This morning we were early to rise again with a 5 a.m. wake up call. We had breakfast and set out at 5:45 a.m. for a hike to the canopy tower at Napo Wildlife Center. We traveled by canoe again towards the creek, where we had a short 30-minute hike to the Canopy Tower or Observation Tower.

The tower is designed to last and provide maximum safety to users. This magnificent building is over 125 feet tall and stands next to a giant 155 foot-Kapok tree, with an ample platform providing great space for over 15 guests and their cameras, spotting scopes, tripods, binocular gear and other equipment ready to enjoy the canopy of the rain forest. No one should miss this amazing highlight (except for me because I could never climb that high)! But the said it has great views of troops of howler, capuchins, monk sakis or spider monkeys in the forest.

When they returned to land, we hiked about 20 -30 more minutes to a waiting canoe. On the route we saw monkeys, many types of birds, as well as the rare Long-tailed Potoo.

We boarded our boat to Napo’s Welcome Center, where we had a quick snack before heading out to the clay lick. Napo Wildlife Center is fortunate to have this very special clay here within, and have discovered almost a dozen exposed areas of this clay within the Reserve. Blinds have been built at the clay licks to welcome visitors. We sat there for quite some time before we finally saw the parrots arrive. We enjoyed watching this wonderful experience for about 45 minutes.  A thousand or more Cobalt-winged Parakeets typically visit this lick. The noise is incredible!   We spotted 4 Scarlet macaws, but the parakeets would not let them near the lick.

We heard there had been a hawk in the area for the last 3 days so the parrots could not get to the lick, and by this day they were hungry!  It is almost certain that other small parakeets visit this clay lick, and new species for the region and Ecuador are just waiting to be discovered. They were so loud that when we left we all laughed that our ears were ringing like we had been sitting up front at a rock concert.

We took a 20-minute walk on a great trail, and then returned back to the welcome center and had a nice lunch.

Following lunch, we boarded yet another motor canoe for a quick trip to the Anangu community. Anangu people are active participants of the conservation and management of a large territory within the park and partners in tourism. The Anangu people are helped by Eco-Ecuador Foundation, which is part of the Tropical Nature Conservation System, a world-leading group of ongoing ecotourism projects all working together on a nature tourism company.

We didn’t have much time, but at least got to watch them sing and dance, even joining them in the dancing. Shortly after, we boarded the motor canoe traveling on the Napo River to our fourth lodge, Sani Lodge. We had a 20-minute walk on a wooden planked walkway to a canal, where we boarded another canoe for another 20-minute trip before arriving at Sani Lodge.

Deep within the Ecuadorian Amazon, you will find a mysterious lake called Challuacocha, where floating water hyacinths and grasses obscure the shores.  Sani Lodge is an ecolodge dedicated to ecotourism, environmental conservation, and community projects in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador.  Sani Lodge is owned and operated by members of the Sani community, meaning that with their extensive knowledge of the Amazon wildlife and biodiversity they can give  guests the true experience of the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle. Here, the biodiversity will amaze you! You walk through a pristine rainforest gallery that is home to 1,500 species of trees, hundreds of climbing vines, and exotic flowers, as well as 550 species of tropical birds, 13 species of monkeys and 1,000 species of beautiful butterflies.

We were welcomed with nice cool rum drink with cheese and fruits. We have very little time as it was getting late so we decided to take in some piranha fishing.  We boarded our canoe for a 30-minute ride to the fishing spot. We had two additional people on this journey with us, Andy and Sally from Cambridge, England!

We saw more birds and wildlife on this canoe ride than most of our journey.  Some of the birds we saw were Kingfisher and the American Pygmy Kingfisher, herons, flycatchers, and many hoatzins. Our guide Fredy also saved a yellow-spotted turtle from the water. The guides cut up the meat and baited our hooks and we were ready to fish. One of our them caught about four or five fish, but only one was large enough to keep and they cooked it for dinner that night. Eric from our group also caught a small piranha.

We started canoeing back to the lodge just after sunset and it was a full moon.  We were able to watch this large orange ball rise up into the sky. What terrific views we had.

As we were returning to the lodge, we spotted many black caimans. Upon arrival to the lodge, we were given our rooms and washed up for dinner.  We visited a bit, talked about the lodge and the next days adventure, and were off  to bed.