18 de julio de 2008

Un extracto del articulo de Posada publicado en el New York Times




Explorer The Other Peru
Out of the Desert and Into the Rain Forest

A few days later, it was all obscured by riotous life. I was in the rain forest, at Posada Amazonas, a lodge along the Tambopata River in the Peruvian Amazon. Water, the handmaiden to life, was everywhere: in the chai-colored river, in the humid air and dripping from leaves onto muddy trails. Intricate and fantastical diversity — immense trees to tiny, perfect insects — was all around us.
The Peruvian region of Madre de Dios is undergoing an eco-tourism boom. The second order of business upon arriving at Posada Amazonas, after being issued rubber boots, is a short walk down a forest trail to the lodge’s canopy platform. The 120-foot climb brought our small group of visitors to the light, fragrant air of rain forest treetops. We looked over a sea of trees cataloging the entire range of green shapes: tufts, sprays, bursts, blazes, cascades and starbursts. It seemed an aerial coral reef as multitudinous birds (a toucan, a blue-headed macaw, a guan) sought roosts in huge crowns, some aflame with blossoms, others bearing heavy pods of Brazil nuts.
The lodge itself is spacious and comfortable. High thatch roofs shelter big, airy dining and sitting areas. Rooms, connected by elevated wooden boardwalks, provide unexpected comfort — mosquito nets, showers and flush toilets — without separating guests unduly from the rain forest; one side of each room is open directly into the unrelenting greenery.
At Posada Amazonas, each party of visitors is assigned a guide. Rodolfo Pecha, our guide, is a member of the Ese’eja indigenous group from the community of Infierno, which owns the pristine forest around the lodge. In a partnership, Rainforest Expeditions, the company that operates the lodge, is leasing the land for 20 years while training community members to take over its operation.
To Mr. Pecha, the forest din is an intelligible language. Often, he would stop us on the trail, picking out a few notes from the sibilant cacophony of chirps, barks, honks, buzzes and hoots. Then he’d answer. “That’s an antbird,” he’d say between rising whistles. “They’re really beautiful.” He’d creep off into the dense underbrush, binoculars at the ready, trailing considerably less graceful visitors through the vines.
On our second day, we awoke before dawn to the alarmingly throaty din of howler monkeys. After a quick breakfast of strong Peruvian coffee and fresh fruit, we made our way by river and squelching, muddy forest trail to an oxbow lake — a curving stretch of perfectly flat water cut off when the Tambopata meandered elsewhere.
We floated out on a silent pontoon boat, emerging into dawn light. Cascades of pink trumpet flowers dripped into the syrupy brown stillness. All around us, life was under way: dozens of birds, from waterfowl like tropical cormorants and kingfishers, a fine-feathered tiger heron and a gangly osprey, to beasts like the hoatzin. Turkey-like things as imagined by Dr. Seuss, hoatzins cruised the shrubbery along the water’s edge, eating leaves and grunting contentedly.
A riotous flock of parakeets passed overhead, heralding a trio of giant river otters that furrowed the lake in their hunt for breakfast. Easily the size of tall, skinny people, the otters are skittish and severely endangered, yet they seemed comfortably at home, gliding playfully and coming close enough for us to see their sharp teeth and button noses.
Later that night, as I lay in bed, I too felt as though I were sinking into the living forest. The wafting perfumes and strange growls melded into a baroque stereoscopic vision — dreams of the hidden landscape underlying life itself.

1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

Felicitaciones!! habar que tradicurlo al holandes :)
Anyela