The luxurious new Black Rock Oceanfront Resort is a curving sweep of glass, steel, and wood beside the rain forest and above a surge channel that boasts the best storm-watching in the West.

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At times it is as though they are playing games, hovering in the distance, then beside your ear for a moment, then gone again, evaporating like the water that nourishes this cloud forest and the town at its edge.

BBC: Hot springs and hummingbirds in Ecuador