Hola Ecuador

Though I was hesitant to leave Peru after three good months, I knew I would not be displeased with Ecuador. The little country has gotten rave reviews from the many people I know that have studied abroad, or volunteered in the cloud forest (McGizzle, that is a shout out to you).

My trip to Ecuador started off strangely. I took a bus to the largest city, Guayaquil (nope, not Quito), which is not a common tourist destination. I wanted to see a park I had heard about in downtown. It is a park filled with iguanas! That is about all I did see before leaving the next day. I must say that seeing people feeding a mixed flock (?) of pigeons and iguanas was entertaining, but maybe not worth the significant detour from my next destination, Cuenca.

Moving via bus once more, I headed due east to Cuenca, a city many consider to be Ecuador's most scenic. I was quickly reminded of Cusco, Peru when my bus pulled in. The center of town has an old and somewhat European feel to it. Many of the buildings were old and architecturally fascinating. This was especially true of the churches, of which there were many. The most famous, and also my favorite, was the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, with its blue and white domes. Inside it was elaborately decorated with candles, pews, and what basically amounted to a wall of gold. The surrounding plazas of trees and green grass were also a nice touch.

I did not just go to Cuenca to see a bunch of churches and city stuff though, as you might have guessed. I also took a day trip to Cajas National Park, which is only about an hour from town. Joining me was another hostel buddy, Bart of the Netherlands. We chose a nice long hike around some lakes, through a Fangorn-esque forest, and over some rugged hillsides. The park was a beautiful piece of nature to enjoy for a day. The views were stunning, and the people were few and far between. I would have liked to spend another week exploring all the trails. Alas, I had to get to Quito very very soon. I left the next day.

My purpose for going to Quito was to meet up with Dr. Santiago Ron, of Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador (PUCE). Through the help of Dr. Emily Lemmon (my last employer) I got invited to join Dr. Ron on a field trip, along with some of his students and colleagues. Prior to meeting my host I chose to visit the historic center of Quito for a morning. I saw old churches, and even took a tour inside the double clock tower Basilica just up the hill from the rest of the city center. The views were great, and that church was fantastic, both inside and out. I ended up missing my lunch appointment with Dr. Ron, due to a combination of serious bus confusion and pushing my time limit on my church tour. I felt really bad for missing the meeting. But Quito's historic district was cool.

The next morning I ambled my way to PUCE, met Dr. Ron, and was whisked off on a long car ride with a bunch of people I did not know, and whom did not speak much English at all. We were embarking on a field trip of the herpetological variety (see a theme yet?). Our group visited a couple reserves in southern Ecuador, near the small city of Zamora. We were put up in a hotel and took nightly trips to the forest. I would describe the habitat we were in as something between lowland rainforest and cloud forest. Whatever it was, there were lots of clouds, and plenty of rain to go around. It was a new environment for me, which made it extra exciting. I knew there would be new things to see here.

On our nightly hikes we walked for at least a couple hours to reach proper survey locations. As I should have mentioned above, this was an inventory project that I was tagging along on. Our goal was to find amphibians and reptiles, identify them, and bring them back to Quito for museum collections. I am not a big fan of killing animals for collections, but Dr. Ron is highly respected in his field of work. This was all for the sake of high level science. I did my best to find and catch whatever I could.

In my week in this unfamiliar forest I did not see any boas, vipers, coral snakes, turtles, or poison dart frogs, as I had in the Amazon in Peru. Animals were harder to spot here, and in such a short time one cannot expect to see a whole lot anyway. I did help find tons of frogs of the familiar (and generally threatened) Pristimantis genus. In addition, and much more exciting, were the countless glass frogs I got to see and catch! I never spotted one in Peru, so I was overcome with joy when I saw one my first night in the field in Ecuador. The reason glass frogs are incredible is that they have huge eyes, smooth bright green skin, and a transparent underside, like glass. They are not big frogs, maybe the size of your average chorus frog or tree frog in the US. They are insanely cool, and I saw multiple species. I also saw two snail-eating snakes, and found a leaf litter snake. On top of that, there were some big iguana-like lizards with pointy crests on their backs, making them resemble little dinosaurs. I found a massive toad on the trail, a mating pair of small frogs high up in a tree, and a mass of hatching eggs dangling from a leaf over a stream. Fittingly, the ultimate highlight was the last frog caught on the trip: a Marsupial frog. It honestly did not look all that spectacular, yet it set off a buzz of "que lindo!" and "chévere!" from the students. These frogs are only awesome if you know a little bit about them. On the back of a female Marsupial frog there is a pouch in which her fertilized eggs sit, and eventually hatch into little tadpoles! Que lindo indeed. I had no idea they were in the region, making it a terrific surprise for me on this trip. Credit goes to Diego for finding it.

Beyond just amphibians and reptiles, this forest was filled with all sorts of life forms. Up in the trees I saw tons of bromeliads, which are an epiphyte (plant that grows on another plant). There were also thorny caterpillars, big spiders, shiny beetles, colorful stick bugs, and a night monkey, which we spotted just before getting in the car at the end of our final night in the field.

My week in Zamora was not all cool frogs and rainbows, mind you. Throughout the excursion I was struggling badly to interact with most of my Spanish-speaking companions. My Spanish has improved a lot down here, but I still cannot hold a great conversation without making tons of mistakes, or having people repeat themselves a few times. I got frustrated a lot, and sometimes stayed more quiet than usual to avoid embarrassment. People in the group reached out to me a lot, and that was greatly appreciated. Dr. Ron and I mostly spoke in English to make sure I was understanding things. It felt like cheating to have that handicap, but it was necessary most of the time. This experience has given me much more motivation to improve my Spanish. If I am going to come back to Latin America it will be imperative that I speak it well. I will do my best to get better while I am down here, and when I head home too.

Now that the field trip is over it is unclear how much longer I will be in Ecuador, or where my next destination is. The last few days have been a bit of a scheduling nightmare. I have no clue where I am going or what my next blog post will be about! Stay tuned.