January 9 – Cabañas San Isidro

Hostal El Paisano, Misahualli (Miss-ah-hoo-ahyee), Ecuador turned out another good night for Kathleen and I. I got up around 6:30am in hopes of up-loading updates for the blog. Everyone but me was sleeping in this morning.

By 7:15am the hostal was coming alive and the foyer was opened where the internet computer was kept. Internet here at Hostal El Paisano was through a cell-phone modem that I simply plugged into a USB port on our laptop. The transfer speed was not the fastest, however, I took a deep breath and forged ahead with up-loads.

By 8-ish I heard what sounded like wind moving through trees. Nope, rain squall. Within minutes the street out front as covered with hundreds of puddles. Kathleen and I had breakfast and did some final packing. Today, we were moving to Cabañas San Isidro, or sometime referred to as San Isidro Lodge. Cabañas San Isidro is in the cloud forests on the east slope of the Andes, so, we may as well get used to the rain.We checked out of Hostal El Paisano with a bill of $45 for two nights, laundry and internet service, two breakfasts, and hot water. A little better than Jatun (Hot-toon) Sacha (Sah-chah) Biological Reserve where we were nearly camping and shelled out $120 for two nights. I know. Some of you are saying: “Wanna little cheese with that whine”.

The rain let up long enough for us to walk over to the plaza in Misahualli to catch the bus to Tena (Ten-ah). We boarded and the coach rolled out of town. Kathleen noticed the plaza had no cathedral or church. Place must have been founded by heathens.

The rain fell all the way to Tena where we went straight to the long-distance bus terminal. We bought a $6/both ticket to Cosanga (Coe-sahng-gah) where we were to be picked up by the lodge.

Kathleen was suffering from the on-set of a cold, so while I stood guard over our belongings in the terminal, Kathleen went to the market across the street for any kind of drugs to help battle whatever was trying to gain a hold on her. She arrived back and had found nothing except some snacks.

As we boarded the bus and pulled from the terminal I saw a pharmacy just across the street from the market. Kathleen didn’t see the business because she was focused on negotiating streets, people, and traffic under an umbrella shielding her from the down-pour.

The bus driver meandered through the streets of Tena for nearly 45-minutes trying to load as many people aboard as possible. Kathleen and I strongly suspect this is where the driver and his assistant make that little extra as no record of people boarding or disembarking is kept after the terminal. Additionally, quite a bit of haggling can occur between the assistant and people picked up along the way.

For two hours the bus followed a nice twisty road which slowly gained in elevation. Kathleen and I longed to take this road on our motorcycles some day. By 1:30pm we arrived in Cosanga. A young woman came up to us and directed us to a waiting truck. We hopped in and in less than 10-minutes we pulled into Cabañas San Isidro. Here we met Carmen Bustamante.

Over forty years ago, the Ecuadoran government doled out huge tracks of government land to people in hopes they would clear off the property for developments and agriculture – land improvements don’t ya know? Simón Bustamante had explored much of the eastern slopes of the Ecuadoran Andes and saw the need to protect the forests and associated wildlife. Rather than lunarscape the nearly 2,900 acres he had, he created a nature preserve instead. Not a popular move back in the 50’s and 60’s.

For roughly the last 20-years, Simon’s daughter, Carmen, has worked to take a few cabañas and created and maintains a number of elegantly rustic duplex accommodations and associated facilities in as natural a setting as possible. Carmen herself is wholly down to Earth, however, she’s quite the business woman, and, as we began to find out with each meal, quite the chef!

We settled into our room which had a porch looking out into cloud forest. Cloud . . . forest . . . Simply, a zone of habitats which are nearly always damp from foggy or drizzly precipitation. Not much unlike the Pacific Northwest. Down in the tropics, the conditions occur at altitudes of around 5-6,000 foot elevation.We had a simple lunch and hit the trails emanating from the lodge grounds. The area had received some rain in the morning, so we found the trails slippery. Again, you know as well, too, wildlife viewing in the afternoon can be a struggle as the critters are either skulking about, or sitting around preening. Either which way, they’re also quite mum.

By around 5pm Kathleen and I were at a Cock-of-the-Rock lek. Andean Cock-of-the-Rock males are these crimson and black crow-sized birds that have specific locations where they strut their stuff for the females – the lek. The leks are used by generations of males for several decades. No one really knows how they’re chosen, or what goes into making a Cock-of-the-Rock lek over any other chunk of forest. Cock-of-the-Rock males know.

