The Manglares Churute Ecological Reserve is about an hour south of Guayaquil (ecuador.com/protected-areas/manglares-churute-reserve/). It simply teems with wildlife and today it teemed with human life too.

On the road to the Reserve, our Guayaquil guide, Eddy, introduced us to the fruit zapote. It has a hard green exterior but delicious kind-of-melon-like fruit around a hard pit.

The fruit stands along the highway were packed with melons and pineapples and mangos.  Over 70 species of mangos grow in Ecuador; Gonzalo claims the only fruit not grown here are dates.
A long drive down a very bumpy road delivered us to the mangrove forest where we met a very tame gray-cheeked parakeet and walked along a somewhat sketchy boardwalk to an estuary of the Churute River.  Can you see the missing boards in the walkway?

Eddy instructed us to stop and stand very still and then dropped a few leaves on the mud below.  Shortly thereafter mangrove crabs left their homes to retrieve the leaves that they compost into food in their nests.  Crab catchers – men – reach into these holes in search of mature males.  They are allowed to catch 96 crabs per day, and there are 120 catchers working in the mangrove forest; that’s a lot of crabs!

The men sort them into bundles of 24 and tie them to the back of motorcycles for the trip to market.  They are not allowed to trade in females.

We loaded into motorized canoes for a bird-watching expedition, and did we see birds!  Ospreys, egrets, cormorants, beautiful pink roseatte spoonbills and regal Cocoi herons put on a fascinating show for us.

Back on dry land, we hiked into the mangrove forest in search of howler monkeys.  We heard them before we saw them, and I was able to catch only one on camera.  The video below captures the sounds of the forest.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/64513024@N07/21041515620/in/datetaken/

On our walk through the forest, we spotted a beautiful gustavia flower, a tarantula – old hat for us Amazon basin pros! – and a “fake” chameleon.  I’m not sure why the odd name; perhaps it doesn’t change appearance but lives in trees that camouflage it well.  This one certainly took a good bit of spotting by Gonzalo.

Following our walk we lunched at the home of a Reserve park ranger.  While we gorged on crab – of course! – the kids watched cartoons on TV while playing Monopoly.

On the bumpy drive back to the highway we stopped and watched a beautiful green kingfisher in a field next to the road.

Our “last supper” as Gonzalo referred to it was in the hotel dining room.  I chose a typical Guayaquilian meal of grilled chicken breast, rice and lentils, and plaintain.  Yum!  One of our tour mates, Barbara, left during dinner to catch her flight home, and the rest (other than me) would be leaving early the following morning.  I asked everyone what their favourite part of the tour was, and the majority chose our time in the Amazon.  I agree with the others, though it was tough picking only one experience.

This tour is sometimes called “the many faces of Ecuador.”  It should be called the many WONDROUS faces of Ecuador.

Me siento triste de decir adiós y espero volver algún día.