Tandayapa Bird Lodge

A week at Tandayapa in the cloud forest on the the north west slopes of the Andes, at 1800 metres and about an hour and a half from Quito. This was the place that had offered us the job, so we were keen to check it out.
They have a local bird list of 600 species, but bloody hell, it was hard to find them!! A lot of the birding sites are a distance away and we didn't have a car. Lots of great walking trails though and the humming birds at the feeders at the lodge are spectacular.
Hard to resist names like Sparkling Violetear, Violet-tailed Sylph, Booted Racket-tail, Glittering Emeralds - if they sound colourful, they are.
We had a guide for a couple of days, which was great and we saw fabulous things like quetzals, more cocks of the rock, barbets, toucanets, hummers galore, antpittas and more. 4 am starts with him as they like to have you in place at dawn, 1.5 hrs from home.
By staying for a week, we also managed to get lots of lovely rest (we were on our own mostly) so reading and writing took precedence. No Internet, which was very good for us!
A fabulous spot, nice people and extremely good food - poor old Rosita was a bit horrified when we said we really didn't need three courses at both lunch and dinner.