Imagine yourself wandering through the great, endless tropical jungle of the Amazon. You came here to see wildlife. But all you see is a lot of tree trunks and not even one mammal in sight! Did you spend all that money to end up in the wrong spot?
Most animals move about in canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is severely restricted, as the undergrowth as well as the foliage is in your way. Through the relative darkness on the ground, you get blinded when you look up towards the sky and the leaves above you look almost black. That makes it difficult to see any fauna.
It is much easier to look at wildlife and flowers from the water because they navigate around, respectively are in the shrubs and lower branches of the trees along the shores. But such advantage primarily works best for narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are very wide so that they can almost appear seas. Along the narrow rivers on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest while the river still uncovers the sky enough to distinguish the lower timber on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As creeks are narrowest in the upper parts of the watersheds, they are most abundant in 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 Surprisingly flat. It is really an enormous hollow plate with a narrow exit, which causes a large area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and creeks. It is one of the few protected areas in the world located precisely on the equator.
Hardly any other Amazon reserve in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia is indeed so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno and worldwide, not one other Amazon park can be reached so comfortably and at such economical prices. Just a half hour's flight from Quito to oil town LagoAgrio in the Amazon headwaters, and another hour and a half ride in a bus over a new paved road gets you to the park. No wonder that many consider Cuyabeno the world's best rainforest reserve!
Now that you know that the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve is the park to go, Where do you stay? There are about 10 overnight facilities in the park, but only two are located on the Laguna Cuyabeno, and only one is certified by the Rainforest Alliance: the Cuyabeno Rainforest Lodge. It is owned by conservation biologists who built the lodge to generate income for local communities when the park was being occupied for agriculture in the more than 2 decades ago.
Now a quarter of a century later, the park is well-protected because the Government has understood the importance 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 the lodge and also the excursions. As conservation ecologists, to them there's nothing more important than that every visitor leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the Amazon Rainforest. The lodge has a tree crown observation tower overlooking the entire lake. With the combined elevation of the tower on the hill where the lodge is built, the communication system has the best signal of the area. With the ranger station of the National Park Service on its premises, the lodge functions as the alarm center for the reserve. Solar panels provide energy twenty four hours per day in all buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is obviously possible. The lodge also offers hot water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
Most animals move about in canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is severely restricted, as the undergrowth as well as the foliage is in your way. Through the relative darkness on the ground, you get blinded when you look up towards the sky and the leaves above you look almost black. That makes it difficult to see any fauna.
It is much easier to look at wildlife and flowers from the water because they navigate around, respectively are in the shrubs and lower branches of the trees along the shores. But such advantage primarily works best for narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are very wide so that they can almost appear seas. Along the narrow rivers on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest while the river still uncovers the sky enough to distinguish the lower timber on the shore and there's enough light to look at birds, flowers and mammals in the undergrowth.
As creeks are narrowest in the upper parts of the watersheds, they are most abundant in 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 Surprisingly flat. It is really an enormous hollow plate with a narrow exit, which causes a large area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and creeks. It is one of the few protected areas in the world located precisely on the equator.
Hardly any other Amazon reserve in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia is indeed so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno and worldwide, not one other Amazon park can be reached so comfortably and at such economical prices. Just a half hour's flight from Quito to oil town LagoAgrio in the Amazon headwaters, and another hour and a half ride in a bus over a new paved road gets you to the park. No wonder that many consider Cuyabeno the world's best rainforest reserve!
Now that you know that the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve is the park to go, Where do you stay? There are about 10 overnight facilities in the park, but only two are located on the Laguna Cuyabeno, and only one is certified by the Rainforest Alliance: the Cuyabeno Rainforest Lodge. It is owned by conservation biologists who built the lodge to generate income for local communities when the park was being occupied for agriculture in the more than 2 decades ago.
Now a quarter of a century later, the park is well-protected because the Government has understood the importance 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 the lodge and also the excursions. As conservation ecologists, to them there's nothing more important than that every visitor leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the Amazon Rainforest. The lodge has a tree crown observation tower overlooking the entire lake. With the combined elevation of the tower on the hill where the lodge is built, the communication system has the best signal of the area. With the ranger station of the National Park Service on its premises, the lodge functions as the alarm center for the reserve. Solar panels provide energy twenty four hours per day in all buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is obviously possible. The lodge also offers hot water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
About the Author:
Renowned tropical biologist Dr. Vreugdenhil tells you what to look out for when you select your destination to explore the Jungle. To fully enjoy the Amazon, your facilities should neither be primitive nor excessively luxurious.
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