Day 11 - Ride the Rio

So today, a new group with a different friend of Las Piedras,  now known as the "yoga people", will arrive at site. We’ve been told by one of the guys that’s helping organise their stay that we basically have to disappear. They are coming for a tranquil zen stay, so having a bunch of unsocialised scientists isn't cool. We’ve been moved to a small campsite (that the workers built just this week) not too far from the lodge. We had to be packed and out of our rooms by mid morning so that there was plenty of time to sort the place out before their arrival.  We were told “You guys can’t be here when they arrive”. So basically, fuck off and be invisible. I told him that my invisibility coat was still in the post, but I'll do my best. It hasn’t been so helpful that we’ve been given wrong/differing information from different people - again, the difficulties with communications in the jungle showing it's face again. We were packed to leave yesterday, then told we could have an extra night in the room as they weren’t arriving til mid morning. We didn't complain, as this was great - we had one last sleep in a room, but a little annoying as everything was now already packed, it was just prolonging the situation. We all enjoyed the last of the freedom we had around the lodge; making the most of tables, a roof, easy access to toilet/showers, the kitchen for tea, and a socialising area with comfy seats/hammocks that we all become so familiar with. 

The new campsite, "Platforms" pic by Marcus Rhodes

Inside the campsite, pic my Marcus Rhodes

To get away from the hustle, bustle and stress from the whole thing, me, Zoe, Tom and Harry went with one of the workers, Melo, to deliver a message for someone at Arcc. Arcc is another field site, which is about a three and a half hour boat ride up river. A few tourists made the journey a few days ago and were lucky enough to see a Jaguar on a beach on the river bank, so we were keen to go check it out and see if luck was on our side....

Melo

Looking fabulous in the Amazon

Fresh brazil nut

Digging in to the delicious brazil nut

Goofs

Goof

Julia butterfly that drinks salt from sweat, also decided to poo on me. Lovely. 

Tom

Zoe

Tom the Explorer

We fell at the first hurdle; the boat we were travelling in had a motor that sounded like a fucking chainsaw (a different boat to the one that the other tourists used the other day). It was SO loud, so unless there was a deaf big cat out there that had no idea we were coming, we weren’t likely to see one. And we didn’t. We did however see some tracks, which were most likely a big cat. We couldn’t see the tracks well enough so couldn’t make out what kind of mammal it was but it looked like it could have been a puma/jaguar track – and they were so fresh, seems like this cat was unfortunately, not deaf. What we did see what some turtles, lots of birds and a Caiman though!

An Amazonian beauty - butterflies drinking turtles tears

Once we got to arc, our butts hurt and the sun had gotten to us – today was particularly hot and being on a boat with no cover didn’t help. We were told we had half an hour to chill at Arcc and then we were off again. We had just enough time to see the lake at Arc and the accommodation there, which was fancy!

Lake at Arcc

We made it back to the port at 3pm, but Melo, who was driving, didn’t actually come back ‘til 4pm. Not knowing where he was meant we hung around near the boat waiting for him, where there were hungry sand flies and mosquitoes, so we all got bitten to shit. Sandflies are quickly becoming my #2 enemy after Mozzies. But, in return, we were travelling back through dusk, and it was so beautiful. It felt like the stress and frustration that’s been consuming us the last couple of days just disappeared along with the sunset. I’ve never seen so many colours in one sunset, purples, pinks, blues, yellows, oranges, and red. It was incredible. The sheer beauty of the rainforest never ceases to amaze me, it just reinforces the idea that we need to protect and preserve this incredible place. 

                        

                   

When we got back it was dark, and we still had to put sheets on our beds and hang up our mosquito nets at the new campsite. This was harder than it felt it should be, but in the middle of the dark jungle, bugs everywhere, flying into your face thanks to the head light, ants and other bugs all over the bed, and trying to hang nets on sticks that were definitely not designed around mosquito nets - it was a challenge, I'll give ya that. It turns out that the yoga group didn't actually arrive in the morning, but they passed our campsite at around 8pm "glad we're not staying there", we giggled as we overheard one of them. "This'll be a fun few days" said a scientist! 

