7/25/09 6:10 pm: Friaje Continues
Things stayed pretty cold today and all we’ve seen so far is some bats and a family of spider monkeys, which for one of the most highly regarded ecotourism lodges in the world is definitely subpar. One of the long time locals here predicts it should break in a day or two though. I feel bad for the tourists paying several hundred dollars to come here for a few days who might not get to see virtually anything.
Due to the lack of fauna, we instead played volleyball for a couple hours this afternoon with the staff. With the wet weather the court was something more akin to a clay slip-n-slide than a sand volleyball court, which combined with some of our members’ complete lack of experience made for a comically abysmal spectacle. We did have the support of one of the staff member’s daughters though who would shout “Vamos Stamnfourd!”, and flagrantly cheat in our favor while keeping score—and we’d still lose. After a few rounds though we got our chops up and had some pretty good games at the end.
The plan now is to head back out after dinner and see if night brings any better luck with sighting animals. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a jaguar.
7/27/09 5:00 pm:
Unfortunately things have only started warming up just now, and tomorrow is our last day before we leave early on the 29th. We did see a razor billed curassow though, which is a quite rare, large, black, ground dwelling bird with a vibrant red bill. There is also a great vista overlooking the nearby Madre de Dios River where we saw several beautiful macaws. There have also been some sightings of a few species of monkeys and frogs, as well as peccaries and tapir, but all in all it’s been on the lackluster side for such a highly regarded area. When it gets warm enough though you can hear the howler monkeys which are quite spectacular. They sound a bit like when a strong wind blows through a cave, and they’re loud enough that you can hear them over a kilometer away.
Life here has been pretty steady: lots of volleyball and walks. Meals are kind of like a game where you spread your food as thinly as you can over your rice to maximize your caloric intake while still keeping everything palatable. Despite the food though, the lodge itself is very nice. The whole lodge is stilted about four feet off the ground and has a very high thatched roof which, combined with the almost entirely open air design and bamboo walls, creates an atmosphere of breezy grandeur. At night the whole lodge is lit by kerosene lanterns, which gives the whole place a lovely warm glow.
7/29/09 7:25 pm:
We had planned on leaving today, but some of the tourists changed their plans and since they pay an order of magnitude more than we do they get the spots on the boat. Our extra day here has actually been pretty nice though. Since it’s warmed up we saw several squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys and capuchins on our walk today, and now that it gets above 60 degrees taking a cold shower is much less daunting. We are, however, certainly not going to miss the food. The steady diet of boiled chicken backs and white rice definitely wears on you after a while, especially when you’re waking up to it for breakfast. Also the fact that the macaws eat better than we do by stealing the tourists’ food just adds insult to injury. I saw one drop half a bagel the other morning at breakfast and nearly dove over the balcony to salvage it.
Alex gave a talk to the tourists last night about the research we’re doing. It was well received, though one tourist, a corporate lawyer from New Zealand, admitted to be working in direct opposition to what our project is striving for, and that he was just here to see the rainforest before it disappeared. It was rather disheartening, but we’re considering covering his backpack in colonizing spiders to make ourselves feel better.
7/31/09 2:56 pm: Back in Puerto
The trip back from TRC yesterday was lovely, not to mention about a third of the travel time compared to the trip up due to the current and some lucky timing with our taxi. On the way down the water level was about five feet lower, which made for quite an impressive scene. Both shores were of course covered in lush rainforest, but after the steep drop down to the water, the river itself had a completely different character. Sticking out of the water, the dark remains of waterlogged trees would jut out at odd angles, and get lodged against the flat, shattered expanses of pockmarked rock that would create large charcoal grey islands within the river. It was absolutely striking to get to cruise through it all. We also saw a tree on the bank crash into the river which was quite a sight, and Alex informed me that due to the extremely shallow root structures of trees in tropical forests, tree fall is fairly common, and is arguably the greatest hazard to people visiting the forest.
Back here in Puerto things have been quite nice. I finally got to meet the rest of the Stanford crew who were working in different locations from us until now, and it was great to get to catch up with them over a couple Cusqueñas, the local (and virtually only) beer here in Peru. Unfortunately, however, the hostel we’re in is under construction, and this morning I was awakened by what sounded like someone trying to simultaneously break through my wall with a reciprocating saw and a large wooden mallet. I later learned that that is, in fact, almost exactly what they’re doing in the room two doors down. I’m really hoping my earplugs are still stashed somewhere in my backpack.
8/2/09 6:24 pm:
The weekend here has been a lot of fun. Andrea, a Canadian researcher who has become a good friend of the Stanford group and who accompanied us to TRC, introduced us to her friend Iona, a PhD candidate from Yale, and the handful of us still here in Puerto went out the last couple nights for dinner and to check out the night scene around here. Even though several of the people in our group speak Spanish quite well, ordering drinks was still a bit of a challenge. We had to haggle for about 20 minutes over an overpriced bottle of Peruvian wine, and accidentally sent our bartender across town to buy limes, but we did get to see a pretty decent Peruvian rock-cover band and hang out in some off-duty moto-taxis, which are basically colorful motorcycle rickshaws that are everywhere around here.
Today we had somewhat of a culinary tour de force. We started with breakfast at our favorite heladeria where we got tropical fruit salads topped with coconut ice cream, followed by a great lunch of aji de gallina, a shredded chicken curry dish; authentic, Peruvian cerviche; causa, a tamale-like conglomeration of potato, onion, tomato and chicken; and of course fried platano. The real highlight though was the skewers of grilled grubs we got from a street vendor near the market. Despite them getting heavily talked up to us, they wound up tasting incredibly like olives, which are the one food I cannot stand, so combined with the rather repulsive appearance and texture, they may have just made it to the top of my least favorite foods list.
8/4/09 9:28pm: Last Night in Puerto
So we just saw Andrea off yesterday morning. She’s now back in Toronto finishing up her Master’s thesis on carbon markets due in October. We celebrated with a great night of festivities, but it was certainly sad to lose the best friend we had made outside the program. Our team is heading back to the field tomorrow though too. After the Ppacca Farm, I’m curious to see what our next accommodations are going to look like.
Our time in Puerto has been fairly productive though. Alex managed to arrange a good number of interviews, and even recruited another local to help conduct interviews on the other side of the river. However, a couple of the farmers were quite confrontational, apparently due to previous bad interactions with corrupt NGOs and oil prospectors, and refuse to answer our questions because nothing we could offer would stop them from slash-and-burning all their land. Fortunately this seems to be the exception though.
Unfortunately, we were also recently blindsided by a rather scathing letter from the head researcher at TRC reprimanding our “gross misconduct” during our stay. Apparently we were guilty of many such egregious acts as talking after 10 pm, using the lounge area when tourists were present, not turning in our sheets when we left, and half a dozen others, all of which no one had informed us of during our five days there, despite the offended party living within arm’s reach of us and treating us quite amicably our entire stay. Our hypothesis is that the true source of the conflict came more from an ongoing tension between visiting researchers and the staff, and was exacerbated by a vegetarian member of party often having to confront the chefs to receive more than plain rice for her meals. And even so, her meals often consisted of something like a small plate of shredded carrots. Once she was even just handed a tomato when she inquired about a vegetarian option for dinner. The whole experience also seems to be representative of a passive-aggressive streak that seems to run in Peruvian culture, which we have also seen at times in other settings, such as between our translator and our guide. We’re hoping a measured apology and explanation will smooth things over, and, looking at the silver lining, these life lessons in grace and communication are likely to be just as valuable as our research in the long run.
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