The Amazon - ever since 1971 I have been saying I was going to the 
Amazon My dream started when Boyd and I were on the pIane to 
Johannesburg headed for Botswana and met a young Australian woman 
returning from 6 weeks on a boat up the Amazon.

Ever since, I have been telling the children in the classroom that  
I was going up the Amazon and they could come along if they were old 
enough when I went. The dream has changed a bit over the years to 
focus on birding in the Amazon and I'd lost the need to "go up on a 
boat" somewhere along the way.

When I wrote the letter to alI my A Growing Place families inviting 
them along, Eric Lanigans mom, Susan, was the one who responded. We 
began planning almost a year before our departure and chose a birding  
tour to Amazonian Ecuador with Field Guides, a company that guides 
birding tours all over the world. We would be up where the Amazon 
begins, see lots of birds, and Sacha Lodge sounded like a great place 
to do it.

Besides getting shots and travel insurance, we worked very hard to pare 
our luggage to 22 pounds for the flight over the Andes to the Lodge. We 
left on July 11th from St. Louis with binoculars, cameras, carry-on 
luggage that hopefully held all we would need for several days,and 
another bag with folding chair, inflatable seat cushion which we never 
used, rain gear, and the 4-pound Birds of Ecuador book which we couldn't 
do without.

We flew to Miami and then to Quito, the highest capitol in the world - 
9300 feet, arriving in the evening but with a view of the city sprawling 
between mountain ranges with a high ridge down the middle. Overnight was 
at the Four Points Sheraton and we left with our group earIy in the 
morning to fly Icarus Airlines over the East Andes to Coca in the 
rainforest. This is where the 22 pounds was required because of the 
high altitude takeoff.  I managed to leave my shoulder bag/purse on 
the bus to the airport - just for a moment of panic - but the driver 
returned with it in plenty of time.

Most of our flights were into clouds but we did see a big river and 
fields reaching out on both sides as we neared Coca, also strange trees 
with red flowers in the canopy and our first view of the density of 
vegetation in the rainforest. Coca is an interesting small town on the 
Napo River which converges to the east with the M    River to actually 
form the Amazon.  We boarded motorized canoes with canvas roofs and 
life jackets for everyone for a 2-and-a-half hour trip down the Napo 
to the landing for the Lodge. Along the way we marveled at swooping 
white-banded and white-winged swallows and photographed thick stands 
of trees, vines, and grasses along the River.

We birded the finca, the farm along the River where we landed and from 
which the boardwalk led to Sacha Lodge, Sacha meaning rainforest in the 
local Quichua language. We got our first views of chestnut-billed 
aricaris, cousins of the toucans (eventually we saw 4 aricaris, 1 
toucanet, and two large toucans), smooth-billed and great anis, 
flycatchers and a pair of white-winged becard before trekking the 
mile and a quarter to Pilchicocha (cocha names the ox-bow lakes that 
are typical in Amazonia), then taking locally-made dugout canoes across 
to the Lodge. Hoatzins feed in the short trees along the stream leading 
into the cocha, displaying their wide wings and making weird sounds to 
welcome us.

The Lodge is quite beautiful, with thatched roof and ornate vine 
patterns for the screened windows, stairrail, and dining hall. One 
can swim in the cocha with vegetarian-only piranas and possibly small 
dwarf caymans. Birds are everywhere as are butterflies and  amazing 
tropical vegetation. Covered walkways made of ironwood pounded into 
slivers lead to the comfortable cabins, double lodgings with private 
patios, hammocks, hot water 24 hours a day, ceiling fans, and complete 
screening so there were no nets on the beds. We found few bugs although 
others found some spectacular ones like the small scorpion which 
challenged Bill's walking stick in their cabin, a tarantula that came 
to dinner, and loads of wonderful butterflies,abroad and in the butterfly
house where cocoons are raised for export.

The weather was cooler than we expected with rain most nights. It was 
not oppressively hot except along the paths under the dense vegetation 
if we stopped in the late afternoon to wait for a bird to appear. But 
because of all the rain the paths were very muddy. We were issued 
Wellingtons when we arrived and used them daily, sometimes in mud 
almost to the tops. I somehow expected the rainforest to be flat but 
we sloshed uphill and slid or were helped downhill most of the time on 
the trails. The native guides and naturalists were great about giving 
us a hand, very surefooted themselves - and sometimes with a scope or 
machete in the other hand!

Also because it was the rainy season, the boardwalk was wonderful for 
keeping us out of the varzea, the seasonally flooded transition forest, 
where a lot of the birds were found. We visited the Tower up into the 
canopy once on foot but generally by canoe along the Orquidea Trail 
which is a lovely narrow stream that reflects the palms, heliconia 
flowers, and lianas - my favorite place of the whole trip. Then we 
could slide up a bit of trail and climb the 96 steps around and around 
the great kapok tree to the Tower platform where we could see the Napo 
River when the fog lifted, all the layers of the rainforest, fellows 
below continually working on repairs to the stairs, and birds eye-to-eye. 
Black-and-white and ornate hawk-eagles, double-toothed, plumbeous, and 
slender-billed kites, paradise, masked crimson, maypie, turquoise, and 
several other tanagers,  Moriche oriole, and the gray mourner we think 
might have been what the rufous tiny hawk was eating later, three kinds 
of colorful trogons - violaceous, white-tailed, and black-tailed, and 
many other birds let us watch them up close on three different occasions.

