Birdwatching is for the birds!



Saturday-Sunday, October 15-16, Bellevista Lodge, near Mindo.

I ain't no birdwatcher!!

I mean, I gave it my best shot but came up lacking. How I came to realize this was by visiting the Bellevista Lodge which is in a reserve of a cloud forest near Mindo, Ecuador. I booked a two-day/one night excursion there complete with transport, all meals and an English-speaking guide. In my group there were two quintessential elderly English ladies, Lynda and Margaret, and one other American, Ronnie, a doctor from San Francisco.

The lodge was rustic and cozy with no heat but plenty of wool blankets to pile on. I stayed in the dorm for a reduced price (luckily no one else was there that night so it was all "MINE, MINE, MINE" -TM the seagulls of "Finding Nemo") and to reach it one had to ascend a ladder similar to something out of a fire station yet lacking the stripper pole to slide down, pity.

The place was crawling, or rather fluttering, with hummingbirds! It was pretty cool (TM Miley Cyrus) as there were so many amazing breeds on display with a stunning array of colors. In the morning and afternoons we went for walks in the forest looking for birds. The problem was that I didn't have any binoculars. The lodge rented them for $10 a day (highway robbery if you ask me) so Ronnie and I decided to get a pair and split the cost. But neither of us could get much use out of them. There were a number of birds our enthusiastic guide, David, tried to get us excited about but I guess I pretty much prefer my critters up close and ready to bite or slobber all over me. Yep.

In the end, I wouldn't recommend the Bellevista Lodge because I think it was overly priced for what was on offer. I'm sure there are similar but cheaper experiences out there for those interested in peering through binoculars in order to catch a partially obscured "catch it now or you'll miss it" glimpse of the rare (insert bird name here).



One major plus was talking to a Canadian woman on the ride back to Quito on Sunday who had been shark cage diving 5 times in Cape Town! She told me that May-June were the best times to go and seeing that I'm going in May this was music to my ears. I've also been strongly encouraged to venture up to Mozambique so I might extend my time in Southern Africa in order to visit this country as well. Why the hell ever not, eh? :)

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