A visit to the Amazonian Forest - Reaching the forest.

Tena is a small town Southwest from Quito. It is one of the easy entry points into the vast Amazonian forest. What one gets to see at Tena is only a glimpse of the rich diversity of this forest.
We left Quito a little after midnight in two school vans for Tena. We reached the town a little after 6 in the morning. The resort that we had booked for our stay was about 5 - 6 kilometers inside the Jungle. To reach the Jungle one had to cross a hanging bridge which spanned the river Misahaulli.

The bridge over river Misahualli which is the entry into the Amazonian forest. This view is from the forest into the town of Tena.

The bridge is pretty old and worn out. Barely a van can go across and an empty one at that. So we got off the van and walked across the bridge while the drivers drove the practically empty van (the luggage was still in the van) across the bridge. The bridge is hanging from the two concrete pillars on either bank. The pillars are quite old and are damaged. Nevertheless the bridge seems to be in constant use despite these limitations.
So we actually walked into the Amazonian jungle.
Once inside one got to see the thickness of the jungle almost immediately. One passed a few streams of crystal clear water and finally one such stream became the undoing for the van. The van go stuck in the small pebbles in the stream and we had go get down to push the van. Few of the first photographs in the jungle as we were trying to get the van out of the stream.

The flora consisted of more such flowers and the fauna consisted of more such insects.

The typical sight inside the jungle.

We managed to push the vehicle out onto the other side with some difficulty. The second van driver refused to make an attempt. Fortunately we were almost near the resort where we were to take shelter for the night so we walked it down with the luggage in the van.
One had to walk close to the river bank to reach this place. One sight that greeted us was a butterfly about the size of the span of an adult and completely blue in colour. Unfortunately none of us could capture its beauty. It was too fast for any of us to react.