5 días en trenzas (5 days in braids)

This trip was the one most of us anticipated. Since I was little, it has been my dream to visit the Amazon rainforest so waking up at 3 am on Monday was worth it to make that dream come true. The travel there was long but fun in and of itself. We started out at 4:30, leaving from the university and taking a bus to the airport. Our flight left at 6:20 and we arrived in Coca around 7. The flight was so short but would have taken 8 hours to drive. Since the flight was so short, we took a small propeller plane and my class made up about half of the passengers. We piled into three taxis to ride to a nearby waterfront hotel where we would soon meet our next mode of transportation. We got a quick breakfast and then piled onto a long motorized boat in our huge orange lifejackets. The Napo River is a wide river that had way too many pieces of floating wood that I thought were alligators (happened way too many times). The river took us to an oil company station where we had to have our bags and passports checked and were not allowed to take any pictures. This also was one of our last stops for the next 4 hours with an actual bathroom that wasn’t the woods so we all took advantage of that. After getting through security, we hoped onto a chiva. A chiva is kind of like a truck that consists of a bunch of bench seats and was decorated by photos of different rainforest animals. There were no windows or doors, so the two-hour drive to the next river stop left us all covered in a light layer of dust. Once we arrived at the river, some people from the research station unloaded food, etc. from the back of the truck and loaded on some other empty barrels because there are only two times a week that anyone travels to and from the station. All of the food for the station is imported through these trips.

(For my family members who enjoy maps, here’s an idea of where we went, mainly for you mom and for Gramps!)

We had finally reached the Tiputini river and the two hour ride to the station was incredible. As we rode in we saw one of the pink river dolphins coming up for air right next to the boat. My inner five-year-old was not able to express the appropriate amount of enthusiasm since I was exhausted from the already 5/6 hours of travel, but the feeling was still there. It was my first glimpse into the animals and biodiversity that the rainforest holds. We had entered into a reserve that some people say is the most diverse part of the planet. The number of species that exist here is so high that one study that we learned about in class said that there are an estimated 5 to 30 million undiscovered species of insects alone in tropical rainforests. It is also estimated that 90% of the world’s insects live in the tropical rainforest. I think most of us could attest to this because it seemed that during the entire week there was not a time when there was not at least one fly buzzing around your ear or a butterfly floating by.

Over our five days at Tiputini, two of which were travel days, we had a pretty set schedule that involved breakfast at 6:30 and taking showers according to when the electricity was on. Our rooms were little cabins that had two sets of bunk beds and screens for windows. This was key because the humidity was insane the whole time, (hence the title, since y’all know what happens with my hair + humidity) we would be just sitting and sweat would be rolling down our faces so the occasional gusts of wind were amazing. The electricity was only turned on from 10am-1pm and from 6:30pm-9:30pm so we had to plan when to charge our GoPros and cameras (I didn’t bring my phone and actually survived a week without it with no problem!). The meals were all so delicious, especially considering we were in the middle of the rainforest. We all sat together and I think that each of these classes are so small over the next few months that we will be able to get to know each other really well, especially when we have family style dinners together three times a day!

(This little buddy was under my backpack one morning)

Just being in the rainforest was incredible for me. The entire time I felt just pure happiness. I loved seeing all the organisms and learning about all the fascinating adaptations that they have. One of the coolest was the strangler fig. Strangler figs grow when their seeds are dispersed in the leaves by birds in the canopy and they then slowly grow down towards the forest floor, with their roots wrapping around a tree. Over time, the strangler fig will grow completely around the original tree and cause that tree to die because it strongly tightens around the trunk of the tree, preventing that tree from being able to move nutrients, etc. through its trunk. We saw a strangler fig in the process of killing the original tree and another that was completely hollow on the inside because the original tree had died but the strangler had not completely grown around the space left yet, and we were able to actually climb into that tree.

