Tiputini

This past weekend I went to Tiputini Biological Station in the Amazon. It was amazing!! We left early Friday morning and basically traveled all day. We took a twenty five minute plane ride to a town called Coca, a two hour canoe (with a motor) ride to some military-type base, got our stuff x-rayed and our passports checked, took a two hour bus ride in a safari-style bus, and then took another two hour canoe ride to the station. Needless to say, it was pretty isolated. The station has a dining area, cabins (no walls, just screens), an air-conditioned library, some classrooms and labs, a gazebo-type deal with hammocks, two docks for swimming, a volleyball court, and a whole bunch of trails. It was super humid, so much that they have special boxes in the library to keep expensive electronics because otherwise they stop working after a day or two. On Friday night, a few of us took a swim in the river. Other than that, we just ate dinner and got settled in.

On Saturday, we went on guided tours of the area. First, we had to get rubber calf-high boots which made us all look super-stylin. I was in a group with Josh, Andy, Ryan, Rick, and Amy. Our guide was José, who was an interesting guy as you will see. Our first trip was a hike through the trails just to see different plants and animals. We saw all sorts of frogs, toads, monkeys, and insects. A few of the highlights: seeing mating monkeys, eating ants, and letting fire ants bite our fingers (I did not participate in that last one). That lasted all morning. After a nap in the hammock cabin and a great lunch, we went on the lagoon/canopy tower hike. We trekked for a short while to get to this river bank, we all piled into a slightly jank canoe, and José paddled us around a lagoon where we saw a whole bunch of birds. Andy was terrified and it was hilarious. Then we hiked to a canopy tower. We climbed it and saw a whole bunch of birds, and a howler monkey. One the way back from the canopy, José showed us a vine that looked like male genitalia, and someone in our group brought some back for another girl as a joke. While we were waiting for our boat to take us back to camp, José taught us some useful phrases in Kichua and some dirty ones in Spanish (the latter of which was at the request of some members of the group). After that hike, we chilled a bit more, napped, ate dinner, and went on a night float. For the night float, we slowly and quietly took the canoe down the river and looked for animals. All we saw was a dwarf caiman (small alligator/crocodile), but it was pretty sweet.

On Sunday, I went on a canopy walk with my hiking group. We hiked for a bit, saw a few cool plants (including one that turns your tongue blue and one that gives you mosquito bite-like bumps) and a bull spider. Then we got to the canopy walkways, which were basically rope bridges attached to trees and a canopy tower. There was one optional part at the end of one of the bridges where you had to climb a ladder up a tree to a platform, and only Amy and I were brave enough to do it. It was awesome, except for the sweat bees and ants. After that, I took another nap and ate lunch. After lunch, we went on another boat trip. On the way to our first stop, we saw a sloth, which is supposedly very rare. Later, we fished for piranhas. I failed miserably, but Kelsey and Andy caught a total of four piranhas. Then, we floated down the river in life jackets. It was amazing. I got way ahead of the group and got to see a whole bunch of birds and just take in the rain forest. After the float, we had some more down time until dinner. Dinner was amazing: sweet corn, green beans, barbecued chicken breast, real mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake. It made me really homesick. I started tearing up when I ate the mashed potatoes and the cake. After dinner, we had a presentation on the camera trap program that they just finished at Tiputini. Basically, they set up motion/heat sensitive cameras to take pictures of the animals that you often don’t get to see, like peccaries, tapiers, ocelots, and jaguars. After that, a few of us went on a night hike with some of the students who are studying at Tipuntini. We only saw a tarantula, but it was really cool to experience the rain forest at night.

Then, on Monday we went home, taking the same long journey it took us to get there. We got to Coca with plenty of time to spare, so we just hung out at this resort type place on the dock. There, we saw all sorts of monkeys. They weren’t afraid of humans, so they climbed all over us. It was awesome. We finally arrived in Quito, just in time to head to Mulligan’s to watch the b-ball game…let’s not talk about that. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend!