Needless to say, the jungle is everything you’ve heard about, and more. It’s lush, dense, has few uncharted paths, and sits miles from any large town – in this case Coca, or Puerto Francisco de Orellana, a frontier-town bordering the oil fields of the Oriente, with muddy streets and high crime. Temperatures range a constant 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It rains, usually in downpours, in late afternoon. It’s muddy, very muddy. L.L. Bean duck boots won’t cut it here; you need knee-high rubber boots with good suction on the soles. (I bought a pair in Coca for the grand price of U.S. $4.00.)
The jungle is buggy. While jaguars, anacondas, and fer-de-lances (the local poisonous snake) do lurk, the most annoying and prevalent nasty is the conga ant, a large, brownish-black ant with an extremely painful sting. This said, it’s never a good idea to park your hand – or any part of you – against a tree, log or rock without first looking to see what’s around.
Mosquitos are everywhere. You know all those jungle movies where you see people running around half-naked? Forget it. In the jungle you wear long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and plenty of insect repellent. Hats are optional, but come in handy to shade your head from the sun.
The jungle is also a birder’s paradise. Let’s face it, as they say back home, you ain’t gonna see nothing like this in New Jersey. The birds are spectacular. Yellow-rumped caciques and black-crested oropendolas flit through the canopy; blue-and-brown hoatzins, their crests spiked like a punk-rocker's hair-style, watch streams and lagoons. Flocks of white-eyed parakeets and scarlet macaws fill the early morning, misty skies. Brilliant, banded aracaris, the smaller cousins to the toucan, dot cecropias and evergreens like Christmas balls. Black-necked, crimson cotingas flash through the rainforest canopy like fireballs.
Not all jungle birds are rainbow colored, however. While these are wonderful to see (and there are plenty of them to see), it’s the more elusive birds – and, therefore, the most challenging to spot – that are a birder’s favorite quarry. These are those species who follow the ant swarms, like the antshrike, the antbird, the antwren, the antthrush and the antpitta. These somewhat drab fellows don’t necessarily eat the ants they follow, but often use the ants to scare up insects.
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