Guacamayos Ridge Trail

On a clear day from the trailhead, at an elevation of about 7,000 feet, you can see nearly to the flat expanse of the Amazon.  The Guacamayos Ridge Trail is cut into a steep slope on the Eastern side of the Ecuadorian Andes.  The slope here create a temperate habitat island surrounded by the more typical subtropical habitat of this elevation of the Andes. 

That unique habitat means unique animals, and in particular, a wide variety of birds.  I am here with a guide, and a friend of his from the nearby San Isidro Lodge, who is known as one of the most accomplished birders in the region.  Their goal is to find an Andean Potoo, a difficult-to-spot bird which had been seen by a group the day before not far from the trailhead.  My goal is to look for and photograph a frog.

The night before, Gabriel and I had visited the Yanayacu Biological Station, a biological research facility in the area, because we knew that a variety of frog species were known in the area.  When we pulled up at the station, we were greeted by two dogs behind a chain-link fence that were terribly angry at our presence.  Their enclosure followed the path to the facility, so they had a football-field length to follow us and bark menacingly.