Tiputini -- The Rain Forest!

So it's been a few days since I've gotten back from Tiputini Biodiversity Station (aka THE RAIN FOREST or La SELVA)!!!!

I have to say that when I first found out that I was going to la selva, I was quite excited because I remember back in 4th grade, we had this whole unit on the rainforest and did different projects where we recreated the rainforest in our classroom, covering the entire place up with construction paper and other sorts of paper to make it look like the rain forest. We did different reports on animals, climate, insects, etc. that involved the rain forest and ever since then I knew I wanted to visit there (but never did I think it was going to be possible).

So here's what went down, Thursday night Sarina and La Cris (one of our Ecuadorian friends) hung out with Jessica and La Vero (another one of our Ecuadorian friends), afterwards Sarina and Cris slept over ... or more or less, just talked until we had to be up at 6 a.m.to make it to the airport by 7am. There we took an Icaro plane from Quito to Coca, then took a Chiva (a type of truck) to this hotel where we waited around until we got our boat... in the meantime, we hung out with some monkeys and random birds (oh yea and a turtle) until then. The boat ride there wasn't bad, but it started to rain a little... I slept on the boat until we got to the Repsol Petrol station where we had to go through security (and weren't allowed to take pictures at this point for security purposes)... from there we took another Chiva for about 2 hours to another boat, where that was another 2 hours or so until we got to Tiputini Station. On the way in these rare dolphins that are pink came up and poked their heads out. Renee (the manager of Tiputini) was saying it was good luck because they haven't seen those dolphins in over a month until we came. After that we got our bunks (I bunked with Emily, Sarina and Megan O)... and we headed off to dinner. I must say the food there was AMAZING!!!!!!

Afterwards, we split off into our guide groups and found out that we had this cute, old guide named Mayer (who used to be a hunter with his father in the jungle). Three of the five groups took a boat around the Tiputini River and saw Caymans (a type of alligator) and saw a few large spiders (on the boat). I was ready to zoink out at that point, so I went to bed afterwards and slept until 5:30am the next day when we had to get up and begin our walking trail.

So Saturday we took a boat to where we were going to start our walking trail and walked up to this canopy tower... which was extremely high (I am surprised I didn't freak out a little... especially since it was attached to a tree that was swaying the entire time). We saw a bunch of different birds and a sloth... that was pretty fun.
Afterwards we headed over to a lagoon and got into an EXTREMELY SMALL canoe and canoed around the lagoon... that's when my camera died ... it was pretty upsetting.

There we saw some turtles and these HUGE turkey-like birds in the trees. Afterwards we walked all the way back to Tiputini Station for lunch. On the way we saw some lizards and some more insects and Mayer showed us different types of trees and plants. Trees that kill other trees, walking trees, trees whose sap can kill you... plants that cure different types of cancers, flowers that prevent women from getting pregnant, flowers that help cramps during menstruation and a plant that you cut open for a liquid that helps with contact lenses. Quite interesting I must say.

After lunch, we went and took a boat ride to Las aguas negras (black waters) and fished for phiranas (spelling?)... our group caught about 6 total ... they are really pretty fish, minus their red eyes... but they are all sparkly -- one of the girls on the boat said they are like "drag queens" ... who knows what she meant by that.

Anyways, after that the group went floating down the river back to the station. Once we got back we just hung out until dinner. Dinner was FABULOUS, again! Afterwards, our group got together and we did a night walk where we were able to see two HUGE tarantulas and a bunch of other random bugs that only come out at night. Including the biggest cricket I have ever seen in my life. And surprisingly, Shannon (from Virginia Tech) picked it right up and was just letitng it walk all over her. I will continue to upload photos but it takes forever to get all of them on flickr.

I ended up slipping and falling though and ripped a pair of pants in the crotch... so there went one pair of pants. I changed and ended up playing some Cuarenta with Panchito and Sarina and just talking until 1 a.m.

On the way out of the library where we were playing, we were swarmed by smaller crickets, but quickly got back to our bunks safely.

The next day, we ended up doing this rediculously long trail -- saw some howler monkeys, some spider monkeys and some wooly monkeys (spelling?)... that was pretty interesting. But other than that, we just saw some random insects and Mayer kept stopping at random plants to tell us stories about how these plants/trees/flowers have cured people he knows of something or other.

I ended up falling again on this trip and broke another pair of pants in the crotch (and this pair was BRAND NEW for this trip to Ecuador)... so now I'm down by 2 pants. I was getting really frustrated because this walk was pretty difficult and there was a lot of mud... and after falling 7 times, I had had enough. Just before we got back to the station, there was another bridge of muddy logs that I had to cross over but there was nothing to hold onto. Now understand at this point I was extremely frustrated. I start to cross the bridge and almost slip again... and that's when I just broke down and started crying. It was pretty pathetic... and one of the girls who had already crossed came back and grabbed my hand and helped me across. TEAMWORK.

After that I was just exhausted and could not wait for lunch... after lunch sarina and I decided to just relax and ended up going out on the boat again with the other group instead of doing another walk. I love the boat, it's very peaceful and I just sat up at the tip and listened to the birds and watched the little fishies in the river stear clear of us.

That was pretty much it, we had a presentation by Renee (the manager of the station) that evening and he showed us pictures of this project they are working on in conjunction with National Geographic. They have some great photos of jaguars, pumas, leopards... etc. I think he said something like they've counted 7 different leopards in the area... which is the most counted in a dense area like this around the world.

All in all, I had this amazing time and I really would love to go again...it's so beautiful and peaceful and you don't have to worry about stupid things like papers (which I've been working on ever since I got back to Quito).