in the amazon rainforest

we spent two days at cotococha lodge in the amazon rainforest: exploring the most dense luscious flora, cruising along the napo river in a motorized canoe, making friends with monkeys and butterflies, spending our evenings with only candlelight, sleeping surrounded by the sounds of the jungle. it was pretty fantastic.

by this point in our trip, we were starting to really itch for routine, home, work, and family. but the lushness of the rainforest was enlivening.

 
^^ views from our bus ride from quito to tena, where we caught a cab to take us to cotococha. i can’t believe i had no pictures of our ecuadorian bus rides. we spent a lot of hours on those buses! this one was very late and we didn’t get to the lodge until about four hours after we were expected. it’s all part of the adventure :) ^^

^^ the bungalow we stayed in was idyllic. this was one of my favourite sleeping arrangements of my whole life. ^^
 
^^ so hard to capture the look and feel of the world around us when we woke up at sunrise in our cabana. the soft dawn light was so dreamy. what looks like windows here is actually screens…so it almost feels like you are sleeping outside! ^^

^^ watching the sunrise from the porch hammock = heaven. ^^

^^ gosh, i just think he is the cutest. i can’t decide which of these pictures i like better. i love this boy. ^^

^^ a morning stroll nearby the lodge before our excursion out on the napo river! ^^
 
^^ soooooo lush. this has got to be the definition of lush. ^^l

^^ we went on a walk through the jungle and got to see some really neat birds (that were really hard to capture in a photograph!). our tour guide frankie was awesome. ^^

^^ some pretty red mushrooms – a teeny tiny break in all that green! ^^
 
these wooly monkeys were so fun to see and watch! our tour guide speared some banana bits with a long stick and offered a little treat to our new friends. they were pretty excited about it:

^^ stuffing his face! ^^

^^ getting ambushed by another hungry monkey! ^^
 
we went to an animal rehabilitation center along the river, where animals that cannot survive in the wild for one reason or another are cared for (and hopefully released back into the rainforest when they are well). really amazing creatures:

we had a really great picnic on the bank of the river before we went on to our last stop: a butterfly farm. it felt like about a million degrees inside the canopy, but the butterflies were astounding:
  
after our canoe excursion, we had plenty of free time to relax at the lodge, which felt so good after so much running around in different places, seeing different things. pure nature is sure good for the soul!


more on our stay at cotococha amazon lodge coming up next.