Yarina Lodge, Day 6 - 19 December 2021

 Galivanting thru the Galapagos & the Amazon

Day 6 - Yarina Lodge on the Napo River, 3rd night - Sunday, December 19, 2021

Got pictures from the Lodge showing how much the water had risen during the night.  Delfin explained that it varies not so much because of the local rain, but because of rain coming from the west.  

We headed out to clear skies.  Our young friends were coming back & they had gotten caught in the early morning showers!  Guess our guides had good timing!  Interesting that all this vegetation can survive these swift rising waters.  Delfin said he had seen 2' to 3' changes in a very short period of time.  Note how high the water is at the dock.  I'll show another view of the dock later in the day to show you how much it dropped in just a few hours!

We stopped at a trail head where we disembarked the large motorized canoe & traipsed over a short soggy trail to load onto small rowboats to tour a small enclosed pond called the Sapococha Lagoon.  In the short (about an hour) less than 1 mile around the lagoon, I had added 19 types of birds to my list!  It was very exciting!  Of course we once again came upon many flocks of Hoaxin.  They should be our symbol for this trip like the hippo was for Africa.  Except I don't know a song about them!!!  

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Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the time floating around the lagoon, I don't really have any exciting photo's to share.  The birds were all in the tall trees & between the glare of the sun & the distance from the birds, I couldn't get them with the cell phone camera.  Needed Ken Davis there to use his telephoto lens!!!!  I included a couple of pictures from Wiki!  The first is the Red Capped Cardinal, the only Cardinal in the Amazon Basin.  The last 3 are of the Russet Backed Oropendula.  It was by far the most common to see & hear.  It was easily recognizable flying due to the beautiful golden tail.  It is one of the many types of weaver birds & those long dangling nests are theirs.

We got back on semi dry land & took the short walk over to a tower built as an overlook.  For some reason I don't have a single picture of it & can't even find any pictures that I took while we were up in it!  It was about 2 stories high & kinda like a fire look out tower or an oversized deer stand.  We all climbed it & ohhed & awed from the top, then headed back down to fish for piranha!  The glob of frog eggs was more impressive than the only examples of the famous ferocious fish that we could catch!!  Delfin caught about 5 that was only about 2" long.  None of the rest of us did any more than feed them.  We'd feel them nibbling on the meat on our hook, but couldn't hook them, but it was fun trying!!

From there we took a short (about a mile) walk through the soggy jungle.  Delfin was constantly pointing out fascinating vegetation & tiny creatures.

He introduced us to the Lemon Ant - a destructive insect that builds it's nest along the plants limbs. It just appears as a slight fuzzy bulge. When you open the tiny pod, it is full of literally hundreds of microscopic ants. They are named from the lemony flavored acid they give off as a protection from larger predators. Although he offered, none of us tried them. (I still hadn't totally recovered from the "yummy" weevil larvae!!!!)

Tiny orchids were everywhere.  You had to be very careful not to trample them!

I forgot to make a note on this one & we can't remember what we were all so excited about getting a photo of here!!!  Too funny!

Here's a couple of movies of the leaf cutter ants.  They were sharing the trail with us & unfortunately we were killing hundreds of them unknowingly if we didn't pay attention!

As we came out of the jungle, we realized we were just right across the water from the lodge.  We still had to load back in the little boats to get across.

Back at the lodge & George cleaned up our boots in front of our little bungalow.  There are beautiful flowers blooming all over the lodge grounds.  It is really lovely.  

We had a short break before gathering back at the lodge for lunch.  We found Delfin waiting for us in one of the hammocks.  He looked mighty comfortable.  He certainly deserved a little time to relax!

After lunch, we had a couple of hours downtime. I even had time to call my brother!  Amazing to talk to him in Texas from my little bungalow in the Amazon!!!  Technology is sometimes wonderful!!  About 3pm, we headed out to load into the small boats for another adventure.  Notice in just these few hours how the level of the water has gone down.  There are already 2 stairs showing that were underwater this morning!  Had dropped over a foot!!  Crazy.

In out previous excursions, we have turned to the right away from the dock.  This time we went to the left.  This is a much smaller waterway with dense underbrush encroaching on both sides and from the top!!!  I included the map, shows the tiny twists & turns.  The ebird checklist data says it was 2.43 miles total round trip & took 2 hours & 15 minutes.

We didn't really see a huge amount of birds, but the afternoon was wonderful. So relaxing (at least for us - the 3 guides were doing all the paddling!). The noises were awesome. We heard this one bird that Delfin identified as the Great Tinamou, didn't get to see him. I couldn't figure out how to copy & paste the sound from ebird, but here's the link to the write up about him & it has a link for the audio sound. If you are interested, here it is: https://ebird.org/species/gretin1

At one point, the channel was blocked by a downed tree.  Winter took out his machete & just chopped it up so that we could continue on our expedition.  Have you ever read RIver of Doubt?  The book about Roosevelt trek down the Amazon tributary?  I can't imagine being in an environment like this in a totally unexplored area.  Gives me the shivers!!!

I took tons of pictures that are probably meaningless to most of you, but the weather was so very fine & the way the sun was dabbled on the leaves was just marvelous, so I sat back & just snapped away. 

One of the most fun sightings this afternoon was this Great Potoo.  It's amazing!  Obviously it was a long way away, so I downloaded a few pictures of it.  It looks very similar to an owl, but it's not related.  It is a nocturnal hunter & we were lucky to see him.  He was roosting, so we could watch him at our leisure!

One of the ladies in our group discovered a lovely seating position for viewing the upper reaches of the trees.  I wasted no time in emulating her!  Good ideas are meant to be shared!!!

The afternoon was just amazing.  I think I mentioned before that we hope to come back to just do the Amazon again.  Delfin does guiding on his own & would set up a birding trip.  That would be awesome!!!  I added a short video just to give you an idea of how calm & peaceful it felt.

On our way up to the lodge, the young couple from Switzerland were outside with their guide who had found a Yellow Footed Tortoise to share with them.  He allowed me to take a couple of pictures of it also!

We had all relaxed a little, & then met at the lodge for pre dinner drinks & a meeting to discuss everything we had seen during our visit.  

Delfin had a treat for us before we completed our books - he had found a snake to show us because we had complained that we never saw a single snake.  The poor thing was very dehydrated!  He dropped it over the side of the balcony so it could get food & water!  Never even got the type of it, but led into his story about being bitten by the Fer-de-lance when he was a young boy.  He barely survived - had to be airlifted to a hospital.  Amazing story.  

He had given us a book about our trip when we first arrived.  We went through & checked off all the things we'd seen.  Quite a list.  

Then he surprised us with a drink of a local specialty, Cana Manabita, to celebrate our anniversary!!!  Yippee!  Everyone toasted us.  It was a creamy liquor made in Ecuador from Sugar Cane.  By then it was time for our Grand Finale dinner.  Can't believe I didn't take any pictures of our food at this lodge!!  It was all delicious & all served by JC.  He was the waiter, the bar tender, & the IT man!  An amazing guy!!!

We closed out the evening with a historical movie about Ecuador & especially the Amazon.  Although I remember finding it very interesting while we were watching it, I have no memory of it now & made no notes in my journal!  Oh well!!!  Early to bed for our last early morning in the Amazon!!!  But still watched one Man in the High Castle before falling asleep!!!