After a sleepless 10-hour night-ride filled with Steven Segal movies, Sarah, Mom and I finally arrived at the entrance of Cuyabeno reserve, a well-preserved patch of rainforest, located in the north east of Ecuador. There we met a few other people who were going to be in our group at the Cuyabeno River Lodge. After we paid our entrance fee we hopped into a 20 ft motorized canoe, and the driver expertly navigated the narrow river tributary, which would lead us to the lodge 20 min downstream.
The Lodge was located on the bank of the river in what is called semi-flooded forest because every year the river flows over its bed and floods surrounding forest with a few feet of water. The buildings were all held on stilts about 3 feet off the ground, but the river, when we arrived, was abnormally low. In the center of the clearing was certainly the reason they chose that particular spot for the lodge: a huge tree, with buttress roots and a canopy swarming with squawking Oropendolas and their long hanging nests.
After a piranha fishing trip, our guide, who had been missing in action, showed up. His was skinny, tall and very funny because of his accent and manner. We ate a simple meal and some of us headed out to go for a short night walk, which is a good way to see insects, scorpions and other invertebrates some of which are very colorful. I was doing my best to imitate birdcalls, and that night I managed to have a conversation with an owl.
After fishing for piranhas in the same river it took a little guts to float downstream the next day. “Hold your feet off the bottom!” Luis said, and I asked quietly if it was because of the stingrays and snapping turtles and he said “well…” and then he decided not to lie, “…yes.” I held back this little piece of info from the others because they were already having a hard enough time dealing with it. Later, in the lake, I also learned that there were electric eels, which scared me much more than rays or piranhas.
The next day Luis asked us if we wanted to go on what he called a “camping trip” which really meant that we would go say at another lodge, which was not fully constructed yet. To get there we headed downstream for about two hours, all the while looking for birds, anacondas, caiman, and other animals. When we got to the lake It was large but seemed very shallow. Trees called Macrolobiums grew there, up to their waists in water, and on their branches grew some of the first orchids I had seen in Cuyabeno. We began to keep our eyes out for pink river dolphins coming up for air. Here again we jumped out of the canoe and went for a swim in the lake. Just after the swim Luis began to talk about how dangerous going in the water really was which made me feel a little strange, “its really not that good of an idea to swim here” he said.
When we got to our “camp site” the boat bottomed out in the mud about 100 feet short of solid ground, so Luis hopped out of the canoe and began to trudge trough the mud pulling the large canoe closer in. “Sarah could you help me?” he asked, and gamely Sarah jumped out and sunk knee deep in mud and thigh deep in water, but she didn’t complain. We got as close as we could before we all got out and waded the rest of the way trying not to sink in past the depth our Wellington boots would allow.
In the morning I set out to find a way to climb one of the macrolobiums, but they were all out in the water. I considered stealing a canoe, which was moored along our boat, but instead found some orchids in terrestrial trees around our camp and climbed them. When everyone else woke up I had found a marolobium which I could climb and was photographing Lalias growing on the living but seemingly rotten wood. We headed out again in the boat and went looking around the lake where we saw some unique birds. We got out and walked around where Luis explained the differences between the three types of forest: flooded, semi flooded, and terra firme. We found inch long bullet ants, and heard the screaming phia (bird), which sounds like the loudest catcall you have ever heard.
Later that day Luis said we would be visiting a Siona village and I was not looking forward to seeing a bunch of people dressed up as if they still lived the same way they did one hundred years ago. Thankfully it was not like that. The village was not dressed up; it was just a village of bamboo huts on stilts. While this relieved me a little, a German couple was quite disappointed with the lack of drama of the people and the place. I yanked up a yuca plant and a woman made yuca bread, which is made by grating and cooking it on a flat clay pan over a fire. Later we visited the shaman of the village whose feet had big
toes, which were pointing inward so much that they almost looked opposable. He cured the German guys back pain by brushing his back with stinging nettles, and singing.
That night we went out with our lights looking for the tell tale glimmers the caiman eyes. We found and approached several caimans most about two feet long. On the way back I was riding out on the front of the canoe when we upset a school of foot long fish, which began to jump out in front of the boat. Suddenly dozens of fish leapt out of the water all around us. I heard screams from the back of the boat and realized that people where being hit by fish and they were flying into the boat left and right. Suddenly I was punched in the shoulder by a whizzing fish. “Punched” may sound like an exaggeration but before I realized what was going on that’s what I thought had happened. We got payback by eating them that night.
The next day was our last, which I felt quite sad about as we motored across the lake. I had enjoyed our time on the lake the most. The deepest part of the lake was right at the entrance of our river and it was our best and last chance to see the dolphins. After waiting 15 minutes and fearing that the dolphins would be a no show, a smooth pinkish grey dolphin skimmed the surface to catch its breath, Cuyabeno does not disappoint. They came up every four or five minutes and we stayed and watched for about an hour. Finally we dragged ourselves away and headed back to the lodge passing herons and sun grebes with their little stripy feet.
We arrived back at the lodge and began packing our things for the canoe ride back to the entrance not looking forward to the next night ride. The river had gone up at least eight feet since when had arrived so I took the opportunity to use the rope swing and go for one last swim, before we said goodbye to Luis, Emma and Brent who we had become good friends with over the trip (they had one more day). On our way out I tried to soak in everything I could before we got in the bus and headed back across the country, up the Andes and back to Quito.
