The Achuar were first contacted by westerners in the 70's and are now learning to adapt to a very changed world. The Kapawi project is a way for them to earn money for education and medicine as an alternative to selling their land for oil production. If you are in the vicinity, please support them and share the responsibility of  preserving the forest by treating yourself to a stay at the Kapawi lodge.

This piranha was caught by Hjalli from the pier outside the lodge. It was caught on a raw piece of meat. Even so Hjalli and I took a refreshing swim in the river the following day and lived to speak of it!

The horror stories of piranhas and anacondas in the river are great exaggerations and as an indicator of how rare anacondas are in these parts, our Achuar guide had seen a baby one once, when he was a kid.

The Kapawi lodge is stationed by a contributary to a contributary to the Amazon river.  The Pastaza river flows into the Amazon some 8 hours from where we were. Yet it is already bigger than any river we have seen, and deep too!

This tree that I'm standing in is a fig tree. They are the highest trees in the forest, their crowns stand like umbrellas over the other trees. They spread by their falling figs which land on the trees surrounding it and spread their roots to the ground. Their roots engulf the tree they are in and slowly they strangle it leaving a big gap in the middle like the one where I'm standing.

This tree plays a key role in the initiation process for becoming a man for the Achuar people. A day long ritual with a shaman involving at least three hallucinogenic drinks and a search for the spirit of the forest defines their entry to manhood. Sometimes the men also go through the ritual when they need guidance from the spirit of the forest.

Insects, birds and amphibians are the most common wildlife in the forest. Mammals are hard to come by and these are the only pictures we caught of mammals - small monkeys high in trees. The only other mammal we saw was the pink river dolphin that swam by early in the morning as we set out exploring.

As an example of our pampering, this is our three course hot meal "picnic".  Linen napkins, tablemats, the works :)

Here's an example of a traditional Achuar meal. Chicken soup, plantains, manioc roots and pineapple served with chicha (manioc beer) on the left. On the right, fish cooked in a banana leaf.

The manioc beer is made by cooking the manioc root and then the maker (traditionally the females of the household) chew the root to start the fermenting process. The drink is served cold and is reminiscent of porridge served with whey (mysa). When visiting the Achuar village we were welcomed into the home of a local family and we were given this beverage as guests of the house. Since this is a local delicacy it is considered very rude to turn it down and not drink. So we had a courteous sip.

Above, a tucan. I would have loved to get a picture of that magnificent nose more up-close and personal.

Right you see a strange bird unceremoniously called stinky turkey just because of it digestive problems.

Quite a few types of spiders but we didn't come across a tarantula. I would have liked to see one, but I'm not sure how I would have handled actually coming across it...

The old town in Quito was built by the conquistadors. When the Incas retreated from Quito they completely destroyed the city and so the Spaniards built it from scratch. The old town is therefore very colonial and to me very beautiful. This cathedral was completed in 1985, after 98 years. Such long construction times seems to be the norm with cathedrals. It is though different from other cathedrals in that the gargoyles are all Galapagos animals.

Below, the presidential palace.

Virgin Mary overlooking Quito - note how she is standing on a giant tortoise.

Next stop from Quito were the Galapagos. We had heard a lot and had high hopes. Some of the things we had heard seemed to fantastical to be true. But they are.

We had heard that the animals at the Galapagos were so relaxed about the presence of humans and so common that you had to watch your step. We had it written down to exaggerations.

Our first stop in Galapagos proved us wrong.  We literally had to step over a sea lion to get on board our boat.

Our boat, the Cachalote is a 96 foot schooner. On board there was room for 16 pax and a 7 person crew.  They pampered us in every way possible. And made me happy with very potent anti-sea-sickness tablets :)

These frigate birds followed us around. You've probably more often seen them on pictures with inflated red bags for the ladies.

First stop was South Plaza Island. Lots of birds! Red-billed tropical birds, swallow tailed gulls. And iguanas and sea lions!  What difference from the jungle where meeting animals was in no way guaranteed.

We learned many new things, including that you don't leave the footpath.

This land iguana is enjoying a cactus fruit.

The marine iguanas are gathering heat from the sun so that they can go grazing in the ocean.

Carcasses mummify in the sun here, the insect life isn't as abundant as in the jungle.

Second day we spent on Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. There we visited the Darwin Research Center and visited some giant tortoises in the wild.

The DRC is an international research center that focuses on the conservation of the Galapagos islands and their endemic species, especially the giant tortoises.

The main reason for the amazing wildlife of the Galapagos islands is the location.  It is situated on a hot spot where three tectonic plates are separating.  It is also situated on the equator where five currents converge.  This makes for a very fertile environment.  Read more.

In many ways it is alike Iceland that sits on two plates and has two currents surrounding it. It's the latitude that makes all the difference in the wildlife.

