Yasuni Amazon Rainforest - BIODIVERSITY!

K: Thanks to J's awesome career, I was able to go on this adventure.

Going into the heart of the Amazon is tough.  Flying out of Quito to Coca at 6 am, then up the Napo river for 2+ hours, then hop on the back of a truck for 2+ hours, then a motorized canoe for another 2+ hours, increasingly fewer humans, and the trees just get higher and denser.  Eventually, no humans, and you only hear the crashing of monkeys through the trees.

A bend in the Tiputini river 

The people who know about the trip learn to pass out for a good nap, on boxes of bananas and otherwise, all except the expert captain with both hands on the two parallel outboards

Then you see the first sign of humans in many hours, we have arrived at the Tiputini Research Station.  You can't get here as a tourist, and there are no mints on the pillows.  There are no pillows.

But they do have a 40m high canopy bridge, though the ladder is a bit rickety.  Every layer of the rain forest canopy is different.  I met a researchers with a slingshot, and a winch/crank that allowed her to shoot a weight into the trees, and slowly crank herself up into the canopy.  Cool.

The view from the canopy top is amazing.  nothing but more and more vegetation as far as the eye can see.  You can't see the harpy eagle on the horizon about to put the talon and beak on some monkeys.

Some of the trees are just massive, the size of a house

This is huge collection of vines, about 12 ft wide, that are parasitic.  They attack the tree in the middle, consume it, and grow into the upper canopy.  Eventually the tree dies and only the vines survive, leaving a gap in the middle.

It's like another planet

with life on top of life, everywhere you turn

literally jumping into your hand.

Or waiting for it to jump into its web

You hear more than see the monkey, but they are everywhere.  They only touch the ground to get a sip of water.  Otherwise, they live entirely in the trees.  This is a Tamarin monkey.  We got glimpses of Howler, Spider and Squirrel monkeys too.

Jumping through the trees

Hundreds, thousands of birds.  Sorry, no pictures of all of the parrots, macaws, parakeets and so many more.

This little guy was just above the door to my cabin

Super cute

Actually seeing an untouched rainforest is pretty incredible.  You realize what there really is and what is at stake.  A few weeks ago the President of Ecuador announced plans to open this last bit of rainforest to oil exploitation in five years.  I'm glad that I got to see it now, and sad that it in five years it will never again exist like this.