Our Ecuador trip continued, taking us from Galapagos to Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, the rain forest of northern Ecuador. (After a 30min flight from Quito, getting to our lodge meant enduring a 1 hour 30min mini-bus ride before a 2 hour canoe ride up river.)
All of our travels around the Amazon rainforest involved getting around by canoe, so we became very adept at jumping and and out of canoes with huge amounts of camera gear.
One of the highlights of our time in the Amazon was seeing this stunning lizard, which I think is called a Tegu Lizard.
I don’t know how, but our guide spotted it from a good distance away and got very excited about seeing this rarity. It took a little while before we saw it in the bushes and managed to get close enough for photos.
It was roughly 2m long from nose to tail, maybe a little more. You can see the tip of the tail at the bottom of the photo.
Seeing a Tegu like this in the wild is quite a rare sight and much harder to see than Anacondas and pink river dolphin that the area is famous for.