Shiripuno Lodge invites you to explore the deep Amazon, away from any civilization, surrounded by miles and miles of unbroken of the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, away from oil activities, speed boats, noisy barges and other tourists from different lodges of the neighborhood.
Feature Departure Weekly Schedules
4 DAYS TRIPS: Tuesday to Fridays
5 DAYS TRIPS: Fridays to Tuesday
SET DEPARTURES 2015
Amazon Birding Week – for all kind of birders that would like to have a real Amazon Rainforest exposure, which would include: macaws, toucan, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, antbirds, antwrens and other amazonian specialties. This trip is focusing to add species abundace records through e-Bird
Amazon Nature & Wildlife Photo Week – for all the non-professional photographers that would like you work and spend the time to perform until the perfect shot comes. This trip is focused in creating photo material to promote the Conservation of the Rainforest.
Shiripuno Lodge Packing List
When you plan a trip to the AMAZON please bring only items that you are going to use in the forest; Truly there is not reason to carry all your larger suitcase, leave those in the storage services that many hotels in Quito provide. Keep in mind the following items: PERSONAL ITEMS
• Long Trousers
• Long Sleeves
• Wind Jacket
• Cap or Hat
• T-Shirts
• Shorts
• Socks
• Raincoat
• Sunglasses
• Bathing Suit
• Insect Repellent
• Personal First Aid Kit
• Zip-lock Bags for wet cloths
• Soap & Shampoo ( Biodegradable!!)
•Waterproof Bag
TECHNICAL ITEMS
• Camera with Extra Memory Card
• Spare Camera Batteries and charger
• Flashlight with Rechargeable Batteries
• Binoculars ( 8 X 32 or 10 X 42 )
• Notebook and Pencil COMMUNITY ITEMS ( Optional: for the community children)
• 50 Pages Notebooks
• Crayons
• Pencil
• Markers
• Rulers
• Tooth Brush and
• Tooth Paste
As you see.. there is no reason to bring up your hair drier, music devices and such non-usable items.
Many mammals and birds of the Amazon Rainforest, particularly frugivores and other herbivores, visit mineral licks to consume soil (geophagy) or drink water. Among the suggested benefits are mineral supplementation, detoxification of plant secondary compounds, and alleviation of digestive disorders. Mineral licks often occur along river banks but also are found within forests, well away from rivers. In the Neotropics, such sites are visited by a variety of birds (e.g., guans, pigeons, parrots) and mammals (e.g., bats, primates, rodents, ungulates)
Join our next Nature Tours to explore the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve at www.shiripunolodge.com
Brazil’s Tapir visiting the clay lick at night
White-lipped Peccary visiting the clay lick in daytime
Geophagy is extremely widespread in the animal kingdom. Galen the Greek philosopher and physician, was the first to record the use of clay by sick or injured animals in the second century AD.
The Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador, only represents 2% of the entire Amazon Basin. The bird communities of the Neotropics are, for the most part, evolutionarily distinct from those of the Paleotropics. Neotropical rainforest have the greatest number of species but fewer families than the Old World tropical rainforest.
Vertical Zonation of the bird community at Shiripuno Lodge ( Yasuni Biosphere Reserve) in Ecuador:
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology came out with a detail comments how we can improve our identifications skills in the field.
Overall color pattern on bird is the key; ideal terms: plumage, light conditions and time are rare while you are in the wilderness. When we are in the Amazon Rainforest we add overall shapes of the birds to the color pattern. It get exciting because you start creating a simple and deatail inventory of color patterns in the bird parts.
Watch all the video and practice, because once tou are in the forest all this will become very handy.
During summer 2012, nine Virginia Tech undergraduate students traveled to Ecuador as part of Virginia Tech’s Tropical Biology and Conservation course, taught by Ignacio Moore, associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, and Bill Hopkins, associate professor of wildlife conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment.
For the course, students met during the spring semester to study wildlife biology relevant to Ecuador, as well as the socio-political history of the country’s conservation efforts. Then, each student designed and implemented a full-scale research project by developing a question, writing a proposal and protocol, conducting the field research in Ecuador, and writing a final paper detailing results and findings.
