My time in Tiputini

We stayed 7 full days at la Estacion de Biodiversidad Tiputini, or the Tiputini Biodiversity Station. Tiputini is the name of the area and the river in which we arrived. The title is a link to its website. The station consists of a building with classrooms, a lab/library, and offices, cabins, and a dining hall, or comedor. The rest is primary tropical rain forest. Sigh. The noise surprised me. Bird calls 24-7. Monkey calls. Well, actual monkeys everywhere too. Frogs and toads and insects being loud all the time. But noise is not the appropriate word of course. The sounds felt right, soothing and assuring. I am such a light sleeper; my mom typing on the keyboard would somehow travel through the ceiling and keep me awake in my room below. My roommate opening the door in the morning to leave for work was my alarm clock last year. Anything and everything wakes me up. But the loud sounds of the night, cricket and frog calls mostly, actually helped me fall asleep. You should have heard some of the calls! I'll have to impersonate them next time I see you. One big frog who lived in a pipe of the comedor made this extremely loud vocalization that sounded like a huge liquid droplet hitting a hard surface; pppplop!

My time was so full last week, yet was over in a flash. After we hauled our backpacks from the boat and settled in our (surprisingly nice) cabins, we had a quick welcome/orientation with Diego in the comedor. Our cabins had thick white walls, a bathroom with cold shower, and the top half of the walls were screens, so we could see the dense lavish forest as we laid on our beds. Electricity was only on from 10-1pm and 6:30-9:30pm, so we depended on our flashlights and candles a lot. Pretty sure my eyesight improved from having less light. Every morning hike, before the sun rose, got easier for me to see the trail.

The first four mornings began at 5:30am with four groups alternating the torre, caminata, puente, or bota. That is, canopy tower, forest hike, canopy walk, or boat ride. My group of Chris, Tori, Daniel, Gina and Julie had the torre first. We hiked through the forest by our flashlights, then climbed a staircase the height of a 6-7 story building. The metal staircase is supported by a magnificent Ceiba tree, that is of course taller than the stair case, with branches the size of large trunks. One "branch", almost a meter thick, cut through the pedestal at the top of the tower, where bullet ants roamed. I steered clear of this. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTS everywhere by the way. They make up half the density of insects in the TRF. Our guide, Ramiro, who I love for reasons I will share later, pointed out bird after bird after toucan after tanager after macaw after eagle after hummingbird, oh my! We spent two hours up there, looking at beautiful colorful birds through our binoculars. I was so amazed at how Ramiro spotted birds so far away and so camoflauged. Even after he explained where it was, like "that tree, below the big branch, it's profile toward us", it took me a few seconds to see it. We got to watch the sunrise from the top, as it rises around 6. Also to see the treeline of the tropical rain forest against the sky, with fresh morning fog, the landscape continuing indefinitely, was worth the climb alone.

After the morning activity we have breakfast. Mmmmm breakfast. Soooo good. I think the chef is a culinary student from USC, assigned to the station for a semester or something, as Tiputini Biodiversity Station is part of the University of San Francisco of Quito The food was top notch. We devoured amazing pancakes or french toast most of the time with peanut butter, honey, jam, syrup and butter on top, but sometimes fried plantains with eggs, or other traditional Ecuadorian dishes. Mmmmm for lunch we always had a soup, then a main plate and dessert. Dinners included delicious spaghetti and veggie marinara sauce, lasagna, tofu and rice or lo mein noodles, chicken with veggies and rice, yummy sauces with potatos or yucca, and weird salads like pickles, tomatos and lettuce. There were always bowls of mango, banana, and apples, a tray of cookies and coffee and tea on the counter where we picked and dropped off plates. For some reason, the oreos tasted soooo good there. We ate at least 6 Oreos (one packet) with peanut butter every day. Don't worry, we realized after returning the Quito that there are 20 grams in 4 Oreos, so we all cleansed for a week. Our boat carried our supply of food by the way, sacks of potatos, flour, crates of fruit, etc.

