We’re at bird camp

May 19, 2013

There was a knock on the door. I could still hear it even though I had earplugs. I rolled over and looked at my iPhone and with my middle-aged vision barely made out the time: 4:30 a.m.

It was our wake-up call. Someone goes around knocking on doors when it’s time to get up. There are no phones, you see, at Sacha Lodge in the Amazon.

I took out the ear plugs and as I sat up in the bed the chorus of frogs and cicadas were still trying to “out sing” each other just as they did six hours before when I had shoved the earplugs in my ears with the hope of a good night’s sleep. I put my hand to my head and felt my thick, curly hair, which seemed to have grown bigger and more unruly during my sleep. (It’s what happens in humidity.)

I wiped my eyes and then said to Steve, “Babe, I feel like I’m at camp.”

“We are,” he said with his groggy voice. “We’re at bird camp.” And then he smiled that smile he gets when he knows he’s going to go birding.

A birder’s “vacation”

This is day two at Sacha Lodge in Ecuador where we’re vacationing.

Yes, the kind of vacationing where you get up at 4:30 in the freaking morning.

Every day.

But it’s what birders do. I know that now. (I should have been more specific when questioning this before I married the birder.)

We showered quickly, brushed our teeth using bottled water, lathered up with bug spray, put on our birding uniforms (cargo pants, long-sleeved breathable shirts, hiking boots), grabbed binoculars and camera batteries, hurled bags and gear over our shoulders, and made our way down the long, wooden staircase in the dark to the main lodge for our breakfast.

Stairs to cabins at Sacha Lodge

Breakfast was short, but very filling. There’s no shortage of food at Sacha Lodge. Yet as soon as we put the last bite in our mouths, our guide, Marcelo got us on our way. You don’t dilly dally around as a birder. Birds don’t wait for you and your guide knows that. We got into our a canoe and Marcelo and his assistant, Wilmer, paddled us down one of the creeks—the Amazon’s highways and paths are really waterways—where we met the trail that would take us to the great Kapok Tower.

Marcello takes us to the Kapok Tower down one of the many creeks in the Amazon.

Marcelo Andy takes us down Orchid Creek to the Kapok Tower in the Amazon.

X drink the rainwater from a bromeliad as seen from our canoe ride down Orchid Creek.

Opal Crowned Tanagers drink the rainwater from a bromeliad viewed from our canoe ride down Orchid Creek.

There’s a theme here: STAIRS

The Kapok Tower is a wooden tower constructed around a giant Kapok Tree, reaching 135 feet high. We had magnificent views around the area, much like we did at the Canopy Walkway the day before. Boy, I feel out of shape climbing these towers, but I was also glad for the challenging exercise. It at least made me feel like I earned my big meals back at the lodge.

Kapok Tower–an awesome tree house, for sure!

Steve and Wilmer look for birds

Marcelo and his sharp eyes looks for the birds (Steve has sharp eyes too.)

Yes we climbed this thing.

A few of the highlights

For some reason, I spent more time taking photos of the tower than I did birds. It was, indeed, very active at this tower, but I spent more time looking than I did shooting photos. We saw the Ornate Hawk Eagle, Laughing Falcon, the Golden-collard Toucanet and we were visited by the Many-banded Araçari right above our heads in the branches of the Kapok tree. That’s just a small sampling of what we saw up there in the big Kapok tree.

Gilded Barbet (click photo to enlarge)

Greater Ani (click photo to enlarge)

Lineated Woodpecker (click photo to enlarge)

Time for a dip with the anaconda, piranha and caiman

The Amazon is hot. Did I mention that before? I mean REALLY hot. So hot that after our morning at the Kapok Tower I didn’t hesitate to go for a dip in Lake Pilchicoacha—the lake just outside Sacha Lodge. The same lake where there are anaconda, piranha and caiman.

I didn’t care that reptiles of the alligator family were hanging around to cool off. Or big ass snakes like anaconda were lurking near the shore (which is why the sign says to not swim near the shoreline and why I obeyed that—we just jumped off the deck into the lake). And the piranha? Well, I had previously read from a reviewer on TripAdvisor that the piranha are asleep during the day and so as long as we didn’t wake them we’d be okay. And everyone knows that everything on the Internet is true, right?

So, shhhhhhh. Don’t wake the piranha.

Proof I’m in that water. That’s me taking a photo of the Sacha Lodge deck from Lake Pilchicoacha. (Shhh, don’t wake the piranha.)

Steve is even braver. He brought snorkel gear so he could see what was lurking beneath the water. (Too murky. Didn’t see much.)

The dip was so worth it as it cooled our bodies in the Amazonian heat, though we didn’t stay in the water too long. If we had one of those floating styrofoam noodles, that would have been awesome and I would have hung out there longer, but we didn’t and dog paddling around wasn’t much fun. Plus, I was worried we’d wake the piranha. (Shhhhhh!)

We made our way back to our room to notice that the leaf cutter ants were busily collecting their leaves and we noticed prickly tree trunks and big ass fruit that looked about the size of a bowling ball.