June 5, 2019
We tried to sleep in but there were two roosters that had other ideas, and at 5:30am they started a crowing contest. We slept well in our open air huts in the middle of the Amazon jungle. The temperature was pleasant and the humidity tolerable. The only issue was in the middle of the night an owl decided to wake us up.
We had an amazing breakfast sourced from ingredients right on the hotel grounds. Maria went and harvested a pineapple that we had walked by the day before. The two large macaws visited us for breakfast and Pepe, the red macaw, decided he wanted our bread and had to be shewed away. We then spent more time walking and conversing with Jorge and Maria until we needed to be going to make our canoe reservation.
About an hour drive away we reached the port of Missahualli, where boats depart for trips deep into the Amazon on the river Napo. We parked the car and an older gentleman approached us and immediately ushered us down the road to see a Jar bird high in the trees. We soon learned his eyes are much better at spotting birds and monkeys then we were. He then stopped us again to point out a monkey who upon noticing we were watching went and hid.
We went across the street and into the jungle to a Laguna Paikawe Reserva where a large canoe was waiting for us to board. Pedro took a pole and we pushed off. We glided silently through the water looking for birds. We found several birds and then Pedro stopped and backed up to find two miniature monkeys playing in the trees.
The next birds we came upon were Hoatzin birds that look like ancient creatures. We also spotted another monkey high in the trees playing, eating, and hanging from the branches with his tail. The canoe ride took about an hour and was fascinating. It was the quintessential vision of a slow canoe ride through the Amazon.
After the canoe trip we drove down the road to walk in the jungle at the Jatun Sancha reserve. We hiked one of their smaller loops through mud and dense brush. In the jungle we saw lots of butterflies and spiders but not much else on our walk.
When we left the reserve we decided to make our way to a bird reserve in the cloud forest. We started our accent and drove up and up. The fog was so dense we couldn’t see the enormous drop-offs that loomed to the side. In only a short distance we climbed over 8000 feet. Every once in a while there would be a large mudslide that crossed the road some of them well-cleared and others were not.
We made it to the bird reserve to try and get some lunch but it was deserted, no one in sight. So we headed on to our final destination, Papallacta, an ancient hot springs resort in the Andes. They claim that the hot springs have been used for 3000 years. Papallacta sits at over 10,000 feet and is a shock from the hot sticky jungle. We did not get to see much of the surrounding as we were sitting in the middle of the clouds when we arrived.
After we checked in and changed out of our muddy jungle gear, we viewed the hot springs pools and headed to dinner. The name of the resort we stayed at is Terma de Papallacta and is the fanciest place we have stayed to date. The resort definitely caters to tour companies and groups and feels very much like a hotel in the states.
After dinner the kids wanted to go swimming so we got the gear and off we went. The pools are different temperatures and Noah and Annaleigh wanted to swim in the coolest one, while Sarah and Kevin wanted the warmer one to just sit and relax in. We swam for over an hour and headed to bed.