14/06/2019 – Day 3, Sacha Lodge, Ecuador

The usual 05:30 knock got us up again. As we walked down to breakfast a staff member pointed up into the tree, and we managed to count more than 27 little squirrel monkeys jumping over our heads in the trees! Definitely worth waking up for! All the staff, whether they are guides or working on maintenance, are good at pointing out animals to the guests. The other two guests from our group are leaving this morning so it is just the four of us with our two guides for the day. We met near the canoes and went for a little paddle, we saw monkeys hopping right over our heads again on the way, they move so elegantly, and are so inquisitive, they are so joyful to watch! We also saw a large orange howler monkey on the move down a tree. We landed ashore and went for a little hike. We saw the monkeys again a few times and even spotted larger capuccino monkeys with squirly tails!

Capuccino monkeys

We found a star shaped fruit on the floor that the Jimmy made into a stamp, and stamped the sleeve of mums top with. The natural wax of the fruit will stain the print on the top, how cool! My clothes were too dark for it to be effective on sadly. On the way back in the canoes we got up close with the little monkeys again! We stopped to watch them jump over our heads and play for a while before making our way back to the lodge. We had a snack and a coffee before heading back to our cabins for a brief chill on the verandas in the hammocks. We went for lunch then had a coffee. Mum and Josh had a dip in the caged pool even though it was raining because they said they had too! I was too cold and sat under their coats. Afterwards we walked up to the gift shop and Josh and I bought a tee shirt souvenir to share (a little small for him, a little big for me but kind of works both ways!) and then walked up to the butterfly house. There were lots of owl eye butterflies and some turquoise winged butterflies too. Josh got two soldier ant bites on his feet as he was only wearing flip flops. He also found loads of red bites all over his bottom, I guess he had ants in his pants, dad has given him some antihistamine! We went back to our cabin where I fell asleep reading my magazine, mum and dad nodded off, and Josh edited some of his photos. At 16:00 we went down to the lake to meet our guides at the canoes. We got paddled across the lake and went for a nice walk where we saw more cappuccino monkeys and ended the walk with the sunset over the river, which was lovely. We saw some more caymen when paddling back over the lake to the lodge. As soon as we landed ashore again we had a buffet dinner with our guide Louis and then went home to our cabins to pack up in preparation for travel day tomorrow. Mum tried to have a shower and there was only a few drops in it so we had all managed a little wash to get by but are looking forward to a proper hair wash in Quito tomorrow!