Bellavista Cloud Lodge - Ecuador

This place was recommended to me by my friend Nick from work. We had an overnight there and it was amazing. Up in the cloud forest, miles from civilization. The owners worked very hard to make this place a safe haven and refuge for wildlife.

http://www.bellavistacloudforest.com/

All the photos can be found here, a selection of the best are below.

It was about a 2 hour drive from Quito, half of it on dirt track straight up a mountainside into the cloud forest. We drove past 'the equator monument' which we understand to be a) just a tourist trap and b) not actually on the equator.

Driving past the Equator monument.

The lodge itself has a variety of accommodations. Mum, Dad and I shared the Upstairs Bamboo lodge which was basic but absolutely fine. The food was good and the staff friendly.

We arrived for breakfast and were then out for a pretty darn strenuous walk. Not only was it quite uppy-downy on rough paths and up a stream/waterfall, we also had the altitude to contend with, having spent the past week at sea level in the Galapagos. Dad and particularly Mum coped admirably, including some rock climbing!

An unexpected scorpion

We had no clue what this was.

Pretty fungi

A waterfall to climb

Anne of the jungle

We didn't actually manage to see very much wildlife on the trek. There were birds around, but up in the canopy and not easy to see. There were also about 10 of us, and several of the people were chatting loudly and incessantly about non-rainforest related things, which annoyed the crap out of me. I wasn't in the best of moods by the end, which I attribute to the altitude, the noisy people, the physical exertion and ongoing diarrhea.

Back to the lodge for a late-ish lunch, which was interrupted by a Tayra stealing the bananas left out for the incredibly rare (and new to science) Olinguito (which we didn't see).

Olinguito that we didn't see, but there was a poster of one so ....

I skipped the afternoon walk to have a nap, and mum did too.  After our nap we went to spend some time staring at the hummingbirds in the carpark!

Sooooooooo many hummingbirds! And so unafraid of people.  The lodge puts out sugar water for them and it attracts loads of them.  When you hold a cup of sugar water in your hand they come and land on your fingers to drink. As you can see, we were all delighted by it, just a little bit.

Nighttime brought many, many moths to the Lodge, attracted by the lights. We had a bit of a wander to see if we could see anything interesting by torchlight. We did see a pair of eyes reflecting in the dark that we are told was probably a possum, and some other stuff.

E.T-esque night view of the Lodge

Moths attracted to the windows distracting us from eating

Ginormous bastard moth (not it's official name)

Dad, looking for stuff in the dark.

Froglett we found in the dark

In the morning we were up at the crack of dawn to see many of the moths resting up. This regular concentration of moths and insects also attracts many birds in the early morning, and it wasn't long before the moth numbers were drastically reduced! This classed as the morning 'walk', but basically we didn't leave the carpark as all the wildlife came to us!

This one was special, but I can't remember it's name.

Acrobatics to catch the moths

Nunbird - extremely unusual to see it at the lodge. People were very excited.

A gentler stroll after breakfast allowed us to see a few bits and bobs. Our guide was using his mobile phone with recordings of local birds to try and attract them. He didn't know that I have an app installed for identifying birds that also has recordings of them.  I played a recording of the Golden Headed Quetzal, a very rare bird in the area, and it was absolutely hilarious to see his reaction!  He was soooooo excited!  He took the joke very well.  Then later, we actually got to see 2 of them!!!! :-)

Monkey Tail Fern

Golden Headed Quetzal (female)