“It’s like a sound machine,” I mused, sweat beading as I panted my way through the steamy jungle air, humid and thick with oxygen. We were on our first trek of the trip, scouting for the scent and hoot of howler monkeys. Our guide assured us he had seen a harpy eagle swoop in and eat one in this same spot just last week. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I’d take it: The forest is tumid, pulsing with life, but its larger creatures are elusive.
Melodiously cacophonous as it is, the Brazilian Amazon is not a sound machine. It’s decidedly analog, in tune not with the ticking clock nor our hurried lives but the longstanding rhythms of nature, the instincts and whims of millions of insects, birds, mammals, and reptiles living together. Nothing man-made could capture the layers and depth of this sort of noise: There’s a medley of bird calls, sure, but also breezes and raindrops and dense effluvia underfoot, millennia of vegetative detritus forming a bed that sighs with jungle rot.
