20 Apr 2024
What an excellent trip to Antisana. A national park rich in wildlife. We were incredibly grateful to have Santiago as our guide. He has an unmatched level of bird knowledge and was so passionate about the abundant and diverse bird life not only on Ecuador, but throughout South America. He had an incredible spotting scope that allowed us to observe birds as if they were right in front of us but he knew what birds were around simply from a quick flash in the sky. He really was a pro!! Thanks to him, we saw so many humming birds. These are such SPECTACULAR birds and we managed to get really wonderful photos. Santiago really does have telescopes for eyes, because as we were driving he managed to spot an Andean Bear, across the other side of a ridge on the mountain. How he managed to spot it I will never know! But we were privileged enough to see the bear settling down for a nap. To top it off, we saw 2 pairs of condors in flight and then saw a condor nesting and a juvenile fledgling from the balcony at Tambor Lodge.
It was an exceptional visit and he is an exceptional guide!
Just on a side note, the food at Tambor Lodge was wonderful and I had the BEST Locro here, it was DELICIOUS!