Bird List

Here's our complete list from 10 January to 7 March. 148 Species, 110 life birds (j). Birds were, after all, one of the main reasons Ecuador called us in the first place.

Anatdae: Ducks, geese and swans
Andean Ruddy Duck
Andean Teal (m)
Muscovy (j)

Ardeidae: Herons, Bitterns and Egrets
Cattle Egret
Great Egret

Cathartidae: American Vultures
Andean Condor
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture

Accipitridae:Kites, Hawks, Eagles and Osprey
Swallow-tailed Kite
Cinereous Harrier (m)
Barred Hawk
Black-chested Buzzard Eagle
Roadside Hawk
Variable Hawk (m)

Falconidae: Falcons and Caracaras
Carunculated Caracara
Barred Forest-falcon
American Kestrel
Aplomado Falcon

Cracidae: Curassows, Guans and Chachalacs
Wattled Guan
Sickle-winged Guan (j)

Rallidae:Rains, Gallinules and Coots
Sora
Andean Coot

Scolopacidae: Sandpipers, Snipes and Phalaropes
Yellow-legs sp.
Spotted Sandpiper
Andean Snipe

Charadriidae: Plovers and Lapwings
Andean Lapwing

Laridae: Gulls and Terns
Andean Gull

Columbidae: Pigeons and Doves
Band-tailed Pigeon
Eared Dove
Common Ground Dove

Psittacidae: Parrots and Macaws
Red-billed Parrot
Bronze-winged Parrot

Cuculidae: Cuckoos and Anis
Squirrel Cuckoo (western race)
(eastern race) (m)
Smooth-billed Ani

Caprimulgidae: Nightjars and Nighthawks
Band-tailed Nightjar

Apodidae: Swifts
White-collared Swift

Trochilidae: Hummingbirds
White-whiskered Hermit
Green-fronted Lancebill (?)
White-necked Jacobin
Brown Violetear
Sparkling Violetear
Green Thorntail
Green-crowned Woodnymph
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Andean Emerald
Purple-billed Whitetip
Empress Brilliant
Green-crowned Brilliant
Ecuadorian Hillstar
White-tailed Hillstar
Giant Hummingbird
Shining Sunbeam
Brown Inca
Collared Inca (m)
Rainbow Starfrontlet (m)
Buff-tailed Coronet
Purple-thoated Sunangel
Golden-breasted Puffleg (m)
Booted Racket-tail
Black-tailed Trainberrer
Green-tailed Trainberrer
Tyrian Metaltail (m)
Violet-tailed Sylph
Purple-crowned Fairy
Purple-throated Woodstar

Trogonidae: Trogons and Quetzals
Golden-headed Quetzal
Masked Trogon

Motmotidae: Motmots
Rufous Motmot

Capitonidae: New World Barbets
Red-headed Barbet
Tucan Barbet

Ramphastidae: Tucans
Crimson-rumped Tucanet
Pale-mandibled Araçari
Plate-billed Mountain Tucan
Chocó Tucan

Picidae: Woodpeckers and Piculets
Crimson-mantled Woodpecker
Black-cheeked Woodpecker
Yellow-vented Woodpecker

Furnariidae: Ovenbirds
Bar-winged Ciclonides
Pacific Hornero
Many-striped Canastero (m)
Pearled Tree Runner

Dendrocolaptidae: Woodcreepers
Strong-billed Woodcreeper
Montane Woodcreeper
Red-billed Sythebill (j)

Tyrannidae: Tyrant Flycatchers
Tuffted Tit Tyrant
Ornate Flycatcher
Black Phoebe
Vermillion Flycatcher
Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant (m)
Paramo Ground Tyrant
Tropical Kingbird
Becard Sp. (Whtie winged/Black Capped)
Masked Tityra

Cotingidae: Cotingas
Cock-of-the-Rock

Corvidae: Crows, Jays and Magpies
Inca Jay (m)

Turdidae: Thrushes
Swanson’s Thrush
Great Thrush
Ecuadorian Thrush

Cinclidae: Dippers
White-capped Dipper (m)

Hirundinidae: Swallows and Martins
Grey-breasted Martin
Brown-bellied Swallow
Blue-and-white Swallow
White-banded Swallow (m)
Barn Swallow

