More Jungle At Misahualli

We decided not to stop at Tena in Ecuador, and instead changed buses there for a visit to the small town of Misahualli. We arrived on the 26th January and were quite shocked to see that the whole town was just a few blocks squared, with the main plaza completely dug up and under construction. Mud and bricks were everywhere, the heat was pretty unbearable, and so we soon found the nicest place in town where we soon dumped our stuff before going out to get food.

We had a nice surprise when we realized that a troupe of Capuchin Monkeys had found their home in what was left of the main plaza. They were fierce little buggers who were playing with lighters like sadistic sharp-toothed fire starters on crack. The owner of the restaurant we were in had to chase away a few of the hungry brazen Monkeys, and they eventually left us in peace to go down to a fully-furnished house just off the plaza where the Monkeys lived at night, as though they were fully fledged residents.

After a nice lunch at the restaurant on the plaza (the town has restaurants, a few shops and an ATM) we found out about a nice walk North and West of the town to a huge 50 meter Ceibo tree. We walked along the road out of town and crossed a long bridge where two men struggled to get the largest pig we had ever seen onto their truck. It’s screams followed us into the jungle until we saw the large tree, also called a Kapok, just off the road. The tree was truly huge, and if you visit it, be careful of the vines hanging down – they are extremely thorny.

We walked back across the Misahualli river and headed back to our hostel. It was a good nice sleep along with a lovely breakfast at Hostal el Paisano (make sure you keep your receipts of payment if you stay there) – we saw loads of Hummingbirds flying around too, alongside the Capuchin Monkeys who we visited again in the main square.

We had enquired about doing some tours in Misahualli, but in the end we decided we could manage without one. We walked out of town across another long bridge which crossed the Napo river and continued along a route which headed down into more jungle away from the town. After about twenty minutes we found a small lagoon which had some tourist information. The sign read Laguna Paikawe and in the middle of it were two little islands where we saw a friendly couple of Spider Monkeys jumping and frolicking in the trees. We saw loads of birds, such as the Moorhen and Egret. On the information board there were loads of animals listed, and when the owner of the property, Pedro, came over and offered us a boat ride for a very reasonable price for about 30 to 45 minutes to see Hoatzin birds, we took him up on his offer.

The boat ride was awesome – not only did we see Hoatzin, but Kingfishers, Herons and lots more. We would come back for more.

We continued down the road away from Misahualli where we got the bus all the way down to the Jatun Sacha biological reserve. We got off at the wrong stop (the botanical gardens had been closed for some time by the look of it) and the gates were locked. We decided to jump over the gate and go in anyway. The place looked like a horror movie with empty, dusty buildings sitting in the rainforest covered in spider webs. The trails were overgrown, and for the long trail through the jungle, impassable with trees and bushes.

We saw some bushes and plants that had been labeled – stuff we had seen before – but we did see some wild Black Agouti who bolted once they realized we had dared disturb them. We left after half an hour when a huge downpour started.

We hitched back to the road to Misahualli where we found another deserted lagoon where we saw some large birds that we thought might be Umbrellabirds, and also some Brown-mantled Tamarin Monkeys. We did not hang around long before making our way to the Shiripuno tourist community. This was a bit of a tourist trap and certainly not recommended as the whole place was infested with biting fleas. The place was built for the native community to show off their traditional way of life, with dancing, clothes and the obligatory gift shop.

We ate there and saw some of the dances, but the experience was not really worth it. What was worth it, however, was the night walk we had planned to do with Pedro that evening. Two Argentines also had come along – we first headed across the same lagoon where we had seen the Hoatzin and headed into the jungle through Pedro’s banana plantation.

The evening walk was awesome. It was supposed to last a few hours but ended up being over three and a half hours. The most memorable moment was when the guide, Pedro, spotted a Coral Snake heading towards us in the four inch water we were wading through. He skillfully stopped the snake with his machete, pinning it down for photos. When he let it go, it headed towards us again, but with an expert flick of his wrist he spun the snake the other direction, and it swam off unharmed. The Coral Snake is one of the most deadly snakes in the world, and pharmaceutical companies have stopped making the unprofitable anti-venom. We did not know that at the time, but as Pedro lived right across the road and often had to deal with these kind of dangers, we were in good hands anyway.

