Friday, March 16, 2007

Panama Rainforest

How often do you get to experience silence? I mean complete lack of city noises: barking dogs, car alarms, sirens, etc. We experience it here all the time.

The sounds we hear are those of animals, birds and rain. Each morning the parrots fly overhead as they head out for the day. The Majestic Oropendola are also in residence. Each bird has its own special sound that it makes. These sounds are a far better alarm each morning than the buzzing of an alarm clock.

The jungle is alive with sound. Frogs create their own special sound. Plants rustle in the breeze. Lizards swish the leaves of the plants as they scurry about the rain forest floor.

On the days that it rains, we can either experience the soft patter of a drizzle on the metal roof or the drums of a downpour when the rain is crashing down. We can have storms that are so intense that you believe you have never heard anything like it before and then as quickly as it started it stops.

All of these sounds merge into a soundtrack that many people buy to play as white noise to block out the noises of the city. We do not need to purchase the soundtrack – we have it live each and every day.