02/28/10 Day one at NWC

Up EARLY and getting into the canoe!

Dawn on the lagoon

Native canoe along the bank of the creek

A Kite in flight

At the first parrot clay lick

Connie in the viewing blind

Blow dart with kit - poison was stored in gourd

"Bwana" with the blow gun and darts

Along the trail in the afternoon

Back at the lagoon just before dusk - a long day!

We were given a wake up knock on the door this morning at 5:00! We met in the dining hut for a breakfast at 5:30 and by 6:00 were loaded back into our paddling canoes with Robbie, Mariano and Pato for a paddle back up the creek. We took a slow paddle and the guides were amazing at pointing out many creatures that we would have NEVER seen by ourselves. We saw monkeys, a boa constrictor, many, many birds and butterflies including many blue morphos. I wish I could load the video I have taken but for ehatever reason it won’t load. Too bad, it really gives you a feel for where we were.

After about and hour we arrived back at the information center. We were transferred back into the motorized canoe for a short trip to the first of 2 parrot clay licks we would visit. Parrots and parakeets visit the locks daily to eat the clay which assists with their digestion. The NWC have constructed comfortable blinds where we were able to observe the colorful spectacle of these beautiful playful birds. Here is where the video would give you a real feel for the activity and noise! I posted a couple of images on an earlier post but it does no justice. Some of the birds stay up in the surrounding trees as watch birds and they take turns watching and eating. We were lucky in that the day we went conditions were perfect and we saw hundreds of birds eating at both licks. The very next day the other group saw no birds on the ground – perhaps a hawk was threatening them.

We stayed at the licks for around 3 hours and then went back to the Information center on a trail where we were served a lunch and saw what the old Kichwa villages were like. There was a meeting room where we met a shaman or yachaj in Kichwa who treated Lorraine for her larangitis in the old way. It was pretty cool to watch all the chanting and waving of palm leaves around Lorraine. Later she felt a little better to boot! We all then had a chance to try our hand with shooting a blow gun at a target parrot. The tube was real long and pretty heavy and hard to aim. That’s my excuse as I missed with every shot! Dave Tivoli hit the parrot with his first shot and Lorraine hit the post under the parrot. Pretty cool! The darts themselves were real slender and we were told the Kichwa can hit their prey up to 50 meters! After that we bought some souvenirs at another little hut and were off for our next activity.

We loaded back into the motorized canoe for a 20 minute trip to Mariano’s home. We looked at his compound and then started our walk back thru the jungle on a native trail where we eventually were on the other side of the lagoon. Again, they saw all sorts of stuff we never would have seen! About an hour out from the finish it started to rain and eventually we were pretty soaked. We all said it would have been have been unfortunate not to be rained on in a rain forest so we got our wish. It really wasn’t cold so we weren’t troubled at all by the rain. At the end of the trail a canoe was there with Pato waiting for us and we got back to the lodge at about 4:30. So, up at 5 in the morning and back at 4:30 in the afternoon. A pretty long day but we weren’t done yet. We went for an hour paddle in the dark, back up the same creek to observe night time activity. Robbie had a bright spotlight he used to see creatures in the trees and along the creek. We spotted a female tarantula on a log over our heads. She lives in a hole in that log and is almost always out at night. Later Mariano spotted a juvenile boa constrictor and we watched it get into a threatening strike position. We left him alone and went back to the lodge for our first dinner. Amazing food when you consider that everything we ate had to come from Coca by canoe. Around 8:30 we were really ready for sleep to prepare for the next day. I can say I slept like a baby in a mosquito netted bed.

More about day 2 later..