Napo Eco-Lodge – Ecuadorian Amazon

Bugs, rain, mosquito bites, humidity….everything I thought the Amazon was before arriving. This is exactly why we wanted to “live” this and experience it for ourselves because none of what I thought it would be like was accurate. Yes it was humid, our clothes are still damp a few days later. Yes, it did rain, but not all day as I thought (it rains about 250 days a year). And, NO, Greg did not get a single bug bite. There were virtually zero bugs around when we ate our meals outside in the dining area. Now, that is amazing!

Although the saying, “You Amazon” did not come from the Amazon River (which crosses 6 countries), Greg and I sure felt like Amazons when traveling around the region. The indigenous Ecuadorian people are very petite. Whether strolling past the farmers market stands, or boarding the roofed canoe in the Amazon, we had to be sure to duck so as to not bump our heads. I can only imagine what our dear tall friends, the Wills, would have to do. Maybe crawl around?! 🙂 Now that’s a funny image!

Getting to the Ecuadorian Amazon was like a scene from the hilarious “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” movie. Actually, it was more like a plane, bus, motorized canoe and a paddle canoe. Once we landed at the Coca airport we were quickly transferred by bus to our motorized canoe for a two plus hour trip, then transferred to a manual canoe for another hour of paddling, then we landed at the Napo Wildlife Center (an amazing eco-lodge in the middle of the Amazon jungle).

To be clear, we did not do the paddling…our fabulous Local Guide (Faulto) and his support paddler (Domingo), with some help from our Naturalist (Marco) did all of the work. We were thinking that this better be good as we were almost all natured out! We weren’t sure the Amazon could top the Galápagos as the animals there just hang out right in front of you as if you are invisible. It was really unbelievable! In the Amazon you had to really search the wildlife out…listen, and smell. It was like searching for Sylvester Stallone in the Rambo movie “First Blood” when he was camouflaged in that mud bank hiding from the bad guys. All you could see was the whites of his eyes when he decided to open them. Or was it the Arnold Schwarzenegger “Predator” movie? Anywho, I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to play the “Where’s Waldo” game all day. I was certainly banking on our Guides having amazing eyes and ears…and they sure did!

Upon arrival everyone was assigned a group and guides for the duration of the stay. Wouldn’t you know it…we were assigned a great family of five from Washington, DC! Susan and Bill Bass with their sixteen year old triplets; Maggie, Sarah and Will. It wasn’t long before we must have said something they liked because they basically adopted us for the remainder of the trip. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together each day and went out in the same small canoe twice a day together. Four feet wide and about thirty feet long, the canoe is small enough to maneuver inside remote shallow tributaries in search of some new species that has never been seen by human kind. As the days went on the practical jokes started, I couldn’t resist plucking a long skinny fern leaf and tickling the ears of everyone in front of me during our hikes. The last night our DC family invited us to their hut for a pre dinner drink of Cuba Libre (rum and coke, meaning free Cuba…it was named based on people drinking it heavily during the Cuban – Spanish independence war). It was delicious after back to back long days of getting up at 5:30am to catch the wildlife doing their morning aerobics.

Before I bore you with a list of animals we spotted, I must comment on the other guests. They were almost more fascinating than the wildlife. Everyone had camera that could have taken a picture of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. In conversations it came up that these lenses can cost between $15,000-$20,000 dollars. I jokingly told one of the younger guys from NYC that he should have saved his money and used our point and shoot camera and doctor it up in some photo program. At least he could laugh it off. One couple even brought a tape recorder filled with bird calls…or maybe I will call it a bird decoder. We were behind the bird decoder people and I’m fairly certain our guide thought their bird calling machine were real birds. Oh boy. Off to a funny start!

Camera Envy at the Parrot Lick

How many acres are in a hector? Two and a half ares, about the size of a large plot of land some might live on. Why does this matter? In the Ecuadorian Amazon one hector has more plant and tree varietals than the entire land mass of North America. This is seriously mind-blowing! And there is more, the Napo Wildlife Center is on the most bio-diverse land in the world. Thankfully our tour operator knew this when they booked us because until three days ago I didn’t know what bio-diverse even meant. So the stage is set and I actually felt bad being there since we just picked up this new interest in wildlife and environmental awareness and now we find ourselves in the most complex, lively, environmentally important place on earth. Once we got our bearings on this reality we both took a pause to appreciate how fortunate we are to have this experience.

Crazy Large Tree Trunk

We lucked out and were able to see seven or eight different monkeys. I can’t recall them all…but I do recall that we saw Squirrel, Capuchin, Monk Saki, Golden, and Howler monkeys. The Howler monkeys were awesome! They had babies with them and they HOWL (yeah…shocker and it can be heard up to three miles away). To check out their howls click this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHBjjdIx8dE. We also caught a glimpse of a few sloths that were totally entwined in a trees. Then, last but not least…the Giant Otter! Whoa!

For the next few days we went on two excursions a day. Day one we climbed up an observation tower about ten stories high just above the jungle canopy.

Observation Tower

Additionally, we went to a Parrot Bird Lick, yep had no idea what this was either. Apparently the parrots need to sooth their stomachs by licking the clay.

Parrot Lick

We hiked into remote areas that were so dense that our local guide brought a machete and took the canoe deep enough into narrow tributaries that we would hit the bottom, duck under branches and hand maneuver around trees to the point where we had to turn around. Boa constrictors from a distance were fine with me especially after we found ourselves within one foot of a large tarantula.

The tribe of 180 indigenous people who managed the eco lodge were so appreciative of the visit since this is how they make a living after they agreed to no longer hunt and fish for survival. This is one of the many ways Ecuador is preserving the amazon jungle.

To see more Amazon pics click here: Ecuador – Amazon

So…Ecuador…farewell to the only place in the world you can eat breakfast on the beach, lunch in the mountains and dinner in the jungle, we had a great trip to this peaceful country! Squeezed between the two largest producers of cocaine, Ecuador’s people are living clean and progressing with impressive education and infrastructure projects. Something we are really amazed with is how much originated in this tiny country the size of Colorado with only 14M people. What do Panama hats, the largest supply of bananas and Mike Judge (the creator of Beavis and Butthead) all have in common? I would recommend a visit to anyone interesting in taking a break, but then again this is our first country so take the comment with a grain of salt. Hopefully I will say the same thing after leaving each country we visit.

We hope Columbia has the same welcoming people and 80’s American music 🙂 ~ if not I guess we will be relegated to staring at the beautiful people.

Co-Authored by Linda and Greg…just leaving Medellin and heading to Cartagena! Peace out!

To see all of our photos click here: Photos