Days 13: Arrival at Tiputini Biodiversity Station

Monday, September 1, 2008

Today I woke up at 5:20am, got dressed, finished packing, and headed downstairs to catch the bus to the airport. We got boxed breakfasts with a weird yogurt thing, a nasty apple, and crackers. The bus was supposed to arrive at 6am, but at 6:30 there was still no bus and our flight left Quito at 7:30am. We ended up having to call 6 taxis to get everyone to the airport. At the airport we checked in (nothing like the US, and you can take liquids and other crazy stuff on the plane) and headed to the gate. Unfortunately, the plane was delayed because the airport in Coca was closed due to bad weather. I guess they were just trying to be safe because Sunday night a plane landing in the Quito airport crashed: it was off course and was going to hit Cotopaxi and swirved but didn't make it to the airport. Luckily only 3 people died on a rather large plane... (*Quito is supposedly the hardest airport to land at and take-off from in the world because it is surrounded by mountains).

We ended up sitting around the airport until about 10am (2.5 hours after we were supposed to); 25 minutes later we had landed in Coca and stepped out of the plane into 100% humidity and really hot temperatures. We got our luggage quickly (props to Ecuador for being fast in that area) and hopped on a bus to a hotel. At the hotel we were able to use the restrooms and play with squirrel monkeys. They were absolutely adorable but we had to be careful not to get bitten or get anything stolen by them - they are very mischevious. Someone handed me an apple and 4 monkey's jumped on me at once! Their hands felt so funny too!

We got our awesomely huge life vests on and boarded the first boat - it was basically a really large canoe with plastic lawn chairs as seats. It took about 1.5 hours to get to our stop on the Napo River. The Napo is very dirty and very wide, we we didn't really get to see much along the way. The wind was strong and it was kinda raining so we all got a little wet and cold. The only thing we really saw along the way was a large oil company that had taken over some of the rain forest...I really hate that...

When we arrived at what was once Maxus Oil, (now Repsol YPF) we unloaded the boat and had to go through security since we were entering the Oil Company's land. This was the last stop for bathrooms until we arrived at TBS, so we all went. It was also suprisingly hot compared to on the river. We loaded the bus, which was just a bunch of benches really - no windows or sides or doors - and set off down the road through Block 16 in Yasuni National Park. Along the way we would see some Huaroni and their homes, and where there had been deforestation, but other than that it was about 1.5 hours of bumping up and down. I don't have any pictures from this portion of the trip because picture taking is not allowed inside Block 16.

Yasuni National Park is where the majority of the Huaroni live. The Huaroni are indigenous peoples of Ecuador that have been around for a very long time; they speak their own language and traditionally have lived very simple lives, hunting for the food they need. Since the oil companies have entered the Amazon Basin, however, the Huaroni have been exposed to the Western world and some of their traditions and culture are getting left behind. We were accompanied by about 7 of the workers from TBS because the Huaroni are known to stop vehicles on the road and demand money, gas, and/or other supplies.

Finally we arrived at the Tiputini River. It is much narrower than the Napo river and extremely twisty. Although it is murky and brown, it is actually a fairly clean river, and is about 30 feet deep. The spray from the boat was much worse this time and and I was in one of the wettest seats; by the time we arrived my hair was completely soaked. On the 2.5 hour trip down the river we saw turtles, caimen, river dolphin (very rare!), wasp and termite nests, a tarpir, and tons of jungle! It was a pretty sweet boat ride. At 5:30 pm we arrived at the station, unloaded, and walked up about 100 stairs (the water level is pretty low right now because it's the end of the [short] dry season).

Rene, the station manager, gave us a short orientation talk and then we headed to the cabins. The terrain is very up and down, and the wooden "steps" were often slippery due to the high humidity and frequent rainfall. I roomed with Danielle and Annie; each room/cabin had 2 bunk beds and a bathroom with cold water. They were decently nice, minus the fact that bugs could get in and everything was damp from the humidity. The generator only runs from 10am - 1pm for lunch, and from 6:00pm - 9:30pm for dinner. The sun rises and sets at 6 everyday - it's kinda nice not having to deal with changing daylight hours because of being on the equator! It's amazing what sounds we were able to hear at night when the generators were off...

Before dinner some of us put on our headlamps and explored around the cabins. We saw spiders, fungus, a snake, a tarantula, a huge cockroach, millipede, gecko, and frog. At 7pm we went to dinner: garbonzos, steak/beef, and rice, with Tang to drink. I felt kinda crappy but ate it anyway because I was really hungry. Dessert was vanilla cake :). After dinner, David Romo gave us a talk about research at TBS and about the camera traps that are used to get pictures fo the wildlife. They are rigged so that body heat and movement set them off, so only warm blooded animals are captured on film. We got to see some awesome pictures. Then it was back to bed - I was getting up at 5:15 in the morning to hike to see the sun rise!