December 15

We were up after our wake up call at 5:30, 6 a.m. breakfast

and on our canoe by 6:30. The goal was to view parrots on a clay lick. We rode our canoe back to the creek, stopping to see a bunch of squirrel monkeys close to the water.


Then the motor canoe took us across the river. The clay lick is in the Yasuni National Forest, and we stayed on the water and watched (and listened!) to the parrots. The benefit is that we were seeing several real parrots in their natural habitat, eating and playing. However, there was some distance between us, and we didn’t bring the big fancy binoculars, opting for weight and size. Dan passed around his nicer ones so we could get some good looks. The pictures aren’t too exciting though.

We didn’t spend too much time at the salt lick before moving on to a local Quechua village. We saw a family of howler monkeys (5) and a trio of spoonbills (apparently pretty rare) on the way (same story with distance and photography).

The Quechua (also Kichwa or Quichua) are an indigenous people group native to parts of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. It was the Quechua people that Jim Elliot first sought to reach in his missionary journey to Ecuador.

Nidia was our Quechua guide, with Dan translating. We walked through the village, tasting the Quechua guava

(totally unlike guava, more of a seed pod thing, I think it's technically a legume, white sweet sections to chew on), and cacao, the mother of chocolate.

Hamish loves the raw cacao fruit.
It looks kind of like plastic fake food before it’s cut, kind of a gourd. Nidia deftly used her machete to gain access, and then we could scoop out small sections containing a seed covered in white fruit. The seed is the cacao nut that eventually becomes chocolate, through an elaborate process. But prior to drying and roasting and all, the nut is inedible. In this case you just suck the pulpy fruit off of the nut. It has a sweet, very mildly chocolate, buttery taste. The Quechua apparently only grow it as cash crop, sending it down the river for others to process and refine into chocolate. We saw the school at the community center and met a 3rd and 4th grade class together.


The kids are schooled until they are 14, and they were divided into 3 classes. Some kids walk two hours through the jungle from home to get to school. We were treated to some local Christmas songs, and we learned that "alli" in Quechua means “good”.

Nidia demonstrated machete use and showed how the community uses the Panama hat palm to weave baskets, thatch roofs, and of course, create costume jewelry for children:


We had a practice session with a blow gun.

I almost hit the target...

We then went into the kitchen to learn their cooking methods while enjoying guayusa tea.

And we received a selection of local delicacies. This included white cacao nut, roasted and mashed, hearts of palm, 2 kinds of river fish roasted in another leaf, plantain, yucca, and a palm weevil grub roasted over the fire.


Dan said the grub tasted like bacon, so I went all in and tossed the whole critter in. They are high in fat, reportedly very good for respiratory ailments (asthma specifically mentioned), and the bacon comparison isn’t unwarranted. The roasting over the fire along with the fattiness gives it that savory and crunchy combination akin to bacon. However, I won't lie and say we should set the pigs free. The taste was great. The texture wasn't bad, but you can't get 100% away from the texture-driven knowledge that this is in fact an insect. It's mostly psychological though, and I think I could learn to eat it regularly. Hamish and Manimal each tried the grub, were just kind of indifferent about it, but Alli wasn't up to it.

However, the fish, hearts of palm, and white cacao nuts were all very tasty and pretty well eaten.


I feel like it's warranted at this moment to hearken back to some of the advice I'd read months prior about what not to do in Ecuador. In one brief encounter, I think we broke most of those rules. Fish, check. Food prepared in ways you can't entirely vouch for, check. Even the machete and where it had been prior to cutting open the cacao or the cleanliness of the water that was used to make the guayusa tea. Well, that's how it goes on vacation sometimes. What are you going to do when you walk into a Quechua village and are offered food? turn them down? Of course, we were with a pretty upscale establishment who was vouching for these guys, our guide was eating and doing the same, and it didn't feel scary at all. I'm glad we didn't turn this down.