In Ecuador, the group visited four field sites: a lowland Amazon rainforest at 1,000-foot elevation, two cloud forests at 4500- and 7000-foot elevations, and a high elevation paramo grassland at 11,000 feet. The group used native guides, as well as Rudolph Gelis, owner of Pluma Verde Tours. Each site had a unique environment and wildlife and offered different student research opportunities.
Student projects included the study of poison dart frog predation and species richness across the elevational gradient, as well as observations of rarely seen animals like the jaguar and gray-bellied hawk.
Ecuador simplemente lo tiene todo, echale un vistazo a este video y te daras cuenta de lo que tenemos; por lo tanto empieza a explorarlo, apoderarte de sus recursos naturales y sobre todo empieza a conservarlo porque tambien estamos a punto de perderlo todo….
NATURE TOURS
Shiripuno Lodge had put together Nature Tours with a duration of 5 days to enjoy the abundance and diversity of life of the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve; with a series of activities to explore and learn about the different types of habitas of the Rainforest. and the useful plants use by the Waorani People.
DAY 01: Quito-Coca by airplane, from Coca We’ll travel 90 km south into the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve and Waorani Ethnic Reserve, by small bus “Chiva” to the Shiripuno Bridge (approx. 2:30 hrs). Box Lunch would be served on the site. Afterwards we’ll navigate 65 km downstream with a motorized canoe to reach the Shiripuno Lodge, the canoe journey will take approximately 4 hours depending on water levels. It will turn into your first experience with the wide diversity of wildlife of the Amazonian Rainforest. Dinner and lodging at the Shiripuno Lodge. DAY 02: Breakfast. We’ll navigate to start our morning hike (3-4 hrs.) into pristine Rainforest along the Mirador Trail; the aim of this trail is to share with you scenic view of the Amazon Basin and show you millions of reason to preserve the Rainorest for future generations. The Waorani and the Naturalist guides will provide you information and explanations about the biodiversity of the Rainforest; and the medicinal plants use by indigenous people. This hike requires good physical condition. Lunch. In the afternoon canoe drifting along the Shiripuno River. Dinner and lodging at the Shiripuno Lodge. DAY 03: Before breakfast. We’ll descend the Shiripuno River and listen the Rainforest waking up!!! Birds and mammals getting up!! Breakfast. Then we’ll go to a back-door trail to explore different type of forest and increase our chance to find more animals. Lunch. In the afternoon we will take the motor canoe and make an excursion into one of the small oxbow lake where it is possible to see different kinds of plants and animals such as; the bizarre bird Hoatzins. We will explore the Rainforest at night searching for nocturnal fauna. Dinner and lodging at the Shiripuno
Lodge. DAY 04: Breakfast. We’ll head to a Forest Clay Lick; it is a location inside the forest where mammals and birds with a plant diet-base come to lick minerals all year round. Lunch. Swimming next to a regular Blue-and-Yellow Macaw roosting site Dinner and lodging at the Shiripuno Lodge. DAY 05: After breakfast, navigate upstream to the Waorani Community; early canoe rides are great to surprises animals crossing the river such as Capybaras, Tapir or resting Caimans; birds such as Macaws and Toucans also can be seen from the canoe. At the Waorani Community you will see the effects of cultural expose by which are living all the different indigenous groups in the Amazon. The Waorani still keep most of their traditions such as: hunting with blowguns and poisoned darts, their unique language Wao Terero, the knowledge of the Rainforest and oral traditions. Responsible tourism brings revenues to all the families at different levels by selling handcrafts, canoe drivers, native guides, housekeeping, kitchen assistants and others activities. Lunch. We’ll continue the navigation upstream to the bridge where we are going to take the bus back to Coca (arrival at 16:30 approx.).
Yasuni Universitario es una Iniciativa Educativa de Shiripuno Lodge para todos los estudiantes universitarios que deban hacer su gira establecida dentro de la malla curricular; y tiene como objetivo dar a conocer uno de los mejores tesoros del pais: La mundialmente reconocida Reserva de Biosfera Yasuni; por su alto indice de biodiversidad y culturas.
