Whether he did or didn’t, here’s a few cool ideas to spend a gift certificate or just a credit card on.
I wish I had one of these in the Caribbean!
Just to remind you that I do get a small commission if you use my Amazon.com link whether for the items above or anything you choose. It helps pay the hosting charges and I do appreciate it!
Visiting the eco-lodges in the Ecuadorian Amazon & Yasuni National Park involves a journey of several hours down the Napo River. You begin at Coca and the first part is on a wide section of the river so you don’t see any wildlife but it’s still an interesting trip. The guides give a safety briefing and point out the sights along the way. Our bilingual naturalist guide was Lena and she did a fantastic job of spotting wildlife.
We encountered a storm about an hour into the trip and plastic covers were lowered to protect us from the rain.
Everyone gets a small pouch with a few snacks inside.
This is the transit area where you change from the motorized boats to the smaller paddleboats. There are restrooms and you can stretch you legs. From here, it’s about 90 minutes-ish to Napo Wildlife Center depending on how many stops along the way to see wildlife.
Paddleboats
We saw lots of spider monkeys along the way.
Lots of birds too! My bird checklist on eBird.
Here you can see the “black water” of the Anangu Creek.
Caiman lying in wait!
I was really excited to see Hoatzins! These cool-looking birds are called “stinky chickens” by the locals which doesn’t do justice to these awesome birds.
Double-toothed Kite
A lizard, well-spotted by our guide.
Even though the journey was interesting, we were happy to see Napo Wildlife Center come into view, the seats in the paddleboats aren’t the most comfortable.
A trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon will be one of the highlights of any birder’s trip to Ecuador! Since Ecuador is a relatively small country, it is especially easy to get to. Most package tourists will have flights from Quito to Coca built in to their Amazon package but you can save a couple hundred dollars if you use miles for this route. Avianca Lifemiles only charges 3000 Lifemiles each way which is a fantastic deal! You can also reach Coca by bus, its about a 6 hour journey straight through but there are interesting stops along the way. In the map below, Coca is in the middle, the purple line on the right indicates where the eco-lodges are in Yasuni National Park like Napo Wildlife Center. You can also see my recommended stops for the journey back – Wawa Sumaco for Wildsumaco, Cosanga for Cabanas San Isidro and that purple dot indicating Guango Lodge which is on the highway but not near a town.
The Aerogal plane which is what you will be on if you use Lifemiles is a small one but it’s only a 35-40 minute flight.
We didn’t have checked bags but if you do, they are brought to this window.
If you are being picked up by your tour operator, they will have a sign with your name on it. Otherwise, just get a $3 taxi to the La Mision Hotel.
Driving through the town of Coca. Not really much here to look at so we didn’t jump out anywhere.
Some nice bird art on a building.
This is the car park of La Mision Hotel and where you get the river boats that take you to your lodge.
If you are on the early flight, I suggest getting breakfast here and asking for the wifi password to kill time. Some lodges do have wifi but it isn’t cheap so be prepared to be unplugged for your adventure! Let the hotel staff know which lodge you are booked with, everyone knows everyone and they will tell your guide that you are waiting in the restaurant when he/she arrives. They start arriving around 9:30ish.
Typical river boat that the lodges use.
View of the La Mision Hotel as our boat pulled away from the pier.
When you are ready to leave Coca, get a taxi to the bus station on the outskirts of town. If you are going to Wildsumaco, you can use a bus that is headed to either Quito or Tena.
For Wildsumaco Lodge, have the driver let you out at the road to Pacto Sumaco and call them so they know when to pick you up. It’s a long walk up hill so you do need a ride. Details will be in my report on Wildsumaco Lodge. We didn’t have a phone but a kindly fellow passenger made the call for us to let them know which bus we were on.
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MTTW Link
And you can start making plans to maximize the 2016 bonus categories!
Although flights on major routes can now be bought online at reasonable prices, there are times you will need to use the bus when moving from one eco-tourism hotspot to another. Let’s have a look at BR-163, the only route between Mato Grosso (Pantanal, Alta Floresta for Cristalino) and Itaituba (jumping off point for Amazonia National Park). I have highlighted in yellow these cities on the map below. The “A” shows the location of Guarantã do Norte which is the boarding point for the bus headed north to Itaituba or where you will change buses if heading in the opposite direction.
Mato Grosso to Itaituba
This route is operated by a bus company – Verde Transportes. Their website is only in Portuguese so I will walk you through how to use it to get information and possibly even book a ticket online. The online booking wasn’t open to foreigners last year when we were there so we bought all our tickets at their kiosk in the Cuiaba terminal. We took several buses: Cuiaba-Alta Floresta, Alta Floresta-Novo Sta Helena, Novo Sta Helena-Guarantã do Norte and finally the 20 hour bus trip to Itaituba. They take credit cards at the kiosk and can book all your tickets and issue them right there.
Somente Ida is “One way”.
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You will be redirected to Net Viagem. You can see there is only one bus on the date I asked for that leaves at 20:00 (8pm) and it costs Brazilian Reis R$ 143.90 which is about $70 USD. Tick the radio button below “selecione” and hit “comprar”.
Net Viagem
You will see which seats are available. If they are accepting foreign credit cards, at this point choose a seat and hit “comprar”.
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You won’t have an account so click the radio button with the red arrow, put your real email and make up a number for the CEP. Then hit “Prosseguir”.
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It won’t like your fake CEP and you will see this screen. Hit “Fechar” to get rid of it.
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Hit the “Foreign” radio button and you will get rid of the Brazilian fields and have more international fields to fill in. I made up some info for the screenshot, you would be putting in real info.
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You will have 2 blue buttons to hit on the following screens and then you get a purchase screen.
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Hit “sim” on this screen.
This is the final screen. Theoretically you should be able to pay with a Visa or Mastercard. I would suggest calling your bank to warn them to expect an online transaction from Brazil so they don’t think it’s fraud.
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Hopefully you will have an e-ticket to print out and bring on the bus. Otherwise you will have to do as I did and buy the ticket there. I think you will have to do each leg of a multi-segment trip individually. Make sure there is availability on each leg before buying anything.
Here are some photos of our 3 leg journey from Alta Floresta to Itaituba. These are not the deluxe executive buses you see on the bigger routes but they are OK. At the time of our trip, the road wasn’t paved after Novo Progresso but this may change by the time you do your trip. The bus doesn’t have a toilet but will stop every few hours at a road side cafe where you can get food and use the facilities. None of the buses we took were full so we were able to grab a set of 2 seats each and spread out a bit. We managed to get a bit of sleep and arrived in Itaituba around 4pm. Actually the bus will drop you at the river (Miritaituba) and you take a ferry across which is free.
The Amazon jungle is a dream destination for most birders, full of stunning exotic birds and animals! Nowhere else on earth can you have such amazing adventures, even on a low budget. Just don’t practice the false economy of going there without a guide. It may be tempting to take a bus to a village on the Amazon, think you can hire a boat and go off in search of that one endemic on your “Lifer List” but don’t do it without a LOCAL guide, even if you are strong, fit and think you know what you are doing like Kevin Gale! Their biggest mistake was ignoring the advice of the locals and heading off anyway and trusting Karl to know what he was doing when he was basically full of hot air. Who survives? Who doesn’t? Here’s what happened to these young adventurers in Bolivia!
