01-17-2019, 07:16 PM
12/31/2018: Part 1
[We begin our fourth day at the ecolodge, still no appreciable rain. It clouds up sometimes, there's the briefest sprinkle, or maybe a light shower lasting a minute or two, not enough to wet the ground. The river is noticeably down. This is not normal.]
New Year's eve starts out mellow enough, but will prove to be an eventful day. The snakers go out in morning, but find nothing. Paula works out, running the 200-yard stretch of path repeatedly, and finishes with pull-ups and stretches.
After breakfast, some of us clean and dry inflatable rafts while LC helps chef Roy prepare banana-leaf wraps in the kitchen. We then load the uninflated rafts and wraps into the boat and head upriver. This will be a long outing, exploring a new part of the jungle, not the protected area around our ecolodge.
A half hour in, there's a shout and pointing. Finally we see it, a tapir caught mid-river. Our boatman slows way down and maneuvers us for a better view, but stays a respectful distance away. The tapir keeps diving, staying down half a minute before resurfacing ever closer to shore. Finally it emerges onto the opposite bank and quickly climbs out of sight through foliage. This is an extremely rare sighting.
As we continue upriver, there comes a moment when JJ and Mohsin look at the shore with concern. There's a small clearing, manmade: Illegal logging. Something was cut down. Maybe a hundred yards further along, another small clearing. Then another, and another. It's heartwrenching, because it will take a century or more for that bit of jungle to recover, and only if allowed to.
Then we see a bigger clearing that goes deeper. Mohsin and JJ consult in Spanish, then Mohsin addresses us: "This wasn't part of our original plan, but would you want to check out this logging site?" We're up for it. So the boatman brings us into shore, but stays with the boat as we all climb out. We follow a very cautious JJ and Mohsin. They're trying to determine if the site is still active. If so, it's dangerous.
We advance slowly up a 30-degree slope. The cleared path, maybe 20 feet wide, is clay, hard-packed, uneven with ruts. I ask JJ if a winch might have been used. He says they use winches sometimes. But there's growing evidence that a bulldozer or somesuch was used. The path just keeps going, deeper into the jungle and ever upward. JJ says this was done maybe three months ago, and we begin to relax and just explore.
We come to this thick bundle of vines hanging down into the path from high up. Ian checks it out. Mohsin tells him to go ahead and give it a climb, but only half as far as he could go (so he'll have enough energy to safely descend). Ian climbs a ways, comes back down. I go over to it, check it out, and give it a go, probably climbing further than Ian but I'm not sure, but it surprises a lot of people and Mohsin films it. Paula tells me to be sure to tap the target at the top (like in a competitive event), so I rear up and slap the vine above me before coming down. Then it's Paula's turn, and she climbs quite a ways as well, then comes down. We move onward.
After a while we see it, a bigger clearing ahead, maybe 50 feet across. On the right side is a massive buttress-rooted stump and the very beginning of the toppled trunk. On the left side is the resumption of the trunk continuing indefinitely into jungle. Maybe a 30-foot section of trunk is missing. That's what the loggers took, which created this clearing.
It's a huge ironwood tree. JJ goes over to where the trunk resumes to the left. Maybe seven feet in diameter, it dwarfs him. I join him, ask if he can read the rings to tell how old it is, but he says it isn't that easy. Rainforests don't have winters and summers like in temperate zones, so there aren't clear growth rings. But this tree must be centuries old. JJ has shown us much younger ironwood trees on our walks. He will strike them with his machete, and it just bounces off because they are extremely hard. Explorers have gotten lost in jungles containing ironwoods, as they contain enough iron to throw off compasses. The bark has rust-colored splotches which might be oxidized iron. JJ tells me that when you hear an ironwood tree being cut down, even in the distance, it is so loud. I suggest that sound sensors could be set up to triangulate the noise of such operations, but JJ doesn't answer. I'm talking nonsense. The real problem is a lack of funds for such policing.
