Maquipucuna Cloud Forest

I am back in civilization after 9 days of wearing the same pair of quick-dry pants and going from 3,000 meters above sea level to 1,300 meters (Maquipucuna cloud forest) to about 4,000 meters (Cotopaxi national park) to roughly 0 meters above sea level (Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Amazonian rain forest) and back up here to Cumbayá, which is roughly 3,000 meters above sea level. Now I am back in my home away from home for roughly a week before I fly over 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) of the Pacific Ocean to reach the Enchanted Islands, the Galápagos Islands. But before that adventure begins, let me tell you about the trips I have already been through and returned from safely.

Maquipucuna Cloud Forest Reserve and Ecolodge is about a 2-hour bus ride north of Quito (and thus north of the equator) up and down and through the mountains. The bus rides themselves are amazing in Ecuador because of how drastic the change of the landscape can be and how green everything is (until you get up into the páramo, which is beautiful in its own way). Before we arrived at the actual ecolodge, we stopped at a landing where there was a myriad of species of orchids. Orchids, which we in the United States mainly know as very beautiful, expensive flowers that are difficult to keep alive, actually come in a variety of types of plants.  

Up on this ledge was also a beautiful view of the forests that we were headed into and other interesting specimens. We saw a few birds from up there. Attached to the trees were epiphytes upon epiphytes, including a type of plant that is called a bromeliad. I still cannot get over the diversity of the flowers and everything that exists in such a small land area. The flowers are different shapes, sizes, colors, probably smells, and they all manage to stay alive in climates that can sometimes be forgiving. The cloud forest is one of the less brutal climates that I have encountered in Ecuador, but there is often little sunlight there.

After that pit stop we continued on our way for some time and after bumps and turns, we made it to the Maquipucuna lodge. On that section of the bus ride, I was lucky enough to see 3 toucans and 1 monkey. We were all amazed by the accommodations that the Maquipucuna lodge had to offer. Somehow we manage to go on these trips knowing very little of what we are getting ourselves into. We just know to bring a water bottle, a rain jacket, a headlamp, some bug spray, some sun block, and often a bathing suit.  So when we arrived at Maquipucuna and were led up the stone path and up the stairs to our bunks, we were pretty excited. 

The lodge has 6 to 8 bedrooms, maybe more, which hold 2 bunks each and look out onto the most spectacular views. There is a balcony sort of area outside of the bedrooms, which includes a hammock and a bar. The lodge offers chocolate massages and all of the food there is organic grown a couple of kilometers away from the lodge itself. Even the coffee there is freshly grown right nearby. There are flushing toilets and cold showers in a bathroom area and a small dining area that fit the members of my program well.

Around the lodge there are hummingbird feeders, which are constantly being dive-bombed by the various species of hummingbirds that are around. I had never seen blue hummingbirds until Maquipucuna and they are very pretty with little white fluff around their feet. There were also at least 2 types of green hummingbirds. The birds are not afraid of the humans that are around and even flew into a few people while we were there.

 

We arrived at Maquipucuna a little before lunchtime so most of us went on a 10-minute walk to the waterfall that is nearby. On the way we saw different kinds of butterflies and many different plants that I had never seen before. In the tropics, everything is fighting for sunlight and a space to survive, so there are a lot of epiphytes on top of the trees and on top of other epiphytes. An epiphyte is pretty much a plant that grows upon another plant but is not parasitic so both plants are able to stay alive. Below is a short video of the waterfall and the beautiful area around it. Oh, and there are some big leaves in the tropical region, as shown by this leaf that is about half of my size.

For the afternoon we split off into groups that looked at different aspects of the forest. My group looked at the soil, but we were often distracted by birds, frogs (see the frog in the picture on the right?), leaf cutter ants, and other more interesting organisms. We did learn about the soil and how there is very little topsoil on the slopes because of the rain that washes away the nutrients. At one point I thought I was walking on rock but it was actually a very compact clay and sand mix. If you go into the forest then you start encountering top layers that are a few centimeters full of organic matter and sandy dirt beneath the roots if you can ever get there. During our short evening adventure, one of my program-mates almost got killed by a squirrel that was eating a fruit and was spooked when we walked by it. It dropped the fruit and made a dive for the bushes and the fruit came very close to her head. Luckily no one has been life-threateningly injured or sick yet.

