Ecuador - The Avenue of Volcanos

Fruit & veg in a market town in the Avenue of Volcanos

After saying goodbye to our host family at the end of our week long Spanish Course, Angel, the father of the host family, kindly drove us to the meeting place for the next part of our trip in Ecuador. Whilst walking around in Quito we had seen several bus trips advertised by various tour companies. The trip we wanted would take us from Quito, down the Avenue of Volcanoes to the Cotopaxi National Park, Banõs, the Devil’s Nose train ride and then on to Cuenca. However, we thought the arranged trips were expensive compared to arranging most of it ourselves and using the public buses. In the end we decided to do a bit of both. We bought an organized group trip with one night in their hotel near Cotopaxi and then from there we would take the public buses.

The minibus and the bikes

Quilotoa Crater Lake

The minibus arrived and we began the journey south to the first part of the trip to Quilotoa Crater Lake. The minibus dropped us off near the top of the crater where it was a short walk to the rim and a fantastic view of the lake about 400m below. It is a caldera like the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania only this one is filled with water. The weather was pretty good but cold at this altitude so we started the very steep walk down to the lakes edge. 


Taking the lazy option



Clouded Cotopaxi volcano (5897m)

It was really dusty especially when the mules that carried passengers back up the slope headed speedily past us on their way back down again. The crater was formed about 800 years ago after the volcano erupted and then collapsed.  After a drink and a rest at the edge of the water it was time to go back up to the top of the crater again. To make a change we thought we would take the easy way up by paying a cheap fare for a mule ride. It was a bumpy but fun. We felt a bit sorry for the mules carrying us up there but they seemed used to it.

Poor picture of Andean fields

The crater lake almost looks unreal as it seems to be perfectly round with various shades of blue green water. It was an impressive sight. The minibus then drove us to our remote but comfortable hotel. As normal it was cold in the room and so the owners lit a wood burning stove for us. This warmed the room up nicely but left things smelling a bit smoky. After breakfast we loaded our bags into the minibus and were driven up to the small car park on Cotopaxi. On the way we could see valleys and the Andean mountains. No matter how steep the land was the locals had managed to use every inch to grow various crops. It was quite a sight to see ploughed fields on the mountain sides.


Iren at 5000 meters on Cotopaxi

 


The easy way. Cycling down Cotopaxi

 From the car park it was a steep hour or so walk up to the Cotopaxi Base Camp. This was a mountain hut where the people that were going to the top would stay the night and make an early start. Cotopaxi is Ecuador's second highest mountain/volcano and is 2 meters higher than Kilimanjaro at 5897 meters. Our day trip was really just a short walk up to the glacier at 5000 meters and then back down again. We didn’t feel any affects of the altitude other than we had to walk slowly. The view was great although it kept disappearing in the clouds. The walk back down to the minibus was much easier than the walk up. The next part of the day trip was to cycle down. The mountain bikes were taken off the roof of the minibus and we started to freewheel most of the way down from about 4300 meters. It was cold but we were prepared with warm clothes. We took it slowly and enjoyed the spectacle and the views.

Waiting for a bus on the Pan American Highway

The minibus followed us down and at the end drove us back to the main road. At this point we left the organized trip and stood at the road side with our bags. It was the busy Pan American Highway that runs the length of South America. There are no bus stops so you have to flag down a bus. We were a bit nervous since we hadn’t done this before. After a short wait we saw a bus in the distance and started waving. Just as we had been told it stopped. We just about managed to ask where it was going in Spanish. We took it Ambato where we changed for another bus to Banõs. We had heard various stories of the dangers of taking these buses so we were a bit wary but everything went fine. The buses are really cheap and surprisingly comfortable if a little crowded at times.