For the next half hour Kathleen and I caught glimpses of the males bobbing and posturing while they made bill-clicks and their characteristic growling grunt of a call. The dark-colored females would dart about assessing the spectacle from all angles. They are a choosy lot.Dinner was at 7pm so Kathleen and I meandered back to the lodge in time to enjoy fish and shrimp curry. After dinner we used the communal bird book to key out what we did manage to see in the afternoon. At this time, we met Carmen’s husband Mitch Lysinger who leads birding tours for Field Guides. We spent the next couple hours chatting about birding with groups of people and the personality management that can be challenging. Mitch has a reputation for being better at this than most.

Kathleen and I hauled ourselves to our room a little before 10pm. We had told Carmen of our experiences with load music at previous out-of-the-way places we had stayed. She assured us we wouldn’t hear any such activities.

January 8 – Doing the sensible thing

Oddly enough, the night wasn’t so bad at Hostal El Paisano, Misahualli (Miss-ah-hoo-ahyee), Ecuador. With yesterday evenings cigarette smoke fumigation of our room, and people spraying bug repellant with an odor having a striking resemblance to WD-40, the evening calmed down quite nicely.

I awoke to Capuchin monkeys seemingly performing floor gymnastic exercises on the roof of the hostal. I gathered up the computer and went to the dining area as Kathleen continued to sleep. I walked by the Suzuki DR650 tucked in a corner of the quart yard. The motorcycle had seen some miles and indeed the odometer showed 71,964 kilometers – nearly 45,000 miles.

As I pecked away at the laptop, a gentleman sat down at the next table. T-shirt with torn-off sleeves, cargo-pant shorts, flip-flops, and a Woody Woodpecker hairdo accessorized with a ponytail. “Are you the owner of the DR” I asked. He looked at me a second, and replied he was. For the next 2, maybe 3 hours, we, Kathleen joined later, chatted about motorcycling in South America. Gary had been storing his DR for the last few years in South America, and would come over from Germany every September to ride the bike around for about 5-months. So far, he had put about 25,000 miles on the bike he bought used, and had nary a problem. I asked why a German was riding a Suzuki about South America and not a BMW motorcycle. “I’m doing the sensible thing” was Gary’s wry answer.

Gary had quite the common sense perspective about riding motorcycles all over South America. A biggy, was never ride at night. Kathleen and I learned a number of things that we’ll apply in the future. However, Gary’s choice of helmet was not something Kathleen and I will consider. Kathleen is modeling the hardened yarmulke. We saw Gary off to continue his trip before Kathleen and I set out to walk the roads near Misahualli. We spent most of the day walking along one road, then another, simply because they were the only routes to hike. Critters were lying quite low as observations were few. We did see some striking butterflies. Kathleen and I tried nearly every setting and photography technique we knew to capture what our eyes were seeing. Go walk along the road just after the bridge crossing the Rio Misahualli, near the village of Misahualli. The butterflies were on the left side of the dirt road. Don’t worry about not speaking the language. Just go have a look.As breakfast had worn off, we hiked back to Misahualli. The frog pictured here was sitting in the middle of the road. The frogs’ about the size of a shot glass. We heard a car coming and I was about to pick the amphibian up out of harm’s way when Kathleen reminded me that some South American frogs can kill animals, which include people, because their skin is coated with extremely toxic enzymes. I nudged this guy with my sandal and the blighter hopped off the road.

After lunch of beef, scrambled eggs, mixed vegetables, French fries, and limon-aide, we aimlessly walked about Misahualli before heading off on down a road yet travelled. Again, birds and critters we hard to find. The day was still hot and humid. By late afternoon we returned to Hostal El Paisano, and our room, to relax away the rest of the day. I know, I gotta stop writing in corn-ball rhyme.

Tomorrow we move on to San Isidro Lodge.

January 7 – All for an ATM

We’ll stop if you’ve heard this before. We went to sleep last night at Jatun (Hot-toon) Sacha (Sah-chah) Biological Reserve, Ecuador which is out in the proverbial sticks of the Amazon forest. A rain storm provided the best back ground sounds for sleep. Then, around 10:30pm, both Kathleen and I awoke to loud music. We could tell the music was coming from some distance, and we could hear the DJ announce each set of songs. This went on until 4:30am.

During breakfast, we inquired about the racket and learned that a bar was established about a half mile down the road and they apparently have speakers half the size of kitchen refrigerators. Last night was supposed to be Karaoke night. Fortunately, we never heard any of that because most people sing like the wail of the family dog when you step on the animals’ tail.