Troglodytidae: Wrens
House Wren
Gray-breasted Wood-wren
Chestnut-breasted Wren (m)

Motacillidae: Pipits and Wagtails
Paramo Pipit

Parulidae:New World Warblers
Tropical Parula
Blackburnian Warbler
Slate-throated Whitestart
Spectacled Whitestart

Traupidae: Tanagers, Honeycreepers, Bananaquit and Plushcap
Bananaquit
Yellow-tufted Dacnis
Blue Dacnis (m)
Masked Flowerpiercer
White-sided Flowerpiercer
Fawn-breasted Tanager
Orange-billed Euphonia
Golden Tanager
Flame-faced Tanager
Golden-naped Tanager
Metalic-green Tanager
Beryl-spangled Tanager
Blue and Black Tanager
Bay-headed Tanager
Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager
Blue-winged Mountain-Tanger
Blue-grey Tanager
Palm Tanager
Lemon-rumped Tanager
Magpie Tanager (m)
White-winged Tanager
White-shouldered Tanager
Dusky Bush Tanager

Cardinalidae: Saltators, Grosbeaks and Cardinals
Southern Yellow-Grosbeak

Emberizidae: Emberizine Finches
Black-and-white Seedeater
Plumbous Sierra Finch
Band-tailed Sierra Finch
Rufous Collared Sparrow

Icteridae: American Orioles and Blackbirds
Scarlet-rumped Cacique
Northern Mountain Cacique (m)
Peruvian Meadowlark


(m) seen by M. only
(j) seen by J. only

The Places We Look for Sky

It was like that, in Ecuador, I lifted my eyes to where I thought the horizon should be and found the jagged line of the next ridge. Mountains. I miss the mountains of Ecuador.

I had water from the tap this morning. After two months of agua purificada, it was a pleasure to drop my vigilance. But I missed my morning spread of mango, papaya and orlitas.

I’ve been talkative on my return, lubricated by the ease of communication in my native tongue. But I was surprised to find, as I purchased my train ticket at Grand Central for the journey north and home, and as I ordered tea and a muffin that the Spanish came out first, a buenos dias escaping my lips before I realized what I’d said.

The streets and stations are clean. The “Give a Hoot and Don’t Pollute” campaign having trained us well. The abundance of trash and recycling containers offer an alternative to tossing our trash on the street. And the travel is quieter. There’s no movie playing at the front of the train car, and no folklorico spilling out of speakers between flicks. But I’ll miss that too, the music, the sound track of Andean pipes, Latin Pop, and 1980s Top 40 that flavored our days.

Perhaps it was because we were tourists, our clothes, skin and luggage marking us as extranjeros, but when we stopped, confused, help was always on hand. The Ecuadorianos we met were proud to have us visiting their country, and concerned that we should like it. There was time for a friendly greeting on the street, a handshake. I have, too, left my traveling companion in Ecuador to spin out his own adventures for a time. And I miss both the camaraderie of the culture and of my partner. But I’m ready for the community of home. Ready to trade email for the more intimate interactions of phone and in-person visits.

So as the train rolls north along the Hudson, brown and gray-banked with the dormancy of winter, and under the steel sky that signals snow, I lift my eyes to the far bank and find there softly rolling hills. And I know that I am home.

North along the Panamerica

From the bus window, bougainvillea blooms over a rebar fence. Rows of corn, with their encircling wreaths of bean plants edge concrete buildings and spill into empty lots. Cement blocks, in their own rows dry in the sun. Where corn occupies the horizontal spaces, advertisements fill the vertical ones: Claro, Movistar, Oreo, Pilsner, Sunny D.

On the LG flat screen TV at the front of the bus, a Coyote picks up a woman and her two children, driving them north to the boarder in preparation for a crossing.

From the bus window, a roasted pig, propped on cement blocks, awaits carving. Next door, three chickens spin on a spit over embers. Tethered cows graze circles into the grassy shoulder. I watch the landscape oscillate between pastoral Vermont and Montana’s Ranchland.

Tempers flare in the desert. The route has changed. The immigrants are running out of water.

From the bus window, a boy in a yellow shirt levers against the stubbornness of two piglets. A little girl walks with her mother, clutching the pleated fabric of her skirt. The woman's hands are clasped behind her back.