The food in Maquipucuna was fairly interesting. We had pasta with vegetables and meat substitutes, breakfast tamales that actually have another name, delicious brownie dessert, some yucca with cabbage and rice, and ever-present tea. As I have mentioned before, I will go into greater detail about the food in Ecuador in a separate post because I have definitely had some new and interesting meals here.

Friday morning (January 21), we got up a little early and went bird watching before breakfast (there's a bird near the center of the picture to the left). My group saw a hawk, many smaller birds, toucans, some parrots, and probably more that I cannot remember. Being up early in the cloud forest is pretty awesome because the day is still cool (the nights are actually quite cold) and life is making the switch from the nocturnal schedule to the diurnal schedule. Speaking of nocturnal schedules, Thursday night another one of my program-mates had a snake in his bed. Luckily he was smart enough to check under the covers before hopping in as many of us had done. We found out the next day that the snake is non-venomous, but at the time it was a little terrifying.

Friday for much of the day we went on a hike. The hike probably took around 6 hours round trip and led us across fields, through forests, across parts of the path that had had landslides, across waterfalls, and essentially to a waterfall at the end where we swam in the cool waters of the Andes. On this trip we saw a cock of the rock, which is a brilliant red bird that makes an interesting call, a snake, some creepy spiders, and there was a section of the path that was covered in ants (luckily we were given rubber boots for these trips). Our guide was up ahead of us sometimes literally carving out a path for us where a tree had fallen or the vines had overgrown. The waterfall was amazing, although we had to wade upstream to it, which was a bit difficult and, as I said, cold.


The river was made a little more difficult to swim in by the rain that occurred while we were there and made the current very strong. This same current also took away one of my program-mates boots (the same one who had a snake in his bed). Towards the end of the hike, one of my program-mates (the same one who was almost killed by the squirrel) grabbed onto a tree to sturdy herself. The tree happened to have a nest of wasps inside. Luckily the wasps did not chase us very far and everyone managed to get out without any stings.

So I survived the cloud forest with all of my limbs in tact, a few bug bites and some scratches from razor-sharp grass. It was an absolutely beautiful trip with some of the nicest staff I have ever met. If you ever have any wish to hang out at an ecolodge and maybe go hiking with some guides in the cloud forest of Ecuador, Maquipucuna would definitely be a place to consider. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up back there volunteering some day.

Here are some pictures from my various adventures in the cloud forest. Enjoy! Also, I don't know if I've mentioned that you can make the pictures bigger by clicking on them, that way you can truly see the birds, frogs, etc. that are sometimes hidden in these pictures!

Ecuador: From Glaciers to Hot Springs

I have now been in Ecuador approaching 2 weeks. At times it feels as if I’ve been here for far longer than that and at times it feels like a shorter amount of time. 2 weeks of already being here means I only have 14 weeks left in Ecuador, which I’d rather not think about in general. I say only because there is so much to do in this rather small country. I’m incredibly excited to go live on the Galápagos Islands, but at the same time I wish I could spend a little more time on the mainland because there is so much I will not get to see. Cuenca, for example, is a 10-hour bus ride away from Quito. However, I have been able to do a lot in a short amount of time, so here it goes:

Since last updating I have enjoyed salsa dancing in Quito. That was an exciting night that involved squishing most of the members of GAIAS into one of the Ecuadorian student’s old Volkswagen van. I also went hiking in the highlands of Ecuador as the first field trip of my Tropical Ecology class, enjoyed some jazz in a restaurant/lounge/bar that is directly across the street from my university, and my friends and I successfully navigated to and from Otavalo, which is a market of traditional Ecuadorian wares about 2 hours north of Quito.

