EXPERIENCE BEAUTIFUL RAINDROPS HERE NOW

If you want to fully experience of beautiful raindrops, there’s no better place than a rainforest. We’ve got a few trips to suggest that are off-the-beaten-rainforest-track and off-the-charts gorgeous.

NYUNGWE RAINFOREST, RWANDA

While the Rwandan rainforest was severely damaged during the genocide, it, like the country’s people, has significantly revived. It is, once again, a magnificent place to experience this big beautiful pocketful of raindrops.

Nyungwe Forest is the largest piece of unspoiled rainforest in all of Africa. It is home to 25% of Africa’s Primates. And it is one of the best Primate and Bird watching places in the world. Come here to enjoy the rain along with a few gorilla families. No umbrellas required.

Check out both the source of the Nile and the place where the Nile/Congo divides -- one heads right to the Mediterranean and one heads to the left to the Atlantic.

You’ll enjoy stunning views, with loads of butterflies, birds, chimps, Hoest monkeys, tree squirrels, exotic bugs and plantlife.

Rwanda Safaris can set you up with:

• Chimpanzee trekking
• Black and White Colobus monkey trekking
• Grey – cheeked Mangabey Trekking
• Blue Monkey and Golden Monkey Trekking
• Kamiranzovu Swamp walk
• Kamiranzovu Waterfall walk
• Various guided Walking trails
• Bird watching walk
• Cultural area walk

One lovely place to consider staying is the Nyungwe Forest Lodge, in Kigali.

Situated near the entrance of the Nyungwe Forest, the lodge is designed to blend in with the environment, constructed of wood and natural stone. It sits amidst the rolling hills of a tea plantation.

The rooms are very spacious and built on stilts.  Your balcony looks straight onto virgin rainforest so you can revel in the bird life hanging out in all of its colorful glory. Drink in every drop of beauty.

DAINTREE RAINFOREST, AUSTRALIA

Daintree National Park is the largest rainforest in Australia. Plenty of raindrops keep it thick with ancient species of ferns, palms and rare conifers -- some of the earliest trees to develop on Earth.

And it is rimmed with white, sandy beaches and festooned with rivers, streams and waterfalls. Over 400 species of birds are there to enjoy the beauty right along side you.

The Daintree Rainforest contains 30% of the frog, reptile and marsupial species in Australia, and 65% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. Eighteen percent of bird species in the country can be found in this area. There are also over 12,000 species of insects in the rainforest.

The tropical rainforest ecosystem of the Daintree Rainforest is one of the most complex on earth due to its plant diversity and structural complexity. It developed millions of years ago, when most of the Australian continent was covered in rainforest. Although much of Australia is now dry, Daintree remains a lush oasis.

TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST, ALASKA

Most people don’t associate rainforests with Alaska. They are missing a big one.

Tongass is the United States’ largest national forest. It covers 17 million acres in southeastern Alaska, stretching 500 miles north-south, including 5.8 million acres of designated wilderness. It is home to 3 Native American nations.

You can enjoy more than 600 trails, explore over 11,000 miles of coastline, hop around 1000 islands, including the 3rd largest island in the US, Prince of Wales Island, and drink in this absolutely beautiful temperate rain forest.

President Theodore Roosevelt first established the preserve in 1907.

HOH RAINFOREST

The Hoh Rainforest in the Olympic National Park, in Washington State, is one of the world’s most beautiful temperate rain forests.

It is a federally protected site that gets a lot of raindrops -- up to 170 inches of precipitation a year. Towering hemlock, Sitka spruce, bear, elk, deer, and other  northern wildlife flourish here.

MADAGASCAR RAINFOREST

Silky sifakas, the rare snow-white, metre-high lemurs, grace the tree canopies, like gorgeous ghosts, in the recently reopened Morojejy rainforest in Masoala National Park in Madagascar.

This is a rustic trip, not for the fainthearted. But it is exceptionally beautiful if you don’t mind the rough roads and you enjoy camping out.

Like the Galapagos, much of the flora and fauna found on Madagascar is unique.

There is a cloud forest nearby, deeply dressed with ferns, palms, orchids and giant saw-toothed pandanus leaves.

Like many other rainforest regions, Madagascar’s rainforest is at risk due to logging. It begs our attention.

Read more about Beautiful Drops, it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Beautiful Drops of Brilliance, Cool Drops of Genius, Seriously, The Loveliest Lemon Drops Now and Beautiful Drops Fall on Gorgeous Umbrellas. And see our previous posts, Not Just a Box of Rain and Cities Drenched in Rain, for more Beautiful Rain Drops.

Enter this week’s BN Creative Photo Competition. Our theme this week is Beautiful Drops. Deadline is 04.13.14.

Photo Credits: 

1. Photo: by Ryan Malone. Rainforest.
2. Photo Courtesy of Rwanda Safaris. Nyungwe Forest.
3. Photo: via Terra Nova. Nyungwe Rainforest, Rwanda
4. Photo: Courtesy of Development Safari. Nyungwe Rainforest.
5. Photo: via Rwanda Safaris. Gorilla.
6. Photo: Courtesy of Nyungwe Forest Lodge. Kigali, Rwanda
7. Photo: Courtesy of Nyungwe Forest Lodge. View of the rainforest from the hotel.
8. Photo: by Steve Parish. Daintree Rainforest. Australia.
9. Photo: by Diliff. Tropical Rainforest in Daintree National Park.
10. Photo: Courtesy of the Juneau Economic Development Council. Tongass National Forest.
11. Photo: by Angelo R. Hoh Rainforest.
12. Photo: by David Darricau. Madagascar Rainforest.
13. Photo: Courtesy of World Wildlife Fund. Madagascar Rainforest.