View from hostal in Baños 



Viewing one of the many waterfalls

We arrived in the early evening and stayed two nights in Baños. We were unlucky with the weather. Our guest house owner told us that there really were great views but unfortunately we didn’t get to see them. The next morning we rented bikes and followed a typical tour down the valley to see the various waterfalls. The valley sides are covered in cloud forest and we experienced quite a lot of rain and therefore didn’t take many photos. After about 20km we came to what our guide book said was the most spectacular waterfall. It was about a 30 minute walk from the road down a small path to get to the bottom of the valley and the waterfall. If the visitors weren’t already wet from the rain they would be from the spray of the impressive Pailón del Diablo waterfall. Conveniently there were locals offering to transport us and the bikes back up the valley to Baños. There were several other cyclists like us that didn’t fancy the long uphill ride back in the rain and so we all shared a ride back into town. We spent the rest of the day looking around the town of Baños. The next morning we were off again and most of the day was spent on the bus to Alusí via Riobamba. The bus dropped us off on the edge of town so we walked down the hill to the centre and struggled for a while to find our hostal. Eventully we found it after a friendly women walked us there. We soon discovered that the only two restaurants in town were closed so our evening meal consisted of snacks from the local bakery.

At the bottom of the Devil's Nose

Railway Points on the Devil's Nose track

The reason for coming to Alusí was to ride on the famous “Devil’s Nose Train” and experience the way the train manages to descend approximately 800 meters down the mountain side in just a few kilometers. The track was finished in 1908 and used switch backs as a way of managing the very steep terrain. The train stops, the points are changed and the train reverses onto the new part of the track taking it either up or down. The journey took about an hour and gave some impressive views of the valley.

Dancers at the Devil's Nose station

The New Cathedral in Cuenca

At the end of the line was a small station where some traditional dancers entertained the tourists as we looked around the museum and ate lunch. After the journey back up the side of the Devil’s Nose mountain we collected our bags from the hostel and made our way back to flag down another bus to Cuenca. After having waited about half an hour a small minibus with a few passengers on it stopped and the driver asked if we wanted a lift to Cuenca. We paid a couple of dollars each and were driven the 3 hours or so to Cuenca.

Inca pot, Cuenca

Indoor market in Cuenca

Cuenca was regarded as the second Inca capital after Cuzco in Peru. The centre of the city today, as is the case for many places, bears witness to how the Spanish changed it in the colonial period that started after 1557. It was a busy place with lots of tourists and interesting to look around. Our hotel/hostel was only a few minutes walk from the main square, the Parque Calderõn which has the old and new cathedral on opposite sides. We spent 3 nights in Cuenca which we thought was about right.

Inside Cuenca's old cathedral

Guayaquil in the evening

One of the museums contained lots of Inca artifacts which we enjoyed looking around. It was nearly time to leave Ecuador and travel south to Peru where we hoped to really get immersed in Inca history. We were unsure of how to get down to Lima. The tourist bus was fairly cheap but took about 28 hours. The plane was more expensive but only took 3 hours. We decided on the plane with a flight from Ecuadors second city, Guayaquil. The next day we took a short afternoon flight from Cuenca to Guayaquil where we spent the evening walking around it's busy streets and a very pleasant walk along the prominade area by the river. The next day had a very early start with a flight to Lima with a connecting flight to Cuzco, the capital and navel of the Inca world.

Ecuador - Learning Spanish in Quito

Typical dinner with our friendly host family 

After landing back at the airport we were met by a representative from the Simon Bolivar School. He drove us the half hour or so to the house of the host family that would also be our home for the next week. We were looking forward to meeting the family although we were a bit worried since we don't speak any Spanish and we didn't know what is was going to be like there.

We have thought about making a serious effort to learn some Spanish before but nothing had come of our good intentions. We found out that Quito was a good place to learn Spanish since they have the closest dialect to “Spanish Spanish” in Ecuador. Before we left home we used the internet to find a Spanish language school in Quito and booked our place on a 1 week introductory course. There were several schools and in the end we chose the Simon Bolivar School. They also offered various forms of accommodation. We thought the option of staying with a host family for a week sounded an interesting way to also experience how a typical Ecuadorian family lived and of course to get to know them.

After meeting our host family, it soon became clear that with our limited (almost non-existent) Spanish and their equally limited English, communication would be difficult. Luckily they had Wi-Fi and so once again, as in Italy, Google's iTranslate came to the rescue. We didn't use it all the time but sometimes, no matter how hard you try and gesticulate, mime or use whatever comes to hand to try and be understood it is impossible to communicate and iTranslate was the only answer. On the first evening we found out that we were not the only pupils from the language school staying at the house. Christina, from Houston Texas, had been there for about a month and was going to be there for at least another month if not two. It was a great advantage for us having Christina there since she could help with communication when we were struggling. The course started at 08:30 each morning and lasted for 4 hours. Our class consisted of just the two of us and our teacher, Carlos. On the first morning Carlos taught us in his office dressed in a smart suit and tie.  He suggested that we try and sit outside for the second day. The rest of the course was conducted in the less formal atmosphere of the garden and without the suit and tie. Carlos was a great teacher and managed to remain enthusiastic throughout the whole week. We had plenty of homework to do. We did most of this in the afternoons in various cafes in the centre of Quito. We both agreed that learning Spanish in this way for four hours each morning was very effective. There is no way that we would have had the discipline to do four hours each day without being on the course.

