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Articles Tagged ‘rainforest’

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Kapawi Eco Lodge

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

We returned yesterday from our 5 day jungle adventure at the Kapawi Eco Lodge. Although our fishing trip was relatively unsuccessful (well, Fred caught two 3″ puffer fish), the rest of us just lost our meat bait to the amazon river fish of the lagoon (includes sardines, pirahna, and catfish).

I have discovered a true pleasure in my renewed hobby of bird watching. Although I grew up identifying birds (their habitat, sounds, nests, and eggs), I thoroughly enjoyed spotting them in the rainforest and trying to identify them in bird encyclopedias afterwards. With the help of our very knowledgeable guides, Antonio (Achur guide) and Juan Carlos (naturalist guide) here is a list of the more exotic birds identified over the five days:

  1. Crimson-crested Woodpecker
  2. White-throated Toucan
  3. a flock of Blue & Yellow Macaws
  4. a nest in a dead tree of Dusky-headed Parakeets
  5. Violaceious Jay
  6. Yellow-rumped Cacique (there was a tree full of these yellow and black birds building their nests right behind our cabin)
  7. Blue-throated Piping-Guan
  8. Ringed Kingfisher
  9. Hoatzin (a.k.a. Stinky Turkeys)
  10. Greater Ani
  11. Red-capped Cardinal
  12. Greater Yellow-headed Vulture
  13. Lesser Kiskadee
  14. Greater Kiskadee
  15. Blue-gray Tanager
  16. Magpie Tanager
  17. Long-tailed Hermit (from the hummingbird family)
  18. Common Potoo (camouflage into the tree trunks)
  19. Great Tinamou
  20. Purple-throated Fruitcrow
  21. Smooth-billed Ani (from the cuckoo family)
  22. White-eared Jacamar
  23. Russet-backed Oropendola (a very loud, explosive, bubbly sound)
  24. Orange-back Trupal
  25. Long-billed Woodcreeper (rare)
  26. Neo-tropical Cormorant
  27. Great Egret
  28. Limpkin
  29. Chestnut-fronted Macaw (nesting in a tree)
  30. Horned Screamer (almost sounds like a howler monkey)
  31. Little Blue Heron (extremely rare)
  32. White-winged Swallow
  33. White-banded Swallow
  34. Social Flycatcher
  35. Yellow Caracara
  36. Cocoy Heron

Other memorable moments in the rain forest included:

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It’s Not the Destination . . .

Friday, September 26th, 2008

It’ Not The Destination . . .

It’s the journey. Such was ours on Monday, Sept 22 when we traveled to the Kapawi Eco Lodge. Located in the southeastern corner of Ecuador, a one-hour boat ride from the Peruvian border, this Lodge is located in prime tropical rain forest which has been untouched by oil companies and cattle ranches. The nearest town is 120 km away (a 10-day walk through jungle) and thus, a challenge to get to.

After a taxi ride to a private hanger at the Quito Airport, we eagerly awaited with 5 others (an English couple and their 29 year old daughter, and two brothers from Turkey – who won their trip to Kapawi in a Turkish lottery!) for our 10:30 a.m. departure. At about 11:00, we were advised it was raining in the Achuar “airport” where we were to arrive on our second flight and since it was a dirt runway, we had to wait until it stopped raining before departing. We were told this could take minutes, or hours, in the Amazon rainforest. If hours, we would just have to depart the following day – weather permitting.

At approximately 11:30, she came bearing good news, that the rain had stopped, skies had cleared, and we would be shortly on our way. So, we sat back and enjoyed awesome runway views from inside the departure lounge- until we witnessed a mid-sized plane attempt to take off, then abort, and end up off the runway. Rescue personnel were dispatched, sirens blared, and the airport was a buzz with action. The 12:00 o’clock news came on (in Spanish of course) with live-action news being reported right at our runway. Luckily, nobody was killed and the airport was operational once more by 2:30 p.m.

We boarded an 18-seater Beechcraft 1900D – destination, “Shell” – an oil community about a half hour’s flight over the Andes Mountains. Being able to look directly through to the pilot’s seat, I was holding my breath that the instruments were in fine working order as we were flying through dense cloud cover (and memories of movies where small planes crash into mountainsides filled my head). After only mild turbulence, we emerged on the other side of the Andes and landed safely in Shell.

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