We also saw a mutualistic relationship between a tree and ants. The Devils Garden is an area created by a species of tree that houses lemon ants. The tree creates capsules for the ants to live in and the ants help the tree to have less competition by killing any other trees that try to grow close by. The ants do this by injecting acid into the trees that try to grow. During our hike with Romero, he had us taste the ants to see why they are called lemon ants. I was not expecting that they would actually taste like lemon but surprisingly they did and I was thankful that they didn’t bite. The decrease in competition allows the tree to have access to more nutrients which is the limiting resource for many plants in the rainforest.

One of the last activities we did focused on the issues of oil exploitation and the Waorani people, who are native to the Amazon rainforest. This activity involved creating a proposal to attempt to create a possible solution the issue of the wild meat trade. The background information that we had learned in class before coming focused on the role that the oil companies had in changing the way Waorani and other indigenous groups interact with their environment and the western world. The oil companies along with the Ecuadorian government agreed that the Waorani maintained the right to own the land since they have been living there for thousands of years. However, when they gave them a title to the land it allowed oil companies to come in and start drilling on their land. Since then, there have been many issues that have come up. The oil companies built roads that the Waorani now use for transportation, but that has led to groups setting up houses along the road rather than being semi nomadic. This puts more stress on the land in those areas because the market for wild meat trade has grown because Waorani now have access to the market, leading them to kill more animals than they would just for themselves. The activity we need focused on these issues and I found it fascinating but difficult how hard it was to take into account all the factors that would be effected by wanting to help the wildlife population, the Waorani, and keep in mind the oil companies. Even though that activity was not one of the ones where we were able to just enjoy the rainforest, I think it was one of my favorites. I could see myself looking to find a career that focuses on helping people like the Waorani deal with the environmental impacts that they have not brought on to themselves as well as helping conserve the environment that is left.

(I’m sorry that this last little part sounded like something for school but that’s because it was. Basically the only thing we had to turn in for this class was a field journal that included some of the things we learned about in class while incorporating it into what we did. So, since people have been asking me when I am posting another blog I decided to kill two birds with one stone and use part of my field journal!)

The last day was sort of a free day after the Waorani assignment. We worked on that all morning, until lunch and then after lunch went and played soccer. Yes, I got to play soccer in the middle of the rainforest with my classmates, professor and some of the other people who had been helping us all week at the station. It was an exhausting, muddy, fun game that ended with all of us ready to jump in the river. And that is exactly what we did next. We trekked down to the river and got into the boat which drove us down the river a bit before we all jumped out. The big orange life jackets were pulled out again and we all floated down the river to a surprisingly fast current. It was surprisingly relaxing even though there was the slight possibility of running into a caiman or anaconda.

Last thing I want to make sure to talk about is how awesome our guides were. There are literally so many other amazing things I could talk about but there is only so many times I can talk about all the different things we saw (such as spider monkeys right outside of the library or an earthworm that was the size of a snake). Our guides were amazing, for my group we had Romero. He has been working at the station for 18 years and I was his translator for the group. He knew about everything we asked about and being able to translate made all those facts made them stick in my head even more. During our night hike, Romero was able to name the frogs we heard from kilometers away and showed us which spiders were poisonous and which were not. During another of our hikes, we followed him as we tried to track a pack of peccarys (who sometimes live in packs of up to about 300) that we heard when we stopped in the middle of a downpour to watch for animals around a salt lake. Romero also was our flashlight bearer for the caiman hunt. The boat took us down the river and he was in charge of keeping the driver from hitting the sides of the river while also searching for caiman along the shore. We only saw one baby caiman but none of us were really sad about that because we saw a tapir just chilling in the middle of the river, swimming along. We all silently freaked out as the tapir submerged and reemerged close to the shore where it quickly found its way into the forest. After this, we decided there wasn’t anything much better than that to see so they turned off all the lights on the boat and the motor and we let the river take us where it decided. This meant we could hear all the animals and see the huge full moon coming through the fog above the trees. I wish that we could have just slept out there (minus the mosquitoes) because it would have been so easy to fall asleep to the sound of the water, frogs, beetles, and all the other little noises that the rainforest holds.