Wildlife vacations: it's tough to pick a top 5 - what are yours?

There are numerous reasons for travel.

A silverback gorilla climbs down from
a tree in Kahuzi Biega.

Sometimes, travel takes you to a new job. Other times, we travel just to get away for a while from our jobs, or our routines, to get out of a rut.

Then there are the dream vacations, travel to be pampered in luxury, to de-stress while others look after your every need.

Sometimes we travel to explore - a new place, a new activity, or even to explore ourselves.

I've travelled for all these reasons and more. One of my favourite reasons, my main focus to travel, is see and experience wildlife in its natural settings.

I've been very lucky, I've enjoyed some incredible wildlife experiences around the world. And some, right here in my backyard, in B.C., Alberta, and other parts of Canada.

So in trying to come up with a "top five" out of all my experiences, I was really hard-pressed to keep it to that number. But, here goes, in no particular order (if you think limiting myself to five was hard, try to pick the best of the best!)

• Looking for the "Big Five" on Africa's Serengeti plains. In Serengeti National Park, you may be lucky enough to see a leopard in a tree or listen to the roaring of lions in the bush at night while sleeping in your camp tent. In the Ngorongoro Crater, you'll probably get much closer to some of the wildlife - maybe too close if a rhino charges your jeep or if a lion saunters past and bumps it while you're popped up through the sunroof taking photos. They're only half a day's drive apart, so you'll want to see both when visiting Tanzania. Oh, the other members of the "big five" can also be seen there: Cape buffalo and elephants.

• Gorilla viewing in Central Africa. Hiking through the Congo rainforest, tracking gorillas, avoiding columns of soldier ants, fighting off hordes of disease-carrying Tsetse flies and mosquitoes, keeping your eyes peeled for poisonous snakes, to say nothing of the leopards and other creatures that would like to eat you, stomp you or just plain obliterate you, - if this is your idea of fun, then  you'll be right at home in Kahuzi Biega National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  But it'll all be worth it when you get your first glimpse of the silverback patriarch, or see a mother gorilla nursing a baby in the middle of the jungle. (If you've been to the Serengeti, and you're all "Africa'ed-Out," you can enjoy a similar and also incredible wild primate experience viewing orangutans in Borneo.)

It's definitely gator country in the Okefenokee.

• Paddling with alligators in the Okefenokee. Otherwise known as "the swamp," the Okefenokee National Wildlife Reserve in Georgia, U.S.A. offers a wilderness opportunity unlike most others. The reserve is mostly water, so you can only access the heart of it by canoe or kayak. Although you can do it on your own, you're probably safer to hire a licensed outfitter to make sure you don't get lost between the camping platforms placed along the water trails. You do get really close to gators; it's also a great place for birders.

A Grand Cayman parrot, perched in a tree on the Mastic Trail.

• Snorkeling with wild dolphins in Hawaii. I'm not talking about going to see tame dolphins like some of the resorts offer; this experience involves going out onto the ocean several miles offshore, with a reputable tour operator, locating a resident wild pod and then jumping in the ocean and going for a snorkel. You never approach them - they come to you. And when you can hear them echo locating underwater then one comes up to you and looks you over, it's an incredible feeling.

• Gazing at wild parrots in Latin America. I've had the opportunity to experience on several occasions, but my two favourite trips took me to the Heath River Wildlife Centre on the Peru-Bolivia border and on the Mastic Trail on Grand Cayman Island. At Heath River, you sit in a floating blind on the river to watch scores of parrots and macaws congregating on a jungle clay lick. In the Caymans, they're tougher to see, as there is no lick - you have to hike through the jungle and hope you get lucky. In either case, you'll hear them long before you see them.

Brave New Worlds await traditional writers, bloggers alike

Getting ready for the editors' panel.

Even those who don't spend much time online or persuing the various forms of traditional or social media are probably aware of the revolution that's been taking place in the publishing industry for the last decade or two.

First came the internet, and with it, websites, e-zines or online zines and web-logs, a.k.a. "blogs."

Then came the era of social media: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest - the list is a l-o-n-g one.

It's an era we're still in, barely into, really - and it's still evolving. However, although social media has certainly grabbed a large portion of the media landscape, traditional media is not dead yet, despite rumours to the contrary.

