Our recent trip to the Ecuador Amazon Rainforest was one of the most rewarding trips we’ve ever been on. If you have the opportunity, take this trip or one like it. We were on a riverboat for 7 nights; the others who arrived the same day we did left after 4 nights. I was so glad we weren’t leaving with them…I wasn’t ready to go! My adventure was not over!We are staying in Cotacachi (elevation 8,400’), so the first leg of our trip was a 2 hour taxi ride to the Quito airport. We were greeted at the airport by a member of the Southern Explorations team (www.southernexplorations.com). She got our boarding passes for us and directed us toward the security line. This was the second time we’ve used Southern Explorations for a trip, and we’ve had excellent service both times.
Volcán Cayambe, at 18,996ft, is Ecuador’s 3rd highest mountain.
The flight from the Quito Airport (elevation 7,800’) to Coca (834’) is about 30 minutes. After take-off, we climbed high enough to skirt over the Andes Mountains, then immediately started our descent into Coca. The views of the mountains were spectacular, even with the heavy cloud cover. Volcán Cayambe is 19,000’ tall, and seeing it pointing above the cloud cover is awe-inspiring.
Francisco de Orellana Airport in Coca is about what you’d expect an airport in the Ecuadorian Amazon to be: one runway, small terminal, crowded luggage pick-up area, and according to the airport’s website, no fuel is available here. Planes fly in, passengers disembark, more passengers get on, the plane leaves again. There are quite a few flights in and out of Coca, and the planes are large and generally full because of the number of oil field-related workers coming and going.
We were met at the airport by Juan, who we found out later was the bartender on the boat (VERY important guy). He rounded up the 8 people going on the cruise and arranged for 3 taxis to take us and our luggage to the dock. I ended up in a taxi with a couple from Las Vegas. I happened to be wearing a Texas Rangers t-shirt that day, so I was immediately attacked by the husband for being from Texas. I guess for some reason they thought that everyone in Texas sits around thinking about seceding from the U.S. (I just googled “Texas Seceding from U.S.” and found that as of last March, a whopping 100,000 people had signed a petition to secede; out of what…26,000,000?) After trying to reason with the guy for a minute or so, I decided ignoring him was the best plan. The silent treatment worked, the subject was changed (probably at the behest of the wife), and conversation continued.
Squirrel Monkey hanging out at the port in Coca, Ecuador
Luckily, the taxi ride to the dock took less than 10 minutes. We waited about 30 minutes before getting on the boat, so we had time to meet our fellow passengers. All 8 of us were originally from the U.S.; one couple had recently moved to Cuenca, Ecuador. Also during the wait, we were entertained by a monkey that lives at the hotel next to the dock. We then all got into the motorized canoe and headed downstream on the Napo River to The Manatee; this was a 2 hour trip. We would eventually travel all the way to where the Napo River enters Peru, but never actually left Ecuador.
Motorized canoe trip downstream to get to The Manatee
The motorized canoe trip downstream to The Manatee (www.manateeamazonexplorer.com) takes about 2 hours. It rained a bit along the way, but not a lot. We were there at the end of the dry season, and the crew was expecting the rains to start any day. We found that in addition to the 8 people arriving that day, there was only one other couple on board, also from the U.S. And all 10 of us got along very well, despite one more conversation about Texas seceding (where do these people get their information!?!), Curtis and I being told that we should not feed cats that aren’t ours because cats eat birds and birds bring a much higher quality of life to a neighborhood than cats do, and oh, yes, “I’m sure there are some very nice people in Texas”. Hmm… I guess we’re not? And I didn’t even tell them that I encouraged our cats to eat those dirty, rotten, stinkin’, filthy, nasty Cardinals!
The Manatee looks like, well, a river boat. It has three decks and can accommodate up to 30 passengers. The first deck has the engine room, the crew bunks, the kitchen, and the dining room. At the front of the first deck is an open area where we all met to go on the excursions and where we had our snacks (YUM!) at the end of each excursion.
The Manatee Amazon Explorer
The second deck has more crew bunks, the laundry, and passenger cabins. The third deck, which is where our cabin was, had a covered terrace, the bar and meeting area, more passenger cabins, the ship office, and the bridge. I loved the blank looks and “what’s the bridge” questions from fellow passengers… come on, don’t you guys watch Star Trek? ☺ I have to say, the cabins were tiny and not “charming” as the website indicates. But we were so busy with excursions we didn’t spend much time in there anyway.
As I mentioned earlier, I was glad we had the longer trip; I was not ready to get off the boat when the rest of our buddies did. The day they left, we got up at 5am to eat breakfast with them and say our last goodbyes. We then took a quick trip to Museo Cicame (oh, joy, how I love museums) and then waited for the new group, this time three people, to arrive.
The last two days of the trip were the best as far as excursions go; we’ll write about those in a later blog post. On our departure day, we woke at 5am again, ate a quick breakfast, then headed back upstream to Coca in the motorized canoe. This time, it rained all the way and was really quite miserable; the rainy season had arrived.
We reversed the trip, The Manatee to the dock at Coca, the dock to the airport, flight to Quito, taxi to Cotacachi. And we were exhausted, but extremely happy and grateful to have been able to enjoy this trip. I have a feeling we’ll be going back to Amazon, this time to Brazil for a cruise down the Amazon River!