Blogs from Cuyabeno Reserve, East, Ecuador, South America

To the east of the spine of mountains and snowcapped volcanos which bisects Ecuador from north to south lies this country's tiny share of the vast Amazon Basin. There are many countries in South America from which a visit to the tropical rainforests of the basin can be made: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and, somewhat obviously, Brazil. We've heard, though, that Ecuador is a particularly good place to organise a visit to the rainforest: Ecuador's diminutive size - some 30 times smaller than Brazil - means that the forest and its famously immense biodiversity is never very far away. Ecuador it is, then. Two large reserves, the rather oddly-named Reserva de Producción Faunística Cuyabeno (making the Amazon sound like some sort of biological production-line) and the Parque Nacional Yasuní make up a large part of Amazonian ... read more

We booked a 4-day-trip to the Amazon basin at the Samona Lodge (http://samona-expedition.com), an ecofriendly and community based tour operator. The lodge is in the Cuyabeno Reserve which is considered one of the most biodiverse sites in the world. Naturally, we were excited! From Quito, we took an 8-hour-nightbus to Lago Agrio, the town which serves as the gateway to the rainforest reserve. On the bus, we spotted mainly tourists and we were quite sure that some of them would head to the same spot as us but when we arrived at a café where we got breakfast and which functioned as a meeting point, ALL of them showed up as well. In total, we were 24 people heading to the lodge, that was even more than what the staff expected and they had to organize ... read more

The trip to Cuyabeno Reserve was a long one - a 6am flight from Quito to Lago Agrio, a 2 hour wait to be picked up, a 2 hour bus ride to the ´port´(pick up point on the river with a covered shack for eating lunch) and then 2.5 long hours in a long motorised canoe boat to finally arrive at Nicky Lodge, deep in the Amazon jungle. The scenery along th river was spectacular along the way - masses of tangled vines wrapped around huge trees, a spotting of the occaisional bird or monkey, and a smattering of houses and buildings along the shoreline, all with their own boats for getting from A to B. We made our way along what seemed to be a complex route of rivers and finally took a dramatic 90 ... read more

Friday 7th October I cant help but wonder how you all are as I lay here in my hammock, listening to the birds and feeling the faint cool breeze sweep across our verandah, deep here in the Amazon jungle. Shane on the other hand is on the throne doing a sudoku puzzle. LOL Its been a bit of a mixed bag. When we arrived in Lago Agrio on Tuesday morning, we were hit with a wall of heat. I said "oh my god its so hot and humid!", to which Shane replied "Just remember whose idea it was to do this." And he continues to remind me to this day. We drove for about 2 hrs from the airport at extremely high speed around extremely tight corners, and just as I thought we couldnt take any ... read more

I am pretty sure it's in the rules that if you come to South America then you have to visit the Amazon. I hope it's OK if you visit the Amazon Basin rather than the actual river. I suspect, though, that the real requirement is that you get yourself onto the water, stay in the jungle for a few days, see some of the birds and other animals and get acquainted with a few of the insects. Anyway, if that is what is required then we have done it. I do admit though that we still have a little idea that we will find the time at some stage to get a look at the actual river, perhaps a little closer to its mouth rather than up here at the source end, so to speak. The ... read more