After breakfast was another activity in the forest, such as botany class or a hike with a guide pointing to find and watch monkeys! My favorite monos are the Saki's. Afterward, we had lectures in the air conditioned room!!! Big important deal in the 100% humidity jungle. Once an article of clothing got wet, it did not dry. All my clothes were wet or damp by the time I had to pack them to leave. We then had lunch and a break for an hour or two, because it was just too hot to do anything. I usually laid on my bed in my underwear, shifting after the sheet had become damp. The afternoon consisted of more lectures, both in the classroom and the forest, such as collecting insects and then classifying them to their Order. Then dinner, then a guest lecture or other activity out in the wilderness. The three grad students staying at TBS gave us a lecture/powerpoint presentation on their work. Daniel is studying the social habits of a handful of monkey species. Ricardo is studying the social "fission-fusion" dynamics of woolly monkeys. Abbie is studying the costs and benefits of mixed species flocks of birds.

The second morning was the boat ride. We climbed into the little benches that were placed in the boat, and motored for about 45 minutes up the Tiputini River, a huge tributary of the humongous Amazon. We then turned around, and drifted by the current back to the station, with no sound of the motor. I sat with my binocs, spotting birds, enjoying the silence mixed with the sound of the water, and enjoying the view of Tiputini and its lining forest in the days young light. After getting off the boat, my group and I saw an Ecua-vollyball game going on (little different that regular volleyball). I watched for a little bit as a few girls joined in. The players, the chefs and a few guides, were making fun of the girls' lack of skill pretty badly, which pissed me off. I got in there, and after warming up, asked if I could be the server. We won after to scoring serves. :) Haha.

Third morning was the puente, the canopy walk way. Half hour hike, then climb similiar to that of the tower. We had to wear halters that attached to this line running along the swinging bridges. The walkway had wooden boards to walk on, with net on the sides. The three walks were connected to four huge trees. Ants all over bridge...ow....ouch....oooooooow!.........................oww....and so on. BUT I only stayed on the bridge for 10 minutes, as the wind began to BLOOOOOOOW, the howler monkeys began to howl, and then cloud gods released their rain. I have never felt that wet before, just completely soaked, through all the layers of my skin. I felt like sea animal, with the humidity and rain soaking my body through to the inside. It was fun hiking back soaked in the rain. And it was fun taking off my clothes that never dried and putting on drier ones.

The last of the first four morning was the caminata. I ate lemon ants by licking my finger and pressing it to their tree, where millions of them were moving along. They produce citric instead of formic acid. They taste lemony and refreshing! Jorge found group after group of monkeys for us. For 15 minutes, we stood and watched spider monkeys from a perfect view. We also saw woolly monkey, capuchins, saki's and golden mantled tamarins.

I had a "free" day, where we could sign up to do different activities. I did parts of the Guacamayo, Harta, and Lago trails sola. My hike is one of the parts of the trip that I remember most vividly. It was scary, accepting the fact that I was truly alone, no human to depend on, and that I was in danger. I felt more awake and conscious and alive than I've ever felt. Looking back, I can't believe how alert I was, at every noise, movement, of my environment and myself. Didn't know I could be that present. The birds called their alerts to others, as they noticed my presence. I bumped into a pecary, a large wild boar, with big white horns. We stared at each other for 10 seconds, I think, and I pondered whether to take a photo or walk away. The black beast then made his "ready to charge" position. Sooooo, my body chose to begin moving away...! He ended up following me for a while, about 5 meters away, then decided I wasn't a threat. We were taught to climb a tree if they charged at you. Maybe I should tell people I did, just to make the story better... I also saw some black turkey-sized birds that were really interesting to watch. I saw some beautifully-colored frogs. I also crossed a log bridge, and then heard a cat roar on the side where I had just come from. That was scary. Kinda stood frozen with extremely alert ears and darting eyes for a few minutes. The non-scary moments mostly consisted of discovering beautiful seeds, fruits, nuts, flowers, plants, beetles, nests and taking pictures/ using my binoculars.

