WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

摘要

Magnificent rainforest and an astonishing variety of animals, especially birdlife, awaits visitors to Amazonian Ecuador. IT SEEMED to take an age for the parrots to come down; I had no watch, so I couldn't keep track of time. The birds ranged somewhere, heard but unseen overhead, among and above the rainforest canopy, their screeching calls rolling and receding in Doppler-like waves as they made occasional great sweeping flights. Our party of eight, led by naturalist and guide Sebastian Vizcarra of the Sacha Jungle Lodge, was quartered in a bird hide on the edge of Yasuni National Park and about 300m from the southern bank of the Napo River. The Napo is the broad, brown, braided serpent of water that flows from the Andes of Ecuador to swell the mighty Amazon. We were here to witness one of the Amazon Basin's most remarkable natural spectacles: massed parrots of many species eating at a clay lick.