Esta Inicitiva esta dedica a las diferentes Escuelas de Turismo, Ecoturismo y Biologia de las diferentes Universidades e Institutos del pais. Pasa la voz… Creemos que los futuros profesionales del turismo y la conservacion deben conocer el Yasuni en todas las dimensiones posibles:
En nuestros itinerarios de 3 o 4 dias; se impartiran datos sobre la diversidad biologica, las dinamicas del bosque como sistema generico de vida, su estado de conservacion y los desafios para los pueblos de indigenas y colonos que dentro y fuera de la Reserva.
Actividades:
Caminatas Interpretativas
Caminatas Nocturnas
Charlas in-situ
Descenso en Canoa
Natacion
Introduccion a la Observacion de Aves
Introduccion a los Reptiles y Anfibios
Introduccion al Pueblo Waorani
Este es el mecanismo de defensa que han evoluvionado los animales para asustar a sus posibles depredaroes.
La Conservacion de nuestros Recursos Naturales, debe ser una Prioridad Nacional; es decir mientras mas area conservemos mejor van a ser las probabilidades de hacer negocios en un futuro cercano.
The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve sits at the intersection of the Andes, the Equator, and the western Amazon region, an ecological bull’s-eye where extremely rich communities of plants, amphibians, birds, and mammals in South America converge. A single hectare of Yasuni forest contains 100,000 insect species, more varieties than recorded anywhere else.
Rare Antbird that lives in tangle-swampy forest. Several territories found at Shiripuno Lodge
Within a 2-square-mile area, researchers have identified 200 species of mammals, including 10 of primates, 100 of bats and big cats like jaguars and pumas. Scientists have determined that on average 655 tree species spring from every hectare of the Yasuní, more than are native to the continental United States and Canada combined. And our birding destination: Shiripuno Lodge is located right in the middle of all this biological richness. Visitors are limited to only 500 people per year to insure that the area is maintained in pristine condition. Shiripuno Lodge is not your typical tourist destination; the forest there is the real deal.
Each year about 12.000 to 15.000 tourists begin their trip to the jungle by flying into Coca airport. Most of these tourists are destined for the high-volume lodges, which have been built along the majestic Napo River. We also begin our trips in Coca, but after that, all similarity with other tours ends. From Coca, we head south into the heart of the Waorani territories, leaving the degraded forests of the Napo behind. Once we leave town, we won’t be returning until the end of the trip. If we forget something, we’ll just have to live without it.
We drive south on Auca Road for about 120 km until we reach the Shiripuno River. The road was originally built for oil extraction, but settlers soon followed to take advantage of the easy access it provided to new land. Farms and ranches now line both sides of the road, with a couple of small boom towns thrown in for good measure–all of very recent origin. Given the limitations of the soil, it isn’t surprising that local agriculture fairs poorly, which makes the panorama of activity here is very dynamic. Auca Road is a microcosm of what is happening to the Amazon wilderness on a wider scale. First, a road built by the government or large corporation, and then people quickly use the new road to raze the forest and extract natural resources at a furious pace. The signs of destruction end at the banks of the Shiripuno River.
The forest downstream is largely unexplored. This is because the land is owned by the Waorani who have not always welcomed the outside world. For most of human history, very few people were allowed entry into this part of the Amazon. As a consequence, the range maps in The Birds of Ecuador show many question marks as to which birds are to be found in our area. Each year we learn new things about the birds to our forest.
Travel on the Shiripuno is by motorized canoe. piloted by skillful Waorani boatmen. This is the start of our adventure into the last pristine forest left in Ecuador. While the wildlife that we might see on any given trip is uncertain, there are a few things about each trip that we know for absolute certainty. Gone are the concrete of cities and roads; gone are the noise of radios and TVs; and gone are the distractions of cell phones and the internet. Here you are unreachable and completely off the grid. Normally we kept under the spell of human society, but the Yasuni brings a different reality. In the forest, we feel like a tiny grain of humanity in the midst of a mind boggling profusion of other species. The Amazonian Wilderness overpowers us, making us feel insignificant in the face of its dark depths and mysterious creatures.
