Sacha Lodge day 2

The day started at 445 am. Breakfast at 5 am. Leave for the canoe ride at 530 am. It was very difficult waking up Dd. We were off to see birds visiting a clay lick on the Napo river in the early morning 15 miles down river, but it was a 30 min paddle and 30 min hike to the Napo River. The clay lick was great but hard to photograph without a really big zoom lens. As described by Fausto, our guide, the birds would wait until one bird was brave enough to start feeding and then they would all come down. We also saw a group of five howler monkeys wake up and descend their tree. We then went to a different lick where a mold grew on dead tree trunk and the birds hung out. It was on private property and there were puppies which occupied the kids. The mother dog hung out with us but watched her kids as our kids played with her kids. 

It was also great getting to know the other guests. There was a Canadian veterinarian from Toronto who had a home on the Ecuadorean coast. There was a family of four from Houston (GI doc) with their adult kids in college. There was a Belgium woman with a massive 300-500mm zoom lense. We were supposed to visit a village but the other guests didn't want to do we didn't do that. 

We got back to the lodge at 1030 and had refreshments and talked to the other guests. We went to the room and then went back out for lunch at 1. It was a good buffet. 

We went to the butterfly as area and saw a parrot snake and touched it.

We went back to the room for a siesta.

We met back up at 400 pm for a canoe and hike to a tree tower on a cieba or kapok tree, maybe 600 years old or more. The cieba tree is the tallest tree in the Amazon and from the top you can see the other cieba trees scattered around. Fausta spotted howler monkeys in the top of the trees I could barely see with my naked eye and macaws and toucans. He had an 80x spotting scope set up for us to peek through. We had also stopped at a tree with a hole and he knocked on the trunk and three heads popped out of the owl monkeys. He had me do it again when they disappeared. They were nocturnal animals. Very cute.

Fausto told us about the two warring tribes in the Yasuni national Park that had little contact with the rest of the world, often times killing outsiders they encountered. Tagaeri and Taromenane were the warring tribes. 

As the sun was setting he had us go down and of course under the canopy it was much darker. The insects were out and we made it back the canoe and Fausto paddled us back as the darkness descended. We saw some caimen in the lake and he dropped us off at the lodge. 

We went back to the room to change boots to shoes for dinner.

Dinner was great. They had pizza for the kids and Christine and I had squid salad, carrot soup, swordfish, oyster sauce chicken which was delicious, and a berliner donut and some raspberry mousse.

We went back to the room and had to go to bed fast for an early wake up again.