sharp turn into a dirt parking lot. We had arrived, perhaps in record time, at Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve.
Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve is 4,840 acres of rain forest purchased through private means in 1986. The reserve protects some of the last vestiges of primary rain forest in the area. In the past, rain fall has been averaging 16-feet per year. This quantity has been shrinking over the last several years, according to Alejandro Suarez, who manages the reserve. Yes, you read that correctly . . . sixteen feet.
Kathleen and I hiked up to the cabañas and selected one of the six six-person tin roofed huts of wood and chicken wire walls.
Cabaña Tarantula seemed suitable to us. We actually like these style of accommodations in such out of the way locations as they are all you really need for a cabin. 
Kathleen and I have often thought if we were to build a cabin somewhere, we would construct ours similar to the cabañas provided at the reserve.
After settling in, we went down for lunch where afterwards we, okay, Kathleen, talked to Jefferson about birding and eco-tourism. That speaking Spanish stops me every time. Jefferson was studying eco-tourism at the university in Tena, and hoped to lead tours some day. 
Jefferson got up off his chair and we saw a Conga Ant on the seat. Take a good look at the mandibles of this male (females are lighter colored and smaller). Additionally, they have a sting that can cause tremendous swelling and fever.
Kathleen and I set off on a trail that made a loop through a portion of the reserve. Our experience nagged at us that noon to mid-afternoon birding or critter finding was not so good in the tropics. We went exploring anyway.The trail was great and easy to follow. Additionally, as I’ve mentioned before, walking about in the jungle is not like that portrayed in Hollywood where you have scenes of people constantly swatting bugs, or seemingly being eaten alive by trillions of insects as the explorers intrepidly forge their way through a tropical forest. Biting insects exists, however, not nearly to the extent portrayed. You see me here in shorts, ‘cause the conditions are hot and humid. I’m wearing long-sleeves ‘cause sun screen on my arms makes them feel icky. And I’m wearing shoes ‘cause I was too lazy to unpack my sandals.
We roamed about the forest for a few hours, however, critter watching wasn’t so good, duh. Kathleen got some good looks at Saddle-backed Tamarins. All I got to see were these russet blurs darting about the tree tops. We moseyed out to the nicely paved road we came in on. Often birding is good along roads as this is an edge where sunlight improves diversity and thus productivity. 
Kathleen spotted some toucans and the Blue-black Grasquits were in abundance. These little guys make a buzzy trill for a song and sometimes give the song while seemingly doing a flip from their perch.
We wandered back for a fine, yet simple, dinner at the ‘estatión’ where we asked Alejandro about the nicely paved, yet really out of place, road out front. Well, turns out, the road is for the ‘people’ . . . and, oh, by the way, to access the oil fields at the end of the nice road. Ah, now everything makes sense. Alejandro fears the worst as the pipe line travels along the road and is only a couple meters down in the ground. He said a French company built the line and road quickly and suspects they cut corners in hopes of extracting the oil and being gone before something happens. 
Alejandro went on to say that an international airstrip is being built near the oil fields, too. Again, to serve the local people. Yeah, they’ve all got their private aircraft sitting idle somewhere.Back in our cabin we slept beneath mosquito netting as this was the first place we had stayed where biting insects could certainly take advantage of our motionless hides. We were looking forward to the sounds of the night in a tropical forest.
Oh, this’ll give you a perspective as to how big the Conga Ant was.
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