Tena 14th November

It was a long drive day between Otovalo in the mountains and Tena in the Amazonian rain forest, dropping from cool mountains at 2,550m to hot steamy jungle at 420m. It is rain forest and gets 4.4m rainfall a year. That is 171 inches or about half an inch a day.

Tena is the capital of Napo Province founded in 1566 although the start of the city was already built in 1560. Entry to the city is marked by a statue of the indigenous hero Juandy (also the name of the local airport) who led an uprising against the Spanish colonizers in 1578 and was subsequently executed. It is known as the ‘cinnamon capital’.  

The town sits at the confluence of the Tena and Pano rivers and in the center of town lies a popular pedestrian bridge, ‘el puente peatonal’. A picture of the bridge and the view downstream and from which I could see some of the carnival as viewed in the above two photos.

The two rivers eventually become the Misahualli which becomes the Napo River and flows into Peru and is the 9th largest tributary of the Amazon. 

Around the city there is oil prospecting which is a point of contention as there is drilling of the 650 km² Pungarayacu heavy oil field by Canadian corporation Ivanhoe with environmental and ethnological concerns

From the top of the tower that connects the two parts of the bridge I could see some of the carnival and procession that was celebrating the 450th anniversary of the city. 

Nearby is the Sumaco Volcano whose cone soars 3,732 metres above the jungle.

Also the Cuevas de Jumandy are four kms north of Archidona on the road to Quito which is a labyrinth of natural caves and tunnels that extend several kilometres underground. However we were going into the jungle for an experience of a jungle lodge for a few days.