Amazon Jungle - Yarina Lodge

A short flight from Quito took us down to Coca on the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon. Flying over the jungle showed some large areas cultivated (palm oil I think), but also lots of featureless green.

The rain forest lived up to it's name as the sky opened for about 20 minutes while we waited for the water taxi to the lodge. I've not seen such torrential rain very often, and we very luckily didn't see it that heavy again for our 4 days.

Small wasp nest under the awning at the port.

Aboard the 'canoe' to the lodge

Even on the boat we were surrounded by wildlife - this lovely caterpillar was on mum's armrest

The main Rio Napo was huge, but after an hour we turned off into the much narrower entrance to the reserve.

After another 10 or 20 mins we reached the lodge itself for lunch. It turned out that there was only one other guest in the Lodge, a Frenchman named Olivier, so it was pretty much a private tour for us! Travelling in the off-season does have it's advantages!

My hut for the 4 days. It was very nice inside.

Over the 4 days we saw a good variety of wildlife in the grounds of the lodge itself, including lizards, a snake, loads of butterflies, an agouti, squirrel monkeys and more!

There were a few trees with head sized, hard gourd fruit, used by the locals for bowls and cups.

Reluctant mum providing scale.

Hanging nests of the Russet Backed Oropendula, which make an incredible noise.

Amiva Lizards

Fishing Bats were roosting in the boathouse!

This Black Agouti was a regular visitor to the Lodge, snuffling past my hut at 5 am in the morning scaring me somewhat.

This is apparently a threat display for an agouti.  It looked to me more like it was twerking!

Dad, bird spotting in the grounds

Speckled Chachalaca - what a fantastic name!

Russet backed Oropendula

Dad, still bird watching.  Mum wondering where Dad was.

We think this was a non-venomous Parrot Snake.  It was found by one of the guys who worked at the lodge I think near a compost heap.  It was sufficiently novel that everyone came for a look.

Red Capped Cardinal

Random toad on the path one night

This climbing/jumping frog lived in the rafters of the restaurant.

So did a tarantula like this one. Mum was less than pleased about that.

Squirrel Monkeys! Early on our 3rd morning at the lodge, we spotted some spider monkeys moving off through the trees. "Oh yes, they sleep in a tree in the lodge grounds and go foraging during the day" came the casual reply. There were monkeys in the lodge grounds and they hadn't mentioned them! Unfortunately not many great photos as they left at dawn and came back at dusk, so the lighting wasn't great, but this video shows them moving and I think is lovely!

In addition to the exciting and interesting wildlife in the lodge grounds, we also had some fun activities to do that were... out of the ordinary!

First, we had some practice with a blowgun. Very traditional, and whilst Olivier was first to hit it, we all managed to hit the gourd!

Dad was last, but there was a bit of the old 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' distraction going from a certain Maid Mari-Anne

Once we were properly good at it, I put Mum and Dad to the test by William Tell'ing it.

Our other out of the ordinary activity was piranha fishing. We had some raw beef to bait our lines, and while I didn't catch a piranha, I did manage to attract some fish!  Our guide (it's a month ago - I've forgotten his name now!) did manage to catch one though, and we had it for dinner!  Good eating.

There was also an interesting link between the two activities! One of the 'tools' used with the blowgun is a set of piranha jaws.  These are used to sharpen the darts!