12/06/2019 – Day 1 of Sacha Lodge, Ecuador

We had a wake up knock on the door by the park ranger at 05:30, a nice little personal touch (unsurprisingly there are no telephones here!) We sprayed a load of mosquito repellent over ourselves, put on our long sleeved tops and geeky walking trousers along with our provided wellington boots. Then we went for some breakfast in the open lake side building. We met our guide at 06:30 and set off through the forest until we got to a metal tower. We climbed up to a height of about 40m and crossed a suspension bridge to the middle tower. Dad managed to do it even though heights aren’t his favourite thing, good on him! Although he did look like a blind person as he guided himself across slowly with the help of the hand ropes.

Bill looking like a blind man.

Bridge looking fairly ropey.

To be fair, the more I looked at the construction/lack of safety features the more I started to wobble too! We set ourselves up, binoculars, telescope and cameras poised and waited. With the help of our two guides we spotted some amazing toucans.

Help from our guide.

My favourite was black and yellow striped, it looked like a toucan in fancy dress as a bee! We saw many other birds including a bright turquoise one, and loads of green and yellow parrots. We also saw a sloth, which actually moved a lot faster than I thought it would. Our guide said they go down to the ground once a week to poo and maybe that’s what this one was up to! We also saw a big orange howler monkey, that made a really weird loud noise, kind of like the sound of a plane flying overhead. We saw a smaller black monkey called a marmosette just hanging out on a tree. On the walk back to base we spotted two fantastic owls perched in the tree, they had big grandad grey eyebrows and looked so cartoon like! We also saw a couple of night monkeys snuggled up to each other, having a doze in a big hole in the trunk of a tree, they had huge big round eyes so to see in the dark with. When we got back we got shown a boa constrictor snake in a tree, and witnessed some birds spot the snake and start making noises so as to warn each other not to land there.

We had a snack and refreshed and then went to watch some guys from an animal sanctuary release some animals into the wild. They work in partnership with Sacha lodge, and rescue, recover and release into the wild animals that have been rescued from inappropriate homes and the black market. We even each got to release terrapins into the wild, which was amazing, what a special moment! They were quite strong and it was a bit freaky at first, but they swam off into their new home without much hesitation, a little look back at us and then they were gone! We also watched the guys release some caymen. We had lunch in our little group, Yuca soup, Amazonian catfish, smoked pork, mashed plantain, all cooked wrapped in banana leaves. We had a swim in the caged area, like a little plunge pool. It was warm on the surface but pretty chilly deep down, and we could see little fish swimming around. I fell asleep in the sun on the decking area then we went back to our lodge to reset. We regrouped and went for a guided walk, we saw the smallest monkeys in the world, three of them jumping and playing around. The lodge here is working in partnership with some students from Quito university who are studying these monkeys, as they are an endangered species now. We saw more birds too. Our guide Jimmy told us about the different plants and trees in the forest, and how the Amazonian people utilise these for making things like hammocks and hats, as well as which plants they use for different ailments and illnesses. We got back with enough time for a very quick shower and then had a BBQ dinner on the decking in our group with our guides.