The Argentine couple were good company, and the guy, Luis, even spotted a Scorpion for us! I had been hoping to see one the whole time we were in the desert regions of Chile and Peru, and finally I saw one in the jungle of Ecuador! Unexpected!

We saw all manner of bugs: Frogs, Stick Insects as big as my hand and loads more. We even saw two different Opossums and loads of Arboreal Boa Constrictors (their eyes shine in the dark). We heard a Great Potoo and saw some Caiman in the water too. Overall, the whole experience was one of the best we had in the jungle – if you are in the area – make sure you go see Pedro.

The next day, the 28th January, we headed back up the road towards Jatun Sacha. By then we had realized our mistake about the botanical garden, and wanted to see a few more places along the road there. This time we were more lucky with the weather too, and we got a taxi to the Jatun Sacha reserve itself (about five more minutes drive along the road from the gardens). The place was loaded with volunteers who were all painting the welcome center with noxious paint and no protective gear at all. It made me wonder why they would do that work – volunteerism is a growing trend in the backpacking community. The sad fact is that the volunteers actually pay to do the work, so it is not really volunteering – just unpaid work that people pay to do. Ridiculous.

We were given a brief introduction by a European blonde girl who then gave us a printed self-guided walking tour. There were lots of stops along the large looped trail with explanations about each one. Most of the forest there was new secondary forest and so we did not see many animals, but some of the information was interesting nevertheless.

We saw plants that are symbiotic with Ants, translucent Spiders, Armadillo holes and loads of Fungi. We could see the reserve had taken an inventory of the trees we were passing, and the most fascinating were the tall tree ferns. These are often mistaken for palm trees, and have been around for millions of years, pretty much unchanged in their structure.

The trail was nice enough if not a little boring, and when we finished we headed down the road a little ways by foot to an area where we heard they had some jungle traps set up to show off to tourists.

We asked around and eventually found some little huts down near the school’s football field where some guy had set out some 20 or more traps. He was unavailable, but we managed to persuade his nephew who lived across the street to show us the traps. Obviously this whole thing would have been impossible without knowing some Spanish and a little charm.

We walked for ages to get down to the riverside where the traps were. Our young guide walked us down there, showed us around for about an hour, including a blowgun demonstration at the end, and then bought us back to the road. Some of the traps were fairly simple – a hide made of palm leaves, for example. And some of the traps were much more ingenious, with hidden entrances that funneled mammals into a particular trap made of wood, with little wooden triggers that, if pushed, would set off a complex chain of events that ended in a large log being dropped on the animal, or a shotgun being discharged at it, close range.

The traps were left unarmed in between viewings for obvious reasons, but our guide did tell us that these traps were in common usage among many hunters from the local villages who would often spend days in the jungle on their own. These traps do not discriminate, and we wondered how much they affected endangered animals.

We shot the two meter blowgun at the end, but everyone missed the target. It also started raining about then so we all waited for it to stop before we boarded the bus back to the road for Misahualli.

On our walk back we saw loads of birds (our guide from the trap place had come with us as he was visiting friends, and so he helped identify them). We even heard a very shy Little Tinamou, but it escaped before we could get a good look.

We were passing by Pedro’s place, and we could not resist another boat ride to see the Hoatzin again. This time we were more lucky, and we saw lots of the so-called stinkbirds sitting on a branch above us. It is the only bird of it’s genus, but it’s ancestry and scientific taxonomic position is still in dispute. The Hoatzin apparently is pretty pungent, hence the name stinkbird, and also tastes so bad that even the indigenous people do not eat it. For this reason it is not endangered. They reminded us of dinosaurs, a relic from the past that shows what all birds true ancestry is.