The upper canopy of the Amazon Basin. Photograph © Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS

Amazon Forest
By Wade Davis

The Amazon by day is a place of plants, water, and silence. The overwhelming grandeur of the tropical rain forest lies in its subtlety. There are no herds of ungulates as on the Serengeti Plain, few cascades of orchids. Just a thousand shades of green, an infinitude of shape, form, and texture that mocks the terminology of temperate botany. It is almost as if you could close your eyes and hear the constant hum of biological activity, of evolution, if you will, working in overdrive. Creepers lash themselves to tree trunks, and herbaceous heliconias and calatheas give way to broad-leafed aroids, such as philodendrons, that climb into the shadows. Overhead, lianas drape from immense trees, the vines binding the canopy of the forest into a single interwoven fabric of life. Few flowers can be readily seen, and when the blazing sun hovers at midday, few sounds heard. In the air is a fluid heaviness, a weight of centuries, of years without seasons, of life without the rebirth of spring. One can walk for hours yet remain convinced that not a mile has been gained.

Then toward dusk everything changes. The air cools. The light becomes amber, and the open sky above the rivers and swamps fills with darting swallows and swifts, kiskadees and flycatchers. The hawks and herons, jacanas and kingfishers of the river margins yield pride of place to flights of cackling parrots, to sun-grebes and nun birds. Toucans and scarlet macaws offer spectacular displays. Squirrel monkeys appear, and from the riverbanks emerge caimans, eyes poking out of the water, tails and bodies as still and dull as driftwood. One can discern shapes in the forest—sloths clinging to the limbs of cecropia trees, vipers entwined in branches, a tapir wallowing in a distant slough.

For a brief moment at twilight the forest seems of a human scale, somehow manageable. But then comes night, and perhaps a downpour. Later the sound of insects rules the trees until, after dawn, once again silence: The air becomes still and mist rises from the cool ground like something solid, all consuming.

Once in the midst of the rainy season three Indian companions and I became disoriented, and for a week we wandered through the forest, lost or, at best, only vaguely aware of where we were. For food we had only what we could gather or kill—a curassow (a game bird), a handful of fruits, manioc dug from an abandoned clearing. At night we huddled on the forest floor beneath driving rains. Without sleep the passage took on the tone of a dream. One morning, as we followed a faint game trail along a ridge, a jaguar leapt suddenly into our path. Yellow eyes radiant. Fur wet with rain. The perfect image of the transformation shamans seek. The avatar of the wild.

The cat paused for just an instant and then sprang into the forest. We followed it, and within a day we found our way.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.