BACK IN ACTION. NOVEMBER 24TH CLASS IV- TRIP

Ok, after a long blogging hiatus, we are back in action and catching up! Here is a trip report from our Nov. 24th trip. I hope the crew won´t mind too much but I was a little over enthusiastic about taking more Ecuador lifestyle pictures and less kayaking pictures...

This is a great example of public transportaion in Ecuador! Ok, just kidding. There were many different festivals going on in the past couple weeks (mainly celebrations of various town´s inaugurations) and the traveling circus visited many small towns in Eastern Ecuador. We passed a few traveling bugs on the major east/west highway of Ecuador, but I was only able to get a good shot of this one while it was refueling. Talk about the ultimate shuttle vehicle! We´ll have to try to get our hands on one of them.

Besides seeing large mobil bugs on the highways, Ecuador has great flora and fauna as well. Eduardo and Fran have been doing an outstanding job with the landscaping around our lodge, and the flowers are looking better than ever!

If you look closely in the middle of this photo, you can see Mikey the MotMot. His blue head gives him away in this photo. He is a resident at our lodge...we also have an Andean Cock of the Rock, Inca Jays, and too many hummingbird species to count!On Tuesday, we headed southeast to the town of Tena. We had some especially sunny weather and got great views of Sumaco--the jungle covered volcano. Although this volcano is not nearly as high as some of the glacier-covered peaks, it takes a full 5 days to climb! Hiking on snow is easy in comparison to hacking your way through the jungle!

Here is the crew posing for a group photo. We stopped to have lunch at an animal rescue center and were joined by a friendly monkey and parrot in the cafeteria.

Steve, Bob, Dan, and Sarah on the way to the Upper Mis. put in. There were many local kids showing off their swimming skills and hitching rides from the kayakers at this put in.

Larry executing a skillful peel out. He is also practicing for his safety kayaking days (we have a rafting trip at the end of January:) Don is such a cabbage head. We had more fun than you really should while vegetable shopping in Baeza on our way home from Tena.

Larry and an unusually large brocoli. And Sarah, AKA, chiquita banana...well, what can I say? Thanks for being such a good sport and letting me put this on the blog!

The crew in Linares gorge on the Quijos River.

Dan is flatwater cartwheeling his way to the final take out of the week on the Quijos River at Santa Rosa.

Just so no one would feel bored their last day, we went for a new alternative take-out which was in fact, a lovely jungle hike.

Here is Dan again being one with the greenery.

Steve B. getting down and dirty with some rainforest plants...



In the next week I will post Chris and Hillary´s photos from the first couple weeks of the season, as well as a trip report from the Aspen Whitewater Rafting staff trip with us. They made excellent guina pigs for some of the new runs we wanted to try out! While they did suffer a bit, I think it was well worth it for them:)