Have you been disillusioned about your Amazon trip? When going to the Amazon rainforest, you count on seeing a great deal of birds and mammals. You spent a lot of time and money to travel to the Amazon, but so far you hardly seen any birds and mammalsat al. Where are they?
The truth is that almost all of the animals spend much of their time up high in the trees. From the forest floor, your can't see them very well, since they are high up in 30 m high trees. Moreover, you look up from the relative darkness of the forest floor and from where you stand, the leaves almost look black because of the contrast between the light of the sky and the darkness of the leaves. Because of this, it is rather tough to see the animals, let alone recognize their features and identify them.
It is much easier to look at birds and mammals and flowers from the water as they navigate around, respectively are in the shrubs and lower branches of the trees along the shores. But such advantage primarily works well with creeks.
Often, the rivers are very wide so that they can almost appear seas. On the narrow streams however, one feels in the middle of the forest even though the river still opens up the sky enough to see the lower shrubs and branches on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As creeks are most plentiful in the headwaters, the narrow rivers are generally located along the Andes foothills. But due to the hilly terrain, few Amazon headwaters are navigable and only one network of interconnected lakes is known in the Andes countries, the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Aforementioned features a bowl-shaped plain having a shallow outlet, so that water builds up, thus creating an enormous forested swamp. one of the few reserves on the planet extending on both sides of the equator.
Neither Colombia, Peru, Venezuela nor Bolivia have got an Amazon park with similar convenient access as Cuyabeno and nowhere else in South America, is one to get so easily into a nature reserve in the Amazon Rainforest at such low prices: Thirty minutes by airplane gets you from Quito to LagoAgrio, at the beginning of Ecuador's Northern Amazon region and less than two hours by bus over a new asphalt road brings you to the park entrance. Many guests find Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve the very best Amazon reserve on earth!
Although it is not excessively luxurious, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the most comfortable lodge on the Cuyabeno Lake. Rainforest Alliance certified, the lodge has been constructed twenty five years ago by a group of conservation professionals at a time when the park had been invaded buy illegal settlers. The initiators planned to provide alternative income from ecotourism for the local communities in an era when there still wasn't any tourism to the area.
Now 25 years or so later, the park is well-protected as the Government has understood the significance of the area, now that it is being visited by some 14,000 visitors each year. The owners are continuously working at improving the quality of both the lodge as well as the excursions. As conservation ecologists, for them there's nothing more important than that every tourist leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the tropical rainforest. The lodge features a tree crown observation tower overlooking the entire lake. With the combined elevation of their tower on the hill where the lodge is built, the communication system has the best signal in the area. With the ranger station of the National Park Service on its premises, the lodge functions as the alarm center of the reserve. Solar panels provide energy 24 hours a day in all of the buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is definitely possible. The lodge also has hot water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
The truth is that almost all of the animals spend much of their time up high in the trees. From the forest floor, your can't see them very well, since they are high up in 30 m high trees. Moreover, you look up from the relative darkness of the forest floor and from where you stand, the leaves almost look black because of the contrast between the light of the sky and the darkness of the leaves. Because of this, it is rather tough to see the animals, let alone recognize their features and identify them.
It is much easier to look at birds and mammals and flowers from the water as they navigate around, respectively are in the shrubs and lower branches of the trees along the shores. But such advantage primarily works well with creeks.
Often, the rivers are very wide so that they can almost appear seas. On the narrow streams however, one feels in the middle of the forest even though the river still opens up the sky enough to see the lower shrubs and branches on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As creeks are most plentiful in the headwaters, the narrow rivers are generally located along the Andes foothills. But due to the hilly terrain, few Amazon headwaters are navigable and only one network of interconnected lakes is known in the Andes countries, the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Aforementioned features a bowl-shaped plain having a shallow outlet, so that water builds up, thus creating an enormous forested swamp. one of the few reserves on the planet extending on both sides of the equator.
Neither Colombia, Peru, Venezuela nor Bolivia have got an Amazon park with similar convenient access as Cuyabeno and nowhere else in South America, is one to get so easily into a nature reserve in the Amazon Rainforest at such low prices: Thirty minutes by airplane gets you from Quito to LagoAgrio, at the beginning of Ecuador's Northern Amazon region and less than two hours by bus over a new asphalt road brings you to the park entrance. Many guests find Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve the very best Amazon reserve on earth!
Although it is not excessively luxurious, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the most comfortable lodge on the Cuyabeno Lake. Rainforest Alliance certified, the lodge has been constructed twenty five years ago by a group of conservation professionals at a time when the park had been invaded buy illegal settlers. The initiators planned to provide alternative income from ecotourism for the local communities in an era when there still wasn't any tourism to the area.
Now 25 years or so later, the park is well-protected as the Government has understood the significance of the area, now that it is being visited by some 14,000 visitors each year. The owners are continuously working at improving the quality of both the lodge as well as the excursions. As conservation ecologists, for them there's nothing more important than that every tourist leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the tropical rainforest. The lodge features a tree crown observation tower overlooking the entire lake. With the combined elevation of their tower on the hill where the lodge is built, the communication system has the best signal in the area. With the ranger station of the National Park Service on its premises, the lodge functions as the alarm center of the reserve. Solar panels provide energy 24 hours a day in all of the buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is definitely possible. The lodge also has hot water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
About the Author:
Internationally renowned ecologist Dr. Vreugdenhil tells you what to look out for when you select your destination to explore the Amazon Jungle Rainforest. To fully enjoy the Rainforest, your Rainforest Lodge should neither be too basic nor excessively luxurious.
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