Montanita

Our third week was Montanita, the surfing village that has become a party town. This week we did not stay with host families. Instead we all stayed at a hotel called La Barranca. This hotel was about a ten-minute walk from downtown, which was good, because the party apparently doesn't stop, and doesn't get quiet, in downtown Montanita. Tegre and Sagan enjoyed a great beach for playing in the waves and building sand castles. We enjoyed eating downtown at some cool restaurants. We especially liked the vegetarian restaurant, where after they took our order, they ran to the market and bought the ingredients. There was also a waffle restaurant that was pretty awesome.

Birds liked the nightlife at Montanita

One day we went to a nearby village called Dos Mangas. They have a community-based tourism project there, where the whole community profits from allowing tours on their gigantic property. We had a tour guide named Ana, who works for a nonprofit called Avesconservacion. She is not normally a guide, but a conservation biologist. In fact, she wrote the book we were using, a list of birds found at several coastal locations. She was able to identify birds instantly just by calls. Dos Mangas is a tropical rain forest in an area that is mostly tropical dry forest. We saw monkeys and ate jungle bananas. The monkeys peed on Kirby, which delighted the boys. We saw the ivory palm, from which tagua nuts are harvested and sold as jewelry. The guides made jungle hats for the boys from toquilla straw palms, which are the same plants used to make Panama hats. 

Lord of the Flies

Capuchin monkey

We enjoyed Ana so much that we asked for another tour with her. The following day she took us to a totally different place, salt ponds created to gather sea salt. Though artificial, these ponds have become a hot spot for shore birds. We saw lots of cool birds, including black-necked stilts, Peruvian pelicans, and Chilean flamingos. Ana told us that Ecuador has the world's greatest diversity of shore birds.

Chilean flamingos

Peruvian pelicans

Flamingos in the distance

We went from Montanita to Manta, north along the coast. Along the way we stopped at Agua Blanca, a little village in a national park. The villagers have found archeological evidence of a pretty significant civilization that existed pre-Inca.

Motmot at Agua Blanca

Unknown bird at Agua Blanca

Cajas

 We took a day trip from Cuenca to Cajas National Park. We were already pretty much in love with Cuenca, and the proximity of this fantastic park made it even better. The park is about 45 minutes from town. It is famous for the high altitude lakes. This area was glaciated during the major glaciation, and glaciers cut big U-shaped valleys and left lots of lakes. The entrance road to the park crossed beautiful farmland, and passed by an Incan road. From there we hiked to the first big lake. Our hike took us through the forest that rings each lake. We saw lots of hummingbirds, which of course you can't see very well here. They really are there.

 Eventually our hike took us around to the ruins of an old brewery. What a fantastic place to work this must have been!

At the end of our trip, we looked at the map and realized that we had gone about an inch worth of distance on the big fold-up map of the park. This would be a great spot for some backpacking. I hope we can come back to see more of this.

Mindo and beyond!

On Saturday, we went to Mindo, a small town in the cloud forest. On the way, we stopped to see what was described as the only place in South America where people are living inside a volcano. We drove to the edge of the caldera, and looked way, way down into a peaceful agricultural scene. It looked like normal, prosperous highlands in every way except it was a circle about a half-mile in diameter surrounded by 1000´ cliffs. There was one place where a road gets in, but apparently so out of the way that usually people walked up the trail to the access point where we were.

Mindo is a center for adventure tourism. We got off the bus and loaded into the back of three pickup trucks. We rode up a reasonable road that left the town and climbed the mountain, to the tarabita. The tarabita is a cable car system. The cable car is an open cage that holds 5-6 people. It goes across a big valley, about 500 meters above the valley floor, maybe 600 meters across. It is powered by what I think was a truck engine, that moved it at a pretty good pace. Neither Sagan nor Tegre were bothered by the height. On the far side, we walked to a couple of waterfalls where the students could wade and jump off a rock into the plunge pool.

After that, we went to a Butterfly Garden, a conservation-oriented place where they grow and release butterflies. We could smear some banana or papaya paste on our fingers and the butterflies would sit on our hands. Among the butterflies were blue morphos, the biggest in South America.

We all had a good time, but we did not get to see a lot of birds on the trip. That´s because we went at the wrong time of the day, and we went up the mountain rather than staying near the river. Kate and I later had a meeting with Mayra and Narcisa (the Amauta directors) about needing to have strong biological content in the field trips. I am now confident that our next trips will have that.

On Sunday, we moved from Quito to Cuenca. That was the longest ride of our whole trip, about 8 hours. Along the way, we drove around the gigantic volcano Chimborazo. We saw vicunas (wild relatives of llamas) in the high altitude puna (grassland). At another point in the trip, the bus went through such a huge narrow canyon that it seemed highly unlikely that a highway would make it out the top, but it did. In a small town in the highlands, we found a parade happening. We stopped the bus and watched groups of dancers with figures dressed as animals and devils, interspersed with marching bands. Several students got pulled into the parade to dance.

Volcano

My apologizes for not posting sooner. My laptop has run aground, and I have not had much internet access. I am using the school´s computer now, and I won´t be able to post photos for a while.

On Friday, we went to Cotopaxi, one of the big volcanoes. On the way up, we saw some Andean condors, the largest flying bird in the world. The bus took us to a parking lot at 4600 meters (15,000 feet). From there, we hiked up to the refuge (refugio). That was a climb of 200 meters, so the refugio is at 15,744 feet. That´s the highest I´ve ever been. The altitude made the climb pretty rough. I decided to push on up and get it over with. At the last 5 meters, I realized I was hiking alongside the park guide. I thought it would be poor form to race, so I just kept going. At the last second, he lunged ahead of me, so I guess we were racing. He told me I had a good heart, which I took as a great compliment.

