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.

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.

La Costa

This week, we took a vacation for our midterm break (as of today, we’re halfway through) and headed for the coast. We spent the time in Puerto Lopez, a fishing village directly next to Machalilla National Park.

We spent Tuesday relaxing on the beach and exploring the town. It was interesting to watch the fishermen bring in their catch, and all of the frigatebirds and pelicans swooping down on them.

I also found two live sanddollars! I’ve always loved sanddollars, partially because I remember my dad telling me stories of going to the beach with his family, and his father would find sanddollars with his feet and then have them swim down to get them. There were also some pufferfish washed up on the shore. The town also had a number of stray dogs which would follow you along the beach. That was a bit odd.

On Wednesday, we visited Agua Blanca, and on Thursday, we went to Isla de la Plata. Both deserve full descriptions, so I’ll try to get a post about each one up soon.

Yesterday, we hiked out to Los Frailes, a secluded beach in the national park. The hike provided some excellent views (including one of the continental plate), and it was nice to swim for a bit. Also, one of the beaches along the way had black sand. (It sort of reminded me of the bottles of blue sand you get on Neopets…)

Although the water was nice, the waves weren’t very good, so there was no way I could catch one, and I didn’t have anyone to play The President with. At least, I built a drip castle.

After Los Frailes, we caught a bus back to Guayaquil and then Cuenca, getting back home about 12:30am, so we all slept in. Now, we’re celebrating Halloween and Cuenca days.