It's been a busy few days. Saturday morning we enjoyed the market in Otavalo. The market stalls take over a number of streets in the town and stretch for blocks.
We usually try to take a photo with the artisan (or their family member) when we pick something up.
Early in the afternoon a driver brought us back to Quito. Even though it was Saturday, the traffic was very heavy. Glad I wasn't driving. After we settled into our hotel room, we taxied to meet Seth's brother Ben, Heidi and the kids for an excellent dinner at Miskay. (They are living in Quito and teaching at the international school for a couple of years.)
When we returned to the hotel, in the historic center of Quito, we found the streets closed off and nightlife in full swing. Very festive, but the several discos and live music venues right below our hotel room made an impressive amount of noise late into the night.
We were picked up a little after 6 Sunday morning for the ride to the Bellavista Lodge near Mindo. This is an amazing spot. High in the cloud forest, surrounded by thousands of acres of preserved forest land and a destination for serious birders (plus the occasional amateur like ourselves). Our room is large, all glass facing the forest and with a private deck. After breakfast they issued us high rubber boots and we headed out with a guide to start exploring. The trails are sometimes easy, sometimes very steep, muddy and challenging.
We didn't see a lot of birds, but we did see this very large Andean earthworm, about a meter long.
After lunch we headed out for a second hike. Partway through the clouds opened up and it dumped buckets on us. Even wearing a waterproof shell, we were otherwise totally drenched by the time we made it back to the lodge.
Before dinner they put out some banana to attract the resident kinkajou.
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| Yup, he has a prehensile tail |
Monday morning we convened at the lodge at 6:30 to see a huge variety of birds. Several varieties of tanagers, woodpeckers, a toucan (high up in a tree) and many hummingbirds.
After breakfast we took off on another excursion into the forest (the lodge has a large network of trails). Saw a few birds and some flowers. Then we encountered some other hikers who had seen the Andean spectacled black bear, the only bear native to South America. We moved quickly down the very steep and muddy trail toward where they'd seen it, and finally found the bear poking around the lodge's compost area. After working on that for a while, he walked away and went to work extracting the heart from a palm. Even though we were maybe thirty feet away, the bear did not seem bothered by our presence.
The last two nights (Sunday and Monday) brought very heavy rain, even by local standards. When we awoke Tuesday the power was out due to several large landslides which closed the road down from this mountain lodge. After getting up and dressed in the dark, we again wandered out at 6:30 to look at birds. Saw a Toucan Barbet, and a Mountain Toucan, among others.
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| Toucan in the trees, but hard to find in this picture |
After breakfast we headed out with a guide to explore a bit. We saw a Quetzal, but only in flight so not clearly, and lots of tanagers and other birds I can't remember. After we returned (and thanks to a guide pointing it out) I saw a plate-billed mountain toucan. Being in a prime birding location is largely wasted on us.
In addition to the road-closing slides, there were several smaller slides on the path we walked today, including a largish one which wasn't here when we started out but was over the trail when we returned late morning.
At dinner time they again put out bananas for the resident kinkajou and olinguito. The kinkajou is more aggressive, so the olinguito didn't stick around for a photo.
Tomorrow afternoon we will return to Quito.
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