Our treks throuyh the varzea and terra firma forests yielded long 
detailed views (or sometimes only glimpses) of forest floor birds 
like the andpittas and antbirds, hummingbirds and woodcreepers at all 
levels, woodpeckers, and the bird I was the only one to see, the 
gray-winged trumpeter. One of the neatest sightings of all was of 
the little scaly-breasted wren that walked all over within 5 feet of 
the trail for as long as we would watch. Night hikes along the Liana 
Chica Trail gave us the crested owl and marbled wood quail, but we 
saw the spectacled owl and great potoo in the daytime, thanks to our 
amazing native guides. We heard the common potoo's wonderful call many 
times but I didn't get to see it.

We also visited a temporary river island with species of birds like 
the gray-breasted crake that walked almost on our boot toes. Oriole 
blackbird was another good bird there. The river island birds live only 
there and move to another island when that one washes away.  We saw 
capybara tracks on the island but no big rodents. Also we canoed across 
the Napo and climbed to the parrot licks on more slippery trails in the 
rain. When a white hawk came in above the second parrot lick, hundreds 
of small cobalt-winged parakeets took off flying right around our heads 
as we watched from inside the thatched viewing lodge.

The motorized canoe also took us across the Napo into the Chapati stream 
for an all-day hike with lunch along the Providencia Trail and screaming 
pihas piercing cries all around us.

Most mornings found us up at  4 a.m., eating breakfast by 5 and out by 
5:20, generally across the cocha in the dark with ladder-tailed nightjars 
flying around, and onto the boardwalk before daylight to listen to a 
pair of zig-zag herons answer the tape, then fly out without my seeing 
them. Herons are some of my favorite birds and we did see the capped 
heron, like our  black-crowned but larger and all white with a yellow 
crown; striated heron, similar to our green heron; and cocoi heron, 
mostly white and shaped like a great  blue heron as well as the amazing 
rufescent tiger-heron! I was also very excited to see limpkin which I 
have missed in Florida.

We saw a number of mammals along the way, pygmy marmosets near the 
lodge, black-mantled tamarin, common squirrel monkey, brown capuchins, 
and bigger red howlers, their odd booming voices heard both along the 
cocha and from the Tower. I saw a black agouti near the lodge and a 
tayra along the Napo but my look at the three-toed sloth was none too 
good, just a hairy lump in a tree. Fishing bats swirled and dipped to 
the water whenever we came across the cocha in the evening.

Meals were a wonderful adventure at Sacha with great soups for first 
courses except for one time when shrimp cerviche was served, the best 
dish of all. Several main dishes were always offered along with four 
beautiful and unusual salads, a deep-fried vegetable, rice, potatoes 
fixed many different ways and, in the evening, a choice of four 
desserts, These were fruit "pies" of banana or pineapple or tree 
tomoto, cakes moist with fruit, mousses, and fresh fruit. The portions 
were quite small and I tried most of the desserts each evening. Fresh 
fruit juices, guava,  melon, and something I have forgotten, were 
highlights of the very good breakfasts.

Our birding group of 6 others and our guide, Jay, were exceptionally 
compatible and so much fun. We laighed a lot and became friends who 
will keep in touch, trading photos and memories. Jay did a very good 
job of balancing our different birding intensities and other needs and 
the native guides, Oscar and Marcello, were incredible. They could see 
birds where one couldn't see at all and identify by sound the hundreds 
of  birds we encountered - 302 species identified! The native naturalists 
who went with us and carried scopes, lunches, spotlights, etc., Jaraldo 
and Angel, were so pleasant and always cheerful, helping us up and down 
through the mud.

The searches for the various ant-birds provided more laughs and groans 
than anything else on the tour - 10 antshrikes, 5 antwrens, 15 antbirds, 
4 antthrushes, and 1 antpitta were seen by the group but almost all 
had to be called in with the tape, waited for, searched for in the 
underbrush, sighted perhaps by a tail or head or wing, maybe eventually 
seen by all but generally not.   We began referring to them as 
"ant-things", much sought by the most serious birders, and probably 
some of us wouldn't have spent any time on the later ones at all. More 
about antpittas later!

Our tour ended with the canoe ride back to Coca, flight to Quito, 
and our last meal together when we each listed our three favorite 
birds.  I picked out 14 favorites and then had to choose three from 
that list, cocoi heron, scaly-backed wren, and oriole blackbird.