On a couple of the afternoons after our homework was finished we visited some of the sites in or around Quito. Since Quito is more or less on the equator we had to make the short trip north to the actual equator. They have set up a kind of Equator Theme Park, which we were afraid would turn out to be a bit of tourist trap. In the end it was actually quite good. There were lots of small demonstrations about the peculiarities of being on the equator, all of them fascinating. I have often heard people discuss or ask whether water goes down the plughole in the opposite direction on the other side of the equator or not. I thought that in theory it would but it is difficult to test in practice since there are so many things that can interfer and influence the flow. However, here they had a very simple test to demonstrate water going down the plughole in different directions depending on which hemisphere it was done in. Whether it was a trick or not everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

After the week we had learned a fair amount of vocabulary and how the present tense works. I'm sure we'll forget a lot of what we've learnt during the week but hopefully when we try to learn some more at a later date it will come back to us. I think we'll find an evening course back home and sign up for something like one evening a week. It was interesting to live with our host family for the week. They were all very friendly to us and tried to understand what we said. They were very used to having people like us staying with them and evidence of this was everywhere to see. There were pictures on the walls and hanging from strings across the ceiling of all the students that had stayed with them over the last ten years. The family was proud of all the connections that they had with people from all over the world. We'll send them a picture of us when we get back home to add to their collection of satisfied students. We really appreciated the hospitality!

Ecuador - Visiting the Amazon



View of the lagoon from the Napo Lodge

After visiting the Galapagos Islands we had a day back in Quito to plan a bit and see some more of the town before heading off to the airport again for our early flight east to Coca and the Napo Wildlife Lodge for 4 days and 3 nights. The Napo Wildlife Lodge is in Ecuador’s part of the Amazon and offers a chance to stay in comfort in the jungle and explore the area via the narrow rivers and on foot. There is a lot of wildlife to see in the area. We were met at Coca airport by our guide from the lodge. She drove us, and a few others that were on the same trip, the short distance to the Napo River port.

Relaxing in the speed canoe

To get to the lodge required cruising on two boats. The first was a 2 hour motorised canoe cruise down the Napo River. The boat was long and thin with one seat on each side and enough space for about 20 rows. It had really comfortable leather chairs that made it feel luxurious as we sped up river. At this point the Napo is very wide with long sweeping curves and the occasional mud bank in the middle. The boat eventually turned into a small tributary where we changed into a modern wooden canoe 4 rows of two seats. There was an indigenous man paddling at the front and back of the canoe with the occasional help of our guide.

Paddling to the Napo Wildlife Lodge

Motorised boats are not allowed in this part of the Napo National Park for environmental reasons and also not to disturb the wildlife. It took about 1.5 hours to be paddled to the lodge. Along the way we saw lots of different types of birds and a family of Giant River Otters. They were difficult to spot but easy to hear as they made loud, strange noises. They were really big, about as long as a person. I don't think we've seen an otter in the wild so this was a great first. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to get a good photo of them since they were mainly behind vegetation all the time. The river was just how you would imagine a river in the Amazon Basin to be with muddy banks, lots of green vegetation and trees on either side and the various noises of the jungle.

Individual rooms at the lodge

At the top of the lookout tower

 The trees shaded us from the sun but in the parts where the sun shone through it was hot even though it was the winter. We were in the rain forest and after a while it began to rain as it does everyday. Luckily for us the company carries very good waterproof ponchos that were given out each time the guide thought that the light rain would turn heavy.  Eventually the river came out into a large lagoon where we could see the lodge at the other end. Each 'room' was a round hut with a straw roof. They were well equipped and had a good mosquito net around our double bed. The first trip from the lodge started after breakfast at 07 the next morning. We were a group of 6 and were again paddled in a long canoe down one of the many small tributaries off the lodge's lagoon.




