Back from the Cloud Forest
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2008
1
7
21
Trip End
Sep 20, 2008
Mindo,
Ecuador
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
we were picked up for a 2 hour ride to the Cloud Forest outside of
Quito. The Cloud Forest is considered a sub-tropical rain forest
(because of the altitude) and is on the slopes of the Andes. It's at
about 2300m and is a haven for hummingbirds (as well as all sorts of
other birds) and also home to a wide variety of orchids. There are some
330 kinds of birds in the preserve we stayed in, many of them endemic
to Ecuador. We were sleeping in a geodesic dome (sort of) made
of bamboo. It was definitely a unique lodging experience. It also had
the smallest bathroom I've ever been in that wasn't on an RV or a boat.
We had gorgeous views of the mountains shrouded in clouds out of our
window. We were there for 3 days, which is a fairly typical stay,
though some people come up just for the day. There were early morning
bird watching walks--which reinforced my belief that I am not cut out
for bird watching--I couldn't see 80% of what the guide was pointing
out. But we did see a toucan, a Potoo (which is sort of like an owl but
not quite), some hawks, many hummingbirds, and some other very colorful
birds. Most of the time was spent hiking. There are trails all
through the preserve, and once you get out on them you are surrounded
by prehistoric looking plants, and no other people around. You can hear
all sorts of birds and frogs and insects, though you can't see much
because the vegetation is so dense. There are lots of ferns, orchids,
epiphytes, and almost everything has extremely large leaves. The
highlight of our hiking was getting down to see a waterfall, it took
some effort, but was well worth it.The other highlight of the
Cloud Forest was the people we met. All the meals are communal, so you
got a lot of opportunities to talk to the other people staying there.
We rode up in a van with Dan (a creative writing professor who teaches
at Oberlin) and his son Phillip (who is taking a year off before
starting college and spending 6 months volunteering at the lodge--and
who astonished us by walking off of the van and immediately identifying
8 or 9 hummingbirds at the speeder by species name). There were 4 women
there from San Francisco who were stopping over as part of a 3 or 4
week tour through Ecuador, and several other young couples--one an
Australian woman and her South African husband, and 2 Americans from
northern California. Just a good group of people in all.We're
back at Casa Sol in Quito, and have been moved to a different room
which is much larger and up on the top floor with slanted ceilings.
We're sitting by the fireplace in the lobby, enjoying the wirelesss
internet access. We have 2 more days in Quito, and then late on
Thursday night we catch an overnight flight to Santiago, Chile. I'm
hoping to get some pictures posted tomorrow! Sadly uploading pictures
is much more time consuming than updating the journal.