The next morning we met our drivers to San Jorge Eco-Lodge, just 17 
miles uphill from Quito. The streets quickly turned into narrow roads, 
full of holes and rocks and occasionally paved with small pieces of the 
volcanic rock, spaced apart and sticking up.  These were the pIaces 
where the drivers could speed up! Our room was up the hillside 
overlooking the Lodge, Quito, and the surrounding volcanoes and other 
mountains. Climbing the first time told me I was indeed going to have 
trouble with the altitude - about 5 steps up the steep stone stairs 
and I would have to stop to rest. There were many of those stairs but 
the view was great!

We went right off to our medicinal plants tour with Vincente, man of 
many jobs, who described about 50 plants used by the local people. 
Susan took photos and I wrote notes which we hope to combine eventually. 
This was a much dryer place than the rainforest but there were lots of 
flowers, a few thorns, some very tall trees, and short grass.  Bridgett 
from Belgium accompanied us and translated when we needed it.

The pace was generally a bit more leisurely at San Jorge, the food good 
and quite a different type of adventure, hummingbirds all over including 
black       tails and       emeralds. Two large thrushes surprised us, 
The glossy­backed thrush was bigger than a robin and the great thrush 
as big as a crow! They sounded like robins though. Our room had a 
fireplace which was lighted each afternoon - much-needed as the evenings 
got quite cold and we saw our breath in the mornings. We wore most all 
of our clothes as layers early and late in the day.

Our other adventures in the mountains Included the horseback ride up 
above the cloud forest where we could see 5 volcanoes and spotted the 
6-inch-long giant hummingbird, saw a baby llama at a finca, and rode 
on traditional saddles with trees of mango wood with only a light 
blanket over the wooden tree. I was amazed to find orchids and bromeliads 
growing on trees up to the tree line! One day we were driven across 
the Equator to Otavalo, 70 miles north where there is a big native 
market. We had shopped in an artisana shop in Quito to get our alpaca 
garments, handcarved birds (from tagua, the vegetable ivory Jaraldo 
had showed me as nuts in the rainforest), and some other things.  But 
we got t-shirts and some gifts in Otavalo. Mostly we just wandered 
around looking at the people - young girls in Catholic school uniforms 
walking home from school and knitting or crocheting as they walked - 
and all the rugs, ruanas, shawls, and hundreds of other handmade items. 
The drives there and back were on the Pan-American Hiyhway, where 
everyone drives wildly but always brakes just in time, and  snow-covered 
Cotapaxi and  Cayumbe provided great views without any clouds. Watching 
the old people leading home their one cow or children driving home three 
cows was neat.

Another day we went birding, up the steep hills on foot before dawn 
with young Jorge, 14-year-old, third-generation representative of the 
family that owns San Jorge and has sponsored eco-projects at home and 
in the community. We climbed and walked along ledges as fast as I could 
go until daylight, stopping for breakfast by a waterfall. Susan got cold 
and went back but young Jorge and I found lots of mountain birds, he 
running up and down narrow steps cut into the mountain and I following 
slowly with my walking stick. That stick has a foot-long spike concealed 
in the end which I can extend to brace myself and pull myself up steep 
places. I wouldn't have been able to walk and climb in either habitat 
without it. We saw masked mountain tanager, --------------, and believe 
we saw an unlisted species.           

The finale of the birding day was the highlight of that part of the trip,
a long ride in the van to Yanacocha Reserve in the cloud forest, the 
place of the spectacled bear. The ride was quite an adventure and the 
day cold and rainy. We walked up a winding trail to see various 
hummingbirds AND the rufous antpitta, standing right there in the trail, 
easy to see! We got a good look, took pictures and proceeded up farther, 
not seeing the spectacled bear but looking down on the clouds, just a 
marvelous place. Cold and damp, we started back, Susan and I worrying 
about the drive down that rocky narrow road if it should get dark, when 
we came upon the ant-pitta again.  It was even more obliging, posing 
in the trail, so we had to stop, look some more - Susan was taking 
pictures, getting closer and closer to the bird. I was sure she was 
trying to scare it away so we could get on down the trail but she 
denies it. Finally, we did leave it though and jounced down that 
awful road, getting home just before dark!

The other amazing event at San Jorge was the visit from the shaman 
who was to "cleanse" us. We were dubious about his looks but learned 
about his sacred rocks and the mountain that inspires him. The 
cleansing involved his spitting fire, some kind of palm alcohol, 
and strong cologne all over us in a fine spray and singing something. 
We were told the fire would not burn us and it didn't; I decided to 
take in my equivalent of love and hope and stood my ground, Susan 
backed off from the flame.

When we returned, we declared we were physically stronger than when 
we left because of all the walking and climbing, thinner even though 
we had eaten much more than we usually do because of all the exercise, 
and that we couldn't have had greater fun anywhere we might have gone. 
We were ready for a good rest but three weeks later, we started looking 
at the brochures to choose where we will go next.