Amazon- Day 11

We were up at 5:30 a.m.,  but I was awake long before that with the animals and rain.  There was a foggy haze over the river at the sunrise.  We had a quick breakfast and left for our canoe ride back to Puerto Gregorio, where we got in the van and traveled to Coca.

During this 3.5-hour ride, we had another Toxic Tour: Jose showed us a video from Russ Kemp, The Battle for the Amazon (check this out on You Tube).  We stopped several times to see the flames that burn the African Palms 24 /7 and have for years.  It's just terrible what is happening to the Amazon!  The lumber industry and oil pipelines are destroying the forests it is difficult to see the  harsh realities that face the Amazon region of Ecuador.  Upon arrival in Coca, Jose checked in our luggage and received our boarding passes for our 30-minute  Tame flight back to Quito.  We departed about 12:15 p.m. and arrived at 12:45 p.m. We were met at the airport by a representative from Rainforest Alliance and were transferred to the Marriott Quito.  We checked in, and I right to the showers to take a long hot shower washing my hair three times.  It was wonderful, but I did feel guilty wasting so much water.  Though, in the past nine days, I didn’t use much water.

At 7:30 p.m. we met with the Rainforest Alliance, USAID, managers from all the lodges to discuss how our journey to the lodges went, and how things have changed from February to August in the short 6 months.

Five lodges in nine days, and I cannot even count the number of canoe rides and type of canoes I went on!

I’m back to my room for bed as I have a 3 a.m. wake up call for my flight in the morning.  All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go.