Then there is a distant answering call but you cannot tell from where. The forest has that effect. You are at the centre of an immeasurable universe of only a few dozen yards. The forest light, too, can result in a sense of unreality. It's very dark under the canopy even, when there's no mist in the air. Looking up you can see the outlines between trees; canopy shyness it is called; rainforest trees do not like to touch one another. It resembles some kind of crazed mosaic with brilliant light penetrating the cracks to form pillars of brightness in the misty darkness.

Some have likened the effect to standing in a romanesque cathedral, York Minster,say , illuminated only by the great rose window. The scale is the same, as is the sense of hush, and the way that the sounds, scents and coloursseem so much more intense. A flash of brilliant emerald and black diverts you. A butterfly has found a stray sunbeam pillar to dance in. It's soon joined by others. The spiralling dance could be a fight for possession of the stage or the come-on of courtship. Those are the only reasons that could make creatures of the rainforest draw
attention to themselves, but it is one more beauty to behold.

Then you walk a few tens of yards to where the slope is too steep for trees to take root and the mists clear to reveal a world containing more shades of green than even Ireland can claim. From above, the rainforest is a sea of leaves. Not all is green, however. The occasional silver-leaved tree flashes the sun
back at you. Here and there, a blaze of orange or yellow or red proclaims a tree in full flower.The sounds, too, seem to come into focus now that the mists have lifted. With impossible clarity you hear every call, even from the farthermost part of the
world. You seem also to be able to spot the exact location where each animal must be hiding. It might be illusion.

The mists are never long gone in the cloud forests that cover the eastern slopes of the Andes, however, and your view across the Amazon basin never lasts long enough to jade your senses. It is gone in an instant and your world contracts to a misty cathedral which seems almost cosy after your glimpse of eternity.
It will be a pity when it is all gone.