Back to the Lodge we went to kill time before our 1 p.m. lunch. We changed into less-coverage clothes (additional side note, while the CDC considers all of the Amazon rain forest malaria, dengue, and yellow fever danger zone, the lake that we stayed on is a black lake with a low pH that apparently mosquitoes can not breed in. The lodge advises you bring insect repellent, long sleeves, and pants... but they also inform that in their many years of operation they have never had a guest or an employee contract one of these diseases. Our guide did not use bug spray and wore short sleeves as he desired. Again, the risk and concern levels dropped pretty quickly (though we kept using our bug spray and covered our arms when out on hikes). I recall seeing only one mosquito while at the lodge and grounds). Ahem, we took the kids to play jenga and uno in the common area... or at least to build towers and knock them down.


Finally lunch. Manimal went straight down for a nap, even asking to be excused before dessert.

Hamish and I entertained ourselves while Alli got Manimal settled. Then Alli and I snoozed while the little girl nested (she organized hers and Manimal's clothes, backpacks, etc.)

When Manimal woke up, we put the kids in the jet tub with swimsuits on. As the tub water was brown, we approached this as a swim in the lake.



I can't guarantee that none of that water was swallowed...

At 4:30, we met Dan again, stopping to see more monkeys before walking into the forest to the observation tower high in a giant kapok tree.


The kids were not thrilled with staying put up there to wait for the sun to set and the animal activity to increase. We had to play schoolhouse to keep them entertained part of the time. "Class, does anyone know how many species of snakes reside in Ecuador?"


But we did hear the howler monkeys and see some toucans.

Dan had another handy telescope device for getting close-ups.

On our way back down the 204 steps we saw a tree boa curled up on the tower. Dan kindly let Hamish get to a stopping point (50 steps) before showing her the snake.



We walked home and were the first to arrive at dinner. I put Manimal to bed while Alli and Hamish worked on the little girl's travel journal. When they were both settled, Alli and I walked down to the dock for a few minutes to marvel at the stars.

Both of us were either accustomed to the heat or very tired at this point, as we each slept much better this night.

December 16:

We slept in a bit this morning, getting a 6:30 wake up call and meeting Dan and Ramon (the native guide, we didn't introduce him yet, but he was also with us at all times) at the canoe at 8. We again toured the lake, seeing the nighthawks lining their branches after a night out.

We got out of the canoe after an hour or so and walked back to the lodge. Dan pointed out several frogs and the trees in the jungle. Hamish walked the whole way, and we were so proud. Alli wore the Manimal for a solid portion when he repeated claims of broken legs.

This feels like a good time to address some of what it was generally like in the jungle. Here's a real quick clip:
As you can see, in many ways it's like most other forests. It is usually pretty thick, mostly shaded at the bottom, and mostly you just see green. There are of course some giant trees and other plant life you're not accustomed to:
and the sounds of various birds and frogs throughout.


(this is at the lodge, those hanging "bags" are nests, but this is a concentrated sample of the bird noises heard everywhere).

There is color, but it is not vibrant throughout, a flower here and there:

An additional point we haven't made yet: we were instructed not to touch anything. Combined with a need to stay behind our guides and on the trail, this did make the whole thing less fun for the kids. But the reason was good: Bullet ants (there's also the seriously deadly bushmaster snake, but we won't even talk about him).



He's about 1 inch long.

The bullet ant is so named because apparently its bite feels like a gunshot. Dan advised that if one of the kids were bitten, they would be in bed for a day and a half with a fever and very unhappy about it. He showed us this tree adjacent to a known nest at the outset of our first real hike to drive the point home. We did a pretty good job of keeping hands to ourselves, and this contributed to the Manimal being carried before being allowed to lay down in the path. Bullet ants are also the reason we all wore rubber boots (supplied by the lodge for three of us; Manimal brought rain boots from home). If you were to step near the ants, they'd have a much harder time scaling rubber boots than shoe laces and socks.

We got back to the lodge about 11:15, enjoyed fresh mango juice and chips brought to our room, and then went to meet Pedro on the dock for yoga. He played games with the kids and showed us some paired yoga/acrobatics. The kids were crazy and joyful. Thankfully, no one fell into the lake.