It'll be interesting to see how we all sleep tonight... Let's hope no bullet ants fit through the gaps of the bed. Eeek.

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Day 6 - Sharing is caring.

This isn’t a place where you can be selfish. You have to share everything with the selva. 

You share a room with not just a roommate, but spiders, mosquitoes, cockroaches, you share your food with friends and flies, the kitchen with bats and rats, your showers with spiders and frogs, and ditto with the loo too. You also have to share your body; I currently have a fly on my foot and a friendly looking long legged spider on my arm, about 20 mosquito bites on my left shoulder/arm alone and sand fly bites on my hands and forearms. Wasps are a big fan of me too. I'm told I have sweet blood. I personally think they all just see me as an easy target.

My body is no longer mine, I’m sharing it with the jungle, it's about as intimate as it gets, but as long as I don’t inhabit any parasites then I’m happy!

Today has been spent relaxing around the camp, playing an awful (but secretly quite fun) game called Catan, with a few of the guys. I stayed in bed ‘til 8am this morning, what a lazy shit I am! But I guessed I deserved it after realising I haven’t actually slept much since Grand Cayman, and tonight I will be going out on a night trail with coordinator Brian and a few of the volunteers. Last night they brought back the most tame snake and a friendly frog (pics below). 

Phylamedusa Palliata

Me with the most lovely Imantodes Cenchoa

(Oh, just caught a fly in my eyelashes, what’s next I wonder…)

Some new people joined the camp today, some that have been here before and others who have not, so it’ll be great to get to know them too and to expand the team – it’s really interesting to hear what people are up to and what projects they’re doing, it’s great content for my internship too. I feel like I've already made some great friends from people all over the world, so the more the merrier, I say. 

(Oh, and now a butterfly on my leg!)

Also, today the boat came with some supplies as well as volunteers, and Bloody (Vladmir - the chef) ordered me in a big tub of peanut butter after finding out I loved it (anyone who knows me will understand how much of a big deal this is!). What a guy! 

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Day 5 - Early bird catches the worm, or in this case, the bird

Day 5

Another 5am wake up. This morning it was for the bird team though, I was told that there’s a lot of sitting involved, I won’t lie that it was a bit of a relief. After a short walk we got to the bird traps, a loose black net like trap that captures low flying birds. Once all three are set up we wait for a short period of time and then go to check them to see if any birds have been caught. It was a pretty successful morning; we caught many different birds, identified them, studied them, tagged them and then let them free. Louis, the bird coordinator showed me how to get the bird safely from the net and back to our site location out in the jungle.

The mist nets, by Zoe Cole. 

Zoe and Louis would go to one location, Pedro and I went to the other, and we meet back with our newly captured birds. Both Zoe and I caught and secured our own birds for the first time ever. Which is awesome. It was great to be so up close to the birds and to see them more intimately.

Measuring the birds' wings

Identifying the birds

Louis looking for signs of molting 

          

Pedro (Jesus) guiding us back to camp.

It was a successful morning for us and it was a change from hiking around looking for mammals, this morning, in my opinion was a lot more hands on and I felt I learnt a lot (but then I didn’t know much to begin with!). We came back around 10am for a late breakfast and to have to little time to relax on the hammocks. We had some crazy weather today too, there was thunder like I’ve never heard before, the whole camp was shaking and the sky was roaring. It was so beautiful in the morning, the weather can change so rapidly here, one minute it’s sunny and clear, and before you know it there’s a downpour. And it’s supposedly the dry season here. Ha!

We had another evening of dinner by candlelight and played some cards. I was able to stay up a bit longer as I knew I didn’t have a ridiculously early morning ahead of me, so a few of us stayed up and discussed life, love, religion, and finally, buffy the vampire slayer, and stayed up ‘til the wee hours of the, errr, night, which was 11:30pm, which honest to goodness is late when the sun sets at 5:45pm and everyone crashes at 9pm!  