After breakfast, Kathleen and I walked along the paved road in search of wildlife and sights. Traffic frequently blasted by us at well over 70mph. Faster than most traffic in much of South America. The section of road we walked was a straight stretch where people ‘opened her up’.

Kathleen got some good pictures of a Black-capped Donacobius (a wren) and Smooth-billed Ani’s. The Ani’s were doing some mutual preening on each other while catching some morning rays of sunshine with wings spread.By mid-morning, we were packing up to move back to Hostal El Paisano in Misahualli (Miss-ah-hoo-ahyee) for a couple nights. When we paid our bill we discovered the station was charging us $60/night rather than the $30/night we had thought - $30/person. This was rather steep for a place with cold showers out of a tube, raggedy towels, very basic meals, and primitive sleeping accommodations. This cost took most of the money we carried and Misahaulli didn’t have an ATM. We would need money for our two nights in Misahualli.

After checking-out, Kathleen and I decided we had to go to Tena (Ten-ah) to find an ATM. We sat at the bus-stop across the road from the station for an hour. The bus arrived and we sat and watched ‘Home Alone’ for the near hour ride into Tena. The bus made all the obligatory stops where you could have someone’s rump in your face at one stop, or their belly-button until another. I can tell you, women, nor men for that matter, are into the belly-button adornments seen in the U.S.

We got off the bus in Tena and, with a quick question to a couple of codgers regarding the where-a-bouts of an ATM, we were off. Within minutes, the ATM made that pleasant sound of money being counted, and then the card and money spit-out.

We then had lunch before following the directions in the Foot Print guide and walking across town to the local bus terminal for a bus to Misahualli. Portions of Tena were under some major street construction. Other parts of Tena, were your ‘tipico’ South American city.We stood about the local-bus terminal for about an hour. Finally, Kathleen asked two supermarket guards where to catch the bus to Misahualli. They said at the long-distance bus terminal, where we had came from. So, we walked the 20-minutes back to the bus terminal where we had arrived from the reserve. Here, Kathleen asked a couple policemen where the bus to Misahualli could be caught. They pointed to a street corner where we found a couple buses parked. One said Misahualli on the marquee. We hoped aboard, and in 10-minutes we were on our way to Misahualli; arriving in about 40-minutes.

Had we not needed to go to the ATM, we would have been in Misahualli in about an hour. Instead, going to the ATM, by bus, took us nearly 5-hours. Four and a half if you discounted the time for lunch. This experience gave us some perspective about simple activities we take for granted in the U.S. Had we had our motorcycles – remember those? – we would have been able to perform this simple errand in less time and with more enjoyment.

In Misahualli, we went to Hostal El Paisano where they were nearly packed. Fortunately, they had a room for us near a corner of the quart yard. Parked in another corner was a Suzuki DR650 fitted with German license plates and pannier racks. Some more salt thrown on to a slowly healing wound. Sigh. Hey, wait, Suzuki? Plates from Germany? If this person is from Germany they are committing blasphemy by not riding a Beemer!

We had a nice meal on the plaza and watched some Capuchin monkeys commit larceny by swiping a bunch of grapes from a shop. This created quite the commotion with people running about, capuchins running amuck, and dogs barking. High times in Misahualli.

We returned to Hostal El Paisano to find our room filled with cigarette smoke. The wind was blowing in such a manner that each puff from people smoking in the court yard wafted into our room. Then, a family decided to go out on the town and sprayed bug spray all over each other right outside our screen windows. The repellant smelled exactly like WD-40 to Kathleen and I. You want the insects to slide off ya?

Okay, at what point does the music start blaring?

January 6 – Jatun Sacha, Part Dos

That construction of the international airstrip for the ‘local people’. Apparently, they quarry and sift the material for the next days’ construction during the night. Our first night in Jatun (Hot-toon) Sacha (Sah-chah) Biological Reserve, Ecuador was filled with natural night sounds of buzzes, chirps, squeaks, hoots, and the rumble of heavy equipment sorting material dredged from the Rio Napo.

Since breakfast was from 6:30-7:00am we tumbled out of bed and down to the dining area before birding the nicely paved road built by an oil company. We hiked down the road and saw quite a few birds until arriving at the Jatun Sacha, Jardin Botanical Reserve. Here we found the gate locked so we walked around the gate. We hike the loop trail taking our time looking about. Pickens were mighty slim. We then moseyed our way back. Having no bird book, we returned to the research station and keyed-out what we saw during the morning.

