Qualla: Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Timothy.dhalleine, CC BY-SA 3.0. The rule is simple: you cannot walk in. To enter Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve you must take a motor canoe with an accredited guide, gliding north from the bridge called El Puente through coffee-colored river water that pushes east toward the Peruvian border. Park rangers enforce this. The reserve is not hostile so much as insistent - the jungle here drinks its own footprints back into the mud inside a day, and the only trails that last are the ones the rivers cut. That, and the canals the indigenous Siona and Cofan and Secoya have kept open with their paddles for longer than any map has recorded them.

Image: Timothy.dhalleine | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: Getting to El Puente

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fährtenleser, CC BY-SA 4.0. From Quito you fly or bus east to Lago Agrio, the oil town also known as Nueva Loja. The flight takes thirty minutes; the bus, if you have the time and stamina, takes around seven hours along Andean switchbacks that grind your nerves before the jungle starts. Flights are cheap en...

Image: Fährtenleser | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: Life on the Laguna Grande

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Timothy.dhalleine, CC BY-SA 3.0. The most-visited stretch is the Cuyabeno River corridor feeding the Laguna Grande, the Big Lake, which anchors the network of 14 lagoons in the reserve's western half. From Laguna Grande you can slip into narrower lagoons like Caimancocha, Mateococha, and Canangueno through black...

Image: Timothy.dhalleine | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: What You Will See

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0. The reserve harbors 550 bird species, a record 307 tree species per hectare, 350 fish species, and more than 12,000 plants. You may see capuchin and red-handed howler monkeys, orabassu titis, spider monkeys, and sakis. You will certainly hear them. Tapir, capybara, jaguar (rarely...

Image: Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador | CC BY-SA 2.0

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: Indigenous Communities

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three indigenous peoples maintain communities within and around the reserve: the Cofan, the Secoya, and the Siona. Until the 1980s these communities lived almost entirely from fishing, hunting, and swidden farming. Ecotourism has changed that. The Siona community at Puerto Boliva...

Image: Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador | CC BY-SA 2.0

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve: Practicalities

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fährtenleser, CC BY-SA 4.0. Food and lodging are organized through the ecolodges, which range in price from backpacker-bunks to eco-luxury. Bring your own drinking water, or let your operator organize it - the tap water is not drinkable. Mosquitoes are less bad here than in many Amazon reserves, and the are...

Image: Fährtenleser | CC BY-SA 4.0