Can this happen to you? You wished to view a lot of birds and mammals of the Amazon so you booked, what seemed a fantastic trip to the Amazon jungle. You spent a lot of time and money to get there, but all you have seen so far is a lot of trees and leaves. Where are the animals?
However, many the mammals and most birds actually live up high in the canopy of the trees. Therefore, you can hardly discover their whereabouts because the trees in the rainforest are often up to 30 m high. While, you look up from the darkness of the forest floor, the leaves seem very dark because light of the sky blinds you, making the leaves seem almost black. Under such light conditions, it's extremely hard to see and identify birds and mammals, if you aren't an experienced observer.
It is much easier to observe wildlife 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 narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are really wide so that they almost appear seas. Along the narrow rivers on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest even though the river still opens up the sky enough to see the lower trees and shrubs on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As streams are narrowest in the upper parts of the watersheds, they are most common along the Andes foothills, however in most of the Amazon lowlands, the foothills are rather hilly and few creeks are navigable and lakes are almost absent. The Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve is unique for being Remarkably flat. It is really an enormous hollow plate which has a narrow exit, which causes a big area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and narrow rivers. It is one of the few protected areas on earth located precisely on the equator.
There's no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia that's so near the Andean Mountain Range which has so many lakes and narrow rivers and that is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. The truth is, worldwide, few other Amazon park can be visited so easily at such at such low prices. It will only take around 30 minutes to fly from the Quito to LagoAgrio, the port of entry to the Amazon Region of Ecuador, and from that point an hour and a half or so over an tarmac road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the very best Amazon park on the planet for watching wild animals!
Of the about 10 lodges in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and located on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is Rainforest Alliance certified and run by a group of wildlife managers, the lodge was constructed in the nineteen eighties to offer alternative income for local communities when the park had been settled illegally for agricultural purposes. At the time they started there was no tourism whatsoever.
Nowadays, the reserve has stopped being threatened and with 14,000 visitors a year, the government is conscious about the significance of the wildlife reserve. To the owners of the Cuyabeno Lodge, it is vital that each visitor leaves with a lasting impression, not only of Cuyabeno but of the beauty and importance of the entire tropical rainforest. They always work on improving the quality of both the lodge as well as the excursions. A tree crown tower overlooks the lake. With the combined elevation of its observation tower on the top of the hill where the lodge has been built, the cellphone system of the lodge has the best signal in the area. The ranger station of Ecuador's Protected Areas Agency resides on the premises of the lodge and the tower functions as the alarm center for the whole area. The lodge also has a solar system providing you with power twenty four hours, facilitating battery charging for cameras and light in every building. The lodge also has warm water for its
However, many the mammals and most birds actually live up high in the canopy of the trees. Therefore, you can hardly discover their whereabouts because the trees in the rainforest are often up to 30 m high. While, you look up from the darkness of the forest floor, the leaves seem very dark because light of the sky blinds you, making the leaves seem almost black. Under such light conditions, it's extremely hard to see and identify birds and mammals, if you aren't an experienced observer.
It is much easier to observe wildlife 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 narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are really wide so that they almost appear seas. Along the narrow rivers on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest even though the river still opens up the sky enough to see the lower trees and shrubs on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As streams are narrowest in the upper parts of the watersheds, they are most common along the Andes foothills, however in most of the Amazon lowlands, the foothills are rather hilly and few creeks are navigable and lakes are almost absent. The Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve is unique for being Remarkably flat. It is really an enormous hollow plate which has a narrow exit, which causes a big area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and narrow rivers. It is one of the few protected areas on earth located precisely on the equator.
There's no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia that's so near the Andean Mountain Range which has so many lakes and narrow rivers and that is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. The truth is, worldwide, few other Amazon park can be visited so easily at such at such low prices. It will only take around 30 minutes to fly from the Quito to LagoAgrio, the port of entry to the Amazon Region of Ecuador, and from that point an hour and a half or so over an tarmac road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the very best Amazon park on the planet for watching wild animals!
Of the about 10 lodges in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and located on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is Rainforest Alliance certified and run by a group of wildlife managers, the lodge was constructed in the nineteen eighties to offer alternative income for local communities when the park had been settled illegally for agricultural purposes. At the time they started there was no tourism whatsoever.
Nowadays, the reserve has stopped being threatened and with 14,000 visitors a year, the government is conscious about the significance of the wildlife reserve. To the owners of the Cuyabeno Lodge, it is vital that each visitor leaves with a lasting impression, not only of Cuyabeno but of the beauty and importance of the entire tropical rainforest. They always work on improving the quality of both the lodge as well as the excursions. A tree crown tower overlooks the lake. With the combined elevation of its observation tower on the top of the hill where the lodge has been built, the cellphone system of the lodge has the best signal in the area. The ranger station of Ecuador's Protected Areas Agency resides on the premises of the lodge and the tower functions as the alarm center for the whole area. The lodge also has a solar system providing you with power twenty four hours, facilitating battery charging for cameras and light in every building. The lodge also has warm water for its
About the Author:
Internationally renowned biologist Dr. Vreugdenhil tells you what to look out for when you select your destination to explore the Amazon Jungle. To fully enjoy the Rainforest, your Ecolodge should neither be primitive nor excessively luxurious.
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