El Oriente - a visit to the great Amazon

Say the word Amazon and we all conjure pictures of huge swathes of untamed primary rainforest on our inner screens. Thanks to plentiful nature programs we have all been there, from the comfort of our couch - now it was time to make the real journey to the depths of the jungle. Well as deep as you can go on a five day trip and on a much smaller budge than I imagine it takes to produce those TV programs.

From Quito we jumped on an overnight bus and headed to the northeastern corner of Ecuador and the small town of Lago Agrio. There we were met by our guide, who would take us and a small group of travellers to the Cyuabeno Wildlife Reserve. Another couple of hours by road took us to the entrance of the reserve, where we changed to motorised canoes for a further two hour journey down the Cyuabeno river to Caiman Lodge. Under way to the lodge we spotted several monkeys, a variety of birds and a small anaconda soaking up some afternoon rays.

With the lodge as our base we spent the next five days exploring the nooks and crannies of the nearby rivers and lagoons. It's the middle of the rainy season, which means that large parts of the area is flooded in several meters of water, creating vast picturesque lagoons, that in the dry season would be a series of minor pools. This made exploring by canoe a lot easier, but unfortunately also harder to spot the creatures lurking in the water, mainly anacondas and caimans.
We did some memorable walks both during the day and at night. One day the walk turned extra memorable when, not entirely unexpected, the rain started pouring and tracks turned to rivers and we ended up wading through thigh-high water.we also paid a visit to a local village,  where we learner a few tips from the local and very colourful shaman.

There's supposed to be a path here... 

The amazing ability of our native guide to spot wildlife was highlighted when during our night walk, he spotted the entrance to a tarantula nest. After a bit of coaxing the hand-sized hairy fellow made an appearance and indeed seemed sedate enough to not mind being gently nudged, from the ground to a hand and then further onto human heads. I got athorough inspection of my face and in particular one ear. I would compare it to being kissed by someone with day old stubbles, so generally not an overly unpleasant experience, hence my only slightly nervous smile.
At the lodge we were visited by squirrel monkeys and unfortunately, due to my phobia, also frogs. Our guide went through instructions on how to get frogs out of the toilet bowl,  where they apparently like to hang out at night, luckily we didn't have to put this piece of vital survival information to the test. On our trips we were lucky to see howler monkeys, several other species of monkeys, the curiously slow two-towed and three-towed sloths, many many different birds, insects and snakes, even a couple of decent sized anacondas. Several times we also spotted the two types of river dolphins that lives in the area, although they proved elusive to our cameras.

A sloth hanging out in the treetops. 

Resting after a nice lunch. 

Seeing rare wildlife in their natural habitat is precious and always a very special experience, but for me the true highlight was the sheer enormity of the jungle, the explosion and intensity of green everywhere you looked and the diversity of flora. A single tree could serve as a host for a array of parasitic plants that would make any average botanical garden, well... green with envy.

It's easy to reach the conclusion that this little corner of the Amazon is a heaven of tranquillity, hovever according to the Australian government's travel advisory website the Cyuabeno Reserve and adjoining areas are, thanks to its proximity to the Colombian and Peruvian border, a hotspot for rebels, drug dealers and plain old robbers and does therefore have a 'Do not travel' warning on aforementioned website, referring to a few incidents of robbery and a kidnapping of foreigners in 2012. We only realised this on the evening of our departure from Quito. We had heard no mention of any recent trouble from other travellers, and from experience that kind of news travels fast in backpacker circles,  and the trip was booked through a very reputable travel agency,  so we decided to go.

When at the lodge we heard that seven FARC members had been arrested in Lago Agrio. Still the town seemed like any other small town you will expect to find on the edge of the jungle. The town-folks went about their daily lives, running businesses, there was a kindergarten,  I even saw a poster for school holiday activity programs offering ballet classess.
I have the greatest respect for the various government agencies around the world, that provide information for travellers so we can make informed choices, and I have generally sought to avoid the areas on my previous journeys, however in this case I'm glad we went.