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Arriving early in Zamora the first order of business was to find a hotel, easily done, the Hotel Gimyfa ($7) close to the town centre and a short walk from the riverside route to the park entrance. Then buy some food and water for the day’s walk and off into the hills.
The short walk to the park entrance took far longer than I could ever have expected, simply because of the abundance of wildlife. Every step of the way I was checking for birds, butterflies and other insects. Even better I had it all to myself, peaceful, hardly any vehicles all day beyond the edge of town, a few noisy farm dogs occasionally but for the rest of the day peace and tranquility. That is how it was for my entire 5 day stay at Zamora. Exactly what I wanted!
There are several paths leading from the road down to the river which I found to be quite productive, especially for butterflies. Each time I saw the raging river and rapids I thought torrent ducks and eventually I found a pair, bird of the trip for me having missed out on them in 2002.
At the end of the road the serious forest starts, the path narrows and the mud starts. Not really very wet while I was there but I’m sure it can get extremely muddy. The weather was quite pleasant for much of my stay considering it is cloud forest. There were regular light showers throughout the day, with clouds hanging low over the hills most of the time. The sun would come out between showers to dry things up a little and encourage the gorgeous butterflies out into the open. The path climbs a little, winding around hillsides, passed a cliff face regularly used by white-breasted parakeets. Eventually the path reaches the visitor centre from where more trails lead off to waterfalls, rivers, forest, gorges and an enormous amount of wildlife. BUT I had to really search for it. Cloud forest birding is not easy, although not as difficult as rain forest birding. The invertabrate life is amazing but again sharp eyes are required. I’ve spent the last 2 summers in the UK looking for insects of one sort or another with my camera and have developed the knack of finding them. This entails slowing down my walking considerably which also helps me to find birds in thick forest. By concentrating on the insects I find more birds. Early morning and late afternoon were of course the peak birding times, the middle of the day was good for insects, although night would probably be best. Now that would be fun, a spot of mothing out in the forest all night long, alone, with all the nocturnal creatures wandering by, spooky.
I walked from Zamora to the park all but one morning when I took a taxi to the park early to sample the early morning wildlife. I found that the roadside wildlife was so good that it was daft to miss it. Between Zamora and the park at a bend in the road a couple of Belgian naturalists - Catherine and Boudewyn, have set up home at Copalinga and are in the process of building a few very nice looking cabins for researchers, students and of course birdwatchers. They hope to be finished late in 2004. There are trails on the hillside which they are happy to show visitors. A pair of striped manakins were a welcome addition to my list, also boosted by several hummingbird species seen while sitting and chatting one lazy afternoon. For rarity hunters Lanceolated Monklet is on the garden list, which currently stands at about 250, big garden though. The Park list is about 619 and growing, many more species are though to inhabit the park. That is enough to keep most birders happy for a long time!
While resting one afternoon at the visitor centre, after a long day’s walking, the peace and calm was broken by the presence of a small family group of white-faced capuchin monkeys spotted by one of the centre workers. We spent the next 30 minutes watching them watch us. I later found them again high in the trees above one of the trails. These were my first Ecuador primates, surprising considering the number of species in the country. Compared to Costa Rica mammals are much harder to find. The area around the visitor centre is excellent for tanagers which are attracted to the fruiting trees. Register here on arrival ($10/7days). A very useful free map of the trails is available from the visitor centre.
After 5 days at this terrible, horrible, ugly, miserable place I was really happy to move on to the west slope of the Andes at Pinas. Would I recommend Rio Bombuscaro, no way, stay away, leave it all to me. I’ll be going back, eventually. I’m told that it is best to avoid the area during Carnival , hordes of noisy tourists spoil the peace and tranquility.
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