On the LG flat screen TV a reunion. The credits roll. The next movie begins. Vin Diesel steals a Corvette Grand Sport from a moving train.

From the bus window, a festival in action. A crowned man astride a horse with burgundy saddle blankets carries a dead chicken slung over his shoulder. On the opposite hillside five men wind in a serpentine dance carrying flags and a pole from which four more chickens hang by their feet. Trucks parked on the shoulder sell drinks and provide music, while campesinos claim their hillside perches for the show.

Guns are drawn on the streets of Rio. Drivers downshift and seek and opening. A ten-ton safe wrecks havoc in the wake of two Charger SRT8s.

From the bus window, a kestrel plunges for a sparrow. Concrete canals line the road, and the precise plantations of pine and eucalyptus.

The credits roll, the bus pulls into the station.

I am in a land between lands. What America do they know? What Ecuador do I?

Cajas

"Its easy to get into Parque Cajas" admonished Lucien when he learned our next destination. "But not so easy to get out." In truth, people have been navigating the high páramo of what is now Parque National Cajas for over three thousand years. Also true, the rolling labyrinth of glacial lakes and sudden appearance of fog, rain or sleet at any time of day makes navigation a challenge.

But enter we did, climbing Loma Cucheros and descending to the Burin valley and Lago Ingañan. The rain came in early, and we sloshed down the trail in our rubber boots and full rain gear. At our feet flowers bloomed: the yellow orchid-like Halenia, purple gentians reminiscent of Siberian squill, and the centimeter-wide circus tents of Gentianella. At the laguna, a herd of five llamas cropped the páramo grasses, their long eye lashes and coats thick with moisture.

We climbed to a pass above the lake and camped on the cushion plants, the only reasonably dry and flat place the land offered. The first late-afternoon sun we’d encountered in weeks poured in under low clouds. It hit the landscape spinning gold from the grasses and setting the kettles and potholes of water to dancing. A carunculated caracara soared over our site, and we watched until gathering clouds sent us scrambling for the tent.

For the next two days, we followed the Inca road. The Inca stonework is still evident in places; bench cuts into the hillside are built up, and in places flat-topped stones keep the trail above the mud. Though it’s called the Inca road, archeological sites show the Cañari used the route before the Inca. To the west lay the port of Guayaquil, and the coast, sources of fish, salt and coral. East lay the ancient city of Guapondélig, which the Inca named Tomebamba, and the Ecuadorians call Cuenca, further east, the Amazon provided bamboo, animals, and the feathers of scarlet macaws.

We turned toward the Amazon and followed the trail as it wound above the Rio Taitachugo. The route has been lost in places, as when we eased through the obstacle course of the polyepsis forest, or descended four hundred meters over a couple kilometers, following the plunging river to the cloud forest below. We wondered then which route the Inca and their laden llamas had taken.

In the valley, the river broke into a broad meander and the cloud forest, as verdant as the paramo was spare, gave way to a grassy valley. A tufted tit-tyrant sang from the top of a nearby shrub, and a flock of parrots exploded into flight.

The ruins of an old hacienda stood where the river emptied into Lago Llavicu. And across the lake construction has begun on a covered boardwalk, which will serve as part of the new nature trail. So the story of the land continues, with new generations of construction and navigation. We left he park at the Llavicu control and continued on the ancient route aboard a bus to Cuenca.

Jima

There is hiking in Jima, just ask the locals who will point to the two mountains that flank the town. Or, if you're looing for something more extensive, a guide can take you to nearby (a half-hour by camonteta) Bosque Protectors Moya Molón or Tambillo. Or take any road out of town. Each of the two we followed wound up a drainage to a pass, from which the vistas enticed us onward.

The land is gentler around Jima, and at least two-thirds of it is cleared for pasture or cropland. Crosses or churches anchor the summits of nearly every crest. Eucalyptus trees lined rivers and hugged the valleys. I hear there's an information center with additional information, but everyone we met was friendly and knowledgeable. I'm not sure a formal center was necessary.