We had lunch after yoga and realized we were the only guests left. Most people leave Saturday morning or arrive Saturday night. Our shifted schedule gave us the lodge to ourselves during the day on Saturday. Manimal went down for a nap after lunch.


Sweaty nap.

Hamish and Alli read library books downloaded from the Nashville library.

 


After a while, we tried to wake Manimal to go swimming, but he was having none of it, so me and Hamish swam in the lake while Alli laid in the hammock. We saw no piranha or cayman at the time.

We met Dan and Ramon again at 4:30 for another trek, this time starting in the jungle and walking to a canoe to ride back in at sunset.

 


We saw new monkeys—tamarin and titi. We saw more bullet ants and more frogs. Alli carried more Manimal. Our canoe trip back was peaceful. Ramon saw a sloth, but by the time we got to the binoculars, he had tucked his head away and we were never sure if we actually saw him or not.

Again we were first at dinner, this time especially because we were the only guests and we asked for an early seating. The next round of guests arrived as we were wrapping up dinner. Gabriela came to our table after dinner to check us out, bringing 4 canelazo drinks (served cold, 2 virgin, of course, and with kiwi), a traditional Andean highland drink usually served warm.

She was new to the shift and was excited to meet the kids. She said other staff had said our kids were so well behaved and tried every food put in front of them. This was nice to hear as there'd definitely been a few moments in which we asked ourselves why we took them to this place they wouldn't fully appreciate and made plans to scale back expectations and visit more playgrounds for the rest of our trip.


After check out, all 4 of us laid on the dock and watched the stars. Alli took Manimal to bed, and little girl and I mused about how all the stars we could see are contained in our galaxy, despite the estimated 100 billion *galaxies* beyond our sight, until she was well asleep. We finally went back to the cabin to pack and crash.

December 17:
We didn’t have a particularly early morning, which was nice. We needed to be on the canoe to leave at 8. We had breakfast, packed up, and were on time to leave. Dan and Ramon escorted us out once more. Pedro came to the dock to say goodbye and perform a farewell headstand.

Manimal convinced someone to cart him with the luggage as we moved from canoe to motorboat.
Because we left on Sunday, we couldn’t take the boat all the way back to Coca. Instead, Ramon took us downriver about 45 minutes to Providence, which was enough time for Manimal to almost finish this song:
Mickey met us with a van at Providence, and a 2 hour drive later we were in Coca.


A box lunch was ready for us at the office, and then Dan escorted us to the airport. He was going back to Quito too, but taking a bus.

The flight to Quito was quick. At the airport, Uber, which had been recommended, didn’t work out, so we took a regular cab back to Puembo to get our bags. Initially, we intended to have this cab wait while we got bags and then to go on to Quito. But he wouldn't use his meter and wasn't being reasonable on price, so when we reached the hotel, we said adios. We asked the hotel to call a new taxi for us, and Edison arrived soon after to usher us into Quito.

This was perhaps one of the more authentic and interesting experiences of the trip for me. We had about 45 minutes to reach our Airbnb in Quito. Edison, who wasn't exactly a taxi driver, spoke just a little bit of English. I spoke just a little bit of Spanish, and we managed to converse. I learned of his plans to immigrate to the US with his family (una niña, no mas!) to work in carpentry and farming with his uncle. With some regularity we'd hit a point neither of us knew what the other was saying, and he would say "es muy complicado", and I'd say "Sí". But with a little more attempt, some inflection on a word where I hadn't placed it before, we'd figure it out. It also helped a ton that I'd planned ahead and downloaded off-line GPS-enabled maps. I'm not so sure Edison actually had any idea where we were going. He looked very happy when he saw my maps and asked me for directions from then on. "Tecnologia!" he said and smiled.

We found the Airbnb pretty easily and were happy to settle a bit in a place we'd stay for several days. The view from our place was refreshing, and the air was cool and dry.

We wanted to go for a walk and get dinner, but the kids started melting down fast.
We ducked into a little cafe with pizza and chicken empanadas and got an Uber back. Everyone had a bath to wash off the jungle, and to bed we went. Amazingly, we didn't separate the kids for bedtime in location or time, and we heard not a peep.