Can this happen to you? You wished to view a great deal of birds and mammals in the Amazon and you booked, what seemed a great vacation to the jungle. You spent a lot of time and money to get there, but all you have seen so far is lots of trees and leaves. Where are the birds and mammals?
Most animals move about in canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is severely restricted, since the undergrowth and the leaves are blocking your view. 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 tough to see the birds and mammals.
From the river, though, you can observe birds and mammals and flowers much better, while they move about lower hanging branches along the shores. Wildlife visibility is particularly better from narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are extremely wide so that they almost appear seas. On the narrow creeks on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest while the river still uncovers the sky enough to distinguish the lower bushes on the shore and there's enough light to see 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 Surprisingly flat. It's an enormous hollow plate having a narrow exit, that causes a substantial area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and narrow rivers. It is one of the few protected areas in the world located precisely on the equator.
There's no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia that is so close to the Andean Mountain Range containing so many lakes and creeks and that's so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In fact, worldwide, few other Amazon park can be visited so easily and at such at such low prices. It takes merely around 30 minutes to fly from the capital 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 tarmac road to the park. All this makes Cuyabeno the greatest Amazon park on the planet for observing birds and mammals!
Of the about a dozen or so lodges in the Cuyabeno National Park, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and owned and operated by a group of conservation professionals, the Cuyabeno Lodge was built in the nineteen eighties to provide alternative income for local communities when the park was being settled illegally for agricultural purposes. When they started there wasn't any tourism whatsoever.
Now, a quarter of a century later, the area is no longer threatened, but the owners religiously watch over the quality of the accommodations, 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 day and night electricity in all the rooms and also 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 entire area, the cellular phone unit of the tower also functions as the alarm center of the reserve.
Most animals move about in canopies of the trees. Looking up from the forest floor, your eyesight is severely restricted, since the undergrowth and the leaves are blocking your view. 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 tough to see the birds and mammals.
From the river, though, you can observe birds and mammals and flowers much better, while they move about lower hanging branches along the shores. Wildlife visibility is particularly better from narrow rivers.
Often, the rivers are extremely wide so that they almost appear seas. On the narrow creeks on the other hand, one feels in the middle of the forest while the river still uncovers the sky enough to distinguish the lower bushes on the shore and there's enough light to see 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 Surprisingly flat. It's an enormous hollow plate having a narrow exit, that causes a substantial area to be seasonally flooded creating scenic interconnected lakes and narrow rivers. It is one of the few protected areas in the world located precisely on the equator.
There's no other park in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru or Bolivia that is so close to the Andean Mountain Range containing so many lakes and creeks and that's so conveniently accessible as Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. In fact, worldwide, few other Amazon park can be visited so easily and at such at such low prices. It takes merely around 30 minutes to fly from the capital 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 tarmac road to the park. All this makes Cuyabeno the greatest Amazon park on the planet for observing birds and mammals!
Of the about a dozen or so lodges in the Cuyabeno National Park, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best equipped and on the shore of Cuyabeno Lake. It is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and owned and operated by a group of conservation professionals, the Cuyabeno Lodge was built in the nineteen eighties to provide alternative income for local communities when the park was being settled illegally for agricultural purposes. When they started there wasn't any tourism whatsoever.
Now, a quarter of a century later, the area is no longer threatened, but the owners religiously watch over the quality of the accommodations, 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 day and night electricity in all the rooms and also 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 entire area, the cellular phone unit of the tower also functions as the alarm center of the reserve.
About the Author:
Internationally renowned wildlife 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 Rainforest Lodge should neither be primitive nor excessively luxurious.
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