At the end of May, Roman and I took our last trip to a different part of Ecuador before our 2 year adventure was finished. Ecuador is comprised of 4 very unique regions: the Galapagos Islands, the coast, the sierras, and the Amazon rainforest. We had traveled to all of these places while in Ecuador but only got to the outskirts of the rainforest. For this trip, we traveled deep into the jungle to the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, located on the equator in the far northeast corner of Ecuador. This reserve has the highest biodiversity in the world with the greatest number of plant and animal species per hectare.

We began our journey with a short flight from Quito to Lago Agrio on Friday morning, followed by a 2 hour drive to the river, and finally a 1 hour motorized canoe ride to the Cuyabeno Lodge. As we floated along the river, we saw several species of birds, including parrots and macaws, and monkeys.

The next 3 days were filled with motorized canoe trips along the river, swimming at sunset in the Cuyabeno Lake, a night hike through the jungle, and paddle canoe trips along the banks of the river and lake. We saw 7 species of monkeys, parrots, macaws, a young anaconda, pink river dolphins, caymans, turtles, tarantulas, a poison dart frog, zombie fungus (my personal favorite), and many species of insects, spiders, and plants. I will let the pictures speak for themselves – it was an incredible place.