Maquipucuna

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Hey there!

Thursday morning week took off from Universidad de San Francisco at 7 in the morning to head to a cloudforest spot in Ecuador called Maquipucuna. It was about a 2 hour drive from Quito in a big coach travel bus.

When we got closer to the area where we would be staying we started passing through the most adorable villages ever. People were outside everywhere and would all wave at out bus passing. There were chicken coups at almost all of the houses and small gardens where bananas, papayas, guava and more yummy fruits grew. Also all their clothes were hanging outside to dry, making colorful clothes lines decorate the houses. I was quite jealous of the way their life style looked.

Maquipucuna is an ecological reserve that protects about 14,000 acres of biodiversity rich land. It holds 20% of Ecuador’s bird diversity, which you can quickly see because of the many humming birds flying around. I have never seen that many humming birds before; there were big ones, small ones, blue ones, white ones, and all gorgeous. The lodge we stayed in was absolutely heaven. My favorite part was the openness of it; there were few windows and screens, just open to outside. During the introduction to Maquipucuna from the manager he mentioned that they grow their own organic coffee and it is available after every meal, I was ecstatic. And it was the best coffee I’ve ever had. All of the meals at Maquipucuna were amazing; my favorite was the cold yogurt oatmeal for breakfast with delicious juice.

We stayed at Maquipucuna only until Friday. We did a classroom activity where we tried to measure the plant diversity of the forest on Thursday and Friday we went on about a 5-hour hike. The path for the hike was like nothing I’ve seen before, straight Indiana Jones. Our destination for the hike was a waterfall. It took about 2 and a half hours to get to the waterfall (mostly uphill). We got to the river and the guides told us we had to walk up the river a ways in order to get to the waterfall. It was definitely an adventure to say the least. The river was pretty strong and really cold. It was worth it, of course. The waterfall was huge and there was a rock in front of the waterfall that you could slide down into a pool of water. We couldn’t play in the water for too long for fear of getting hypothermia, so we sent on our way back to the lodge. The lunch after this all day excursion was the most rewarding meal ever. Then we hopped back on the bus and headed back to Quito. Maquipucuna was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. They regularly accept home stays for volunteers and work, I would love to live there for a while.

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Photos

Leaves
I became a little obsessed with all the leaves. They were colorful and big and had a cool texture.

Flowers
There are beautiful flowers everywhere because the climate is perfect. Orchids are the most common.

Orchids
These are under a normal green leave, you'd never know what was under it.

Explorers
We found a hut while wandering before lunch.

Small waterfall
This isn't the waterfall I talked about in my post. I didn't get pictures of that one for fear of ruining my camera.

The River
This is the river that went through camp and the one we walked up to the waterfall.

Humming bird
This is by far the best picture I have ever taken. It was through a telescope which is why there is a sphere around the bird.

Coffee
The "best coffee ever face."

New Bestie
This guy was in some one in the groups bed before they were going to sleep. It actually was a little scary because we didn't know if he was venomous or not, turns out he isn't.