My First Month in the Jungle

After my first jungle post you get the general idea of the kind of work that I do, so I guess I'll mostly point out interesting things that have happened rather than a play-by-play of each day.

A few weeks ago the jungle got it's first taste of me - I got bit/stung by some kind of creature while on a foraging walk. We're not sure what exactly it was, but it looked like some kind of ant. It bit me in the stomach, and within minutes my whole front - from my shoulders to my waist - was on fire, and basically felt like someone was jabbing a hot poker in my belly button. It sucked that it was my stomach because I couldn't sit comfortably since that scrunched my stomach. The pain went down after a day, but it was still red, warm, and tender for a while longer.

That's one of the interesting things I've learned about the jungle - there is a complete reversal of creatures that I'm scared of / not scared of. Spiders in my mosquito net? Too tired to kill you. Cockroach on the floor? Beat it, cockroach. Possum in the trash? It'll be gone by morning. Ant on my sleeve? "Uhh, hey, there's an ant on my sleeve and it's big. Get it off of me ... I think it's a bullet ant. GET IT OFF OF ME. SERIOUSLY GET THIS SHIT OFF OF ME." (Bullet ants suck, by the way. Apparently they have the same venom as a cobra, and their bites make you feel like you've been shot. The pain spreads through half your body, and you either get diarrhea or you throw up.)

Oh, so you know how last post I said that a tourist invited Katharine and I to the bar for drinks for his brother's birthday? Well that same tourist ended up smelling me. I was at the Colpa one morning with Carloncho, and he walked over to our observation area to chat and see a different view. He started talking about looking forward to having machine-washed clothing again because he couldn't get his clothes to smell clean after five days in the jungle. Carloncho and I laughed and said that five days was nothing... he should try for a month or two. Then the guy said he wanted to know how bad it was, so he leaned down to where my arm was propped over the back of my chair (armpit exposed), and took a big whiff. That may have been the weirdest thing that's happened so far. Carloncho was staring with his mouth hanging open, and I kind of froze in my seat, shocked that this guy would actually WANT to smell me. *I* don't even want to smell me. But he agreed with our original statement and said "oof, that's bad". Thank you, kind stranger. At least you bought me a soda.

While I'm talking about gross things, it wasn't until my third week (I think) that I finally got diarrhea. (Carloncho warned me in my second week that I WOULD get diarrhea at some point and that it was only a matter of time.) Since most of you don't want to read about this, I'll only say that jungle diarrhea is like 15 times worse than city diarrhea, and is sometimes called "The Explosion". You are warned.

What else... oh! So American Thanksgiving isn't exactly celebrated in Peru. Instead, Katharine and I spent the night talking about all of the food we will eat when we get home. Our conversation lasted at least 45 minutes (actually, it's been continuous for about a month). We also spent a good hour googling pictures of cake. I may have hit an all time low when I seriously contemplated licking the computer screen hoping that it might taste like a warm lava cake. Fortunately, I used all remaining willpower and resisted. Apparently Peruvians don't really crave chocolate like Americans and Europeans (granted, they have crappy chocolate here). As a result, the rest of the researchers were just staring at us as we drooled and cried over pictures of desserts. Anyone want to celebrate second Thanksgiving in January?

Oh man, so a couple days after Thanksgiving there was a HUGE storm during the night (we're in the rainy season now, so it rains every other day, if not every day). The storm hit around 3 am, and I thought I was the only one who was awake, but I found out the next day that the rest of the researchers were all awake, too. We sleep in a loft on the second floor, and the middle section of the roof (where the two sides meet at the top to form the ridge along the length of the building) is made of some kind of... plastic? I only specify because we were able to see the lightening flashes through that strip of ceiling. And holy crap there was a lot of lightening! There were lightening strikes every 1-2 seconds for a good half hour (and that was only the high point of the storm - the whole thing lasted for hours). It was like an extreme fireworks show... hosted by NATURE! There was also so much to hear - lightening striking trees or the ground, trees falling down all night (and into the next day), and the thunder! Our loft was shaking from the storm (granted, it shakes when anyone walks up or down the stairs). That was seriously cool. Of course, it's after nights like those where entire sections of trails have disappeared in a tangle of fallen trees/branches, which is something our machetes are no match for (oh yeah, machetes are one of our daily accessories).

