Jungle Funk

I would like to start by expressing how much I miss everyone back home. 

(insert long pause here)

But really. This trip would not be possible without the love and support of my dear friends and family. I cant explain how hard it is to be away from all of you. Especially now. Here is why:

A few weeks ago (I don’t really know which day because I don’t even know what day today is.. Im on Amazonian time) we boarded a bus. We had a few issues with sick-folk along the way and a few of our students had to head home (miss you Cody and Lauren!)  then, we took a 12 hour bus ride to Puerto Maldonado.

The drive (for the daylight portion) was beautiful. Incredible.   We drove over the Andes. Really, the Andes! 15, 000 ft elevation, surrounded by glaciers, strange vegetation and llamas. Some of us experienced a little altitude sickness from making such a steep climb in only a few hours. I was included in that. Mostly my eyes would not stay open and I would drift in and out of sleep.

the drive over the pass

the Andes

The trip was way too long thanks to our driver being extra cautious on the Peruvian hiway. We made a stop in a very VERY small town to use the restroom.  Walking into the nearest restaurant we asked to use the facilities. This one room restaurant was only a few long tables with a plastic cover and a television that was turned up full blast. There were two men eating and some children playing in the dark outside. The lady working there pointed outside and around back and we all followed the pointing.

Around the corner were 6 outdoor stalls. They were labeled baño 1, baño 2 and so forth.  The first two were stopped up. Number four’s light was out and five and six were holes in the ground. Looks like number 3 for me.  After beating that challenge we boarded up the bus again for another few hours.

bathrooms in mining town

yeah.

the shower (which we didnt use)

We arrived in Puerto Maldonado around 1 am and headed to bed. The next morning I had to make a pharmacy run because I was feeling less than “Heidi” so I got some supplements to make my heart sing. I wish I could describe properly Puerto Maldonado but try to imagine a Peruvian palm tree biker town where they use motorcycles as taxis, the women all dress very nicely and wear high-heals on their scooters, and the humidity is like nothing you can imagine. The thick sticky kind that makes you want to shower every 10 minutes. We didn’t spend a lot of time there but it felt like some post apoctolyptic city where civilization was rebuilding and had limited fuel resources so everyone had a motorcycle.

puerto maldonado

A six seater taxi showed up at our hotel doorstep and we loaded up and headed out for the hour drive to the boat port.  The town we ended at was a small mining village. The town was fairly sketchy but incredibly interesting. The open businesses were either convenience stores or boat/motorcycle repair shops. The town people were not incredibly used to tourists/out-of-towners so we had to be a little more guarded. I had to use the bathroom (this seems to be a trend) and I walked to the nearby gas station. I asked the young man working if I could use the bathroom. I was really nervous because we were told to just “be careful” in the town. He said “yeah” and he pointed. There were three stalls. I opened the door and found a fairly dirty and unusable toilet. He came running over and told me to use the one marked “privado.” This one really wasn’t much better. The place was a germ sanctuary. I still used it. Then headed out to strike up a conversation with the guy. We talked for a bit and he asked me where I was from. I told him “the states.” He said “ahhhh like Nueva York??”  I chuckled and told him ‘the other side.’  Then I found out that he knows the University of Washington and I was really impressed. I told him thank you so much for letting me use his restroom and I headed out.  

Also, I would like to mention I successfully peed in a hole (in a “bathroom stall” in this town for 2 soles.

One of our boats broke down before we boarded…. Sooooo we were able to borrow a supply boat that was lined with mattresses at the bottom for us to sit on. When I say boat, I hope you understand this was no cruise liner. This boat mimics a large canoe with a canopy. One man sits at the back with a motor and controls the boat. Seven of us fit on the mattresses and strapped on our life vests ready for the ride of a lifetime down the Madre de Dios river.

laberinto

my professor Ursula getting our boat packed up

some of the jungle view from the river

We all were so excited as the boat pulled away from the port in the city of Laberinto, We waved to the other half of our class boarding the next boat and sped off.  The ride was exhilarating (at least for the first two of the five hours).

