Tandayapa

Today we experienced the ecuadorian wildlife at Tambo Tanda in the Tamboyata district. What you need to understand about moving around in the local highlands and mountain area is that while the roads are great and rather well kept they serpent around breath taking cliffs and steaps and the entire family arriving from the flat southern sweden had to take car sickness pills (with the exception of the 3yo) to endure the wild experience. Tilde, that is prone to car sickness also wore acupressure bracelets. These preparations made it possible to relocate and to take in the most breath taking views while doing it!

Some of the mountains close to Quito have very little vegitation on and Cathy explained that it had to do with deforestation from the poorer population of Quito. Viggo was very upset to hear that but his spirit rose when we got some distance from Quito and entered the rainforest. Rainforest growing above a certain altitude is called cloud forest and we were going to take a closer look at the nature and wildlife above the clouds.

Tambo Tanda is an area that is internationally praised for their rich wildlife and especially hummingbirds and other birds. We arrived to this cute lodge at the mountain side and even though we were a bit lower that Quito we were still almost a km above Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain top of Sweden. This was quite clear to us when we went to the first view point to get an amazing view over the rainforest. The air was damp and by just following the path through the forest we were panting from the lack of oxygene. The kids were doing alright and befriended all the dogs belonging to the guides. :)

The next adventure was to go up the hillside in a small lift, across a creek on a small suspension bridge and into the forest. They told us people get here to do hikes and imagine it would be an awesome way to experience the nature first hand. By just following the trail we saw spiders, frogs and butterflies, some of which made this optical illusion when flying. Also the air was filled with the sounds of birds and insects.

After a short walk of maybe half an hour we arrived at the first zipline stop! All kinds of emotions flew through me but mostly i was scared out of my pants. :) Allmost the entire group wanted to go, Tilde, almost 10years old, included. She changed her mind when she was about to be fasted to the zipline after we explained to her that to get back to the camp you had to follow through with the other ziplines after this one because there were no trail between them. I felt bad for her afterwards because she was quite disappointed in herselft for not following through.

The worst part for me was the taking off, to throw yourself into the air and let go of the ground. After that it was the most thrilling experience and we went with the total of 4 such passes where some were over smaller creeks and one was a long, probably about 50 meters up in the air where you got to see the top of the rainforest and a waterfall far below. An amazing experience!

Well back at the camp we were server freshly caught trout that had been grilled to perfection and was served with potatoes, rice and vegitables. Afterwards we were rewarded with a bath in a heated tub placed so you could experience the breath taking view of the mountains. They had placed hummingbird feeding stations next the the tub and while we were soaking our chocked muscles the birds kept zipping past us, making this high pitched excited sound.

Such an amazing day! Highly recommend!Read more