Squirel monkies queueing to cross

They stopped paddling when we heard movement and rustling in the trees. After a short time the noises revealed themselves to be a troop of about 60 Squirrel Monkeys making their way through the jungle via the tree tops. We watched from the canoe as they crossed the river from above. They were in a line above our heads walking up the trunk of a palm tree that leaned conveniently half way across the river and then leaping across the river and landing in another palm tree on the other side. It was great fun to watch. The canoe then came to the end of the river where we all got out and walked for about 20 minutes through the jungle to a man made viewing tower. The tower was built by the side of a giant tree that was 38 meters tall. The viewing platform was built onto the top of the tree which gave a fantastic panoramic view over the top of the jungle canopy. We got our binoculars out and waited patiently for the birds. Every so often the guide would point and we would try to spot the what he had seen.

A huge Kapok tree by the tower

Bird watching from the canopy tower

We were there for about two hours and saw a lot of colourful birds that we have never seen before. For those that are interested, here is a list of some of them: Greater Yellow-headed vulture, Snail Kite, various parrots and parakeets, a Hoatzin, a Great Potoo, Ringed Kingfishers, a White-fronted Nunbird, Gailed Barbets, a White-throated Toucan, a Many-banded Aracari, Crimson-crested Woodpeckers and several Yellow-rumped Caciques . We also saw a couple of sloths moving characteristically slowly in a tree but they were too far away to get a good photo of.

View from the Canopy Tower

We returned the same way back to the lodge and by now the sun was high in the sky and it was beginning to get hot. After a couple of hours of free time and lunch we were ready for the next excursion. It started to rain heavily about half an hour earlier so it was decided to delay the start of the excursion another half an hour in the hope that the rain would ease off. The wildlife is more difficult to see in the heavy rain as they tend to keep still. The rain eased off a bit but not very much. Everyone was keen to go out even if we didn’t see too much so we set off using the lodges excellent rain ponchos. We saw a few animals despite of the rain such as a vine snake, another sloth, a caiman and some song birds.

Gekko on the night walk

The rain had eased off before our night walk around the area of the lodge. We all set off with head lamps eager to see what the Amazon had to offer at night. There were lots of different jungle noises all around us and soon we saw various insects, a huge dragon fly, large spiders and ants and a green lizard. It was then back to the lodge for dinner. The food in the lodge was prepared by the local indigenous community and it was excellent.


Dark green Parrots on the Clay-Lick

The next morning we were again up very early and off back down the river to watch the parrots at the local clay lick. They arrive at around the same time every day and land in the trees overlooking the clay lick and wait until they feel it is safe to “lick”. The fruits that the parrots eat are very acidic and they can’t digest them. The parrots know that they will get sick unless they eat some clay. Certain cliffs in the Amazon have exposed areas of clay. The clay helps to neutralise the acidity of the fruit. At this particular Clay Lick there were probably about 200 parrots of varying types. It was quite a sight to see them suddenly descend from the branches of the nearby trees and perch on the cliff and lick the clay. The cliff was part of the river bank and we viewed them from the boat. Later that day we visited an inland clay lick but unfortunately we didn’t get to see them “lick”. They were in the trees but a bird of prey was flying around and so the parrots didn’t feel safe enough to land.

Demonstrating the traditional traps

Phil trying a blowpipe

In the afternoon our group visited a small village showing how the indigenous people used to live. They danced, showed us various working traps that they used for catching animals and they showed us how to use a blowpipe.

Iren hard at work

Paddling down a small tributary

Each time we went out on an excursion in the canoe we had the same two indigenous paddlers; one at the front and one at the back. They were incredible paddlers. They paddled as though they were machines only stopping if they saw something that they thought we interest us. We like paddling our kayaks at home and since there was a spare paddle in the canoe we asked if we could have a go.

One of many Yellow-rumped Caciques

A small Caiman trying to hide

We tried our best but soon found out that we had no chance of keeping the same rhythm as them. After just a couple of minutes our shoulders would burn and we would have to rest. Paddling canoes with tourists everyday like they do certainly turns them into impressive athletes.

