Imagine yourself trekking through the great, endless tropical forest. You came here to view wildlife. But all you see zillions of tree trunks and not even one single mammal in sight! Did you spend all that money to end up in the wrong location?
Most mammals and birds move about through the canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is limited, since the undergrowth along with the foliage is blocking your view. Through the relative darkness on the forest floor, you get blinded when you look up towards the sky and the leaves above you appear almost black. That makes it hard to see any fauna.
From a stream, though, one can observe animals and flowers much better, as they move about across the lower hanging branches along the shores. Wildlife visibility is particularly better from narrow rivers.
On the wider waters of the Amazon, birdwatching and observing wildlife is usually significantly less successful, as they are often so wide they almost seem seas. On the Amazon head waters, though, one feels as though being inside the rainforest and yet, there is sufficient light passing the opening of the stream, to discover flowers, birds and mammals on the branches and shrubs along the shores.
As streams are most abundant in the headwaters, the creeks are generally located along the Andes foothills. But given the hilly terrain, few Amazon headwaters are navigable and only one network of interconnected lakes is known anywhere in the Andes countries, the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. The latter has a bowl-shaped plain having a shallow outlet, so that water stagnates, thus creating a massive forested swamp. It's also one of the few reserves on earth extending on both sides of the equator.
There is absolutely no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia which is so near to the Andean Mountain Range that has so many lakes and narrow rivers which is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In fact, worldwide, hardly any other Amazon park can be visited so easily and at such at such low prices. It'll 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 asphalt road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the best Amazon park on the planet for watching birds and mammals!
Of the about a dozen or so lodges in the Cuyabeno National Park, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and located on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and run by a small grouping of wildlife biologists, the Cuyabeno Lodge was developed in the nineteen eighties to offer alternative income for local communities when the park was being settled illegally for agricultural purposes. When they started there was no tourism whatsoever.
Now 25 years later, the park is well-protected because Government has understood the importance of the area, as it is being visited about 14,000 visitors annually. The owners are continuously working at improving the quality of both the lodge along with the excursions. As conservationists, to them nothing is more important than that every guest leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the tropical jungle of the Amazon. The lodge includes 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 reception 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 every buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is definitely possible. The lodge also has warm water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
Most mammals and birds move about through the canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is limited, since the undergrowth along with the foliage is blocking your view. Through the relative darkness on the forest floor, you get blinded when you look up towards the sky and the leaves above you appear almost black. That makes it hard to see any fauna.
From a stream, though, one can observe animals and flowers much better, as they move about across the lower hanging branches along the shores. Wildlife visibility is particularly better from narrow rivers.
On the wider waters of the Amazon, birdwatching and observing wildlife is usually significantly less successful, as they are often so wide they almost seem seas. On the Amazon head waters, though, one feels as though being inside the rainforest and yet, there is sufficient light passing the opening of the stream, to discover flowers, birds and mammals on the branches and shrubs along the shores.
As streams are most abundant in the headwaters, the creeks are generally located along the Andes foothills. But given the hilly terrain, few Amazon headwaters are navigable and only one network of interconnected lakes is known anywhere in the Andes countries, the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. The latter has a bowl-shaped plain having a shallow outlet, so that water stagnates, thus creating a massive forested swamp. It's also one of the few reserves on earth extending on both sides of the equator.
There is absolutely no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia which is so near to the Andean Mountain Range that has so many lakes and narrow rivers which is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In fact, worldwide, hardly any other Amazon park can be visited so easily and at such at such low prices. It'll 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 asphalt road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the best Amazon park on the planet for watching birds and mammals!
Of the about a dozen or so lodges in the Cuyabeno National Park, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and located on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and run by a small grouping of wildlife biologists, the Cuyabeno Lodge was developed in the nineteen eighties to offer alternative income for local communities when the park was being settled illegally for agricultural purposes. When they started there was no tourism whatsoever.
Now 25 years later, the park is well-protected because Government has understood the importance of the area, as it is being visited about 14,000 visitors annually. The owners are continuously working at improving the quality of both the lodge along with the excursions. As conservationists, to them nothing is more important than that every guest leaves the area with an unforgettable impression of the tropical jungle of the Amazon. The lodge includes 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 reception 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 every buildings. Charging the batteries of one's cameras is definitely possible. The lodge also has warm water for all guests.[ I:8:J]
About the Author:
Internationally renowned tropical biologist Dr. Vreugdenhil tells you what to look out for when you select your destination to explore the tropical jungle. To fully enjoy the Amazon, your hostel should neither be primitive nor excessively luxurious.
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