South America, Days 51 to 54 - Stage 13: Sacha Lodge, Amazonia to Cuenca, Ecuador

Our table on the terrace at Sacha Lodge

Day 51 Thursday continued 

Having written the blog and had lunch we thought we'd have a go in the swimming pool. It's double meshed, but we learnt today that that is only to keep the giant otters out. They look cute, but have very big teeth, and are the apex predator. There may be piranha, anaconda and all sorts in the pool, but we were blissfully unaware and didn't stay in long anyway!

Out on our evening paddle along another channel in the jungle

At some point just before lunch Severin got stung by a wasp, or something which was obviously quite painful despite the magic ointment management provided her with. They decided that they wouldn't come out in the afternoon as the heat might make it worse. So that left the two of us. 

A short YouTube of the Capuchin monkeys who came to play. Who was looking at who?

Into a canoe for a little paddle through yet another different channel. We were lucky enough to encounter a troop of Capuchin monkeys who came right over us and seemed really interested in looking down on us as we were looking up at them. We finally found ourselves at another jetty, short walk to another tower built around a kapok tree. Although this structure is only 10 years old I suspect it is the original tree that had a previous tower that Helen and Ian will remember. We weren't the only ones there, a couple of guys with 2 guides who had obviously been there a while, but there was plenty of space. Not however that much to see, not even that many birds. The other guys left and suddenly Geranio started giggling as he showed us the sloth that we could clearly see with our naked eye. This is what the guys had been staring for for ages before they left. It was almost too close to be seen with the binoculars. He was quite cruel, making a noise like a harpy eagle which made it look up and all about. This is apparently why they move slowly when in the tops of trees, so as not to attract the eagle's attention, speeding up quite considerably when at a lower level.

There's the tower up and a platform on top of the huge tree. It was one of the tallest trees around so, other than some of the tree branches in our view we had an uninterrupted view all around

He was very cute, but didn't do much so we left him to it, just as it was getting dark. More fireflies, an olingo, which is a tree living member of the racoon family, and finally a baby caiman were our prizes on the way out. Back just in time for dinner and, yet again, an early night.

Although there were three guides up there and two guests with professional looking cameras we didn't see very much. This little bird came into view, not sure what it is though

Day 52 Friday 

We didn't meet till 06.30 this morning for our jungle walk. Has to be said we didn't see much. We got to a small lagoon and into another canoe, and still didn't see much, except the rain, over there, coming towards us. Poncho's on, though it never got too bad, we had just arrived at the boathouse when it was at its heaviest. The rain did make it more humid, and did bring the mosquitos out which was not ideal.

And this Toucan, but the other two guests and guides gave up and went down. Shortly after Geranio spotted the sloth in a nearby tree, so near all the others missed it, looking further away...

Wasn't sure we were going to see much, then we got to the pygmy marmoset area where they weren't in evidence. Finally Geranio saw one which he videod for both Brian and Valerian, but that didn't really count in my book. Fortunately they did then show themselves and there were perhaps half a dozen coming past, two of which really came quite close to give us the once over. They really were quite cute. See our Relive video of the walk and paddle, with photos: click here

Here's the YouTube of the sloth taken by Geranio through his telescope and a few photos of mine at the end

Back about 10.30 and I needed my snack. Brian got to work putting things on YouTube as the WiFi was behaving much better than yesterday, possibly due to there only being 8 of us in residence of whom 4 were still out. It got hotter and hotter and I had to leave him at the restaurant working and retire to the room and the AC. It wasn't long however before the wind got up and it started thundering so I grabbed my brolly and went back. I'm so pleased I went when I did as it wasn't raining much, though the wind did blow my brolly inside out, as I ran the last few steps, just before the heavens absolutely opened. It was an amazing sight and sound, and a much better temperature!

Lunch was served at 13.00, though it appeared there were only the 4 of us here. The other 4 arrived looking very wet having obviously been caught in the storm, but as for the new arrivals who knows. Perhaps they had them wait rather than get drenched on the walk or the slow canoe....

Dawn breaking over the jungle from our restaurant deck

Our last outing this afternoon, after a touch of piranha fishing, I'm just going to sort out my bag, which has to be outside by 04.45 tomorrow morning as we start the trip back to Coca to get our 10.30 flight back to Quito!

So having been the least bothered about piranha fishing I was the only one, apart from Geranio, to catch one. He did have big teeth, but they have been given a bad press by Hollywood!

Walking under and through a particularly large tree on our Day 52 morning jungle walk

Caiman spotting was the order of the afternoon, but sadly apart from a couple of tiny ones they were not to be seen.

Day 53 Saturday 

Not a good night sleep, but it never is when I know I've got to get up early. It did all go very smoothly. Little canoe, walk, fast canoe and we were in Coca. Boarding passes but no luggage tags till we got to the airport where again, they had no electricity. So hand written luggage labels and a team of porters to ferry the bags to the scanner and the gate. Of course until the power came back the scanner wouldn't scan so the bags mounted up and we were not allowed through. 