 
The lodge also had a viewing tower for bird watching. It looked out over the lagoon and the jungle. It was very serene to spend some time up there in the late afternoon with the binoculars looking out over the lagoon watching the birds and listening to the jungle sounds.

Walking through the Rainforest

The last day was again an early start and we paddled back to the main river, transferred to the comfortable motorised canoe and were delivered back to the airport in time to catch our flight back to Quito. Our trip in the jungle had been wonderful and more than lived up to our expectations.
 
The next part our trip is to stay with a family in Quito and attend a Spanish Language School for a week.

Ecuador - Galapagos

Bartolome Island, Galapagos

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador, after a 15 hour flight from Oslo via Amsterdam. Unfortunately Phil’s luggage didn't come with the plane due to some difficulties with the  luggage system in Oslo. Luckily it arrived the next day. We were glad that we had two days in Quito before leaving for the Galapagos. The main reason for visiting Ecuador was the Galapagos Islands. This is another place that we’ve always wanted to experience and to see the special wildlife on these islands. The Islands became famous of course after Charles Darwin. They lie 960 km (600 miles) to the west of Ecuador and are entirely volcanic. They came into existence 4 million years ago and were never connected to mainland South America. Therefore all of its wildlife had to somehow cross the long stretch of sea from the mainland. This explains why there are mainly sea birds and sea mammals in the archipelago. The animals on the islands are not timid as is normal in other places. This is probably due to their lack of predators.

Iren snorkling

Charles Darwin visited the islands in the 1830’s and observed that the species differed according to the local conditions on each island. There are for example several similar species of finches that differ in the size and shape of their beak. Some have thick beaks so that they can split seeds, whilst others have long, thin beaks that are more suitable to catch insects. Darwin later attributed these differences to the process of natural selection.

A Frigate on Seymour Island

The Galapagos Islands are expensive visit and so we were particularly pleased to have found what we thought were reasonably priced tickets to fly to the Galapagos from Quito. However, we felt cheated when we checked in for our LAN flight and were told that we had to pay more than $300 extra because we were not from Ecuador. We tried to argue, but to no avail. There were several other people complaining about the same thing. To keep costs down we decided not to go on a cruise which is how most people visit the Galapagos Islands. Instead we stayed in Porta Ayora on Santa Cruz, the main island, and made day trips from there. This worked out very well as Iren felt a bit sea sick from time to time and was glad that she was not on a boat for the whole week.

Phil and a Giant Tortoise

 We arrived in the afternoon after our flight from Quito via Guayaquil. Our first experience of the wildlife was to visit the Charles Darwin Centre. One of their main efforts is breeding giant tortoises for conservation. We tried to spot the oldest tortoise there called Lonesome George, the last of his particular species and over 100 years old. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to see him as he was hidden away in the vegetation. Perhaps he was unwell and hiding since we saw in the news a couple of days after leaving the Galapagos that he had died. 

Iren walking along Tortuga Bay

Heron on Tortuga Bay

The next day we went to Tortuga Bay. A 30 minute walk led us to a beautiful long white beach. We walked on the sand to the end of the beach and saw our first group of Marine Iguanas. They are peculiar creatures and look almost like prehistoric dragons. They were completely unfazed by our presence. After a while observing them we walked on to a safe part of the beach, more like a lagoon where there are no strong currents. We enjoyed the peace and quiet there swimming and dozing in the shade. 

Baby, mummy & daddy Marine Iguana

Caldera

In the afternoon we hired a taxi to take us to the “Highland attractions” on the island. The vegetation was green and lush and very different from the desert like conditions of the lowland. We saw two calderas. These are formed by the collapse of the magma chamber under a volcano. We were reminded of the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania although these craters were much smaller. Another feature of previous volcanic activity are the lava tunnels.

Iren entering the lava tunnel

A new species of Giant Tortoise

These are formed when lava pours down from the volcano. The outer layers cool and solidify whereas the lava further down is still warm and continues to flow until it spills out onto the surrounding countryside leaving a hollow tube. These lava tunnels can be several miles long. We visited one such tunnel and it was interesting to see how smooth the inside was. It took about 20 minutes to walk through. We continued on to visit Rancho Primicias where there were giant tortoises in the wild. They really were gigantic. We fitted quite easily into an empty tortoise shell. It was fairly heavy so the tortoises must be strong to carry it around and maybe that explains why they are so slow? We observed them eating and bathing. They didn’t seem too bothered by us being there although we kept a little distance away. Looking at these creatures they seem so old and prehistoric.