In fact, to paraphrase the immortal words of Mark Twain, "Rumours of its demise are greatly exaggerated."

That became very apparent at the 2015 B.C. Assocation of Travel Writers symposium that took place in Vancouver's Century Plaza Hotel, on April 18, 2015.

The theme of the event was "Ecotourism: Tread Softly, Write with Impact."

It could just have easily been "Traditional Meets New Age Travel Media."

That's because the symposium organizers did a very good job of blending elements of the old with elements of the new in putting together the day's program.

Photographer David Smith provided great ideas
to help us improve our travel photography.

Nowhere was this more evident than on the editorial panel. The panel featured two editors from the more traditional elements of published travel writing - Allen Cox from Northwest Travel and Life and Kirsten Rodenhizer from Westworld Alberta magazines - and a third from the online travel website, Matador in the person of Jett Britnell.

The keynote speaker, Vancouver author Jack Christie, provided a very informative and entertaining address.

He also provided living proof that you can still write books about travel - and write them very successfully.

So as you can see, there are still many ways to be published in hard-copy, although online publishing does offer a nice alternative.

Now, before you start to think this is just an old-school guy, extolling the virtues of an older type of travel publishing...

The organizers also incorporated a Twitter contest into the day's events, so people were tweeting away furiously on smartphones and laptops about what they were hearing from the presenters. At the end of the day, the top three tweeters were presented with prizes.

(I'm not modest, so I have no trouble telling you I placed second, and won a great prize from Cycle City Tours - their Grand Tour - which I look forward to enjoying later this summer).

As always at these events, there was a 

simple but sumptuous luncheon prepared.

The organization is also holding a contest for bloggers who attended the event, one that involves writing a post about the event.

Of much greater note, however, is the fact that the BCATW recently made a huge move in terms of its membership criteria.

The event also offered a chance to connect
with friends met through social media...

It became the second Canadian-based travel media organization to open up membership to bloggers in the past year (the Travel Media Association of Canada, a national organization, also recently opened that up for membership).

While some bloggers may feel this is long overdue by such associations, and others may feel, "Meh? What's the big deal?" in the big picture, it is huge, and should not be dismissed lightly.

We really are at a crossroads in terms of media and how it is published and how it is used. Magazines that would never have thought of publishing online versions of articles already published in hard copy are now routine doing that. They are also finding new ways to include online articles into the mix that would perhaps not have made it into the hard-copy magazines.

For writers, while this is great news for those publications that do this, it can still be a bit of a Catch-22. Not many travel magazines offer this alternative of hard-copy vs. web. And while this atmosphere certainly provides more opportunities to be published, most of the straight online sites do not pay anywhere near as well as most of even the lower-paying hard-copy publications.

...as well as a chance to make new connections.

In terms of monetization, the blogging model for travel writers is completely different from that of the traditional freelance travel writing model. While writers don't have to wait for an editor to purchase a story, it can take a long time and require much patience - and often, more than a little luck - to earn much from a blog, whether you're writing about paddling in Ecuador, diving in Maui, parrot-watching in the Caribbean or just camping in B.C.

So the challenges are there, as they always have been for those of us who earn a living as self-employed writers, photographers, and more recently, videographers.

It really is a Brave New World of travel publishing. Foward-thinking organizations - like the BCATW - that want to grow and thrive realize this, and we saw this in action, Saturday.

Really, the only action for all of us travel writers who value what we do, is to recognize the obstacles, embrace the challenge, and plow on, furiously typing, snapping and posting to bring the world out there back to our readers.

When you go looking for parrot photos, the birds don't always co-operate

As we approached the landing that would allow us to penetrate the jungle shore of the Rio Napo, two parrots winged their way overhead, en route to the same clay lick where we were headed, the same spot where we could hear hundreds of other squawking parrots congregating as part of their morning

Dawn along the Rio Shiripuno.
We heard parrots - we just couldn't see them.

routine.

I hoped this journey would help me realize an ambition I’d failed to realize the previous week, when I’d paddled down the Rio Shiripuno through Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest.

As stated elsewhere in this space, I have two main passions in my life: paddling and parrots. I live with two African grey parrots, and I have spent many summers canoeing or kayaking since I dipped my first paddle into a pond at a summer youth camp, 40 years ago.