Last Friday we made another trip as a program to the páramo of Ecuador. The páramo is an ecosystem that exists in the highlands of Ecuador. There is the sub-páramo, the grassland-páramo, and the super-páramo. Technically there is also the nival zone, where it is all snow and very few organisms live. We went to Paracocha and started around 4300 meters high (roughly 14,000 feet) in the super-páramo. Up there exists very little vegetation except the cushion plants and a few brave wildflowers that can hold as many as 30 species in a single cushion. Up close to the top was also this cool lake that looks like a footprint. Of course, there is the local legend that giants walk through the Andes. As we began our 11km hike and many meters descent of altitude, we discovered more signs of life.

 

There were many lakes along the way from the glaciers that have carved out the valleys. Not all of the valleys were carved out by glaciers, however, since some of the mountains were once volcanoes, a number of the valleys have also been carved out by the lava flow of those volcanoes. As we climbed to lower altitudes, the vegetation changed to more dead grasslands (hence the name grassland-páramo). These grasses are not technically dead, but are only growing at their centers in order to conserve energy in a harsh environment. Along the way there are these small plants here and there that have beautiful flowers. There were also a few trees that had plants growing on their branches and plants growing off of those plants. And I recognized the Andean relative of the strawberry plant that apparently gets tiny, tiny berries.

We did not see any wildlife on our trek other than a few birds and an insect here and there. However, there was plenty of evidence that suggested that various organisms do indeed live in the highlands. There were plenty of droppings from bunnies and deer as well as scat from what a professor believed to be a mountain lion. There were also clearly defined deer tracks and fox tracks along the paths that we were walking.

 

We ate lunch in by a lake and were able to use tall grasses as chairs that also supported you as you leaned back on them. Towards the end of our hike, we saw a couple of waterfalls and we were able to see the glacier Antisana. We went from being able to see a glacier, to relaxing in hot springs about 10 minutes away from where we were hiking. The hot springs were a complete tourist destination, but it was still relaxing to get into a warm pool after hiking for about 4 hours.

The next day, Saturday, we tried to go to Otavalo. Sadly, we were not able to make it because the taxi driver of the car that I was in did not know where he was going and then there weren’t any more buses running… it was a whole big mess. We did go to a tasty Mexican restaurant, but that is a story for another time because I think I will have to devote at least one entry to the food alone (although I have yet to try cuy, guinea pig).

Finally on Sunday we were able to make it to the city of Otavalo and find the market. The market makes me think of a flea market in the United States, although I have never tried to barter at a flea market. All kinds of things were available at this place. Alpaca sweaters, socks, scarves, hats, hundreds upon hundreds of scarves, bracelets, necklaces, hats, paintings, jerseys, wooden carvings, wooden flutes, traditional drums, incense burners, incense, tapestries, blankets, clothes, glassware, bowls, plates, gourds with burned decorations into them… Apparently Sunday is the less busy day of the market, which I could see with the amount of customers, but the amount of stands was still a bit overwhelming. It was an overall good day, except that I was sort of sick on the way home and a 2-hour bus ride when you are sick is not the easiest thing to deal with in the world.

My class, by the way, is going well seeing as we have only taken notes so far. I do have a fair amount of work to do to get a group presentation done because we are very busy starting this Thursday and going all the way through next Friday. In the meantime of that presentation, I will be heading to the Cloud Forest and the Tiputini Biodiversity Station as well as (hopefully) Cotopaxi, which is one of the volcanoes in Ecuador.

I hope you enjoy the pictures and learn a little about Ecuador with each post. By the way, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them. Good luck to everyone with the snow! (This is the glacier known as Antisana.)

¡Hola! From Beautiful Cumbayá

¡Buenas tardes mi familia y amigos!

