Our wake up call was at 5:45 as our pick up was at 6:25. Our driver is very punctual and we are on the road by 6:30. Wow, everyone in Quito must be up and about. The traffic was snarled everywhere and local buses are bursting at the seams.
We pass through a town name Mitad del Mundo, which translated means Middle of the World, literally. We had a two hour drive to our destination and the second half was on very windy, twisty roads but our driver, Johnny, was very adept so I felt very comfortable.
We arrived in Bellavista at 8:30am and after a quick walk through with a guide and showing us our room we were served breakfast.
This place covers 700 hectares of lush rain forests and climbs up to 2500 meters. It is hosts to 14 varieties of hummingbirds, the olinginta (resembles an opossum), and a myriad of other birds and small mammals. There is also the spectacled bear, but he is shy and not seen very often. Birds on the other hand were in abundance.
Our room
Dining area
Our first sighting of birds was of hummingbirds. We couldn't believe the variety and the numbers.
They are not afraid of us at all.
Our first hike started at 9:30. Our amazing guide was Natalie. She could see everything and sing just like the birds, she took us along a muddy trail that went down for about 45 minutes where we came upon a waterfall. They offer their guests rubber boots to wear and thank goodness as we would have ruined our sneakers.
These were our hiking boots for two days.
We were seven guests on the hike; two Germans, two Americans, one British man, and the two of us.
One of the American woman was very chatty and she often continued talking when the guide was giving us a lesson. I stayed right in behind the guide so as not to miss a thing.
We were back in our room around noon. Lunch would be served at 1 pm so Ron had a nap and I took notes. There was no Internet in this remote area and no tv, no radios, no electronics at all so really nice and quite.
Oh, and it is a common occurrence to have rain by afternoon and sure enough it started to come down during lunch. Our second hike was to start at 3:30 and by some miracle, the rain stopped just long enough to get 3/4 of the hike completed.
We deserved a nice hot shower upon our return. Because of the rain, we hung out in our room until dinner which is served at 7pm.
There was one table set as there were only 6 of us left. Three people had left after our hike. This was a great opportunity to get to know each other. The German couple had just complete their tour of the Galápagos islands, the American chatterbox would be starting her tour of the islands on Sunday, the other American was not going to the Galapagos.
The German couple, Kristin and Sasha, Josh, an American from Maine, and chatty Ruth from California.
After supper, we are back in our rooms and Ron and I play a word game on my IPad to pass the time. The room is cool and humid so we turn on the little floor heater to take the edge off and try to dry our clothes.
It's 10 pm, lights out as we meet Natalie at 6:15 tomorrow morning.
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