After a half hour plane journey, a three hour jolty bus journey in which we had to be dragged out of deep gravel by a digger, and a 20 minute boat ride, we arrived at our destination - lodges in the Cuyabeno Reserve in the Amazon Rainforest in the north of Ecuador.
The lodges were open to the elements and overlooking the river. As we lay in our comfortable beds we could hear the noise of thousands of insects, frogs, birds, monkeys, and even a cheeky sausage shaped rodent who we spotted stealing two of our biscuits in the middle of the night.
We set off with our guide on some jungle trails. We were urged not to stray from the path as we could quickly encounter poisonous spiders, frogs, plants, killer ants, camouflaged snakes etc. It was amazing how much all the wildlife blended into its environment.
A leafy-striped frog.
Spot the anaconda
Spot the backpack
This beetle didn't blend so well but maybe it's meant to be offputting
Apparently these are edible. Yum yum.
The bull frog - named after his horns. He was plonked on the leaf by our guide. He completely blended into dead leaves.
A handy bit of plant used by monkeys to groom themselves.
Shake the leaves on this tree and millions of ants come pouring out from under the leaves to protect it. They sound like falling rain.
On our second day we went off on the boat down the river to a lagoon, spotting lots of monkeys and birds on the way.
The lagoon disappears in the dry season and is yet to rise by another couple of metres in the rainy season to reach its peak. We went searching for an enormous anaconda which we eventually found hiding in a hollow tree like the ones above. Its body was as thick as a football and apparently it would have been between 8-10 metres long. We climbed out of the boat one at a time and peered in at it sleeping. Our heads were within inches of the mighty beast. After this, we headed to an indigenous village where they are well rehearsed at making yuca bread for tourists.
We had to squeeze all the water out of it. Surprisingly tricky after the first few twists.
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