I have been in Ecuador (a country that has been repeatedly described as the size of Colorado) for 6 days. It is absolutely beautiful here! It is warm and colorful and already I have seen just a hint of the diversity this country has to offer. Ecuador is diverse in climates, people (there are still several untouched tribes in Ecuador), the flora, and the fauna. There are four main regions: the Galápagos Islands, the coast (la costa), the highlands (la sierra), and the jungle. Quito, the capital, is located in the sierra region. Technically I am not staying in Quito, but Cumbayá, even though the university where I am a full time international student is called Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ).

The first night I arrived here I met my host mother and she served me locro, which is a potato soup that was quite good. Immediately the next day was the orientation for my program. The Galapagos Academic Institute of Arts and Sciences (GAIAS) is thus far the most amazing experience I have had in my life. I think part of what is making this a great adventure is that this is my first time really traveling alone and I am immersed in a culture and country that is so different from my own. (We were told that going to Europe is like going to a different country while coming to Ecuador is like coming to a different planet.) At the GAIAS orientation I finally met all of my program-mates and the program coordinators thoroughly scared us about the city, which is not nearly as bad as they said. We were also told several times that we will get sick and we probably will not know what made us sick.

The second day we went to part of the international student orientation for USFQ. There are a lot of international students for a small campus. USFQ is only 22 years old, but there are already 24,000 undergraduate students attending the university. Today I met some of the other students studying abroad from the states because us international, English speakers tend to be drawn to each other. I now understand why all of the international students know each other and hang out with each other at UVM. Here is a shot of part of the USFQ campus. I really like the colors of all the buildings in tropical places.

 On Saturday we had a tour of Old Quito and went to la mitad del mundo (the equator) as a program. Quito is often described as a long city because it sits along a valley. We saw such wonderful sites as the Virgin of Quito (the statue on the hill in the first picture), la Iglesia de la Compañia de Quito (the church of the Society of Jesus of Quito), and la Basilica del Voto Nacional (the basilica among the city in the second picture). We ate in a restaurant in Old Quito and I tried taxo gelato. Taxo is a relative of passion fruit.

While we were in Old Quito, we went into one of the apartments to see the typical architecture. In the apartment there was a candle shop that made beautiful candles and the place of a man that described himself as a piano surgeon. In a tiny room there were three pianos that were all over 100 years old that he was fixing. He was very happy to see us and played us a beautiful traditional Ecuadorian song that was accompanied by his son on violin. He was such a happy old man that took a group picture with us so he could put it on his wall. He also gave us a free CD of his piano playing. I hope I find something to do with my life that I enjoy as much as this man clearly enjoys his job.

At la mitad del mundo we were guided around a museum that reminded me of the Native American museums I went to on field trips in elementary school. It was very interesting to learn about the different cultures. Part of old Ecuadorian beliefs is that the guinea pig can sense energies. Therefore, if a guinea pig is silent when people enter a place then the people have good energy. If the guinea pigs start making a noise that sounds like “cuy, cuy,” then there is bad energy. Guinea pig is eaten in Ecuador on very important occasions.

The top of these two pictures shows two totems from various South American countries. The bottom is a burial site. When a person died in this tribe, he or she was placed in a pot (right corner) in the fetal position because this tribe believed in reincarnation. If the chief died then his family members were given a drink from a certain cactus that rendered them unconscious for several hours and they too were buried in pots with the chief. The structure was then closed to further resemble a womb, leaving the family members still trapped with the chief. Along with family members, objects to hunt and cook with were also placed in the grave.

Sunday I went to my host-mother’s friend’s house for lunch. This house was on a very large farm that was absolutely magnificent. I am sorry to say that I did not bring my camera on this trip. It is about 40 minutes north of Quito and is surrounded by mountains. Being at the lunch was a bit intimidating because I could not really speak to anyone. I was able to walk around and made friends with a few dogs and sat out in the sun, but it is very difficult when everyone is speaking rapidly in a language I do not yet understand. (I am determined to learn Spanish by the end of this trip!) I could understand bits of conversation because I found a Spanish grammar book in my host mother’s library, but mostly I just enjoyed the food and whatever kind of tea I was served.

I hope everyone is doing well at home. I can't wait to share all of my future adventures with you!