Forest Fancies

After a long day on the bus from Tena, a tasty lunch at a teensy comedor in Puyo, and a two-hour lesson on medicinal plants and indigenous cultures at Omaera, we took a taxi ride into the suburbs of the city to Omar's fantastical reforestation project/biological investigation/orchid garden. Thirty years of hard work have transformed Omar's former cattle pasture into a magnificent, moist, and diverse secondary forest that holds promise for succession into a greater ecosystem still. Amidst the hundreds of planted species can be seen (with the help of a hand lens) tiny little gems of orchid flowers that twinkle in the twilight of dusk - but only if you know just exactly where to look. Too much to capture well with my amateur photography skills.