02/27/10 Into The Amazon at Napo Wildlife Center

Boarding our plane in Quito for our half hour flight to Coca

Two mountain peaks above the clouds on flight to Coca

Our motorized boat on the River Napo

Ready to transfer to paddling canoes

Capachuan Monkey

Parrots at the first clay lick

Parakeets at the second clay lick

Shooting a blow dart gun

Boa Constrictor on night paddle

Female tarantula on overhead log on night paddle

We've been back in the "modern" world for a couple of days and it's time to talk about our three days in the Amazon. I'd have to say that I approached this portion of our trip with the most anxiety. I don't know if it's because the idea if the Amazon is so exotic or we had to have lots of shots to prepeare for this segment or it was just pretty much into the unkown. Once we are able to reflect on our time there it was all much easier and much more organized than I could have imagined. From the time we checked in at a private entrance to the Quito airport with VIP Airlines EVERYTHING was handled for us. A representative from Napo Wildlife Center was waiting for us at the airport. We checked in with her and she took our checked bagage and made sure it was checked on to the plane for us. We had a 30 minute flight downhill from Quito to an oil town named Coca on the Napo River. Since Quito is in a plateau of the Andes we never had to cross the Andes at all. It truly was downhill from the time we started. When we landed in Coca we were greeted by 3 more representatives from NWC who collected our bags and escorted us to a open air bus for our transfer to the Napo. We just had to make sure we saw our bags as they were loaded onto a motorized canoe. This canoe had leather seats on it that seemed to be like desk chairs mounted in the canoe. Very comfortable. This vessel was around 35 feet long (more or less). We took a criss cross route down the Napo for about 2 1/2 hours. The pilot of the boat had to avoid low water and logs that were submerged in the river. Once we arrived at our destination we left our boat at the Information Center. There we were divided our group of 14 was divided into 2 groups - one of 8 (ours) and one of 6. Each group had a naturalist guide a member of the local Kichwa tribe who knew all about the area and a paddler. Robbie was our naturalist guide and spoke really good English. Mariano was our Kichwa guide and Pato was our paddler. We then got into smaller canoes and were paddled 2 more hours up a much smaller river (actually more like a creek) thru the jungle to the lodge which was located on a lagoon.

The Anangu Kichwa community live in their ancestral terriory between the banks of the rivers Napo and Tiputini. Since the 70's they have been working to preserve 21,400 hectares of land that is within what is now Yasuni National Park. in 2001 the government of Ecuador recognized this land as the Anangu Kichwa's rightful home.

In 1998 the community members of Kichwa Anangu identified tourism as a way to generate income for their community while conserving their rainforest home. They are now 100% owners of the NWC. They have successfully implemented environmentally friendly practices recognized as the best example of community tourism in Ecuador and have also won important international awards for service and quality for visitors.

More as I can find the time and have access.