Ready to adventure deep into Yasuni National Park? At the border of Peru and Ecuador you’ll start upstream on Yasuni River, headed towards Jatuncocha Lake. Keep your eyes peeled, river otters may be sliding along the river banks and squirrel monkeys can be spotted jumping from tree to tree looking for insects. Jatuncocha is a series of lagoons. Our expert canoe driver will navigate through the narrow waterways. You’re so close to the vegetation you could reach out and touch it. The water here is cleaner than the Napo River because there is no sediment from the Andes. Its dark color comes from the tannins of the surrounding plants. It’s like a well steeped tea. Jatuncocha is three to four meters in its deepest area. It can drop as low as one and a half meters but is never dry.

Jatuncocha is the playground of caimans, those little alligators who move in and out of the water searching for food. On a rare occasion, you might also find the mighty anaconda here. When hungry, it searches the lake for food.

After a particularly large meal, especially if the prey is a big mammal, the anaconda will rest along the shore for months, digesting its feast. Although much of the wildlife in Jatuncocha is similar to what you’d find in the river, some of the fish species will differ because of the changing habitat. You’ll see numerous “floating islands” of vegetation that is completely separate from the shore. From a bird’s eye view, these might look like large lily pads with plants growing every which way.

Even for the Amazon, this is a very remote area. One of the two uncontacted tribes in the region may even be able to see our canoe whizzing by along the river from time to time. For this excursion, you’ll spend the entire time in the canoe. It can be longer than some of the others so don’t worry if you’re tempted to set your head back and just enjoy the peaceful rest that the rainforest brings.