Yasuni Kichwa Ecolodge - May 16, 2017

Morning on the Napo River. We never would have thought. Such a big world, so little time to see it.



It’s a parrot lick. A clay bank along the river. The parrots need high sodium clay to  counteract the toxicity of the plants and roots they eat. We were viewing this from our canoe on the river.

Here’s what it looked like from the canoe. If the photo isn’t all that clear, now you know why. Most people on the canoe never ever saw the parrots, Linda included. I could see them through my binoculars and also though my camera with the 300mm lens on it. The photo was cropped down and sharpened from the original image. It’s amazing the image stabilization of the camera worked as well as it did considering how much the canoe was bobbing around in the river.



Everywhere we looked there was something that caught our eye. We took over 880 photos today, plus over 20 videos of varying lengths. The earlier one was split out of a much longer video that included everyone in the group in the canoe.



Back at the lodge it was time for breakfast. This mine.




This Linda’s. Eggs, sausage links and mashed plantain. We have learned that anything that has color, no matter what we think it is, is some variation of plantain.



Photo by Linda.



Photo by Bob of Linda taking the previous photo.



Flowers and butterflies galore.



Butterfly caught in a spider web.



The spider’s previous meal in the upper left corner, the spider and the spider’s next meal. And we took these photos as we were walking back from breakfast.



Booting up for another walk in the jungle.



Spider “wrapping up’ another meal.



Everyone has to do it.



Termite nest, a common sight in the jungle.



So many unique things to experience in the jungle.

A way to send messages through the jungle.



The river is the highway here.



Lunchtime and what is known as the “what is it?” look.



The main course. The beans were different than any we’ve ever had before, and were they ever good. The pork chop was wonderful too!



The spider was making short work of the butterfly.



The spider’s backside sure looks different. Guess that is what you call pretty in a spider.

 

As I said before, the highway is the river and everywhere we go we either walk on a trail or go up and down the river.



This bird is called a Hoatzin.



You never know what you are going to see in the jungle.

Spider monkey in mid jump.



I made it.



Our guide was saying there was a howler monkey in the trees, I took a few photos of the dense canopy in the direction he was pointing. Look what showed up with some post processing and cropping.



Sunset on the Napo.



We were always greeted with a fresh drink when we returned from our outings. It was very much appreciated by all!



The end of another day and at the end of the path was our jungle abode. We have only been here for a little more than a day, but we already decided we will come back to see more of the Amazon some day. So many places to visit and so little time. But like Linda always tells me when I dwell on things like this, “Life is tough and then you die.” I just want a whole lot more of tough before that happens.