Ramon welcomed us to town, and as the restaurants were closed for the holiday, he invited us to dinner should we need a meal (we had brought our own food, since we'd been planning to be in the backcountry.) Pablo detailed extensive treking options from the main trail along the crest of the moutain to a three day trek to the Amazon, through local villages where housing and meals would be available. A family buying groceries set us on the path for the hundred (or more) year old adobe church that looks over town from a nearby hilltop.


But Jima has another story as well. The town, for being a small agricultural hub, has many nice houses and new ones being built. The plaza is well-kept and clean. An artifical cascade lined with international flags graces one corner. The money comes from Jima's many citizens who have left not for Cuenca, but for the states. Miguel, his wife and two daughters were back for a visit, all four are now citizens of the US and return to Jima every year or so to see their families. Fifteen years ago Lucian worked his way north to Mexico and walked across the boarder. His son was born in New York and they've been "home" for six months. Our host at the Hostal Jima spent some time in New York City. All of them, and many others, sent part of their paycheck home every month.

I wonder at the toll of being in the US illegally, of not being able to return home for a visit. I wonder at the parents and children for whom "home" is sucha different place, not only geographically, but culturally and economically. And I feel so hugely blessed to be able to come and go, to travel to nearly any country I choose and often without even the need to ask permission to enter. I would return to Jima, for its friendly folks, and for its hiking, this time with a map and a few extra nights to stay. And who knows, if the restaurants are closed, maybe I'll take Ramon up on his offer and go to dinner.

¡Carneval!

Our first introduction to carneval, outside the reader on Important Ecuadoran Celebrations that we translated in Spanish School, was a pitched battle between boys and girls including water balloons, buckets of water, spray foam and powder.Almost everyone ended a little wetter than they'd begun and a few appeared prematurely grey from the fistfulls of talk that landed in their hair. The best part was the indigenous woman of 30 or 49 in pleated skirt and high ecuadoran hat who stood on her second floor balcony tossing buckets of water onto unsuspecting passersby below.

In Cuenca, carneval shuts down the city and everyone has ammo on hand. Leaving our hostal we were ambushed by two boys with half a dozen water balloons. Waling around town we cast a wary eye at all balconies before passing under them. Two kids got us with super soakers around the commercial plaza and their neighbor completed the deal with a bucket of water from the roof, which we dodged, but barely. Later, as we walked to dinner, a nine-year-old snuck up on us with a can of spray foam and squirted a pile of it on my neck. The sound of it made me jump half a foot in the air and we all laughed.

A rampant mischeviousness ran through the city and anyone was fair game. Squirt guns aimed from open windows of passing cars, but driving with the windows down was also a dangerous proposition. Everyone joined in, with children taking the lead.

While we enjoyed the festivities, the holiday became frustrating when we tried to leave town on Monday. The city busses, depending on who we asked, either weren't running, or were running on a holiday schedule. The south bus station was closed completely and provincial and interprovincial busses were few and far between. "Porque es Carneval!" was the simple and soon unnecessary explanation. "Mercoles." There will be busses on Wednesday. So we did what we had not yet done and hired a cab for the 45 minute ride to Jima, making sure, as we headed out of town, that the windows were closed.

Making Other Arrangements

M. hobbled into the room "Bad news" he said, "I just turned my ankle." I returned to the dining room where the staff was still cleaning up after dinner and somehow managed, through spanglish and mime to get ice in a plastic bag. The next two days of our trek we replaced hiking with pick-up rides and waited to see how bad the sprain was.

And so we found ourselves on the plaza in Zumbagua making other arrangements.

I remember a similar sense of opportunity as I sat on the platform at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia as a 16 year old. When the airport train pulled into the station, I realized I could go anywhere. And while we were hugely dissapointed to be turning away from a trek that would have taken us across a remote section of high paramo, through a vicuña reserve (vicuña are llamas' wild cousins) and over the shoulder of Chimborazo, the volcano whose summit, due to the bulge at the earth's equator, is further from the center of the earth than any other, we were also full of opportunity.

Were should we spend our last ten days? Find a last-minute deal for the Galapagos? Explore the islands and Marine Reserve at Machalilla National Park? Head over to the hot springs ad day hikes at Baños?

It was Cuenca that called, and so we climbed to the Panamerican and boarded a bus south, heading south to Ecuador's third largest, and by many accounts, most beautiful city and the adjacent Parque National Cajas.