Los Cedros: Adventures Post-Program

Wow, I'm worse at posting when I do have reliable internet than when I only have sporadic access and power cuts. Oh well!

Elizabeth and I were originally going to spend our last days in Ecuador, after the end of the program, hanging around Quito, but we noticed Los Cedros about halfway through the term in a guide book. It claimed to have over 700 nocturnal moths, hundreds of orchids, and spider monkeys. This won us over almost instantaneously.

Although we had conversed via email with Jose, the owner of the reserve, but getting to the reserve was still quite an adventure. We managed to find the correct bus station and the bus to Chontal, but they didn't tell us that the bus doesn't actually stop there. Thankfully, we noticed the town's name on a building before we completely missed it. (The town is only a block long, so it would be quite easy to miss.)

We were earlier than our guides were expecting, so we went into a small restaurant and ordered breakfast while all of the children peered through the windows and studied us. Once we finished eating, we asked our hostess about the reserve and where we should meet our guide. She didn't have any idea, but just while we were mentioning that the guide would probably have mules, a guy on a mule rode past the window with two more mules behind. Perfect timing! The children hailed him for us, and thus we met Danielo for the first time.

After Danielo had wandered around the town for a bit, the three of us started the 4-hour journey to Los Cedros. Elizabeth and I rode mules, while Danielo walked and the third mule carried our packs. This was rather amusing, since both Elizabeth and I have limited riding experience, the majority of which was from our childhoods.


Still, we managed to reach Los Cedros safely and were stunned by the views. We even had an excellent view of a guan perched in a tree when we were almost to the camp.

The rooms were marvelous, and we could actually drink the water for once! They kept their streams clean enough that you could drink directly from them and pumped that water to the camp. I couldn't imagine streams that clean anywhere.


Anyways, we only had a couple of days there but we spent them hiking around. The birds were beautiful. At breakfast, we'd see cuckoos (which really do sound just like the clock) and once a toucan barbet (look it up-it's gorgeous). We also saw three species of guans, tons of hummingbirds including a sickle-billed and one whose tail was 3-times the length of its body, a nightjar, swallow-tailed kites and a couple of species of toucans. They were all incredible. We also heard howler monkeys but they never came into view. The orchids were also amazing and numerous, although we were told that the best blooms will be next month. There were fun fruits, too, including one which we got to stamp our shirts with, as the clear liquid stains once it dries.

The most exciting part was towards the end of our hike the first day. We were rounding a turn in the path when Fausto, another of our guides, stopped and pointed up. There was a baby Andean spectacled bear in a tree! Elizabeth and I couldn't believe it. We had convinced ourselves that we were leaving Ecuador without seeing any wild bears. While we watched, the mother followed the baby up the tree so that we had excellent views of two bears only 20 meters away. I was awed by our luck, though unfortunately none of the photos came out very well.


All in all, I was quite pleased with the end of my term in Ecuador.

By the Numbers

I arrived back home in South Carolina 43 hours ago after:

• 89 days (on a 90 day visa)
• 2 field camps
  
• 5 classes
• 74 identified observed bird species (and who knows how many unidentified)
• 5 National Parks
• 3755 photos
  
• 1 sighting of the Southern Cross
  
• 5 Book Club Books
  
• 3 Big Blue breakdowns
• 2 Andean Spectacled Bears

I realize that I still haven't mentioned my final adventures, so although I have returned to the states, there are a couple of posts yet to come.

Quito

Elizabeth and I arrived at our hostel in Quito early afternoon on Saturday. We're in the part called Gringolandia, so again we had a bit of culture shock at the number of gringos and amount of English around us. Anyways, after settling in a bit (including buying maracuya ice cream), we met up with my sister, Sarah, and her friend Johannah, who lives in Quito. Elizabeth and I had a grocery list from the reserve we were leaving for on Sunday, so all four of us headed to Supermaxi to pick up some food.

Afterwards, we stopped by a cafe and got cheesecake. It was amazingly rich and delicious and not quite the type of dessert I expect in Ecuador.

We continued onto the historic center where two of Johannah's friends were giving a concert at 6:00pm. The group consisted of an accordian and a cello, which was a fun combination. I must say that I have missed concerts and plays this term, so it was great to hear excellent music.

Afterwards, we all called it a night, as it was Sarah's first day in Quito, so she needed to rest and acclimate to the altitude, and Elizabeth and I were catching a bus at 6:00am. Although we only spent a few hours in Quito, it was rather fun and wonderful to spend it with Sarah and Johannah.

¡Que Afortunado!

On our way home from going out for dinner on our last night in Cuenca, we noticed that the sky was rather clear and that the light pollution wasn't as bad as usual due to the drought blackouts. And we finally saw the Southern Cross. What a perfect way to end the term.

Podocarpus National Park

This week I visited my 9th Ecuadorian national park. I think that I'm doing pretty well for this being only my second time in the country.

