El Cajas & Banos

After this two mekkas for animals my parents and I went to places where there wasn't so much nature... I thought!
We went to Cuenca, an "UNESCO world heritage site" for its beautiful historic city. My parents were in heaven, while I was rather unhappy. I dislike churches, statues and many other cultural things. Houses can be beautiful sometimes but they are all around the world, not like birds like the Andean Condor, which can only see in very few places in this world and only with luck...
It can still be somehow interesting to see other cultures, such as the indigenous cultures in the city or their markets, so I made one day a cultural day, whilst the second day became a natural day in the Cajas Nationalpark...
The scenery there was breathtakingly beautiful, eventhough that animals weren't very numerous. I had booked a trip with a guide and luckily only two other people came with me. We had a nice time, hiking around. I got to see a few birds like Variable Hawk or Blue-mantled Thornbill and in the end we ate trout.
Not a bad day...
One of the most common birds in cities: The Rufous-collared Sparrow
Cuy: Guinea-pig. Well I had hoped it would taste better...
A Llama in the Cajas Nationalpark
A very, very beautiful flower...
The Polylepis forest looks in some way kinda strange...
Me sitting in front of the beautiful scenery in El Cajas...

After that we went to Banos, a very touristic town, where you might maybe find more gringos, than ecuadorians. You can go rafting, bungee (swing) jumping, or vulcano watching... Or just hiking.
An Orchidae in the Cloudforest
White-bellied Woodstars were quite common in Banos
Banos seen from the point, where we tried to see the vulcano...
We went vulcano watching, without seeing the vulcano because clouds covered it. Swing jumping was big fun, eventhough very short... but still an incredible feeling.
And while hiking with my dad I saw lots of birds, for example Cinereous Harrier, Black-tailed Sylph or really surprising were the Orange-eared Tanagers. There were also 3 different species of Flowerpiercer... From where we went we had very good views above Banos and the whole surroundings, like almost always, when you're in the Andes, I just love it...
The butterfly seems to be caught in the spider web, but it wasn't...
But the really cool thing, was our tour in a "chiva", to see the waterfalls of the region (about 20 and most of them really impressing...) At our last stop we were already in Cloud-forest and so I got to see some beautiful birds like the Red-headed Barbets, one of my favourites in Ecuador. I had been looking at every waterfall for Torrent Duck without luck. I had hoped so much for this duck, the only highland-duck I was still missing.
We passed by many, many waterfalls,...

Well there it was. At the last waterfall, where I didn't even look for it. It just sat there and this coolest of all ducks made my day.
... before I finally saw my first Torrent Duck on one of the last days.

A few days after I already sat in the plane and watched Quito fade away. Ecuador fade away. South America fade away.
Having seen almost 500 bird species and numerous other animal species without having had a guide, just birding on weekends with the knowledge I learned by myself. But I know I'll return soon and then I'll bird until I have seen every single species in Ecuador. In the whole world!!!!
Okay, not every species^^