I took this trip to combine the two of them: I’d be able to paddle a section of a remote river in the wild Amazon rainforest to see – and hopefully photograph – parrots in their natural habitat.

The paddling trip covered a section of the river that cut through the territory of the Huaorani, one of the last indigenous Amazon tribes to encounter western civilization. Their first contact came with North American missionaries in 1956.

I spent five days kayaking on the river, traveling with guides from EcoAdventour, a local outfit that worked with U.S.-based Adventure Life  as well as the Huaorani chief, Moi. Two hours onto the river, we saw some macaws fly overhead, so my hopes were high that we would see plenty of parrots – and take plenty of photos.

We saw numerous other wild birds during our river trip, including military macaws, blue-headed parrots, and Amazons. We also saw various other species of birds: toucans perched overhead in treetops; kingfishers zipping up and down the river; a pair of nightjars in their nest, right near our second night’s campsite, herons at various points along the river; and a solitary harpy eagle sitting high above the river in the crown of a tree.

However, paddling a kayak - even a touring kayak on a relatively placid river - and trying to get in position to take good photos of birds proved to be mutually exclusive activities most of the time, so I did not capture any good bird shots, and had very few good “parrot photo ops” during the expedition.

INTO THE CLOUD FOREST, THEN BACK TO THE JUNGLE

Following the river trip, I’d spent a day exploring the cloud forest of the country’s transitional zone between the high Andes and the lowland jungle. Cloud forest vegetation is sparser, and more sturdy than lush, but still much thicker than what we would see at a similar elevation in Canada

This transitional zone is home to numerous bird species, including the Andean cock of the rock, many hummingbird species, and in some areas, parrots.

However, I was still not able to get close enough to take any pictures of parrots on my trip through the cloud forest. A slight change in our travel plans arose, resulting in an opportunity to go back into the rainforest and visit a parrot lick. Yeah, I jumped at it.

A half-hour plane trip, two-hour bus ride and three-hour river excursion via motorized dugout canoe brought us to a jungle trail on Ecuador’s Rio Napo. A 15-minute hike followed by a half-hour paddle in a small dugout canoe across the jungle lake Laguna Garzacocha (literally, “Heron Lake” in the native Quechua language) landed us at La Selva Jungle Lodge, located on a bluff overlooking the lake.

We spent that evening exploring the area around the lodge during a night hike through the jungle. We spotted a small caiman (a cousin to the crocodile), and a nine-banded armadillo. But, I was here to see (and photograph) parrots. Take me to the birds!

This caiman was about three feet long.
Some grow up to 12 feet.

The next day came early enough, with a 5 a.m. wake-up call. I traveled with my own personal guide, Omar, paddling and hiking back to the Rio Napo, then headed upriver by motorized dugout for 15 minutes to the parrot lick. As I walked the short path between the river and the lick, the sound of hundreds of parrots squawking grew louder, as my excitement mounted.

I quickly reached the blind and after setting up quickly, I sat and watched them flit around through the treetops, squawking and whistling, interacting with other birds.

Omar identified four parrot species: Mealy amazons (Amazona farinosa), yellow-crowned amazons (A. ochrocephala), blue-headed parrots (Pionus menstruus) and dusky-headed parakeets (Aratinga weddellii).

I watched a pair groom each other on a branch; on another tree, one parrot chased a second one away from what was obviously, a favored perch; elsewhere, a lone parrot groomed himself, then shook his tail, reminding me of my own companion African grey parrots’ behavior back home.

Two hours later, the flock winged away to new adventures, leaving the trees empty and silent. The birds never did land on the lick, so I still did not have the good close-up shots of wild parrots I desired.

As we headed back to the lodge, a pair of macaws glided high overhead, teasingly out of camera range, and the thought struck me that perhaps the enjoyment of simply watching wild parrots interact in their natural environment was enough, perhaps the pictures did not seem to matter so much … .

Besides, since I didn’t get the shots I wanted, I have a good excuse to go back ….


 
This is what a busy parrot lick looks like - not my experience at Yasuni.

 (This trip, taken a few years ago, was the first time I combined parrots with paddling - in some ways, the inspiration for this blog's title. Different versions of this adventure have appeared previously in different magazines, including the Georgia Straight and Parrots magazine.)

