11/06/2019 – Quito to Sacha Lodge, Coca, Ecuador

We got up for breakfast in the hotel - fruit, scrambled eggs, toast, juice and coffee. Then we finished packing up our things and waited for our taxi to the airport.

Breckfast here...! not too bad at all.

Waiting to head off to Sacha Lodge.

It was a grey rainy day, the best kind when you are about to get on an aeroplane! When the car arrived we started loading our bags and a homeless man who had been drinking with a few other people next to our hotel front door was very persistent in asking for money. The taxi driver managed to grab some change to try and get him to leave us alone but even so the guy was cross with the amount and bent the cars wing mirrors back in angst. We managed to get away unscathed and made our way to the airport. The car had arrived to pick us up in Spanish time, and there was an accident on the road so we were cutting it fine but made it in time in the end! We were met in the airport by a lady with Sacha Lodge (our accommodation) written on her jacket. She gave us some information booklets, our boarding passes and tagged our luggage. We booked ourselves in and went through security. I had our pizzas from last nights dinner and we all put bottles of water through, security here is a different ball game to at home. We had just enough time for a bathroom stop, to buy coffee and to eat leftover pizza before being called to board. We flew with the airline ‘Tame’ to a place called Coca. The plane was so tiny! I think we counted 16 windows or something, and there were just two seats either side of the aisle. Dad bumped his head on the ceiling (I bet that doesn’t happen to often to him!) and mum was laughing so much that she did the same thing two seconds later! Even I bumped my head as we disembarked so it must have been a small plane! A super tall guy sat next to me so I gave him my aisle seat (so glad I did as we ended up spending the next few days in the same guided group!) The flight was only about half an hour, so soon we were landing with vast views of green rainforest either side of the plane. We collected our luggage and were met by some Sacha Lodge staff who quickly took our luggage off us and got us all onto a yellow school bus. We were shuttled to a little casa in a nearby town, where we had a snack, used the bathroom and had a little welcome briefing. We got given our lifejackets and then walked down the road to board a motorised canoe to go downriver. We had been warned not to worry that the driver was drunk, but rather the channel of the river followed an interesting but unmarked path, which the driver knew like the back of his hand, and the squiggly route was so as to avoid beaching the boat! After about two hours we landed ashore.

Along the river.

There was a small building with some toilets where we dumped our lifejackets and began a 20 minute walk through the jungle on a muddy boardwalk path to find a little opening to a creek and some small paddle canoes. They are about 8m Long and two people wide, and have little makeshift removable wooden chairs for us to sit in. The person who sits at the back (usually our indiginous guide, Jimmy) paddles and steers the boat with such grace you can barely see a ripple in the water, which helps to not scare any of the animals away.

Small canoe to the lodge.

We went up the brown water creek which was like a tunnel through the green jungle, the deafening noise of insects and birds and all the rainforest animals welcoming us! The creek opened up into a lake, and Sacha lodge came into view. The first building we saw was a big wooden bamboo building on stilts, right on the lake side. This is where breakfast and lunch is served. There is also a small decking for sunbathing and a little caged area in the lake for swimming. We got off the boats and were welcomed with a fresh lemonade, and were assigned our groups and introduced to our guides. We moved tables so we could all sit together. We have a 40 year old couple from New York in our group who work in fashion. Our naturalist guide is a 25 year old Ecuadorian guy called Louis, and our indigenous guide is a guy called Louis that has been nicknamed Jimmy so we don’t get the two guides muddled up! Louis speaks English and knows about plants and animals’ behaviours habits and growth patterns, which he learnt at university. Jimmy knows more about the local tribes behaviours, rituals and medicines and is also very good at spotting the birds and animals for us! We had an Amazonian snack, some BBQ chicken wings and other finger food before being shown to our cabins. Josh and I have a cabin adjoined to Mum and dads. We have comfortable beds, an ensuite shower room, and a little balcony with a hammock and some chairs on. The windows are just covered with mesh to keep the insects out, but so you can always hear the beautiful sounds of the rainforest outside, or the heavy wet rain falling from the sky. We regrouped and got in our canoe where we got orientated to the lake.

View of the lake from the lodge.

We saw a few different types of bird and a tarantula too! We came back and relaxed for a while until it got dark and then we went out on the canoe again. We saw bats and small caymen heads poking out of the water along the marshy shoreline. When we came back in we found a huge cayman next to the lodge, about 3m long! Then we went for dinner, we had octopus, heart of palm, beef and a passion fruit sorbet, can’t fault the food at all! The waiters are local high school kids which adds a touch of character too, a project Sacha lodge run to help the local communities. After dinner we went to our cabins and showered (using the provided eco soap), and got in to bed, listening to the sound of the rainforest waking up, as we fell to sleep. I wish I could always fall asleep to those sounds, I find it so relaxing!