Under normal conditions, the boat trip to the lodge takes about 4 hours. The Shiripuno is small river, generally no more than 50 meters wide. It makes its way through the surrounding hills in an intense series of hairpin turns, doubling back on itself over and over again, from one turn to the next barely making slow progress toward its ultimate journey, the Atlantic Ocean. The birding begins to pick up as the sun gets a little lower on the horizon. Flocks of Casqued Oropendolas rush in and out of the forest; they are nesting this time of the year. A White-throated Toucan perches in the dead branches of the canopy; a Magpie Tanager crosses in the front of the canoe. We find out the canoe driver doesn’t stop for all species, and so try to identify birds with the canoe in motion. Later we understand why the driver doesn’t stop: because he is aware that its better to arrive at the lodge while its still light.
Peaceable canoe ride, and as the sun begins to fade behind the Andes, the clouds start exchanging their stark whites for golden yellows, blood purples, neon reds, and electric oranges. The last rays of the sun light up the forest and passing flocks of Macaws.
Items you must have in your day backpack when you travel on the river:
• Reusable Water Bottle, Minimizing the containers we bring in, minimizes the trash we have to take out.
• Sun Protection. The higher the SPF the better.
• Hat. Protect yourself against the sun and rain.
• Quick Drying Clothing. Avoid sunburn. Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts.
• Sun Glasses. Equatorial sunlight is intense.
• Wind breaker. A moving canoe can be quite chilly at times.
• Rain gear or poncho, Remember that the canoe is not covered and that it can rain at anytime.
• Sandals or light shoes, Hiking boots can become really hot or hard to dry. Bring something that you can not only get muddy but that will also dry quickly.
Shiripuno Lodge dinner room, this places have several hammocks and at night its lighted by candles.
We made it to our destination. The Shiripuno Lodge is a place to rest, to recover your energy, to focus your thoughts, and, of course, to swing in the hammocks! Its purpose is to free us from the necessities of life so that we can direct maximum attention on the forest, exploring the lodge’s 30 km of trails in search of birds.
A few of our special birds include: Nocturnal Curassow, Salvin’s Curassow, Wing-banded Antbird, Rufous Potoo, Collared Puffbird, Fiery Topaz, Yasuni Antwren, Black Bushbird, and Black-banded Owl. On most nights, the mythological Nocturnal Curassow can be heard from the cabins; the record so far is seven. But sometimes its not enough to just hear these strange birds calling in the night, sometimes we have to go out and find them. We listen carefully and make our decisions where to move. Slowly we make our way closer and closer to the calling bird. The unmistakable call of this creature has lend us to the base of large tree. Nocturnal Curassow likes to sit on bare, exposed-horizontal branches near the very top of the tree. Clear nights seem to work best. So now we have to find it; all flashlights are on and directed overhead! Everyone is craning their necks skyward and playing their flashlights back and forth, searching the highest limbs. And there it is, and everyone gathered around for a good long look. Perfect night.
Shiripuno Lodge isn’t blessed with an observation tower, but we have adjusted for this by using our topography to the same advantage. The trails of the Shiripuno lead us to the canopy in a different way. Some of our trails are cut along the ridge lines of hill with a fairly large elevational gradient. So, what we did was cut observation windows so that birders could look out over the canopy at various points along the trail. In this way, its possible to see species of birds which specialize at different elevations within the canopy. Another way we explore the canopy is to drift downstream in a canoe early in the morning. In this way, its easy to see Blue and Yellow Macaws, Scarlet Macaws, Black-banded Woodcreeper, Spangled Cotinga, and Fiery Topaz.
