Santa Lucia Cloud Forest

Today I left for Santa Lucia Cloud Forest. My classmates and I all met at USFQ for 8am, and we took a 2 hour bus ride to Nanegal which is where Santa Lucia is located. Nanegal is off the grid but it's the highlands of Mindo which is a popular tourist destination in Ecuador.

Along the way there were so many windy and bumpy roads I nearly got car sick which has never happened to me before. Needless to say, I was relieved once we arrived. When we got there we all got our packs and a truck came to drive us to the trailhead that would eventually lead us to Santa Lucia Ecolodge. Mules along with staff from the lodge met us at the trailhead to carry our packs up to the lodge. The hike up took us about 2 hours because we stopped a bit to write down notes, and observe some wildlife we saw. Apparently, the hike up takes our guide Edison 35 minutes and going down about 20 (Going down the trail took us 35).

Anyways, along the hike we were surrounded by thousands of different species of trees. We saw a green toucan sitting in the trees, different types of flowers like orchids and epiphytes, and there were some bugs too. When we reached the top, the lodge was right there and it was absolutely beautiful. We couldn't see the view as it's a cloud forest and the clouds had rolled in by the time we got there. As soon as we arrived, we had lunch prepared by the chefs Fredy & Edy. Afterwards, we got a presentation from Edison about the history of the lodge. He explained that the cloud forest was being overexploited and the locals were overhunting at some points. There was virtually no economy since Nanegal is very rural. There was a turning point eventually and the locals realized that there's a tourism industry for a place like Santa Lucia. So they built a lodge at the top of a mountain using mules to transport all the wood as there is no access road. Having no access road means that every tourist/volunteer/scientist needs to make the hike up and down to experience the amazing wildlife Santa Lucia has to offer.

After filling our stomachs and hearing about the Ecolodge, we took a walk to the orchid garden where we tried to identify different plants. This was way harder than I thought it would be since some of the orchids look similar. It was raining pretty hard while walking the trails and I learned that my raincoat is good for light rains. After about 20 minutes it was no longer repelling water. With all the rain, the mud was absolutely crazy! All the trails were really slippery especially with our rubber boots on. Luckily I avoided a fall but there were definitely some close calls, all I could do was laugh it off. After leaving the

garden Edison took us down to a swing that is attached to a tree way up in the canopy. We all took a turn taking a ride and it was absolutely magical. The swing went up pretty high so you had an awesome view of all the vegetation in the forest. At first I was hesitant to go on it, just because it went up pretty high and I didn't know how secure it was. After seeing a few classmates/friends do it, I told myself I am here to push my comfort zone (as IES told us). Sure enough I took a ride on the swing and I am really happy I did.

We headed back to lodge for dinner around 7pm and once again the food was delicious. I had tofu flavored with barbecue sauce and it was probably the best tofu I have had. It came with a little salad and light green mashed potatoes. I think they put avocado in them...whatever it was it was amazing. It's pretty common here to mix different foods together you would never think to. For example, Ines made me mashed potatoes one night that were yellowish, and

they had mustard and an egg in them. It sounds disgusting, and it's a good thing I didn't know what was in it until I started eating it but it was so good!

After dinner we were serenaded by Fredy (the chef), our guide Edison, and another staff member playing guitar. They played traditional Andean music for us and it was absolutely incredible. Fredy provided the vocals and played the flute (quena) and the sicu. He's a man of many talents. Our guide Edison played the drums, and provided back up vocals. All of us were blown away by their performance. I have to say, being on the field trip to Santa Lucia we all had our phones away, only checking them once a day (normally at night). It's really nice to be disconnected a bit. I think I'll be more disconnected in the islands which will be great because it will allow me to be in the moment more. Anyways, I have witnessed about 3 different music performances since I have been here and each performance I fall more in love with the music here.

Around 9:30pm we all took a night walk to look for animals that are nocturnal. We put on our damp rain gear once again and headed out with flashlights in hand. We saw a couple of frogs, lots of stick bugs that blend in with the stems of plants, an amphibian snake that was bright purple, and far up in the trees we saw a kinkajou which is a nocturnal mammal similar to a small monkey. We could only see its silhouette moving through the trees and the branches shaking. When it would look at us we could see its eyes from the light of our flashlights and that was it. From what we could see it looked

adorable. After the night walk, we all crashed for the night. The beds in the cabin were so comfy and such a nice break from my bed at Ines's house (it's like sleeping on cement).

FRIDAY (1/20/19) We were all up and ready to go birding by 6:30am. We walked down the trails and into an open field that had a cabin where some of the staff members stay. We saw lots of birds including some hummingbirds and a woodpecker! After birding for a bit over an hour we went back to the lodge for an amazing breakfast that included yogurt with granola, and fresh fruit. Of course there was bread and a scrambled egg that was flavored with paprika (I think?). Everything is a lot more flavored here making the fresh food that much tastier. When I am back in the states, I am definitely going to try to experiment more with flavorings.

After breakfast we took a long hike down to the sugar cane field they have at the Ecolodge. This sugar cane field is 100% organic and all the sugar cane grown is used to make brown sugar for the guests that stay at the lodge. Edison said that occasionally they will go check on the field and the Andean bears will have destroyed the entire field. Can you blame them though? Edison cut a stock down and let us try pure sugar cane. He then showed us the machine they

use to take the stocks and turn it into juice. They attach mules to a big beam and then they walk around the machine in circles. By having them walk around the machine it compresses the sugar cane stocks creating the sugar juice. The juice is then boiled until pure sugar crystals are formed.

From the sugar cane field, we hiked to one of two waterfalls they have in the reserve. It was absolutely gorgeous, we all took some photos and then hiked back toward the lodge. On our hike back we saw some more frogs and a rhino beetle. Before I came on this trip, if you told me I was gonna hold a rhino beetle I would have laughed in your face. However, for some reason (it may go back to the whole pushing my comfort zone thing) I held the rhino beetle. I can't believe I actually did that but again I knew I was only going to be at Santa Lucia Ecolodge once, so why not? We also saw a "mother-in-law tongue tree". The leaves on the tree are bright red because the flower part of the tree is located below the leaves. The red on the leaves attracts hummingbirds which are the pollinators for this tree. Another cool thing we saw were Dragonblood Trees. If you cut into them (pic below), the sap looks like blood. The sap is used for a variety of medicinal reasons here in Ecuador some being to cure a

cold or to help period cramps.

As soon as we got back to the lodge we received a lecture from the resident biologist at Santa Lucia. From what I gathered, he doesn't actually have a degree in Biology. He started his career in economics and computer science and then made a drastic change. He was extremely knowledgeable and told us about how he is utilizing camera traps to figure out how many different species of mammals and birds live in the reserve. His work was fascinating and he actually offered for any of us to come back and do our own research projects at Santa Lucia which would be a really cool opportunity.

After hearing the biologist's talk, we had lunch and by 2:30pm we were hiking down to meet our bus to take us back to Cumbaya. Time Santa Lucia flew by but I'd say I'd became closer to nature (I held a frickin rhino beetle and used composting toilets at the lodge). It's an

experience I definitely won't forget. On our bus ride back we actually stopped at Mitad del Mundo aka the Middle of the World. This monument was actually built before mapping was extremely accurate so the real equator line is a bit away from this monument (pictured below) but still really cool nonetheless!