The storm continued into the next day, which delayed our climbing (can't climb when the rope is wet). Instead, Katharine and I made (aka watched Carloncho make) brownies, and then she and I ate heaps of batter... like a sickening amount of batter... like I still felt ill six hours later. That was totally worth it. Again, that is not something that Peruvians typically do, so there were half a dozen staff members just staring at us as we shoved spoonfuls of batter into our mouths. We paused briefly for a picture and then just kept eating. I think that should happen again soon. Oh, so after that I had to do nest observations at the nest Hugo. Just a reminder - nest observations are where you sit in a chair and stare up at a nest for six hours. This isn't like colpa where you record data only every five minutes... you have to pay attention for six hours. That sounds nice and easy, right? "But you're sitting in a comfy chair... it's not tiring like climbing is... just listen to music." No. You don't understand. Try staring at one thing for six hours and convince me that you're not crazy by the end of it. It's not even something interesting for six hours. In that time there is maybe 30 minutes of activity in total. That's like watching grass grow for five and a half hours and seeing a line of ants for 30 minutes. I think you get it now. Anyways, after that I was pretty fried and not in a great mood, but as I was gathering my clothes and stuff for a shower, I noticed a plate with a fresh-baked brownie on my bed. At first I couldn't comprehend what this goodness could possibly be, but then the realization set in and I started gasping/shrieking more and more loudly until the guys in the loft thought that maybe I saw a rat or something. Shoving warm brownie into my mouth somehow erased the previous six hours. It was amazing.

The day after there was more rain, which hit while I was observing at the colpa. The rule with the colpa is that after two hours of rain you can radio back for the boat to pick you up. It started raining around 5:45am, and so at 8:00 I packed up and started calling for the boat. Unfortunately the radios weren't working well, or no one was listening on the other end, because I was calling for the boat for 45 minutes. Eventually it came, captained by the barman who brought the chef with him (the barman actually does drive the boats... it was the chef who I was confused about). Instead of taking me straight back, they wanted to go for an adventure, so we took the boat around the island that I was on (in the pouring rain). They even taught me to drive, which was pretty fun. I only ran us into shallow rocks once! By the end of that I was completely soaked, despite my poncho. That afternoon was also cool because Carloncho and I got to make pizzas! Katharine and I had been fantasizing about pizzas for weeks, and so we finally got to make some. One had bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, cheese, and sausage on it, and the other had bacon and ... who cares what else was on it?? THERE WAS BACON!!!!

The next day I was out climbing trees on some of the islands with Carloncho. While we were leaving Colpa Island we heard rustling in the trees, and it turns out there were 20-30 squirrel monkeys all around us!! A tree had fallen down and it's branches were hanging over the trail, so the monkeys were running across, jumping from branch to branch, and watching us as we stood there, completely surrounded by monkeys. There was one monkey who we assumed was the head honcho because he was bigger than the rest, and he was pulling down fruit and dropping it for the others to grab. There were medium sized monkeys, and the babies were the cutest little things ever. They were so small (could have held some of the smallest ones in my hand), and some were just hanging onto their mother's fronts as the mothers wandered through the branches. The monkeys were so curious, too, because as we stood there watching them, they gathered all around to watch us! We were incredibly close, too, maybe only a meter or two from the nearest ones. But of course, neither Carloncho nor I had a camera on us, so this will just have to be one that I remember.

Let's see... so at the end of November some of the macaw eggs started hatching! This means climbing trees to take the chicks down so they can be weighed and measured. One person climbs the tree, then they send down a carabiner using a pulley on the back of their harness, the person on the ground sends a bucket up with a hot water bottle and towels, the climber puts the chicks in the bucket and sends it down, the person on the ground takes all of the measurements and removes any parasites (botflies and mites being the most common), and then sends the chicks back up for the climber to put back in the nest, and then they come down. There can be a lot of down time for the climber while all the measurements are being taken (20-50 min), which can either be good or bad. Some trees have a bunch of ants on the trunks, so you don't want to be bumping into them. Some nests have macaw parents who will squack at you from a distance, and others will attack you. Sometimes it starts raining - if it's a light rain you have to stay up there, and if it's a heavy rain you have to get the chicks back immediately and get down quickly (either way the climber gets soaked). However, the early morning sun over the jungle canopy is pretty much one of the most amazing things ever. And you're up there for so long that it's easy to hear where animals are under the canopy - there might be a herd of peccaries off to your left, some parrots flying behind you, monkeys climbing through the trees on your right, and hey! A climber in the tree a couple hundred meters a way! (That was really cool the one time it happened - Carlitos and I happened to be climbing at the same time, so we got to chat and take pics of each other over the canopy. Unfortunately the early morning sun isn't conducive to pictures.)