JJ calls to Mohsin, says he's going to check for a macaw nest. Macaws only nest in ironwoods, and the loss of one this huge is disconcerting. Macaws have a very low reproductive rate as it is. JJ proceeds to climb atop the log, not easily, as it's seven feet thick, but he finds the barest footholds and grabs here and there and slowly works his way up. He advances along the trunk, disappearing into the jungle. Eventually he comes back. I don't think he found one. Mohsin also climbs up there, as does one or two more people. I don't try, because even though I could probably get up there, getting down would be very difficult with my hips.
When it's time to get down, Mohsin leaps six feet through the air to hug onto a nearby tree maybe a foot in diameter and slides down to the ground. After some hesitation, JJ leaps to the tree as well, hitting it hard with a grunt, but he's okay and slides down. [I later learn that JJ broke his wrist in a motorbike accident years ago, and the doctor didn't set it right; so his grip is iffy.] The others get down by other means.
We follow another path back down towards the river. Enroute, we spy a small clearing to the side which is where the loggers ate. We explore the site cautiously. There are boards for sitting, and food scraps, tins, and other litter. Off a ways, I see what looks like a fresh orange lying on the ground.
A sudden crash puts us on high alert. A large branch falls through vegetation to the ground 50 yards away. We relax. JJ says this kind of stuff happens all the time in the jungle. It's spooky, can make you paranoid. You think something is out there, that you're being watched. Even as he finishes, another crash startles us, not far from the first and possibly related, and a lesser branch falls. "See? See what I mean?" JJ says as we all laugh nervously.
We find another small clearing just off the path. There's sawdust and remnants of ironwood. This is where they cut the log up into boards. I wonder what sort of equipment that required. Presumably the boards were then taken down to the river and loaded onto a boat for transport. Mohsin tells us that a wealthy Chinese businessman is behind many of these operations, driving demand, and that he's untouchable.
As we head down towards the river, a couple of us need to answer the call of nature and venture aside. Mohsin encourages us all to go out in the jungle at some point during our stay and take a shit, then hang around and watch how quickly the jungle reclaims what we posited. Regrettably, I never take that opportunity.
Back in the boat, we turn downriver, heading back towards the ecolodge. But that's not our destination, not yet.
[We begin our fourth day at the ecolodge, still no appreciable rain. It clouds up sometimes, there's the briefest sprinkle, or maybe a light shower lasting a minute or two, not enough to wet the ground. The river is noticeably down. This is not normal.]
New Year's eve starts out mellow enough, but will prove to be an eventful day. The snakers go out in morning, but find nothing. Paula works out, running the 200-yard stretch of path repeatedly, and finishes with pull-ups and stretches.
After breakfast, some of us clean and dry inflatable rafts while LC helps chef Roy prepare banana-leaf wraps in the kitchen. We then load the uninflated rafts and wraps into the boat and head upriver. This will be a long outing, exploring a new part of the jungle, not the protected area around our ecolodge.
A half hour in, there's a shout and pointing. Finally we see it, a tapir caught mid-river. Our boatman slows way down and maneuvers us for a better view, but stays a respectful distance away. The tapir keeps diving, staying down half a minute before resurfacing ever closer to shore. Finally it emerges onto the opposite bank and quickly climbs out of sight through foliage. This is an extremely rare sighting.
As we continue upriver, there comes a moment when JJ and Mohsin look at the shore with concern. There's a small clearing, manmade: Illegal logging. Something was cut down. Maybe a hundred yards further along, another small clearing. Then another, and another. It's heartwrenching, because it will take a century or more for that bit of jungle to recover, and only if allowed to.
Then we see a bigger clearing that goes deeper. Mohsin and JJ consult in Spanish, then Mohsin addresses us: "This wasn't part of our original plan, but would you want to check out this logging site?" We're up for it. So the boatman brings us into shore, but stays with the boat as we all climb out. We follow a very cautious JJ and Mohsin. They're trying to determine if the site is still active. If so, it's dangerous.
We advance slowly up a 30-degree slope. The cleared path, maybe 20 feet wide, is clay, hard-packed, uneven with ruts. I ask JJ if a winch might have been used. He says they use winches sometimes. But there's growing evidence that a bulldozer or somesuch was used. The path just keeps going, deeper into the jungle and ever upward. JJ says this was done maybe three months ago, and we begin to relax and just explore.