Lilies, mergansers, and bears - oh my!

As we turned yet another corner in the sharply meandering River of Golden Dreams, I looked downstream to our next turn in what could be described as the top half of an "S" curve in the river. And there, about 25 yards away from us, sat a bear, just about to walk into the river.

"There's a bear!" I called out to the divine Ms. K., my paddling partner in the bow.

"Where?"

"Right ahead at 12 o'clock!"

"Oh -- holy shit...!"

"Backpaddle, hard!"

Bear encounters were the one thing the guide had not mentioned in our pre-trip safety talk.

We were essentially renting a canoe and shuttle service from Whistler Eco Tours, choosing to paddle independently on this "three-hour tour." The B.C. company offers guided trips on this river for individuals and groups, but with our experience, we felt we could handle it on our own, and go at our own pace. We could stop to take photos or videos if we wanted to, not have to wait for anyone else to catch up, and just enjoy the day without any chatter other than that from the birds and the wind whispering through the trees.

Ready to put-in at Alta Lake.

It's a popular trip, and it was a perfect day for it.

We took our time paddling north from our put-in on Alta Lake. We paddled across the glassy surface past swimmers, kayakers, canoeists and other boaters, surrounded by mountains on all the shores and under a sunny, blue sky. As I said, a perfect day for a paddle.

As we came to the end of the lake and the marshy outlet that would eventually connect with the River of Golden Dreams (that really is its name), a family of Canada geese swam in front and lost themselves in the reeds to our right.

We paddled leisurely through along the stream, which was thick with yellow water lilies, soaking up the sun, happy to not have to share the water with any other paddlers. Under a bridge, then we soon came upon the only portage we would face that day, a short carry around a fish weir.

The stream is very narrow and close at this point, and within a minute or two, we spied the junction of this stream with the river.

As the guide mentioned before we bid adieu at the lake, entering the river can be a little tricky if you're nor prepared, since you're moving perpendicular into a moving river from a still stream, with the current hitting you broadside.

We had no difficulty.

Then the fun began.

The river is not terribly fast - it's considered Class I - and not that deep; still, no one ever wants to swamp a canoe. It is fairly technical in that, it's narrow and there are numerous sharp turns, cut banks on which you can become grounded - and plenty of deadheads (partially submerged logs), sweepers and strainers that can cause issues for inexperienced paddlers. However, we managed to deal with anything that came our way with a minimum of fuss.

Time to get out and walk.

Although the river is slow and shallow, any moving water needs to be respected. Particularly on a river like this one, there is not much time where you can say, "Okay, let's stop paddling and rest for a while," like you can on a calm lake or pond.

That can present a few problems if you want to take photos, since by the time you get set to snap a pic, you've probably already floated past your subject. We saw an entire family of common mergansers standing on a bank that protruded out into the river. Paddling past it would require both of us paying attention to the task, so we pulled over to a bank that allowed us to sit relatively still. Too far away for good shots with an iPhone, though. C'est la vie. We enjoyed the experience.

Further on, we encountered another merganser. This one seemed to be eager to "lead" us, as it continued to swim downriver about 20 feet in front of the canoe. We dubbed the bird "our guide," cracking jokes about how we thought this was supposed to be a trip without a guide. After about 10 minutes, the bird swam off down into a small indent in the river and we continued on without it.

It was a few minutes after that we came around the curve of the river and saw we were pointed smack dab straight into a black bear that was preparing to bathe.

We backpaddled and grabbed onto some reeds, and as we reversed our direction, the bear climbed into the river and sat down with only its head above the water's surface. There was no place to really pull ashore here, at all. It was just a mater of waiting.

"There's our guide!" said Ms. K.

Thinking she meant from the tour company, with another canoe that had opted for a guided trip, I said (only half-kidding), "Good! Let him go first, that way the bear will get him!"

She turned around and gave me a funny look - and I realized it was the merganser.

Eventually the bear turned around, walked out of the water, back up the bank and into the bushes, and we were able to continue along, chatting about how that was a highlight of the trip and comparing notes as to how close we'd ever been to a bear in the woods. Ann had been closer, than me --- or so she thought.

