Well it was incredible. I think I am only going to realise how incredible as time goes on. It is amazing how quickly you adapt to something as "normal". So being 7 hours upriver by fast boat (fast versus the local boats that is, because our boat had an outboard rather than a home made "peke peke" engine) and in the middle of untouched forest, in temperatures around 30 with 70 to 98% humidity feels normal by about day two!
We stayed at a lovely research station, in a little clearing about 500m from the river. We found out the hard way that rain forest is not all flat. Between the river and the clearing were a set of extremely steep steps, after 2 weeks I was still puffing by the top and in the heat, it meant that even if you were relatively unsweaty when you got off the boat, when you got to the top of the steps you needed a shower again! Around the lodge has been planted local grasses and plants, many of which look like overgrown house plants to us. Someone speculated that it was where house plants come to die! Also papaya trees to encourage in local mammals, like the tayra, a bigger version of a weasel. Rabbits eat the grass and ocelots eat the rabbits and the humans get to see the ocelot (well sometimes, we did not sadly). The lodge is designed to keep you in the shade all day and to maximize every breath of air to keep the conditions as unsweaty as possible. The showers were of course cold, which was actually very refreshing although I always had to take a deep breath before sticking my head under. We were well looked after by the kitchen team, Gladys and Ghisella, who worked miracles to give us different food every meal - some interesting local things, purple maize soup for example.
I could go on and on, so I am going to break it up a bit and post in chunks. I do not think I will be able to put photos on but I should be able to link to some that the others are going to put up.
No comments:
Post a Comment