We had an early breakfast with our fellow tourists before they left for Coca. We said our farewells and wished everyone a safe trip back. Our guide, Avel, took my Dad and myself on bird watching expedition up a local river. The river had turtles everywhere!!! Every single log or rock had at least a small conga line of five turtles. Some of the turtles looked like they were wearing crowns!! When you looked at them through some binoculars, we would see many butterflies sitting on top of the turtles heads. The butterflies were drinking the tears the turtles secreted to get rid of the dirt around their eyes. The turtles did not mind the butterflies at all.
River turtle conga line!!! A butterfly pretending to be a wasp.
As we continued up the river we saw white tailed trogon and king vultures! There were many tanagers, flycatchers, and birds of prey flying around indicating that this river was pretty active and had a huge amount of biodiversity!! After bird watching, Avel showed us how he would go fishing on the Napo River. He bought some local bait from a few kids and used a small fishing pole. He suggested that we would go fishing by the mouth of a black water stream, because that was where all the nutrients mixed and where all of the fish eat. Amazonian wolfish, pacu, red bellied piranha, and other species would gather around this area and eat everything from seeds to injured fish. Avel caught a large red bellied piranha to show us. The teeth were large and triangular! The fish flopped around before it was released back to the river. Our last part of our journey was to visit a turtle farm. We saw all of these sandboxes and small pools with hatchling turtles sunning themselves. They were all very small and cute! There was rainstorm forming above us, so we left on the boat and headed back to the Manatee for a little R&R.
Red bellied piranha
Baby turtles at the turtle farm.
Brown Jacamar
The midafternoon was spent resting in our room or reading on the upper sun deck. The next group came aboard and I introduced myself to almost everyone. Mostly the group was from Ecuador, Iowa, and Germany. Our previous group had people from Iowa as well. I guess people in Iowa love to travel to the Amazonian Rainforest! ^_^ Everyone was nice and very friendly! In the evening, we took a small boat tour to go bird watching along some of the sandbars. Egret and sandpiper species were in abundance on the sandbars. The day ended and we traveled back to the boat for dinner and a briefing for the next day of adventures!
Adventure Life is always an excellent choice when planning complicated, extreme, or exotic vacations or expeditions. They provide friendly professional services and advice and are enthusiastic and encouraging in helping us to prepare and thoroughly enjoy our trip. They handle all the details which greatly reduces the stress of planning a difficult trip. I'm very impressed with Adventure Life and definitely recommend them to friends and family.
Scott Trochim
2 days ago
The response from Adventure Life to my first inquiry was prompt and promising. I worked with Jamie Broeckel, Trip Planner, via text, email, and phone calls- always extremely responsive and thorough with information and explaining the process to arrange a private tour for me to Malaysia Borneo. Within about week, the booking was complete and I made decisions because of Jamie's great customer service , friendly manner, and overall competence on behalf of the company's travel expertise. Now I have an itinerary, additional Trip Planner Assistants, several links for vital information for traveling to Maylasia, etc. Still many details for Sept. trip, but now the heavy lifting is done and I can enjoy the rest of the anticipation and research!! Thanks Jamie- you are amazing!!!!
Susan Campo
4 days ago
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
5 days ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.