Torrential Rain - What do you Expect?!

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Monkey Business

Early start 5.30am, six of the group travelled down the river to the bird watching tower. A steep climb to the top, up the slightly rickety structure. Here we remained for a good hour waiting to hear the morning dawn chorus. We waited for sometime before spotting some small bright yellow birds, lots of parakeets & vultures. In the distance we could hear Howler monkeys socialising, but no sightings unfortunately. However, we gained some great views of all the various canopy layers, such lush, green vegetation, lots of cotton trees visible and bizarre nests hanging from trees. Just as we arrived back at camp, we were lucky enough to come across a small group of Squirrel Monkeys playing in the nearby trees. Leaping from tree to tree, chasing each other, & extracting any fruit available from the trees. This time we were much closer to the action, so gained some great views and an incredible insight into their behaviour. They were incredibly playful, had gorgeous expressions & made the vegetation move wildly! Monkeys being a strong interest of both mine and Nick's, as we are still missing our ape friends in Borneo! We also saw some of my favourite flowers 'Heliconia' hanging from the trees.

Then we ate breakfast, & headed off in the motorised boat for our return journey, approximately three hours. However just as we boarded the boat it started to pelt down with torrential rain for the entire journey. Hidden underneath ponchos, we still managed to get sufficiently wet, & a little concerned for our baggage. However as it turned out our baggage remained dry, and it was just the passengers who became soaked. Staring at the boat floor, to try and hibernate ourselves as best as possible, few views were obtained! The journey seemed to take a lot longer than on the way and when we finally reached our destination the weather cleared & became bright again! Here we were given pasta meals, not enough for the vegetarians though as it seemed there were more vegetarians each day - perhaps the meat options were a little poor! We waited for sometime for our tourist bus, surrounded by mosquitoes, watching the odd bird, a few Toucans visible in the trees, & being entertained by a small hungry black kitten & some smelly chickens wandering around. Last time in the rainforest for sometime - a little sad!

Then we caught our bumpy ride back to Lago Agrio, where we got dropped off at the central bus station & managed to catch the 5.45pm bus back to Quito. We gained a free drink and biscuits with our bus ticket purchase! As we boarded the bus a lady got on, and described her difficulties to all the passengers on-board and then went around the bus asking for donations. Understanding a minimal amount, we donated a small amount of change, which she was eternally grateful for thanking us several times! It took eight hours to return back to Quito, arriving at 1.30am. We took a taxi back to our original hostel, accompanied by the USA family. Worried we might be spending the night on the streets with a few dubious people lurking around, we had to keep ringing the bell until the security guard finally agreed to allow us entry. Then we hit our beds exhausted.

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Photos

Favourite Exotic Flower
Heliconia