The Lost World: Found (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine's 2002 Travel Guide

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International Parks
The Lost World: Found (Cont.)

WE LEFT LOS FIERROS early the next morning for a 3.5-mile hike. Our goal: El Encanto waterfall. If the dry season lures visitors intent on spotting neotropical mammals, the wet season brings out the waterfall freaks. El Encanto leaped 262 feet off the plateau at the back of a winding, shaded canyon. Layers of billion-year-old red stone loomed overhead, and the wind bore curtains of cool spray. Acting as an enormous catchment, the plateau funnels precipitation into some of the most impressive waterfalls on the continent. These cataracts, in turn, form deep, churning pools—just the thing for a sticky hiker.

Stepping off trail to struggle into my swimsuit brought a scary revelation. Choked with lianas and close-growing palms, the forest was nearly impenetrable. It took me five minutes to move 20 feet into this green hell.

The numbers mattered because my companions, for days, had delighted in telling jungle-survival epics: about the lost adventurer who wandered for three weeks without food until he was rescued, or the hapless soul devoured by swarming insects. By now I was phobic about getting into the Cessna waiting on the nearby runway. I obsessed over the park map; I memorized scant landmarks; I kept strict track of my lighter. In the event of a treetop landing, I asked Tim, how long would it take to carve a runway in the rainforest? "A year," he said soberly.

From the air we got a good sense of the five distinct ecosystems responsible for Noel Kempff Mercado's high biodiversity: its savanna wetlands, semideciduous forest, humid evergreen forest, riverine forest, and subtropical thorn scrub.

We touched down on the park's northern border at Flor de Oro, a scattering of screened dorms and a kitchen. After plates of rice and vegetables, we motored up the Iténez River. Alex, our man from Boulder, flopped overboard to commune with the pink river dolphins arcing off the bow.

In the morning, Fernando—a blond Brazilian—motored us down the Iténez, then made a hairpin turn up the Paucerna River. For hours, he whipped the skiff around oxbow turns, burying its gunwales in black water. Through a trick of sunlight and shadow, the water seemed to flow through the tree trunks and over the edge of the world. Going upriver, we counted close to 100 bird species.

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