The Tiniest Orchid {Puyo favorites}

Galo and his family took us for a visit to Omar Tello's Botanical park/orchid garden in Puyo called, "Las Orquideas". Sadly much of Ecuador's rich rainforest has been cleared for agriculture, housing or oil and gas development. Omar Tello and his wife purchased 2.5 acres of cleared land and have spent the last 40 years replanting their section of rainforest.

Whenever they heard an area of forest was being cleared, they traveled there to rescue native plants before they were destroyed and replanted them here. It's really incredible to walk thru today and see how thick and lush this patch of rainforest is. The land has clearly responded to the love and hard work they pour into this land everyday.

Omar showed us many different beautiful orchids, but when he stopped at one particular tree, and held up a dime-sized magnifying glass, I was shocked by what I saw, the tiniest orchid I'd ever seen. (If you look super duper close, you might see the purple speck that is the flower- where the green parts form an X.)

But that wasn't the only teeny tiny one we saw. Four more times he stopped and used his tiny magnifying glass to show us different species of teeny tiny orchids. You can see another in the very first photo at the top.

Another tiny orchid above, larger ones below.

One of my favorite parts of our visit, was walking thru their museum. Photos line the inside of the room in order by year. The first set of years, feature only small insects and such, but a few years later, butterflies appeared, then lizards, then frogs, then snakes and monkeys and more all began appearing as the food chain filled in.. 

In the middle of the room sits a large collection of specimens are arranged in glass containers. The size of some of them are just shocking. Many I had the pleasure of seeing for myself while exploring our own backyard in Ecuador.

The variety of trees was amazing. This top one has bare stripes around it with long spikes. The one below it is absolutely covered in even longer spikes. There were cinnamon trees and trees to cure different ailments.

Omar and his family were featured in an award-winning documentary "7 Hectares Back" which you can watch HERE. It's only ten minutes long and totally worth it.

__________________________Bioparque Yana Cocha______________________

Bioparque Yana Cocha, also in Puyo, offers a close look at animals that call the Ecuadorian Amazon their home. Trails take you thru various terrain, past monkeys, birds, caiman and more.

I was not fortunate enough to find a wild King Vulture, but I really enjoyed seeing this captive one up close. It's large size coupled with colorful markings give it quite a distinctive appearance.

Surprisingly crocs and caiman are not really in any kind of enclosure. I was lagging behind my family on the trails taking photos, when I realized they had just walked past one whose head was only inches off the narrow trail.

____________________A great hike right in the city of Puyo___________________

My friend Tina introduced me to the Malecon Boayaku, a trail that weaves along the Puyo River. I walked this trail a number of times. For a one-way walk, I suggest having a taxi drop you off at the malecon entrance by the Universidad Amazonica. From there it's maybe a 45 minute leisurely walk to the square where you'll find great dining options. El Jardin is very good and is visited by macaws in the early morning and evening. But while you're here, you must try the volquetero. 

This guy was about 4 inches long!

Pailon del Diablo

On our way to Shell we stopped briefly to gaze at this 240ft waterfall from afar in Rio Verde known as Pailon Del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron). We later returned to walk the hanging bridges and rock stairs along these falls with our friends Robert and Rhonda.

You can walk very close to the waterfall, whose power is hard to fathom.

The river on the upper section.

These falls are owned by two different groups. The upper section and lower section have separate entrance fees and areas to explore. We planned to return for the lower part, but didn't make it. We hear there's a very small cave-type area which requires you to crawl thru on your belly!

When My Homeschoolers Attended School in Ecuador

After being homeschooled their entire life, Asher and Journey finally experienced going to school, but this is Ecuador, so it's completely in Spanish! Talk about immersion! I expected tears for the first few weeks, and braced myself for their first day. They arrived home with a burst of words and excitement. They LOVED it, made friends and couldn't wait to return the next day!

A four-day weekend later, their enthusiasm waned. Their biggest complaint was getting up at 6am for school. Don't we all despise getting up early for school or work? Sorry kids, that's just life.

 They played futbol (soccer) for the first time and though everyone else had been playing for years, they managed to learn the game and get a little bit of playing time in.

 

They participated in some really cool class projects. My favorite was when the class split into groups to represent three different cultures of Ecuador- Coastal, Sierra (mountain) and Selva (jungle). Each child spoke about a different aspect of the culture and introduced food and drinks typical of the area for everyone to try.

This was the day Asher ate a chontacuro (palm grub- see the stick on the left).

Afterwards they demonstrated a typical dance for that area.

School schedules don't exist here. This was one of the weirdest things for me to adjust to. I am used to school schedules being issued prior to the beginning of the school year with every day off listed. In Shell, even in June, no one could tell me when the school year would end. Some days the kids would come home unexpectedly 3 hours early, other days they would come home and say, "oh there's no school tomorrow". One week they came home on Monday and said there wouldn't be school on Friday. On Tuesday, they said they do have school. On Wednesday they said it might be only half a day. They ended up going to school for 3 hours that Friday.

When school finally wrapped up on July 5th, they were sad to leave the friends they'd made. Asher and Journey have picked up quite a bit of Spanish. One day, someone was speaking to me in Spanish and afterwards Journey asked if the woman said "...", when I said yes, she replied, "How did I know that?!" By the time we left Ecuador, our children were answering basic questions from strangers in spanish.

I am so very thankful that the school and teachers were open to accepting our children as students and working with them as wonderfully as they did. The principal mentioned he would be open to this type of arrangement again in the future, so if it's something you would be interested in, let me know and I can pass along the information.