Saturday, June 17th, Full of surprises.
Finally we got back to the head of the trail at the top of the cable car line. The others, surprisingly, were still waiting for us. The original plan was to take the cable car back, go into the village of Mindo to join the butterfly farm group for lunch and wander around the town.
Instead, we were met with the news that the cable car was stuck in the middle of the ravine, and that it would probably be 24 hours before it was operative again. The workers were fashioning a rescue mechanism for the stranded individual suspended in space. While we felt compassion, we felt no envy for his situation.
Ours was challenging enough: We would have to walk all the way down into and up out of the deep chasm.
At the end of the hike, way past lunch time, Michael’s Fitbit reported the following:
Total miles walked: 8.5
Total steps climbed: 20,852
Total flights of stairs 149
Total hours on foot: 6
No wonder we were more than a little tired!
Time for a bath, stretch, rest, dinner, and photos of Molly, Efraim, and their younger daughter. This was our last evening together.
I told their assistant Gabrielle very firmly not to laugh, and of course, she did not.
Alas, this was our last night for frogging. The group had gotten permission through Efraim, who came with us, to go to land owned by another ecolodge. We were led down a rocky, slippery and narrow stream, with high banks on both sides, and only occasional flat (wet) ground on one side or the other.
Our guides that night were Ephraim, his assistant Alex Luna, our Paolo, Chelsea and Michael, and a guide from the property we explored. Alex, as kind and helpful as any true leader, was the person who volunteered his shoulder, hand and arm during our walk down the stream.
Ephraim used my pitiful old cracked I phone to get some better photos for me.
Hanging lizards were a common site on our Frogging nights.
What was less common was to see a helpless lizard being used to demonstrate his throat pouch, and I worried.
The absolute best photo, though, and which made the whole evening worth a trip back to Ecuador any time, left me with a question of whether these two will co-exist, or will Liz eat Frog?
We saw two good egg sacks, one on a leaf, and the other hanging. Maybe the second one was like the one that yielded its treasure to my back earlier in the day.
This was a night for more frogs and a few toads.
“Look to the left! Look to the right! Look straight ahead! Move on!”
And please help SAVE THE FROGS! Donate!