This must be a typical comment, but everything I saw there exactly what I had been seeing all these years on pages on national geographic or animal planet or one of those nature magazine/channels.
We met at Rio Coca station at 4:30am and, well, I want to stress the difficulty of getting there.
First we took a 45min-1hr bus ride to the new airport, took a 30min plane ride to coca, took a few minute bus ride to the hotel with the small monkeys, took another 2 hour boat ride to the oil station, then a 2 hour bus ride to take another 2-3 hour boat ride until we finally arrived to the Tiputini research station (which is located on the other side of Yasuni Park, across the Tiputini River).
In short, we were in the middle of nowhere in the amazon.
The first day -- we got there in the afternoon, broke up into groups for our cabins, went swimming in the Tiputini river (which looks super calm but the currents are rather strong -- which is why we have to wear life vests), had an info/intro meeting, had amaaazing dinner and lights out at 9:30pm.
Second -- mini hike with Ally, Libbie and Erin, breakfast (they had amazing food there btw), did a morning hike with our guide Jose (he's indigenous Kichua decent - he taught us a little bit of kichua :] ), had a super-calm/relaxing canoe ride in the lagoon where I almost fell asleep a couple times, went back for lunch and went for a swim in the river. We heard amazing stories of other groups seeing a bunch of monkeys and got super excited. But when we went for our afternoon activities at the canopy and the tower, we literally did not see ANYTHING. poop. But we had a really awesome talk about spirits and how Jose's grandfather? was
a shaman. We did see some tucans and a couple monkeys through a microscope, but I just remember hoping we have more luck with animals the following day. Yet again we had amazing food for dinner (they have a ton of snacks too) and had a mini presentation about Tiputini.
(Photo credit: Libbie)
Third -- Did some yoga with Miho and Ally before breakfast--doing yoga while listening to animals snoring and birds chirping is one of the most relaxing things I've done. We went on a morning hike where this time we saw 3 different types of monkeys while hiking. But, while we got super excited seeing the first monkeys, we also got two of our girls get stung by wasps, in which I definitely was lucky since they were both in front and behind me in the hiking line that we had. But anyways, after the hike all of our group went for a float-in-the-river. Quite a hilarious picture if you ask me--a bunch of kids literally FLOATING in the river with a life vest on. But it was also one of the most amazing/relaxing experiences. And apparently if you kept on floating down you would eventually reach Brazil. We then had a presentation by a lady that researches and follows monkeys for 8-12 hours per day, which was followed by a night hike with our awesome guide Jose. We saw some taranchulas, a toad, frogs, a tree snake, banana spider (and other super dangerous spiders in which names I have forgotten), huuuuge ants that bite, and many MANY more. And to close the last full day, a couple people and I layed out in front of our cabins to star-gaze. In the darkness where you can barely see your hand right in front of your face, even the slightest star dust was visible and sky looked so bright in the darkness of the rainforest, and it felt like the occasional shooting stars lit up the whole world around us. With that two days of major nature therapy, I packed my stuff to leave the next day early in the morning.
Fourth -- Before we left though, Ally and I did a morning hike with Jose (the nicest guide ever). This trip we saw two different types of monkeys, obviously a bunch of spiders and insects, and fresh armadillo foot steps :) ---I might add that I made the biggest fall that morning also. I landed right on my tail bone but I'm glad I didn't fall on some insect that could have stung/bitten me and put me to bed for the next couple of weeks.
The hike ended quickly, we had our last amazing breakfast there, I bought two bracelets from one of the workers, and we headed to the indigenous community for a quick visit (which I must say, made me super uncomfortable because it definitely felt like cultural exploitation), and headed our loooooooooooong journy back to Quito.
It was a mini-trip to the Amazon but I definitely came back feeling amazing and as well as exhausted. The number of mosquito bites I got from this trip is absolutely ridiculous but I feel like it has been a constant reminder of the amount of biodiversity there, making me conscious of my consumptions back in the city, and making me remember how responsible each individual is in preserving the most biodiverse place in the world.
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