The name is derived from a specific sub-species of giant tortoises.  As you can see on the shells below they take shape from what the animal feeds on. Those tortoises that feed upwards (eat leaves from trees or cacti) have a hump which makes the shell look like a saddle. A gallop saddle to be more specific. Gallop in Spanish is Galapagos.

One of the main projects of the Darwin Research Center is to raise baby tortoises until they are big enough to fend for themselves. This is very important because many of the sub-species were all but extinct when the conservation started.  One sub-species even has only one specimen: Lonesome George.

Lonesome George is the only one left of the sub-species on Pinta island.  The DRC has been trying to get him to mate with a similar sub-species female to no avail.  A reptile sex specialist (she specializes in reptiles, she isn't a reptile) was called in from Switzerland only to find out that poor George is shooting blanks.

A couple of weeks before we came to the Galapagos another specimen of George's sub-species was found. Unfortunately this is also a male.

The reason for the extinction of these animals can be directly be traced to the behavior of men on the islands. As an example the Norwegian sailors melted them down for fuel. They stop at nothing for oil, them Norwegians...

The giant tortoises can be up to 170 cm over the shell and they can be more than a hundred years old.  How old nobody knows because their age can only be substantiated after death (by counting the age rings on their shells). Recently a giant tortoise that was donated by Darwin himself died in Australia.  Another tortoise is known to have been in the same Saudi family for four generations.

These lava gulls are the rarest gulls in the world. Only about 3-400 pairs remain.

Up in the highlands of Santa Cruz we met giant tortoises in the wild. One theory about the size of the giant tortoises stems from the fact that they need to travel from the lowlands (their mating ground) to the highlands (their feeding ground) once a year, this is quite a hike for a reptile.

Day three we visited with Espanola Island.  First half of the day we spent on Gardner Bay with the sea lions basking in the sun and doing a spot of snorkeling.  It's hard to tell the species apart really as they lie on the beach. When in the water you can easily tell who is in their element and who is not!

We were instructed to not touch the sea lions. The mothers are very suspicious of new smells on their young and may turn against them. Or they may attack if they think you're harming them or get between them. But they are very curious creatures that played around us in the water.

The sea lions move in packs. Each pack has a alpha sea lion and about 30 females. Each female is nursing four cubs.  When they turn four they are driven away from home.  These are territorial animals and they divide the beach between the harems.  Every once in a while a fight between the male replaces the alpha male so they make sure you know who's boss when you're in their territory by honking loudly.

The second half of this day we spent on Punta Suárez for a spot of bird watching. This was our first sighting of the famous blue-footed booby. As usual we were greeted by the reptiles and the sea-lions first.

Magnificent feet!  And no, I did not tamper with them in Photoshop as some would believe.  This is their actual color.

The function is probably to attract the opposite sex. To boot the male blue-footed boobies have this amazing mating dance that they do to impress the ladies.  And they truly are impressive.

Above, the Nazca boobie.  A very close relative to the Masked boobie. 

On the right, a waved Albatros. Its wingspan can reach over 2 m.  They were mating and that explains the loudmouth below.

This scene reminded us of an Escher picture.

Fourth day on the Galapagos brought us to Floriana Island. Here we found flamingos in the lava which looked odd. Coming from another hot spot means that many of the sights on the Galapagos look familiar.  But there are a few odd things, like cacti and flamingos that make the world seem slightly eschew. Like Lyra's Oxford.

The picture above could just as easily have been taken by Lake Kleifarvatn, minus the flamingo.

The flamingos get their color from the crustaceans that they eat, and you can see there's plenty of it on the lake shore.

Far left - a hermit crab.

To the right - a painted locust.

One of the highlights of the trip was the snorkeling. I would gladly snorkel every day if I were in warmer waters. The waters around the Galapagos aren't very warm (hence the wet suits) because of the Humboldt current coming all the way from the Arctic, but they view made it well worth it.

Some years the current doesn't make it to the islands. This is known to us as El Nino.

These golden rays weren't as golden as the morning sun rays as it rose over Santa Cruz on our last day of our journey.  A beautiful image to be left with.

A great big thanks to Mauricio and the crew of the Cachalote for making this trip so memorable.

There is a flaw in our joint photography hobby. We don't like to take street pictures, or pictures of random people. We find an intrusion on their privacy and disrespectful, especially when people are in circumstances we find uninhabitable. So there is only one street picture of our days on the west coast of Ecuador. It could have been taken just about anywhere in a warm, rather poor country.

The rest of that week we didn't touch the camera, we stayed in our hammocks and were pampered by our hosts at the Finca Punta Ayampe ecolodge.   If you're in the neighbourhood be sure not to miss Elvia's ceviche peruviano a la Cucho. Or Cucho's great hospitality. You might even want to take a special trip.

All in all our trip to Ecuador was a raving success and we would like to come again and see more of the mountains, visit Otavalo and Bano. Who knows...

(c) 2007 Hjálmar Gíslason and Margrét Dóra Ragnarsdóttir