Adventures in Quito and Beyond

Greetings from the hot, humid, and unusually sunny depths of the Amazon rainforest! It’s been quite a ride getting back out here, but I am glad to finally be back at Tiputini Biodiversity Station and getting down to business.

In case you were wondering, I’ve decided to stop trying to back-log my old entries of what happened on the first trip for the time being… Hopefully I will eventually have time to post everything that happened, but I want you all to know what’s happening right now, rather than what happened 3 weeks ago.

My journey began this past Thursday, January 7^th, at Newark International Airport. I woke up at the unbearable hour of 2:30AM, drove with my dad for about an hour, then he dropped me off at the airport on his way to work. The international gate for American Airlines was surprisingly busy, but I quickly got by bag checked, got through security, and made the flight to Miami.

In Miami, I landed around 9:30AM had some 6 hours before my flight for Quito left at around 3:30PM. Gah! So much time! I spent a majority of the time huddled in a corner under a fake tree in one of the terminals, watching the planes get loaded and take off.

However, I was eventually broken from my sleepy spell of plane-watching when my professor and employer, Kim Bostwick, called me around noon. She was flying from Rochester to Chicago and then to Miami, but apparently one of her flights was late and she wasn’t going to make our flight to Quito. Instead, they had transferred her to the later flight, which arrived around 10 instead of around 7. Hurr… that posed some logistical problems… so I found Don (who, I had not realized, had been some 500 ft from me in the terminal since 8:30AM!), and we decided to see if we could switch to the later flight to all arrive in Quito together. However the later flight was booked, so we went ahead on the early flight as planned.

After the 4 (or so) hour flight, Don and I arrived in Quito. We went through customs together, and Don introduced me to a nice guy who’d been sitting next to me on the plane. He spoke very highly of Don and I… but he also wouldn’t stop shaking my hand, even when I tried to jerk it away. Kind of awkward, but I think he was just being funny. Haha.

We got through customs and everything, and met our driver, who was supposed to take us to Pululaua, the hotel we were staying at. But apparently, the hotel was 1 ½ hrs away (rather than ½ hour away, as we had thought)… because it was INSIDE a volcano. Haha. At any rate, since Kim’s flight wouldn’t get in until 10, and we had to wake up at 6 or 7 or so, staying 1 ½ away seemed ridiculous… so after a lot of confusion and with a TON of help from our would-be driver, we decided to get a room at hostel some 3 blocks away from the airport. The place was a little dirty and sketchy, but the area was said to be safe, it was only $10/person and it was within walking distance of the airport, so we went for it.

After figuring out a bunch of logistics, Don and I returned to the airport to wait for Kim to arrive. Her flight was supposed to get in around 10, but it got delayed to 10:40. Which, by the way, was immediately after 3 incoming flights from other places. Now, what you need to realize is that customs in Ecuador is not very well staffed… maybe 5 or 6 people. So when you come in on your flight, if you’re at the back of plane, you usually end up waiting on line at customs for 20 minutes or so. But Kim was in the last of FOUR flights… all of which got backed up at customs, of course… at any rate, we didn’t see her come out of the gates until 12:15 or 12:30AM. Not a big deal, but staring at every passenger leaving the airport for almost 2 hours gets boring pretty quickly, haha.

Exhausted, we all passed out pretty quickly at the hostel.

The next morning was much less logistically complicated. We met Andre, one of the guys from Tiputini, at the domestic airport in Ecuador, sped through bag check and security, had some ham and cheese grilled sandwiches for breakfast with plantain chips (yum!). We boarded our (late) flight to Coca, and emerged from the plane. The hot, humid air of the lowland city was like a slap in the face compared to the cooler, dirty air of the high-elevation valley city of Quito. We got our bags… which was pretty easy, because basically they filled a cart with our bags, carted them away from the plane, and then dropped them in front of us at the tiny, one-room arrival station for the Coca airport. This time around, we were making the journey to Tiputini with a group of some 15 college students from a small college in Oregon (whose name escapes me). So, instead of pickup trucks, we rode in style to the Coca dock… in a small, clean, cushioned bus! Oooooo! The bus rumbled through the dusty city of Coca as it had last time, passing open store fronts and busy shoppers. Small children ran passed and stared at us from street corners.

We made it to the dock, and had 15 minutes to kill before our canoe left. I went over to the nearby mini-zoo near the dock, where they keep parrots, squirrel monkeys, a saki monkey, and some turtles around by leaving fruit for them to eat. I said “Hola!” to the parrots and they said “hola” back, I watched the turtles trying to mate, and watched the saki monkey stare down at me. The animals seemed rather content with their lot, though it was a bit unnerving to see jungle animals hanging out on the docks of a small city. The parrots, in fact, were probably kept in their place because their wings were clipped. It was awesome to see them up close… but still.

We all eagerly boarded our big, metal canoe, and began motoring down the Napo river. The city of Coca quickly disappeared, and the distant shores were lined with secondary tropical trees and native Quechua (?) people, who were washing their clothes, staring at us from their thatch-roof homes, or whose children were running along the shores happily. Our ride was relatively uneventful… until we began to see very, very dark rain clouds ahead. Then we saw lines connecting the clouds and the ground… a clear sign that it was raining ahead. Our canoe drivers threw tarps over our bags, we threw on our raincoats, and we all pulled down the tarps on the sides of the canoe… and then we were hit with a TON of rain! It lashed harshly on the roof and nipped Kim and Don (who were sitting in the front) quite a lot… but we got through relatively unharmed, and the rain didn’t last too long. Nothing like getting stuck in a rainstorm on a tributary of the Amazon!