The first chicks I retrieved were in Hugo (the first nest to have chicks). That was a relatively easy tree - some ants, parents yelled at me from the branches, nice view. The second nest with chicks was Franz, and that mother is crazy (actually, no, she's just a good mother) - most macaws will fly to the branches when you climb up to their nest, but this mother sits in her nest on her chicks and attacks when you open the door. Sucks for us, but she's being a good mother. To get her chicks, you have to wear thick gloves, throw a towel over her, and hold her down. Then you can grab the chicks while she is immobile. You need to have a fair bit of confidence for that job because she will bite the towel and take it from you, snap at your fingers and arm, and generally make your job difficult. The nice thing is that she doesn't leave her nest, even when her chicks are gone, so you can sit up there in peace while waiting for the vets to finish.

However, the mother in PVC nest is a different story. (Reminder: PVC was the first nest that I climbed, and there were two eggs in it!! There was a third when we started climbing to check for chicks.) The first time I climbed that nest to check for chicks the mother came out of the nest and hung from the entrance waiting for me. Gustavo told me to keep climbing and she would fly away. She did. Great! But no chicks. The second time she didn't fly away, so I had to wave my glove at her, at which point she flew away. Good. Still no chicks. The third time she climbed onto my rope and started coming at me, and when waving my glove at her didn't work, I slapped her in the face with it and she flew off. Okay. But this time there was a chick! (Unfortunately by the next day that chick (and one of the eggs) had died. We think it was because of nest fighting, so the chick either got caught in the crossfire, or the parents were too busy defending the nest to feed the chick.) The fourth time I climbed that nest I had to slap the mom in the face 7 times, and she didn't move. So I patienty hung below the nest hoping I wasn't going to lose fingers or an eye, and then I had to blindly put the chick back (the second one) because I didn't want to climb higher to see into the nest. The fifth time was when it got interesting - the mom came out, I slapped her a couple times, and then she flew at me and grabbed onto my arm. Without even thinking I flung my arm around and threw her like 20 feet before she took control of her flight. That was exciting. The sixth time (and most recent, I believe), was probably the best - when I was getting ready to start climbing, we noticed a couple spider monkeys in the nearby trees! They were climbing all around and were really cute, but then I had to focus on climbing. Halfway up the tree I noticed that MORE spider monkeys were gathering. They were curious as to what I was doing, so they started climbing closer and surrounded the tree I was in. At first I was a little nervous because I didn't know if they would attack or not - a couple of them were jumping on their branches in what I learned later was a threatening manner. Fortunatey they all just seemed to want to watch me and didn't bother me at all. That made it hard to climb because I just wanted to sit there and watch them! At one point I noticed four of them all sitting in a row just staring at me. How cool is that?? It was amazing because I climbed up to where they were, and then higher, and a bunch of them followed and climbed higher in *their* trees! The closest ones were less than four meters away. I also learned that these monkeys are just ridiculous and love to play around. There was one monkey who, instead of climbing himself, decided to hang onto his buddy and catch a ride while he climbed the trees (this was definitey not a mother and child - they were both medium-sized monkeys). Another monkey launched itself from one branch to another, except it wasn't even really a branch, but more like a bunch of palm fronds, so the whole thing dropped a couple meters after he landed in them. These monkeys sure are ballsy. Probably my favorite monkey was one in a different tree from the others. He was watching me and playing around the whole time. He started by swinging on a branch with one arm, then he used an arm and a foot, and then at one point he grabbed it with just his tail and was swinging back and forth like a rag doll with his limbs flailing everywhere... and staring at me the whole time! It was just the most ridiculously cute thing I've seen. Once again... no camera. However, this time would have been difficult to take pictures, even if I had the camera, because I spent my entire time up there making sure I wasn't about to die -- I was able to get the mother away initially by swinging a towel up at her, which she bit onto and was then pulled out of the nest by. However, with all of the monkeys around, both she AND the father came back to perch on top of the nest and protect their nest. So there I am, hanging from a tree in the high canopy of the Amazon, stealing baby macaws as 20 spider monkeys surround me and two angry macaw parents perch above me to defend their nest. How often do you get to say that?? But all was good - got the chick back in the nest and got down with all of my fingers intact. What an amazing climb.

Since nothing else is going to top that, I think I'll save the rest for later!