Blue-footed Boobies

A male Frigate

The next day we set off on a day boat trip to North Seymour Island. From the moment we landed on the island we saw plenty of the most famous Galapagos birds; the Frigate and the Blue Footed Booby. The male Frigate has a large red pouch underneath his beak. This is inflated in the mating season to attract the females. In addition to a great pouch he also has to build a good nest. If the female is impressed with both of these features then the male gets a mate. The Blue Footed Booby has, as the name suggest, blue feet. The blueness of the feet is an attraction to the opposite sex. In the mating season the male birds shows off his feet with a stepping “dance”.

Booby on a nest

Phil with the Sea Lions

The eggs are laid on the ground and the male and female share the incubation. After visiting the island we stopped off on a sandbank with lots of Sea Lions. This was Iren’s highlight of the Galapagos trip because the baby sea lions were so cute and playful. They would swim along side us whilst we were snorkeling. Iren would swim as fast as she could under the water and the baby sea lions would join her. Luckily the big male sea lions kept away. The males are very large and intimidating. Every so often they would make loud calls as if to say "stop playing with the humans" and the baby Sea Lions would swim away only to come back again a few minutes later.

Pup and mother on the sand bank

Waiting to steal from Pelican's mouth

We went on a bay tour the next day and saw more, Frigates and Blue Footed boobies, Iguanas and sharks. The sharks were just lying still on the bottom. We snorkeled but didn’t see that much, just a few small fish, because the visibility was quite poor. We walked a bit inland to Las Grietas, a deep pool with a mixture of fresh and salt water. This type of pool is a typical feature on volcanic islands. The locals entertained us by diving acrobatically from the high cliffs above.

Lava Cactus on Bartolome Island

Galapagos Hawk right over our heads

We set off early the next day to get to Bartolome Islands. It took 2-3 hours in the boat and there were quite a lots of waves. The island is very gold and barren with just a few plants. The Lava Cactus is only found on a few Galapagos islands and stick out of the sand like fingers. A boardwalk took us steeply up to the top of the island. It was windy and very hot. From the top the view was magnificent. The different colours of red, black and yellow were interspersed with some vivid green vegetation. These colours were contrasting against the very blue sea and sky. Suddenly, as we were admiring the view, a Galapagos Hawk was hovering just above over heads. We thought it was going to dive bomb us, but luckily it just circled peacefully showing us it's beautiful wings.

Pinnacle Rock, Bartolome Island

Tortuga Bay

We could se the lovely beaches below and we were looking forward to swimming down there. Once down, the boat dropped us off at the Pinnacle rock. The rock sticks out of the water and there were plenty of colourful fish. We could swim into steams of fish and they seemed to be just carrying on with their business and ignoring us. The water was clear so we could see the fish really well. Suddenly Iren saw a penguin whizz by beneath us and we were both so pleased that we saw it.  It swam very quickly. After a nice lunch on board the anchored boat we set off home from beautiful Bartolome Island.

Paddling in Tortuga Bay

Tree Cactus at Tortuga Bay

We spent our last day on the Galapagos at Tortuga bay. We rented a kayak and paddled around the lagoon looking for turtles, sharks and rays. We only saw turtles popping their heads out of the water from time to time. On one occasion Phil was in the boat as Iren snorkeled and he told her where a turtle was. Iren swam in the right direction and then she saw the big sea turle swimming benath her. She got so close that she could have a good look before it suddenly sped away. It moved really fast in the water flapping its limbs. After a relaxing day on the beach we finished off with another tasty fish dinner on our last night. We had eaten excellent fish every day.

A Land Iguana

Iguana and Red Sally-Lightfoot Crabs

The next morning we had to head off for the airport. We had enjoyed the  Galapagos so much. The combination of exotic wildlife, beautiful and varied scenery and a slow pace of life were very appealing and we were sad to leave. The  Galapagos is one of the few places on our travels were we had underestimated the time we would have liked to spend there. Although we had seen a lot we could easily have spent another week enjoying this very special place. We have a couple of days back in Quito before we head off to the Ecuadorian Amazon to spend 4 days and e nights at the Napo Wildlife Lodge.