On our walk back from the torre, the guide Ramiro, showed us a plant with which he used the bark to cure a sinus infection. He said the treatment worked so well, better than anything else. I told him that I had a bad cough and sinus infection, and would love to try it. The next day, he met me at my cabin with a freshly picked stem. He then shaved the bark with a pocket knife into the cut-out bottom of a styrofoam cup. He then had me pour a little bit of water into the cup bottom, and he stirred the bark until there was a trasparent yellowy liquid mixture. I put my head way back, and he poured the liquid down my nostrils. It traveled through my sinuses and down my throat. The sensation was a strong burning that made my eyes water, but it felt good, in that I could feel the chemicals were doing something to my throat that would lessen my infection. It definetily helped clear our my sinuses and helped me produce less phlem. It was soooo chevre! On that note, I will share that I plan to return to TBS in April to conduct my independent research project on ethnobotany! I hope Ramiro, such a sweet kind, (knowledgable) man, can be my advisor.

How many ballerinas have been to the Amazon? :)

Our resident professor for the trip, Peggy, Ph.D in forestry, asked me this question. It once again reminded me how incredibly blessed and lucky I am.

This week was one of the most memorable of my life so far. Not surprising, right? Chock-full of learning, enlightenment, and fun! Overall, I am present to nature as an innate part of me, and that no matter where I am or what my surroundings or environment are, I am in nature. This week, my mind and spirit truly grasped how Western philosopy of humans being separate from and dominant over nature is perhaps false. My choices on this planet impact nonhumans just as much as my choices impact people in my life. And as karma and Newton explain, everything I impact, will impact me in an equal way.

As I often think about how I want to impact the world, I more and more find the answer in a united shift of how we view our planet. And every global issue such as terrorism, climate change, poverty, hunger, can be originated to the imbalance in natural resources with humans, animals and plants. This has not always been so; this imbalance didn't exist when Native Americans lived in peace. They had what they needed and their religion revolved around keeping it that way. We rejected this attitude in modern times, following instead the philosophy of Aristotle and those of the Enlightenment, with respect to humans being the rulers of the world. This has created our current condition of lack of resources in some places and excess of resources in other places of the globe, which obviously leads to great conflict. Oil is the main culprit presently. Also, one root of terrorism is intense resentment of US citizens' quality of life and opportunities to progress or speak out. This exists, in part, because Western countries got wealthy from extracting and consuming natural resources, and therefore created better lives for their citizens; all while people not fortunate enough to have been born in the Western world watch as this gap in wealth and opportunity widened, withought being able to do anything about it. How unimaginably frustrating. The principles of natural resource use that world powers have implemented make a complicated mess of the earth, and create conflict between people, for so long.
Maybe Native Americans had it right with respect to their state of reality of the Earth. After all, they mastered how to live sustainably, how the entire human population can live on Earth forever. Maybe we Western-minded ones are the ignorant savages, blatantly destroying all we have, and focusing all energy on surface solutions and issues like war, money, research, development, instead of accepting the flaw in a commitment to indefinite growth and "advancement": the biosphere is finite. The answer to achieve "sustainability" is not just a shift in policy, politics, economics, energy sources, quality of life expectations, but a transformation of our state of mind. By being born into everything that comes with industrialization, like cities, highways, a house where barely even bugs live, I have been so blind to where I am living in the universe. I can't name 10 plants in my backyard. I squirm when an unharmful centipede crawls on my arm because the feeling is so foreign. I can't tell three volcanic mountains apart from each other, even though they are so distinct. I "leave the real world" and "go to nature". Maybe I would attain true fulfillment and deep satisfaction if I had been born where I evolved to be; with plants, animals, weather, geography as my reality and my skin in contact with earth.

Here is a quote by Russel Means, Lakota, quoted by Churchill in 1995:

"Capitalism and communism are simply the opposite sides of the same eurocentric coin. What the world needs is not a choice between capitalism and communism, between one aspect of eurocentrism or eurosupremeacism and another. What we need is a genuine alternative to the European tradion as a whole."

Maybe I should base my independent study project on how an Ecuadorian social or political issue can be originated to nature. Like how clashes in the view of utilization of nature between the Inca and Spaniards engendered the exploitation of natives during colonialization, which evolved into the poor, "developing" country that is today Ecuador. Or the mining fights between those of the Yasuni region and mining companies all evolve around oil, water and air (contamination), and land (deforestation). Hmmm. Tell me your thoughts.

Even if I can't impact the world at all, I am so lucky that I can still live my life by any principles I choose.

I am idealogical, naive and impractical, and I don't care! I hope this newly experienced view of Earth changes my life path forever.