Madre de dios.

The water was a murky brown red color from its decent from the Andes large intrepid watershed. Dotted along the river, gold mines past and present, impacted the banks of the river like cancer. The mines were continuous and slowly moving more into the landscape, clearing trees, killing wildlife and vegetation, and polluting the river.  A very dangerous bi-product of the gold mining process is mercury.

a rainstorm while we were on the river(complete with thunder and lightning)

the after product of the rainstorm

the sunset on the river

gold mining operation

Gold mining in the Amazon has become a huge environmental issue as well as social hazard. Children are being taken from their homes to do the most dangerous work in the process- the diving. Aside from that people are dipping their entire bodies in containers with mercury in them.

We arrived at CICRA, a biological station for conservation.  You can read more about it here: http://www.amazonconservation.org/ourwork/research.html

We loaded our luggage up a thousand stairs (well not so much but it may as well have been a thousand) and headed to our cabin. Our cabin was a large building with ceilingless rooms, no electricity, and no hot water. Im not complaining. It definetly built character.

First thing I noticed stepping into the Amazon was the amount of insects:

HUGE secadas

HUGE moths

And a hundred bugs biting my ankles

madre de dios river

sunrise in the jungle

Our rooms were nice for being in the jungle, but going to sleep was difficult. We did not have windows, only screens for windows, so all of the noises of the jungle creeped into our room all night. We slept under mosquito nets and listened to all the insects out side. Definitely a new experience for me.

los amigos station eating hall

my mosquito netted bed

The week at CICRA

melastomatacea leaf

We spent all week researching. My specific project had to do with the melastomataceae plant.  We were studying how light, soil pH, temperature, ect. affected this important plant in the rainforest.

We spent every day trekking thru the jungle, setting plots and counting plants.  Our hikes would last up to four hours sometimes, which gave us ample opportunity to see all the wild life.

Here are some of the animals we saw:

Capuchin monkeys

Squirrel monkeys

Emperor tamerine monkey

Orpendula

Black vultures

Turkey vultures

Egeret (all three kinds)

Anolis

Sphynx moths

Gigantic roaches

Huge secadas

Tucans

Parrots

Maccaws

Royal flycatchers

Giant turtle

Cayman (crocodile)

Roadside hawks

Ready Quail Dove

Orb weaving spiders

Praying mantis

Gecko

Athena Spider

Morpho Butterflies

Phylomedusa Frog

Bats

Scorpion

Crazy catapillars

Bullet ants

Also we saw/heard:

Peckarys (wild pigs)

Jaguar tracks

Matapalo tree (crazy huge strangler tree)

lake edge where we searched for giant otters

animal trap I found deep in the rainforest

capuchin monkeys outside our cabin

At one point we had 20 squirrel monkeys swinging over head.  Another point I watched 5 shooting stars from a lookout over the Madre de dios river.

my poor feet

During my stay I acquired 120 bug bites, chiggers all over my body, and I even had a tick buried in my hand. Also, jungle funk is a real thing. If you don't know what it smells like, I pray you never will. It seeps into your clothing, your hair, your skin. You try to wash it off in the shower and it maybe works for a minute, but its in the air and it will find you.

I got a super awesome opportunity to help my good friend Alyssa Boettger with her birding project. She set up nets at 5 a.m. and waited in half hour increments to see what she could catch. Then she measured and banded each bird and then let it go. She did this repeatedly for a few days and recorded all of her data into a global birding site. My friends are so cool. 

One of the most interesting things was the fact that we were neighboring non-contacted villages. Indigenous Peruvians that have never seen a white girl from the U.S. We were told to stay away from these areas because there have been attacks on researchers in the past, rare, but it could happen. I partially wanted to run into them because of my extreme interest in ancient cultures.

After 8 days of the jungle, we headed back to a relaxing evening in Puerto Maldonado, then headed back to Cusco the next morning. 
My experience in the Peruvian rainforest was something unforgettable. Really difficult and lonesome at times, and completely phenomenal at others. I was challenged in unimaginable ways and came out a better student and a stronger woman.