We though the worst was over… but then, we began noticing that the water level was dropping, and we were gradually seeing more and more trees and branches poking out of the water. Then, somewhat suddenly, we were entrenched in a sand bank! Apparently, the water level is incredibly low right now as it hasn’t rained for a very long time… in fact, the water was so low, that parts of the river were too low to drive the boat over! Some of the students began to get worried, but a few of our Ecuadorian drivers (and a couple of the students, too!) jumped out and started pushing the boat back from whence we came. The water only went up to their knees, so it wasn’t so bad… though I was surprised the boat had made it so far in such low water! After pushing for 3 or 5 minutes, we made it back into deeper waters, and navigated AROUND the sand bank. Hooray!!!

The rest of the boat ride was fairly uneventful. We reached the entrance to the oil company, went through security, and boarded the open air bus. The drive was long and somewhat droning… it’s rare that you see anything interesting from the sides of a very loud bus on a frequently used road, even though the rainforest is within 10 feet on either side. I talked a bunch with one of the students and found out that they were only staying a couple days at Tiputini; their real destination was the Galapagos, where they would spend 2 weeks doing research in attempts to write research papers as part of a 3 week winter break class. Sounds like fun! I wish I could visit the Galapagos!

Eventually, we reached the bridge that marked our entrance to the Tiputini River. We carefully carried our bags down to the shore and into the metal canoe that awaited us. Here, it was immediately evident how far the water level had dropped; we had to walk significantly farther to reach the boat! The banks were quite slippery, and I fell and almost slipped under the boat O_O But, we all made it down okay.

The trip down the Tiputini was more interesting that the early trip down the Napo, as the shores were closer. We saw lots of birds, including some good looks at some Common Piping-Guans, and even a couple great looks at some White-Breasted Toucans that were flying over the river! SO COOL! I love toucans

But by far the highlight of the trip came later… we were speeding along the river, as usual, when suddenly, the three guides sitting at the front of the boat got up, waved their hands, and yelled “JAGUAR! JAGUAR!” we all looked around frantically, but didn’t see the beast… we had gone too far past. Carefully, we backed the boat up. Then, we saw it. Sitting atop a large tree whose great branches were stretched over the water, was a jaguar. It was beautiful and amazing. We were so close that you could easily see its spots and watch as its eyes darted between the people on the boat. Everyone got good lucks, and we were all bedazzled. It is uncommon for the boat operators to see jaguars, much less those of us who only make the trip a couple times! Unbelievable!

Needless to say, the rest of the trip felt fairly uneventful, and we made it to Tiputini around 6. Kim, Don and I gathered our things and trekked out to our cabin. Last time, Kim stayed in a cabin separate from Don and I… but this time, there were so many people visiting, that the three of us had to stay in a cabin together. Kim took the separate bed, and Don and I shared the bunk bed. We unpacked, figured out where everyone would keep their stuff, and then relaxed for the evening.

Dinner was a welcome respite, and I thoroughly enjoyed the beans and rice, as well as the flan J I also met and spoke with 2 girls from Kalamazoo College, who had already been at Tiputini for a week. They were there with 10 or so other students, who had just spent the semester studying abroad at la Universidad de San Francisco a Quito. They were in Tiputini for just a couple weeks, and were there to do their own mini-research topics on anything they wished. Sounds fun… though, of course, impossibly difficult to decide what to do! There’s so much cool stuff to study in this rainforest!!

Anyway, exhausted from the events of the day, Kim, Don and I headed to bed and very quickly passed out. But, we looked forward to our next day: our first of 3 weeks back in the rainforest J

Awoke early this morning… I didn’t sleep that much, I think because I haven’t yet gotten used to all the noise that the creatures of the rainforest make at night. Monkeys calling, odd birds chirping… anyway, I grudgingly got out of bed at 6:30, joined everyone for scrambled eggs at breakfast, and then got dressed and ready to go out. The first day in a field job is usually about getting a lay of the land, so Kim let us do whatever we wanted. I headed out down a couple trails where I knew there were manakins, including the Golden-Crowned Manakin lek that I spent a week watching last time, the Striped Manakin lek that Kim had watched, as well as a Wire-Tailed Manakin lek I stumbled upon during my walk. None of the manakins were very active. However, I DID manage to get some excellent looks at more White-Breasted Toucans! Those never get old J I also saw some treecreeper like birds that I have yet to identify, as well as some small, chirpy, fast moving monkeys which I also have yet to identify. The trails were excellent! It’s great to be back in the rainforest, surrounded by birds and insects and monkeys calling from all directions, trekking trails surrounded by odd trees and plants, and exploring the unknown!

I returned for lunch, which was a potato soup, followed by pork with beets, lettuce and some kind of fried potato… thing. Very filling… the main meal in Ecuador is lunch (not dinner, as in the US) so I made sure to fill up.

After lunch, Kim, Don and I met in the office for a briefing session. Kim explained our schedules for the coming week… Tomorrow, we are each going to watch one of two Wire-Tailed Manakin leks, which Brent (a great guy who has worked at Tiputini for many years and knows the Wire-Tailed Manakins well) explained were the best places to see the birds. Then, we would each be stationed at the hide with the Striped Manakin for a couple days each (he’s rather shy and only displays once or twice all day). I’m excited to get down to work; we have a much clearer idea of our goals this time and we’re much more organized, so I’m hoping we’ll get lots of data and the work will feel very productive. I’ll keep you posted if we find anything cool! Hasta luego

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