But our goal today is to find, the Salvin’s Curassow calling in the distance. We hear it, but can we find it in this amazing forest? We land the canoe and walk into the forest. There is no trail here. We concentrate on the source of the sound and soon find ourselves in a dense, dark area of the forest. There it is whistling again, and we adjust our position and search the trees until we spot it only 10 meters away. It is fanning it tail up and down, and we see the snow-white vent and its bright-orange bill. When we find a species like this, we are reminded why they are hunted by native people: they are a huge meal! One bird and the entire family can have a nice feast. Guans and Curassows are very sensitive to human disturbance and habitat loss; they only live where the hunting pressure is low and the forest is pristine.
We are privileged to be birding in the last Wilderness of the Ecuadorian Amazon. As a bird watcher, we can live without basic comforts for few days, In fact, the less amenities we bring with us, the less of an impact that we will have on the forest. Its time that we started taking better care of our precious wild lands. It’s time for us to put the forest first.
The largest IBA in Ecuador, with more of 600 species of birds.
The privileged location of the Yasuni between: the Andes, the Western Amazon Basin and the Equator make the Ecuador’s most interesting wilderness for Mankind: the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve; home of the extraordinary biodiversity and a recently contacted Amazonian indigenous group known as the Huaorani; relatives of the Waoranis, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, still live in voluntary isolation deep in the reserve.
The Yasuní Biosphere Reserve also sits atop large reserves of crude oil, Ecuador’s chief export, and contains an abundance of valuable timber species. This volatile combination has led to intense conflicts, and subsequently, increased international interest and concern.
In 1989, the area in and around the original limits of Yasuni National Park was designated as a Man and the Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve. Now covers 16 820 km2, including a 5000 km2 core area. According to UNESCO documents, this core area is centered on the Yasuni and Nushiño Rivers in the northeast section of the park. The rest of the reserve (a 7000 km2 buffer zone and a 4820 km2 transition zone) includes much of the remaining park area and the adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve.
The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve is the core of a small, unique area where South America’s plant, amphibian, bird, and mammal species richness centers overlap. Furthermore, the reserve is located within the ‘Core Amazon’, an especially wet region to maintain wet, rainforest conditions as climate change-induced drought intensifies in the Eastern Amazon. Haffer (1969, 1997) postulated that the area in and around the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve was one of several Amazonian forest refugia during dry climatic periods over the past 65 million years, but this hypothesis has now largely been rejected (Mayle et al 2004, Maslin et al 2005).
The Waorani People
The Waorani are Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador (Napo, Orellana and Pastaza Provinces) who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The entire Yasuni Biosphere Reserve region is ancestral Waorani territory, which extends from the Napo River on the north and west, down to the Curaray River in the south and eastward into Peru. This vast territory, which stretches over 20 000 km2, underlies the current limits of Yasuni National Park and the Waorani Ethnic Reserve
Information on Waorani history and distribution prior to the twentieth century is scarce and speculative The Waorani were traditionally a highly mobile, semi-nomadic population of hunter-gatherer horticulturalists. They lived in four warring and widely dispersed groups located on hilltops away from major rivers; the headwaters of the Tiputini River constituted the core of ancestral Waorani territory. Other indigenous groups, mainly the Zaparos, lived along the Tiputini and Curaray rivers in essence surrounding the Waorani. When the Zaparos were suddenly decimated by disease and violent displacement during the rubber boom that hit the region in the late 1800s, the Waorani were able to expand their territory northward to the Napo and southward to the Upper Curaray and Villano rivers. Waorani territory likely reached its greatest extent at the beginning of 20th century.
At least two lines of evidence suggest that the Waorani were quite isolated, even from other indigenous groups in the area, for a long time:
1. – Their language, Wao Terero, is an isolated one without known congeners and with only two known cognates at the time of missionary contact in the late 1950s Wao Terero is considered unique in linguistic construction, with no known similarities with Zaparoan phonology or structure.
2. – The genetic homogeneity of The Waorani also points to a lengthy isolation of their population.
During modern history, there were four major periods of early contact between the Waorani —which translates to ‘the people’ or ‘true human beings’ in Wao Terero— and outsiders encroaching on their territory:
1. – The rubber boom in the late 1800s/early 1900s,
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