Cuyabeno Trip

I'm sorry I haven't written or posted anything here for awhile. I guess getting settled into living here has really cut down the things I have to write about. Anyway, this blog will mostly be pictures. But for the first week of this break, I took a trip to the Amazon jungle with my friend Iris. We stayed at a lodge in he Cuyabeno Reserve. It's a national reserve to help preserve part of the rainforest. The lodge is located 2 hours by boat from the border of the reserve. It's not actually on the Amazon river. It's located on a tributary of it named the Cuyabeno river. We stayed for 4 days & 3 nights, although 2 of those days were actually spent traveling. It took about 15 hours to get from Quito to the Jamu lodge. Normally, you take an 8 hour bus from Quito to a town called Lago Agrio. However, a bridge somewhere along the route was washed out from high levels of rain so the route was longer - 11 hours. Then, it's a 2 hour chartered bus ride to the entrance to the reserve. After, a 2 hour canoe ride to the lodge. Anyway, here are the pictures.

In the canoe on the way to the lodge

Entrance

On the Cuyabeno River. The water is brown from all the sediment and minerals.

Monkey

Baby anaconda

Sloth

Our room

Walkway from the lodge to the canoes

On the way to Laguna Grande

Floating forest

Walking in the forest

Cicada nest

Walking palm tree

Walking through the swamp

Orchids

More swamp

More orchids plus our guide

The main lodge

One of the cabins

Fishing for piranhas

Small white piranha

Check out those teeth

Isn't it beautiful?

We went on a night walk to see insects.

Golden silk spider

Caiman (like small versions of alligators)

Indigenous community we visited to learn how to make yucca bread.

Their garden

Papaya 

Starting to peel the yucca

Yucca actually comes from the roots of a tree

Peeling the yucca

Fire to cook it

Grating the yucca

Then rolling it up in a mat

Squeezing it to get all the water out

Sifting it once dry

Cooking it

Blurry picture, but it's grainy

Finished

Night monkeys peeking out of a hole in their tree

Playing a dart game

More sunset pictures

A caiman at night. It was too dark to get anything but the creepy eyes.

Snake

Jumping in the laguna

My travel buddy

Another snake

Muddy boots and pants after a long hike.

Travel buddy and tour guide

Floating in the laguna

Monarch butterfly

Blue & yellow macaw