On the fifth day of our road trip to the Amazon (aka Oriente), we decided to take an unplanned side trip to Puyo, about a two hour drive north of Sucúa, where we spent the first few days.  We had wanted to visit the monkey refuge known as Fundación Los Monos Selva y Vida a couple years ago, but got rained out.  We weren’t exactly sure what to expect, but it had sounded interesting, and things were a bit slow in Sucúa, so off we went.

As we arrived in Puyo, we asked directions for how to reach “Los Monos.”  We were told to take a specific road out of town, and then “turn left at the cows.”  Huh?? We kept getting the same directions though, so headed out and hoped for the best.  Sure enough, a couple miles out of town, there was a statue of a cow and calf (see photo top left above), that was at the intersection we were supposed to turn left at! ☺

What we found was a fairly large refuge / conservation / research / zoo with various monkeys and a few other animals from South America.  There were maybe half a dozen monkeys roaming free, while the others were in large cages.  Unfortunately, we got there fairly late in the day, so could only spend an hour before they closed.  Some day, we may make it back and spend longer.  It might even be interesting to volunteer for awhile, as they do thrive on volunteers — if only it were closer to Cuenca…

We also went to a bird refuge — Parque Real, a bird zoo in Puyo that houses approximately 500 birds from around the world.  $1 got us entrance to a very well maintained private zoo that was opened in 2001 by a couple of Puyo collectors.  Interestingly, it is now illegal for anyone to own a caged or pet bird in Ecuador, but it appears this couple convinced authorities to allow them to keep what they had created prior to the ban.

Back in Macas, we decided to go a zoo that we had heard about.  We caught a bus from Sucúa to Macas, where we watched people using an informal ride sharing program. Cars and taxis would pull up to the curb, indicate how many seats they had, and someone (or more) from the bus line would run over and jump in. We were told cost $1 to share a ride to Macas.  The bus was only $1.15, which is how we got there.

We then took a taxi out to the zoo. It turned out there were two private zoos, and the driver suggested what he considered the better and larger.  When we arrived, we discovered it was actually a small private zoo. It consisted of no more than 20 cages, none of which was really in very good condition.  It was interesting to see the tigrillo (upper middle images above) and a single leopard. They then gave me a boa constrictor to hold (left middle above), and a couple of other small animals.  45 minutes and we were ready to leave though…