70 Hours in the Jungle

About a month ago, I was lucky enough to take a trip to the Amazon Rainforest.  Although I was only in the Amazon for about 70 hours, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my semester.  There, I saw a greater concentration of life than I have ever experienced; Tiputini, the research station we visited, is located in the most biodiverse location in the world!  There were many animals, but more impressive was the plant life abounding everywhere and the myriad of fungus species busy working to decompose the organic material that covered the forest floor. 

So much green!

José, our guide, shows us fungus

Tiputini is run by my university in Ecuador, la Universidad San Francisco de Quito, together with Boston College, and hosts researchers from around the world.  During our visit, there was a team of dragonfly researchers from Spain and two groups of researchers from the US studying various types of monkeys at the station.  Tiputini is located in eastern Ecuador on the Río Tiputini, in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve and very close to Ecuador’s large Yasuní National Park.  This part of the rainforest is virtually untouched by modern human activity.  The remoteness makes for quite a trip!  Of the four days we spent in the Amazon, two were spent traveling.  From Quito we took a half-hour plane ride to the jungle city of Coca, a two-hour motorized canoe ride down Ecuador’s largest river, the Río Napo, a two-hour bus ride through oil owned land, and finally another two-hour canoe ride down the Río Tiputini to reach the research station.

Rain during our ride down the Río Napo

The long voyage was one of the most interesting parts of the trip because it allowed us to see firsthand the contrast between ‘humanized’ rainforest and rainforest still untouched (although I hesitate to use the word ‘untouched,’ because we certainly have affected all of Earth’s ecosystems with our activity, whether or not we have set foot in them).  The contrast, predictably, was troubling.  Trash in the Río Napo, power lines plunging into the trees, buildings along the river, corn fields and huge facilities in the oil land, and random patches of deforestation were glaringly dissonant chords in the symphony of wonder that the Amazon should have been.  The humans and the oil companies and the power lines do not belong there, and their presence felt wrong to me.  During our long journey to Tiputini, I was unsettled by many questions.  If human presence here was wrong, how did that reflect on my trip?  Did I belong here, even as a temporary visitor?  If human’s audacity to claim the right to warp the land to their benefit here disturbed me, what, then, of my house in Michigan?  What gave me the right to live on and maintain that land?  After all it, too, was once wilderness.  The greatest hypocrisy of all was that to reach our pristine destination, we were using petroleum – the very substance that threatens its existence.

Trash in the Río Napo

A cornfield in the midst of deforest oil land

This hypocrisy highlights the largest threat to the rainforest: our current societal norms.  Even as we talk of “saving the rainforest,” as long as we continue to demand and value oil, the idea of truly saving the rainforest will be nothing more than a daydream.  As nice as environmental ideals sound, in our capitalist society everything boils down to ‘following the money’ (to quote my analytical chemistry professor Dr. Tom Fisher).  Petroleum is Ecuador’s largest, and largest potential, source of income; unless the international community can replace this potential income with aid or we change our society to one which is not oil dependent, oil companies will continue to win drilling rights in the Amazon, new roads will be built, and people will follow.  Destruction will be a side effect of this pattern of events.

A natural gas burn-off

While many people are “concerned” about the rainforest, it is easy to claim concern, recycle a few water bottles, and forget about the issue.  However, when the issue surrounds you on all sides it is impossible to forget.  Unpleasant as it is to write and think about this aspect of the rainforest, it would be wrong not to include it in my blog about the trip because while I was there, these topics were never far from my mind.  Still, I did much more than sit and brood!

Here, for example, I am not brooding.

We spent most of our two days at Tiputini walking through the forest.  The station provided us all with rubber boots to wear.  The boots were very necessary; several times I had to battle mud for possession of mine!  The Amazon is teeming with so much life that I wanted to look in all directions at once; there are interesting organisms wherever you look.  Often, the animals were camouflaged by the abundant plant life, but where eyes fail, ears take over.  Insects, birds, and monkeys graced us with a never-ending chorus that was as comforting as it was loud.

Our group in front of a tree root

In addition to hiking, we also went on a canopy walk and to an observation tower (which was so peaceful I considered never coming down), canoeing on a small lake, and floating down the Río Tiputini.  A few of us donned life jackets and braved swimming in the river; luckily the water was muddy enough to hide any piranhas, caimans, or anacondas that may have been lurking underneath, and I found it quite relaxing to float and listen to the birds.  Before we got in the water, a tapir (a mammal with a nose like an elephant seal) swam across the river just 20 meters in front of our boat!  Our guides told us we were extremely lucky to spot one. 

A small extension to the canopy walk - we wore harnesses!

The view looking out from the observation platform...

...and the view looking down.

Jumping in the Río Tiputini!  I am second from the left.

Other noteworthy creatures we saw included spider, squirrel and howler monkeys; a sloth; toucans and parrots; many different frogs and lizards; bats; endless insects including fire ants, bullet ants (which are extremely poisonous), bright butterflies, and crickets the size of my hand.  Possibly the most exciting sight was the 15ft anaconda we spotted resting on the bank of the river!  It was extremely massive and muscular.  When we turned the boat around to get a closer look, it slithered into the river with a splash and disappeared.

A beetle

Ants - they have a lemony taste.  Yes, you read that right; we ate them!

Anaconda!

There are so many other moments I could describe, but how can I choose between describing the constant feeling of dampness, the ants transporting the dismembered butterfly, the night hike full of gigantic spiders, or something else equally wondrous?  One could live in the rainforest for a year and still see something new and interesting every day.  I hope to go back.

Wolf spider; the body would have fit nicely in the palm of my hand.
 We saw two during our half hour hike.

From the canopy walk, the forest looked endless.

The January issue of National Geographic includes an article about the Tiputini research station and the oil debate that threatens the rainforest!  Here is the link.

Thanks to Megan and Miriam for their wonderful pictures!