Mas en Tiputini

Laziness is ensuing, here are the happenings of the past few days:

Wednesday 2/17: After breakfast we went to the Canopy Walkway! Which is as you probably can guess a wooden walkway at canopy height. It was AWESOME!! Seeing the forest from above is pretty amazing, plus it was a beautiful day. The walkways were connected by platforms in trees and at one platform I sat with Nora and Kola and we watched parakeets chit chatting away.

Thursday 2/18: I went monkey stalking with Dan (A French Canadian Primatologist who is working on an ongoing research project at Tiputini) and Dana. We were looking for Saki Monkeys. It was really fun, we followed a family of 3 Sakis around for seven hours. I also found 2 turtles, a snake and about 6 really cool bugs. A peccary rump also graced our presence.

Friday 2/19: I was a lazy arse and slept in. After a late cup of coffee I helped Dana and Christa write our project proposal. Then the three of us went out into the field to practice a couple of potential methods for our poject.

Saturday 2/20: At 5:30 AM our entire group hike out to the Canopy Tower to do bird mist netting. John Blake a researcher who has been working in the Amazon for some time and has published dozens if not hundereds of papers on avion life in the Amazon was there to net with us. We had the afternoon off to read, swim or do whatever. In the evening we had a movie night and watched Lost in Translation which in my opinion is a terrible movie.

Sunday 2/21: I started the morning off with a brisk 3 hour hike with Dana and Christa. It was awesome! We hike a less travled trail and saw tons of Woolly monkeys as well as Tamarins. When we got back I felt more energized then I have in a couple of days. Later we again tried practicing some more potential methods but all that ensued was frustration! After lunch Catherine went out with us to search for Inga trees since they were proving to be the most difficult for us to identify. With Catherine´s help we found a method that would work. Later in the afternoon we went hiking with Jose and he helped us ID more Inga trees! So we returned to camp ready to start the nitty gritty of our project. Unfortunately our cabina (the one I share with Sheena, Kola and Dana) smells less than present...and we still have a week left to live in it!

I wish I had been keeping my journal up here better, but there´s never a dull moment at Tiputini and I enjoy the company of my classmates too much to spend too much time alone. It´s better if we all embrace the time we have together and enjoy it to its fullest. I am happy to say that I am getting to know Dana and Christa much better. I love going out in the field with them, collecting data, stopping to look at birds and monkeys and engaging one another in great conversation.

Anyway, these past few days at TBS have been awesome! There´s always something to see or hear. This morning it was the Howlers who were going to town. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. It´s funny because as I digest what´s here I think I have figured out what my expectations were. I think I was expecting to find huge trees, everywhere, like the pictures you see of illegal forester X destroying x amount of rainforest in x amount of days. With that I think I was picturing signs of death and decay, proof that the people of the world are killing the Amazon Rainforest. Here in Tiputini though, it´s different. Yest there are huge trees, but there´s tons more small tress, the future of the forest. I don´t know why I always pictured the rainforest as an end all, an ultimate or epitome because it so clearly is a place of death and life. It is regenrated continously (where protected at least) and is teeming with the sounds of birth and life. It´s hard to explain exactly what I mean, and unfortunately there are many parts of the Amazon that are at great risk of becoming paths towards death. However, perhaps now that I have seen this place I will have a greater obligation to preserve it in whatever capacity I can.