Going on a Bear Hunt

Arsenio, our guide, invited us yesterday to rise early this morning to go bird watching. "There will be coffee," he said. I'm not normally an avid ornithologist, but the promise of a cup of shade-grown coffee, not to mention the astonishing avian life that abounds in the trees close to the lodge, were enough to tempt me out of bed before 6am.

Twitching apparatus

True to expectations, we didn't have to venture far to get an eyeful of the fantastically coloured species flitting from tree to tree - especially with Arsenio's binoculars and telescope, offering 60x magnification. Tiny tanagers were a common sight, including golden-naped, blue-necked, green-yellow, and blue-grey varieties.

Blue-grey tanager

We even caught a brief glimpse of a toucan; its heavy-looking beak making it appear an improbable candidate for flight.

Toucan

At this altitude, with less dense tree coverage than the higher cloud forest, birds are abundant. We heard warbling motmots and a toucan barbet before catching sight of a collared tragon dancing on the branches showing off his red chest, blue-green back, and white-and black-striped tail.

Collared tragon

However, after yesterday's sighting, it was clear that Arsenio was itching to return to the site of the spectacled bears. Only a short walk uphill brought us back to the clearing where we had yesterday been privileged to first witness the bears feeding in the trees. Today, however, it seemed as though the bears had moved on. Arsenio looked dejected but waited nonetheless. He apologised, but it was he who seemed the most disappointed. However, no sooner had the apology left his mouth than his ears pricked up to a sound fainter than any of us could perceive. Falling silent, a quiet scratching was all we could make out, but Arsenio was convinced a bear was raking its claws against the bark of a tree. Sure enough, only a few seconds later, a bear appeared out of the forest floor, nimbly scaling the branchless trunk of a tree.

Bear antics

Given the abundance of wildlife, we all got carried away and our short one-hour pre-breakfast walk extended to three hours. This was no problem for the kitchen, which demonstrated typical Ecuadorian flexibility to the new time, serving up fantastic home-baked bread, pineapple jam, and scrambled eggs.

With the late breakfast, there was just enough time to squeeze in a walk along the swamp trail (sendero al humedal), so named as it lies below the plain of the river and remains a little muddy all year round.

River Umachaca

The trails are very roughly hewn through the thick forest, with a thick layer of green undergrowth carpeting the ground beneath our feet. It is probably as close to trekking through virgin jungle as one can get without swinging a machete. We looked up at one point to see a spectacled bear approaching on the ground from the side, apparently oblivious to our presence, given the relative obscurity afforded us by the tree cover. The bear came within 10 metres of our group before something gave us away and it bolted. After that close encounter, we saw three or four more bears going about their business, scaling and descending the aguacatillo trees in search of fruit.

Bear watching

We soon went in search of our own nourishment and, back at the lodge, tucked into rice and quesadillas (Mexican-style this time) with an agreeably spicy home-made mole sauce, fried bananas and 'creole' salad.

Quesadillas

Giving us a break from wildlife walks, Rodrigo - the owner of Maquipucuna reserve - looking for all the world like the man from DelMonte, took us on an afternoon tour of the organic garden and coffee facilities.

The former insurance broker bought up the land to preserve its natural state and gave up the rat race but gave it up to run the reserve. As well as the nature retreats, the reserve produces its own shade-grown arabica beans, which are hand-processed and roasted, before being packed into 25kg bags - less than half the weight that the industry standard - so that expensive industrial machinery is not required to move them around.

Unroasted coffee beans

After nearly 30 years of operation, there are continual plans afoot for cooking classes, edible gardens, herbal medicines, and more.

Not far from the lodge are a waterfall and swimming hole in the river. Despite the refreshingly cold water we went for a quick dip - actually, this was more of a paddle for me.

Back and showered in astonishingly hot water for a lodge in the middle of the forest, we sat down to dinner of mushroom lasagne with beetroot salad. Afterwards we had chance to sample another new fruit - the babaco. Like a cross between a star fruit and a papaya, with the shape of the former and the size of the latter, the flesh tastes like a composite of apple, pear, and banana, and came simply stewed in a little brown sugar.