Day 4 - Sunday Funday

5am alarm. That was painful. The only reason I’ll awake early (before noon) on a Sunday is at the potential chance to see some wild mammals in the jungle. I went along the PC loop trail with Juancarlos and Corrie again (not so sure what’s so politically correct about it, but I went along with it). It was a pretty chilled walk as we wanted to be pretty slow and quiet so that we could look out for animals. Juan pretty quickly spotted some movement up in the canapés, it was a couple of squirrels. Further down the trail we saw some monkeys howler monkeys, it was pretty awesome to see them out in the wild, but of course they had to be in a tree that was rooted in a swamp, and of course I had to have the wellies with a gaping hole in them - squelch, that's my word of the day. It was really difficult to get a picture of the monkeys, they were so high in the canapé and with the morning sunrise brightening the sky and being in the darkness of the jungle it felt almost impossible to get a decent picture. However, I did get a picture of the monkeys tail. SCORE! We then spotted a deer and I got a kick ass picture of its butt - Second word of the day is 'rear'.

The highlight of the trip has to be the fact that Corrie spotted a puma track. It was so fresh, it was amazing to think that just a few hours ago there was a puma walking in the exact spot that I was walking. We took som measurements and pictures of the paw print and noted were it was sighted so that we could determine weather it was worth putting a camera trap in that area. A little further down he trail I spotted another puma track, this time, a very small one. The puma had a baby puma with her! Excitement filled me at the thought of the two of them roaming around the jungle. It would make my year if I was to spot a wild puma, but it was great enough to know that they are here, within walking distance of me, and there’s some cub pumas trotting about too. Fucking awesome!

Adult Puma

Juvenile Puma 

We got back in time for a late breakfast (9am - still can’t believe I was up that early) and chilled for a couple of hours. Sundays here are usually a day where the volunteers/workers can chill and have a bit of a rest. They also often go down to the local community – which is a 30-45 min boat ride down the river – to play football/volleyball with the locals. Me, Zoe a few of the other guys and the staff here made our way down the river towards to Lucerna.

We watched the guys who were crazy enough to play football in the immense heat, and cheered them on. It was amazing though, between the first and last game the weather had completely changed, blazing sun to cloudy and raining, to mild and sticky. The weather here is so intense, but I still can’t get over how quick changing it is. Once they finished football we decided that buying a beer from the local ‘shop’ was a good idea – it was indeed a great idea. Pedro, Tom Zoe and I were roped into playing volleyball. We had a blast playing (and losing miserably) and rewarded ourselves with the now warm, beer! 

Half time

Team Fauna Forever

Us playing Volleyball with the locals

It was a bit of a rush to get back to boat as the sun was starting to set. The trip back was epic. I usually hate that word, but I am using it in its most sincere meaning. The sunset was magical, it was so bright and powerful that we were all in awe. The clouds started to gather on the way and I could see mist in the far distance of the river. This mist was rain, and I mean, rain!  It was getting darker and darker and the rain was hitting us hard. We were using life jackets to cover ourselves but I was far too excited, I pushed my camera to the limit and when I thought that was too much, I had my GOPRO. I love weather. No, I really fucking LOVE weather.

Once we got back to our port, it was dark, wet and the steep hill to get to the top was slippery and unforgiving. I didn’t have my torch on my (well actually I did, but I put it in a silly pocket and didn’t realise, so I fully believed I didn’t, Zoe did the same thing - we’re such twats!) Pedro also didn’t have one, so we just went for it and paced through the jungle with no light, and with the rain beating down on us. It was so exhilarating. We got back to camp safely, we were all hot, sweaty and soaking wet so we all went for our freezing cold shower to cool off.

I love the evenings here, as it’s so peaceful and tranquil. The sound of the jungle is constant and comforting, while the candles at the table make a perfect evening ambience. Me and Pedro did some stretching/yoga in the communal area after a long day to unwind before we sat for dinner. We all have eat together, with the just the two candles to light us up. We all get along together so well that conversation is always flowing we’re always laughing. There is something really special about being here.

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