Have you been disillusioned about your Amazon trip? When going to the Amazon rainforest, you expect to see plenty of birds and mammals. You spent a lot of time as well as money to travel to the jungle, but so far you hardly seen any animalsat al. Where are they?
Most animals move about through the canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your vision is severely restricted, because the undergrowth and the foliage is in your way. From 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 observe animals and flowers from the water while 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.
On the wider branches of the Amazon River, it is challenging to watch wildlife, as a lot of wider rivers are very wide almost appearing seas. On the narrow rivers in the Upper Amazon watershed, on the other hand, you've got the sense to be within the forest while still enough light falls through the opening of stream, to spot the flowers and wildlife on the branches and in the shrubs.
As narrow rivers are most common in the headwaters, the creeks are mostly located in 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 features a bowl-shaped plain with a shallow outlet, so that water accumulates, thus creating a huge forested swamp. It is 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 that's so near to the Andean Mountain Range which includes so many lakes and streams which is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In reality, worldwide, not one other Amazon park may be visited so easily and at such affordable prices. It'll only take thirty minutes to fly from the Quito to LagoAgrio, the port of entry to the Amazon Region of Ecuador, and from there an hour and a half or so over an paved road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the finest Amazon park on the planet for observing fauna!
Although it is not excessively luxurious, the Cuyabeno Lodge is regarded as the comfortable lodge on the Cuyabeno Lake. Rainforest Alliance certified, the lodge was developed two-and-a-half decades ago by a group of wildlife biologists during a period when the park had been invaded buy illegal settlers. The initiators wished to provide alternative income from ecotourism for the local communities in an era when there still was no tourism to the area.
Now, more than 2 decades later, the park is no longer threatened, but the owners religiously watch over the quality of the lodge, the service and the excursions. To them it is very important that each and every visitor goes home with memories that last a lifetime. Built on the only hill on a peninsula overlooking the Cuyabeno Lake, the Lodge has a canopy observation tower with a fabulous view on both the forest and the lake. With a modern solar installation, the Cuyabeno Lodge provides electricity 24 hours electricity in all the rooms and the restaurant and library while there are hot showers for all the guests. No other lodge in the reserve offers so many amenities.The lodge also facilitates the ranger station of the National Park Service; the canopy observation tower being the highest spot in the whole area, the mobile phone unit of the tower also functions as the alarm center of the reserve.
Most animals move about through the canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your vision is severely restricted, because the undergrowth and the foliage is in your way. From 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 observe animals and flowers from the water while 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.
On the wider branches of the Amazon River, it is challenging to watch wildlife, as a lot of wider rivers are very wide almost appearing seas. On the narrow rivers in the Upper Amazon watershed, on the other hand, you've got the sense to be within the forest while still enough light falls through the opening of stream, to spot the flowers and wildlife on the branches and in the shrubs.
As narrow rivers are most common in the headwaters, the creeks are mostly located in 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 features a bowl-shaped plain with a shallow outlet, so that water accumulates, thus creating a huge forested swamp. It is 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 that's so near to the Andean Mountain Range which includes so many lakes and streams which is so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In reality, worldwide, not one other Amazon park may be visited so easily and at such affordable prices. It'll only take thirty minutes to fly from the Quito to LagoAgrio, the port of entry to the Amazon Region of Ecuador, and from there an hour and a half or so over an paved road to the park. This all makes Cuyabeno the finest Amazon park on the planet for observing fauna!
Although it is not excessively luxurious, the Cuyabeno Lodge is regarded as the comfortable lodge on the Cuyabeno Lake. Rainforest Alliance certified, the lodge was developed two-and-a-half decades ago by a group of wildlife biologists during a period when the park had been invaded buy illegal settlers. The initiators wished to provide alternative income from ecotourism for the local communities in an era when there still was no tourism to the area.
Now, more than 2 decades later, the park is no longer threatened, but the owners religiously watch over the quality of the lodge, the service and the excursions. To them it is very important that each and every visitor goes home with memories that last a lifetime. Built on the only hill on a peninsula overlooking the Cuyabeno Lake, the Lodge has a canopy observation tower with a fabulous view on both the forest and the lake. With a modern solar installation, the Cuyabeno Lodge provides electricity 24 hours electricity in all the rooms and the restaurant and library while there are hot showers for all the guests. No other lodge in the reserve offers so many amenities.The lodge also facilitates the ranger station of the National Park Service; the canopy observation tower being the highest spot in the whole area, the mobile phone unit of the tower also functions as the alarm center of the reserve.
About the Author:
Internationally renowned tropical ecologist Dr. Vreugdenhil tells you what to look out for when you select your destination to explore the Amazon Rainforest. To fully enjoy the Rainforest, your Jungle Lodge should neither be primitive nor too luxurious.