The view from Cotopaxi.

The refuge from the parking lot.

 The boys stayed in the bus or in the parking lot. I hurried back down, and Donna took a turn to go up to the refuge. After that, we rode mountain bikes from the refuge down to a lake about 6 kilometers away. There were wild horses at the lake.

Fun with imaginary lines

Yesterday, in the morning we went to Parque Carolina and went in a little further. We went to the Botanical Garden and then rode the paddleboats. We saw several cool birds.

Southern Yellow Grosbeak

In the afternoon, we went to Mitad del Mundo, the museum of the equator. It was one part interesting, two parts cheesy. A French team came a while back and surveyed the equator line here.Ecuador eventually built a great big monument and a whole tourist site around it. Then GPS came along, and it turns out the monument and the line were off by about 300 meters. So, now there's the old line and the new line. Both are equipped to sell tourist items.

Whole Group, Ecuador 2012

There was a nice exhibit about the Wauorani, a tribe in the east famous for head shrinking. This is a real one, plus a real monkey head.

Water flowing here, on the equator, doesn't swirl at all. Our guide moved the sink ten feet to either side and showed opposite directions of swirling.

Asheville needs a teleferiqo.

 Today in the morning we went to the Teleferiqo. That's like a ski lift with enclosed cars. It goes up to the nearer peak of Pichincha, Roca Pichincha. The top was 4100 meters, and we walked from there up a bit higher. It was brisk, but not as cold as I had expected. On the way up, we went through a stand of (introduced) eucalyptus trees, then some lovely paramo (montane shrub). Above that was puna, the montane grassland. The paramo is supposed to be really diverse, and it looked it, but the puna is a lot simpler. Short bunch grasses with scattered flowers, including lupine. We met a fellow with some horses, who gave us a ride. Tegre rode with me on Estrallita and Sagan rode with Donna on Constancita.This was the first horse ride for the boys. We had incredible views of the city of Quito. We could see how it is long and skinny (35 miles by 3 or 4 miles). This was the most by far we've spent in a day: $11 for the cabs, $30 for the tickets and $10 for the horse ride. In the afternoon, Donna took the boys to Parque Carolina where they watched skateboarding, climbed on the rocks and ran through the fountain. I had my first biology class. We discussed a bit about tropical ecology, bananas, and DNA. The class is meeting in a room separate from the school. It is a free community space, that includes bathrooms, and has a large walled-in garden with playground equipment. The caretaker and her family live in the place, and her son played futbol with the students during the break. He watched the second half of class, waiting to play again.

Quito in the distance, paramo in the foreground. That's the shrubland.

You really can see our house from here, almost. The big lower building with the shiny roof is the mall two blocks from where we are staying. We are to the left of the mall, between two buildings that are both tall and red and white.

Higher than the paramo is puna, the montane grassland.

This is Rucu Pichicha, the closer fo two peaks of this mountain.

Quito Viejo

Basilica. Note the animal gargoyles jutting out from about halfway up.

 Today we went on a tour of Old Quito.  That is south of where we are staying. New Quito has wide boulevards, but Old Quito has tight, steep streets, some cobblestone. With our guide Paula, we visited the Palacio del Gobierno, which was beautiful and opened onto a gorgeous plaza, Plaza Grande. We visited La Compania de Jesus, the Jesuit church begun in 1605. That was fantastic. The church is very symmetrical, but the only put one spiral staircase in the back, so they painted another staircase to match the real one. Paula showed us how the indios who did most of the craftsmanship worked their own designs into the church, including native plants and indigenous characteristics in the angels. We also saw the Basilica del Voto Nacional. It is a great Gothic structure, rather new by comparison (1926). Instead of gargoyles, the outside is covered with native animals, including boobies, tortoises, panthers and anteaters. The boys were very impressed with the idea of the crypts below the floors. The Basilica has a heart-shaped window, and, if you stand in the right place, you can look out, across Old Quito and see La Virgen de Quito, a gigantic statue a couple of miles away.

Narrow steep streets of Old Quito.

The presidential guard at the Palacio del Gobierno. Tegre touched the guard.

Plaza Grande.

Palacio del Gobierno.

Arrived in Quito

We arrived in Quito after a long day of travel. The boys did very well, but they were exhausted by the end. Tegre was delerious. Kate and Agustin met us at the airport and took us to the host families. We are staying with Elvalicia and Luis. Luis is a retired petroleum engineer. They are both very cheerful. Their daughter and son-in-law live in an upstairs apartment. They have tenants in another upstairs apartment. The front wall of the house contains a bodega run by an indigena. She has lots of fruit there. We are about one block from the school and two blocks from a huge mall. Although we are bordered by busy streets in close proximity, the neighborhood is quiet and the house is totally quiet at night. The house is on Calle El Dia in La Carolina neighborhood.

Sparkling violetear hummingbird babies on the nest, 6 inches from our window in the middle of Quito.

Parque Carolina. This is a huge park. Our neighborhood is called Carolina. The park has soccer fields, greenways, paddleboats, a botanical garden, and lots and lots of customers.

The last of the students arrived on the flight with us. They are all staying extremely close to the school. The furthest I have heard is two blocks away. This is a nice part of Quito and I feel good about their safety. The school is a small facility in a house. It has several small classrooms, a lovely lounge, and a kitchen that has snacks. Agustin is the director, and he has been very helpful. My biology class will meet down the street in a public space, like a neighborhood meeting room.

Tegre and Sagan playing at a smaller park that is one block from our homestay.