Tiputini, Ecuador (Rainforest) 2006 TR, Part 3

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Part 1
Part 2

April 1: We left at 1:15 and headed out Matapalo, then turned left onto Harpia. Harpia was nice, we saw a lot of insects along with some birds, lizards, and monkeys. About halfway to the Matamata turn off we passed Jesse doing herp plots, then didn’t see anyone again until we were back in camp. Matamata is somewhat less developed than the other trails, lacking bridges at several stream crossings where wading would put water into your boots. We leapt across those, and waded through some of the shallower ones. There was also one bad treefall that required us to walk around behind the root ball and back to the trail, but it turned out not to be too big of a deal. Midway down Matamata we saw a forest falcon (I think it was Buckley’s, but I haven’t had a chance to look through the plates to identify it) and then noticed a large group of squirrel monkeys in the trees above and in front of us. One of them even came down to below eye level about 10 feet away in clear view, which was really cool. Still, we’ve seen so many squirrel monkeys by now that they aren’t particularly exciting and I didn’t bother to take my camera out.



Alex and Nicole were sitting in the hammock house as we passed, so we stopped to talk to them for a few minutes and Noah told them we had seen an Anaconda. I played along and we made up the story as we went; I think they were pretty convinced.

After showering, I came back to the lab and saw still more squirrel monkeys passing by the cabin clearing.

It was a good thing, because though the beef stew and rice wasn’t anything special, the chocolate Oreo ice cream on fresh whipped cream was incredible. Not just for Tiputini – it was probably the best ice cream I’ve had in Ecuador.

April 2: I was soaked in sweat after that, so I took a shower and then headed to the lab, where I met Shawn and Nir coming back from doing twig ant plots. They had to return early because they had filled all their plastic bags after just three plots, so I had a lot of twigs to sort through. First I looked at each twig in its bag, trying to identify some of them as Chromatagaster so I wouldn’t have to dig through all of them. Of course, every single one looked like Pheidole, so I didn’t gain anything by my diligent pre-search. I did have Nir and Shawn measure each twig before I tore them apart, though, so they wouldn’t have to guesstimate the length and width from the sawdust that is sometimes all I leave after a total destruction search.



Dinner was the traditional Sunday night barbeque, this time with the garlic cream sauce I’ve been pining for since we got here. I gave away my beans and corn to Nicole and Beth, respectively, and then smothered my chicken and mashed potatoes in the garlic sauce. It was extremely tasty. I got a little bit more potatoes so I could finish the garlic sauce off, then managed to stuff down a big piece of lemon cake for dessert. I felt like a stuffed turkey.

April 3: At eleven I went for a walk with Alex out Harpia; we walked for a half hour out and then turned around to come back for lunch, so it wasn’t a long hike or anything. We didn’t see much, just a few bugs and spiders, until the last bridge where we saw two big lizards sunning themselves. I got a couple of pictures of one of them before it ran off, and we got back to camp at 11:50. Lunch was vegetable soup followed by lentils, rice, and chicken fried steak. Not so great.



April 4: I woke up and came to the lab around 8:30, and decided to go to the newly finished walkway tower with Alex, Beth, Meghan and Nir. We talked to Meyer about something, and then asked if he wanted to walk out to the tower with us. He agreed, and came after us with a butterfly net. For some reason he didn’t seem to want to go in front, so I led and I missed a few things that I had to go back to see when he told the people at the end about them. The coolest thing on the way to the tower was a bunch of newly hatched praying mantises. They were bright blue and orange and were really cute. Our attentions scared them up the tree, though, where they were feasted upon by a small lizard.



He took us off the trail down the ridge from the canopy walkways and kept us occupied with various insects all morning.

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Keep these comin! I'm really diggin the photos and the read. Looks to be an awesome experience!