After lunch, Alejandro told us of a few trails that would eventually lead us to the Rio Napo. We set out on these and took our time reaching the river. At a few places along the river, people were sluicing for gold by hauling baskets of dirt from the river banks to sluice-boxes on the waters’ edge. According Alejandro, the locals have collected tidy sums of gold from this type of mining.

We sat on the river bank and watched panga-loads of tourists travel by on their way to high adventure. As the sun set low, we hiked back to the station to key-out the days haul of wildlife. Shortly after dinner, the sky was darkened with clouds and the wind was picking up. Occasionally, thunder could be heard in the distance.

Shorty after Kathleen and I returned to our cabaña, the rain came down heavily. I worked on the blog while Kathleen read. By 8:30pm we were laying in our bunks enjoying the sounds of the rain. The insect management gecko arrived on duty above my bunk. During the night, we were wise to turn on the lights when entering the bathroom. If this guy weighed 300-pounds I would be making faces much farther away.

January 5 – Jatun Sacha

Hostal El Paisano, Misahualli (Miss-ah-hoo-ahyee), Ecuador is one nice place to stay. Kathleen and I are baffled as to why the Foot Print guide for South America did not recommend this nice quiet hostal. The hostal has room to accommodate motorcycles, too. We plan to stay again in a few days.

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.

January 4 – Amazonas

After two nights listening to people yap, and smoking like a Chinese steel mill, below our window at Plantas y Blanco hostal, our 3rd and final night we moved to another room. Last night started out great as all the Ecuadorans that were on holiday left town as if Baños were being evacuated. By 9pm the place was a ghost townThis morning, we discovered that the taxis queue-up below our window where even an intimate discussion was carried out through shouting at each other. Sigh. We did like Plantas y Blanco hostal for the conveniences such as WiFi, breakfasts, great top floor patio, and pretty quiet interior. The external noise was the problem.

We had enough of traveling along the Pan-American Highway and decided to take a route that traveled along the western edge of the Amazon of Ecuador. A highway traveled east from Baños along the Rio Pastazo (Pass-tah-zoe) and connected to a north-south highway at Puyo (Poo-yoe). From Puyo, we planned to travel north and stay in Tena (Ten-ha) or . . . ready for this? Misahualli (Miss-ah-hoo-ahyee). Had a guy repeat the name just beyond his patience.We managed to miss the first bus we wanted out of Baños, however, buses leave all the time and go everywhere. After waiting an hour we were bound for the Amazon with a bus driver who was conserving wheels as he only used two on each turn. When he came to a straight stretch of road, I think he could have just pulled back on the steering wheel and we would have lifted off the highway.

Each bus ride thus far in Ecuador has started out with a guy standing at the front of the bus preaching. As near as Kathleen can ascertain, the guy regales us passengers in a near evangelical way. After about 20-minutes, the person sits down and later hops off at another bus terminal. This guy didn’t pass out boxes of candies or playing cards with biblical preaching’s on them, and then later comes by and takes them from those who don’t want to buy them. We’ve been using our money on other things.

As we headed east, the landscape went from wooded grasslands and pockets of forest over steep mountains, to flat densely vegetated scenery. The air became heavier with humidity and the temperature was climbing.After about 4 and a half hours of bus riding we jumped off at Tena. We found an internet shop and fired off some quick correspondence. We then hailed a taxi which took us to Misahualli for a nights stay. When we arrived in Misahualli, the Hostal Shaw was where we wanted to stay, however, they didn’t have rooms available because . . . and this is what Kathleen believes she understood: The rooms they had were not cleaned yet because they were going to have 40 people arriving tomorrow. Perhaps Kathleen misunderstood, yet, we’ve encountered similar reasoning since being in South America.

Kathleen and I managed to find another hostal. This one was away from the plaza which can be quite noisy. Hostal El Paisano thus far has proven to be a great place. We have noticed too, that motorcycles could be wheeled through the front entrance and parked near our room. Keeping note of that.We found a good meal at a restaurant on the plaza and ate while watching the local school bus come through with a load of kids. We noticed the schools must have a uniform policy.While dining, some species of capuchin monkey sauntered into town and began the usual monkey antics us tourists are so fond of. Our glee leaves the locals baffled by our delight in watching these very distant relatives. Kathleen and I sat in the plaza to let Spot send a message out to the chosen before turning in for the night.