We accidentally paddled past where we had planned to take out for picnic lunch, at Meadow Park, and crossed underneath a railway track and a bridge that held the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

Trip completed at Green Lake.

We were continuing to discuss our "bear encounters" when Ms. K. said, "There's something moving on the left bank...you can see the brush moving."

I should point out that at this point, the river is only 10-12 wide.

"Maybe we'll get to see a heron or some other bird," I said, thinking it was something small.

As soon as those words came out of my mouth, a big black snout peered out from behind the brush, looking right at us.

Another black bear. But one we could "reach out and touch" with our paddles if we didn't pass on the far side of the river.

I got us over there and there weren't any issues. But at one point, we were close enough we could have literally reached out and touched the bear with our paddles.

"Well, I guess that's as close as we've both been to a bear in the woods!" I said.

And that became the day's No. 1 highlight.

Within a few minutes, we reached Green Lake, paddled around a point and landed at Edgewater Lodge.

Like its counterpart, this lake was glassy and surrounded by mountains on all sides. As we rounded the point, another family of geese swam past. Geese must be the official greeters for canoeists on these lakes.

As we pulled the canoe up out of the water, I was reminded of that old saying, "A bad day paddling beats a good day working."

And a great day paddling beats just about everything.



The River of Golden Dreams: a great day trip full of fun and adventure.

Want to see more photos from the trip? Check out my photo album, Canoeing the River of Golden Dreams on my Facebook page.

Kakapo 'adoption' a great gift option for Christmas

Close your eyes and try to imagine this:

There are only 150 people left in the world.

I know - it's difficult. But try to picture it. Got it? Now hold it...

Now imagine those people live spread out in a wild environment, without any way to travel other than by walking. And imagine they have great difficulty in "hooking up" in order to mate and eventually produce offspring.

It really challenges the mind to think of humans in those terms, since there are 7 billion of us on the planet.

But that may help you empathize with the plight of the kakapo parrot of New Zealand. There are less than 150 of these parrots remaining on the planet. They are on the brink of extinction.

Kakapo parrot (Photo by Kakapo recovery)

They are flightless. They are the heaviest parrot in the world. They are possibly the oldest living bird still on the planet. But the clock is ticking for this bird.

I first learned about the dire situation this bird is in during a Parrot Lover's Cruise. This is a program put together by the World Parrot Trust and Carol Cipriano, a U.S.-based travel agent, that essentially builds a program around existing cruise ship schedules to allow travellers who opt into the tour to see parrots in the wild and attend seminars about parrot conservation and education on board the ship between ports of call.

Being a parrot lover, I was aware of this bird long before I took the cruise - I just had no idea how close it was to extinction before watching "The Unnatural History of the Kakapo" video about it as part of the tour. 

Now our cruise - which was through the Caribbean - did not take us to New Zealand. However, it did take us to several islands where other parrots also face extinction: Puerto Rico, Dominica and Bonaire. All three of those islands currently have ongoing conservation projects to help save the endemic parrot species from extinction. (Not every island stop on our route featured parrots; but on the islands that did not include a parrot element, we used our time to go paddling or hiking, instead).

Any parrot population found on an island - particularly if it is only on one island - is very susceptible to extinction. One bad hurricane, an epidemic of disease, a sudden loss of species-specific habitat, introduction of a predator not native to the area - or a combination of all of them - can decimate a population concentrated in only one spot.

The reasons for its decline to a mere 18 birds in the 1970s is a result of several pressures on the population. The Kakapo Recovery Project consists of a team of dedicated conservationists working to restore the population to a level where it can thrive and exist without coming so close to extinction.

Kakapo plushies. (Photo by Kakapo Recovery)

Like all conservation projects, they require funds. Since it is the season of giving, if you are looking for a different kind of Christmas gift, one that also helps a good cause, you could "adopt" a kakapo. 

Now obviously, you don't physically adopt a bird - but your donation goes toward helping the project continue. 

There are different donation levels, and with each one, part of your "gift" includes a plush stuffed kakapo parrot.

Because it is close to Christmas, they will email donors a certificate of adoption so you can present that to a recipient, since at this point, a plushie may not arrive on time for Dec. 25, depending on where you are, in the world.

If you visit the project's website, you can find other ways to help make it a Merry Christmas for kakapos.