After we (reluctantly) left Olón, we headed for the highlands of Ecuador with our friends Sam and Eva. They love the city of Cuenca so we all rode the bus there via Guayaquil for a long weekend of tour bus rides, craft beer, and extremely tasty “chancho hornado” aka roast pork. The ride there was pretty magical. We didn’t realize how green and lush the highlands were, a major difference from the coast. We also saw a lot more of the indigenous community members in that region, who are easy to spot with their traditional colorful skirts and fedora-looking hats. Although we obviously loved being on the beach, Cuenca was a welcome change because of its Spanish style streets and plazas, great restaurant options, and actual good beer (as opposed to the usual bland Pilsener). Being in a city again was fun, and we had a great time riding around on the city tour bus and getting some fantastic views of the whole area. The Pumapungo museum, with its cultural and archaeological history and huge “garden” of Incan ruins, was a real highlight. Other favorites included the local market where they sell fresh and DELICIOUS pork meals, the Plaza de las Flores where flower vendors sell their colorful and wonderful-smelling wares, and an unexpected electro dance party at the cathedral, complete with psychedelic lighting design covering the building’s entire facade. Plus we found a good bar to watch the World Cup. It was a great time in a beautiful city.
When it was time to move on, we parted ways with Sam and Eva. They had treated us so well for our two months on the coast, we were sad to say goodbye but excited for the next moves. When they were off, we stayed in Cuenca an extra night and then took a bus to Riobamba, which is an Andean valley town situated next to the Chimborazo volcano. The bus ride was even more incredible than the one to Cuenca. The views were insane and the hills and valleys super green. Riobamba is a neat town with outdoor stuff to do, but we were only there for a stopover. We walked around town and enjoyed the views for an evening, but returned to the bus station the next morning for our planned trip to Baños.
However, fate (and our fear of the cold) would have different plans for us. As we were sitting in the bus station, Javi happened to look at the weather for Baños, which we hadn’t even considered. It was going to be raining and freezing (literally 32 degrees) all week long. Shit. Not exactly the kind of weather to experience hikes and waterfalls. Our bus was leaving in 10 minutes, so we made a last minute decision to change our bus tickets to Quito. We hadn’t planned much for Baños and had been really excited to see it, given all the amazing things we’d heard. But hell no, we weren’t going to freeze our asses off. It was already starting to get cold in Cuenca and Riobamba, and we didn’t love it, so sorry Baños… maybe next time. We decided we would go to Quito and book an Amazon tour instead. Much warmer. Plus we had wanted to visit the Amazon, and didn’t think we’d have time after Baños. We were so glad we made that decision because the Amazon tour was incredible.
We got to Quito and found a little hostel in the backpacker/tourist area of Mariscal. We posted up for a couple of days while checking out the neighborhood and making an obligatory visit to the Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, a funny little tourist monument and town built along the equator back in the late 70s/early 80s (which we found out isn’t exactly on the equator – oops). After a bit more touristing, we started looking for an Amazon tour and found a 4 day tour at Nicky Lodge in Cuyabeno Reserve. We chose Cuyabeno over Yasuni because it was more affordable and felt a little more off the beaten path. Plus the reserve contains a flooded forest, or the Igapo region of the Amazon basin, and we thought it would be fun to ride around in canoes looking for plants and wildlife. It took a while to get there – an overnight bus to get to Nueva Loja, also known as Lago Agrio, then the lodge’s shuttle about two hours to the Cuyabeno Bridge, then we hopped into the motorized canoes and took a 5 hour trip down the river to the lodge. Granted, it took five hours because we were seeing so much amazing wildlife. It probably would have only taken a couple of hours if we weren’t sightseeing. So it definitely felt like you were IN the jungle. Maybe not, like, un-contacted tribes deep, but deep enough that it felt like we were worlds away from what we knew. One thing to note about visiting this part of the Amazon is that it has to be this way. It’s protected and you generally can’t just go exploring the Reserve on your own; you need to be connected to a camping group or lodge and get taken down the river. We saw SO MUCH. We kept a pretty good list of all the species we saw. Out of the 10 types on monkeys in the area, we saw 9, plus a ton of other animals, so we got very lucky. Here is a partial list:
Monkeys: Miller’s saki monkey, squirrel monkey (so many of these) , yellow handed titi monkey, woolly monkey (with a baby attached), red howler monkey (also with a baby attached), capuchin monkey, black-mantled tamarin monkey, night monkey, and pygmy marmoset (the smallest monkey in the world!)
Birds and bats: oropendola, macaw, great potoo, tiger heron, long nosed bat, Amazon kingfisher, anhinga bird, white-throated toucan, capped heron, black vulture, double tufted kite, yellow rampant cacique, slate-colored hawk, green-backed trogon, black-tailed, trogon, blue-crowned trogon, hoatzin (aka stinky turkey), bat falcon, fishing bat, many-banded aracari
Other species: black snake, anaconda, two-toed sloth, three-toed sloth, pink river dolphin, kinkajou, blue morpho butterfly, ceiba tree
In addition to all the wildlife there was a pretty neat human element to the trip. On one afternoon the camp took canoes downriver to meet a Siona indigenous community. “Mama Aurora”, the matriarch of the community, showed us how to make yucca “bread” and we were fed a delicious meal while hearing about life in an indigenous village. It was nice and felt much more authentic than one of the “meet the shaman” trips we saw on so many other Amazon tours. We actually learned a skill and contributed to the community by making a lot of extra bread flour for them to use (they definitely put us to work!). We understand that all of these community visits, regardless of what the activity is, are important because the tour groups all make a donation to the community. But it was important to us not to feel like we were visiting a human zoo that was there for our entertainment. We spent real time with Mama Aurora and her family, hung out with them, cooked with them. All in all, we were thrilled by the trip to Cuyabeno and were so glad we sprung for it. Our guide Diego made all the difference, he was so incredible at spotting interesting animals. We actually got pretty good at it ourselves towards the end. After capping off our last night with an absolutely epic sunset over Laguna Grande, we were happily awed and satisfied by our jungle adventure. We then headed back to Quito for a few days while we caught up on some trip planning and laundry. Our next stop would be in literal paradise, so we needed clean clothes and to soak in a bit of mainland amenities before heading out on our next adventure.
Highlands and Amazon