On Monday, we took the bus to Zamora, a small but beautiful riverside town in southern Ecuador. Then, the next day, we hiked through the lowlands of Podocarpus. It was interesting to see cloud forest at only 900 m (which now seems incredibly low). We heard tons of birds, but sadly, they were all out of view, so I didn't get to add more species to my Ecuador checklist. However, we did see leafcutter ants! Although they're incredibly common in rainforest, they don't do well at high altitudes, so we hadn't seen any all term. After the hike, we cooled off by playing in the river, which was quite cold and fun.

Next, we headed to Loja and the highlands of Podocarpus. (It's a large park!) This hike was more similar to the area around our base camps, although it included primary forest in addition to secondary. Also, it was not as steep for most of the climb, making the hike much easier.

That night, we headed to Vilcabamba, a tourist town where the locals are known to live for quite a long time. This time we stayed at a tourist resort, which was quite odd. All the visitors were white and speaking English. All of us had slight culture shock at that. We were so used to any spoken English being directed at us and didn't know how to handle so much of it. Or how to ask for rooms in English, or order food in English.... Ummmm... going back to the states will be odd.

Still, the resort was nice, and we got some bird watching in the next morning before heading back to Cuenca.

Then, this morning we cleaned the house and worked on packing, but I have a bit more left. It's strange to realize that we're flying out of Cuenca in the morning. Then, Alex and Tim are heading back to the states, while Elizabeth and I spend some time around Quito before leaving just before our visas expire.

Almost there....

Done. Done. Done. In the past few days, I've taken three exams, written three final papers, given a powerpoint presentation and finished up a creative project (building a globo). It is so nice not to have to worry about any of those any more.

However, this is not to say that my program is done. We intentionally finished our classes a week early so that we could have one more vacation. Yeah, this is our third vacation in a 12 week program.

Anyways, we're now just outside of Podocarpus National Park where we'll be enjoying our last few days school-free. It seems a bit odd that the time has flown so quickly, though we've also done a lot, so it is believeable. I still feel like there is so much left to see in Ecuador, so maybe I'll just have to return.

Adios Field Camps

Sadly, yesterday was our last day in the field. I still can’t believe that I might not see paramo again, or that was my last time climbing through the moss jungle.

Anyways, this trip to the field, we split our time between Rumi Loma and La Libertad. It was odd to see Rumi Loma after the burn. Although the fire had ended two weeks before, the cabin that had burned was still smoldering, and clearly nothing was salvageable. I’m grateful for the trails through camp. They seem to have been what stopped the fire. There was one place where the fire had gotten to within a foot of another cabin. It is miraculous that it didn’t go up in flames as well. (FYI the photo of the burned lizard really is black and white.)

After relaxing at Rumi Loma, on Friday we hiked from Rumi Loma down to La Libertad. The hike was only about four hours, and it ended up taking Jesse the same amount of time to drive Big Blue down. The hike was fun because we started playing mind games for the first time this term. None of them knew the “53 bicycles” one, so that took awhile. Also on the hike, we found a cacique nest and could hear chicks inside of it! An adult kept flying back and forth, probably feeding them.

This was definitely the week that we started playing games. Besides mind games, we began playing telephone pictionary and mafia in the evenings. We ended up with some crazy things with telephone pictionary. I mean, it’s hard not to when the first sentence is “I’m so rich, I use mahogany toothpicks.”

On Saturday, Catherine came up to camp for our last class. She also brought Josue, our vegetation expert for the transects, and surprisingly Hannah. Hannah was a RRCS student two years ago. Additionally, she’s a Carl who happened to be in my problem-solving group for E&A. (So I’m pretty sure there are more Carls in Ecuador than SC. So far, I’ve run into a peace corp member, another Carl on study abroad, and Hannah, and I have plans to see two more. Seriously, I haven’t seen that many Carls in SC, despite having two others in my immediate family.) It was hilarious hearing her stories and seeing similarities between different RR semesters.

On Sunday and Monday, we took Josue out to our two plots and went over the transects with him. Monday especially was a lot of work. The hike just to get to the moss jungle plot is fairly significant, and then we had to make both of the transects, one of which had a 30 foot drop in the middle. It is still such an odd feeling to be supported just by branches and vines so far above the ground.

Now, I have just under two weeks left in the program. Hopefully, they’ll go smoothly.

Mora-Manzana Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we headed up to Rumi Loma, since that’s where we have an oven. It was a marvelous day, and we split up cooking dinner. Coral made a green bean casserole. Then, Elizabeth made mashed potatoes with a mushroom gravy. Alex was put in charge of stuffing. Tim and Jesse worked together to make macaroni and cheese. (I must admit that I was sad that it was creamy mac-and-cheese. In my opinion, that’s just blasphemy.) Then, I was in charge of baking a pie. Since we lacked both pumpkin and pecans, I decided that apple was the best option. However, that seemed a bit boring so I added in mora (blackberries).

Mora-Manzana Pie

3 cups sliced apple

2 cups blackberries

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. flour

½ cup sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

2 Tbsp. browned butter

First, prepare your choice of crust. Then, mix all of the ingredients except for the butter. Layer the mixture into the crust. Next, pour the butter over the pie. Finally, lay the top crust on top. (I suggest lattice.) Then, bake until done, and eat.