We come to this thick bundle of vines hanging down into the path from high up. Ian checks it out. Mohsin tells him to go ahead and give it a climb, but only half as far as he could go (so he'll have enough energy to safely descend). Ian climbs a ways, comes back down. I go over to it, check it out, and give it a go, probably climbing further than Ian but I'm not sure, but it surprises a lot of people and Mohsin films it. Paula tells me to be sure to tap the target at the top (like in a competitive event), so I rear up and slap the vine above me before coming down. Then it's Paula's turn, and she climbs quite a ways as well, then comes down. We move onward.
After a while we see it, a bigger clearing ahead, maybe 50 feet across. On the right side is a massive buttress-rooted stump and the very beginning of the toppled trunk. On the left side is the resumption of the trunk continuing indefinitely into jungle. Maybe a 30-foot section of trunk is missing. That's what the loggers took, which created this clearing.
It's a huge ironwood tree. JJ goes over to where the trunk resumes to the left. Maybe seven feet in diameter, it dwarfs him. I join him, ask if he can read the rings to tell how old it is, but he says it isn't that easy. Rainforests don't have winters and summers like in temperate zones, so there aren't clear growth rings. But this tree must be centuries old. JJ has shown us much younger ironwood trees on our walks. He will strike them with his machete, and it just bounces off because they are extremely hard. Explorers have gotten lost in jungles containing ironwoods, as they contain enough iron to throw off compasses. The bark has rust-colored splotches which might be oxidized iron. JJ tells me that when you hear an ironwood tree being cut down, even in the distance, it is so loud. I suggest that sound sensors could be set up to triangulate the noise of such operations, but JJ doesn't answer. I'm talking nonsense. The real problem is a lack of funds for such policing.
JJ calls to Mohsin, says he's going to check for a macaw nest. Macaws only nest in ironwoods, and the loss of one this huge is disconcerting. Macaws have a very low reproductive rate as it is. JJ proceeds to climb atop the log, not easily, as it's seven feet thick, but he finds the barest footholds and grabs here and there and slowly works his way up. He advances along the trunk, disappearing into the jungle. Eventually he comes back. I don't think he found one. Mohsin also climbs up there, as does one or two more people. I don't try, because even though I could probably get up there, getting down would be very difficult with my hips.
When it's time to get down, Mohsin leaps six feet through the air to hug onto a nearby tree maybe a foot in diameter and slides down to the ground. After some hesitation, JJ leaps to the tree as well, hitting it hard with a grunt, but he's okay and slides down. [I later learn that JJ broke his wrist in a motorbike accident years ago, and the doctor didn't set it right; so his grip is iffy.] The others get down by other means.
We follow another path back down towards the river. Enroute, we spy a small clearing to the side which is where the loggers ate. We explore the site cautiously. There are boards for sitting, and food scraps, tins, and other litter. Off a ways, I see what looks like a fresh orange lying on the ground.
A sudden crash puts us on high alert. A large branch falls through vegetation to the ground 50 yards away. We relax. JJ says this kind of stuff happens all the time in the jungle. It's spooky, can make you paranoid. You think something is out there, that you're being watched. Even as he finishes, another crash startles us, not far from the first and possibly related, and a lesser branch falls. "See? See what I mean?" JJ says as we all laugh nervously.
We find another small clearing just off the path. There's sawdust and remnants of ironwood. This is where they cut the log up into boards. I wonder what sort of equipment that required. Presumably the boards were then taken down to the river and loaded onto a boat for transport. Mohsin tells us that a wealthy Chinese businessman is behind many of these operations, driving demand, and that he's untouchable.
As we head down towards the river, a couple of us need to answer the call of nature and venture aside. Mohsin encourages us all to go out in the jungle at some point during our stay and take a shit, then hang around and watch how quickly the jungle reclaims what we posited. Regrettably, I never take that opportunity.
Back in the boat, we turn downriver, heading back towards the ecolodge. But that's not our destination, not yet.