Arriving at an overgrown lagoon to be paddled through the channels that were clear

It did all happen on time though and once arrived the bags came very quickly. No customs or immigration so out to find Edwin, our taxi from Cuenca.

We've slept a bit, chatted a bit and just stopped for something to eat midway through the 8 hour journey. It's all going fine. We've just stopped to look at a tiny Catholic church, the oldest in Ecuador and the second oldest in South America. The countryside is green and pleasant and I had to put my jumper on when we stopped. Hurrah.

It was a pleasant paddle round the lagoon, but nothing much came out to play

Sacha Lodge was lovely, the rooms, the staff, the food and the walkways and towers they've built in the rainforest. The rooms had no locks, which was nice in a way but a bit weird that we were to trust everyone and yet the WiFi was password protected and we had to relogin every time we went to our room and back to the restaurant. Who is going to steal the WiFi out here?

The rainforest however was just as I expected, hot, humid and full of mosquitos. We did see more in the trees than I expected, but apart from the pygmy marmoset nothing that we haven't seen before elsewhere as sadly (though not unexpectedly) we didn't see a jaguar, a tapir or even a poison dart frog!

On the walk back, in the rain, Geranio showed us various plants used for medicinal purposes and then proceeded to weave a basket from a large palm leaf

As the journey continued, just before dark, so about 18.00 we hit fog, not mist, serious fog. 3 1/2 hours of fog. Poor Edwin, but we arrived safely and fell into bed, in our tiny room!

Day 54 Sunday 

We've walked the streets of the old town and had a good look around, including lots of little Christmas stalls all over the place. We have also located two of the local Indian restaurants. Guess what we are eating later? See our Relive video with photos of our walk round: click here

Also pointing out things to avoid. These very thin red cup fungus are very toxic to humans. If consumed he told us you will fall into a near immediate sleep, followed by a short period of violent spasms, then death!

And don't tread on the millipedes!

However, the best was yet to come, as creeping on through the jungle we came upon the worlds smallest monkey, the pygmy marmoset...

There he is the little cutie! They are tiny, but we managed to get some video of quite a few who came really quite close as they were curious about us. We kept still and absolutely quiet so as no to frighten them. Have a look at the video below

Then came the huge storm, which reduced the temperature and humidity to something resembling pleasant!

Late afternoon preparing for piranha fishing. Lumps of meat on a hook. Unlike the horror movies they just nibble at the meat and then back away, coming back in for another bite, so we needed to jerk the line to hook them

On lowering our hooks into the water they were on it almost immediately and we felt an almost constant light tug on the line as they swarmed in to have a taste. Hooking them was a different matter. Geranio was, predictably first to catch one (he has done it before) and there's it's little teeth

I nearly caught one, I got it out of the water, but it wriggled free. This, however, was my catch - it's a sardine! Geranio dropped it back in whilst laughing!

But Jackie got the biggest one. Look at the size of that!

And it certainly had teeth! They were all returned to the water to live again

Out in the evening on our last outing and, first off was anaconda hunting, which didn't take long. Here's a huge beast lazing in the long grass alongside the lagoon. I did another YouTube of this one and another we saw a few days ago...

Another slightly disappointing outing after the excitement of the anacondas. This is a Crimson Collared Tanager we saw on the way

We slid almost silently along the channels to a landing stage, turned round and came back in darkening to night skies as we hoped to see some caimen, we did, but only some babies

The near full moon accompanied by the silent jungle, bats flying past and fireflies in the trees added to the atmosphere

At last we found a baby caimen hiding in the long grass and pretending we hadn't seen him. Good food for anacondas if they find him

Still hoping we hadn't seen him

He obstinately wouldn't move

Finally we left him to it and headed back across the lagoon towards the lights of our lodge

Next day it's the long journey out for us, starting with a 04:15 alarm, a paddle across the lagoon, 20 minute walk and a two hour motor boat ride upstream back to Coca. On the way Geranio made us various mementos from palm leaves. Suspect none of the  ones he made for us will survive our travels, but we'll try!

The flight back to Quito passed, we were met at arrivals by Edwin and whisked off in his big car for the 8 plus hour journey to our hotel in Cuenca, arriving there at about 22:00. This was the small church we stopped at briefly that he wanted to show us. It's the oldest church in Ecuador and the second oldest in South America and, although is a catholic church it exhibits indigenous symbols and beliefs as well in a blending of religions

Cuenca seems a pleasant city, clean, safe and with lots of colonial buildings. It's small enough to see the main highlights in a day, although there are quite a few museums we didn't go in as, being a Sunday, they were all shut. We have half a day tomorrow before being picked up for our housesit so we hop to climb the towers of the cathedral, seen through the trees here in the main plaza and maybe visit a museum or two