Puerto Maldonado, late December 2018

[cranefly]

1/1/2019: Part 1 -- The New Year begins

JJ is missing.

He was supposed to take us on a medicinal plant walk at around 7 am, but it's now after 8.  Mohsin can't locate him either.  Not that he's all that concerned, just mystified.  He's also amused, because in checking JJ's room, all he finds is a tiny plastic lizard on his bed -- as if some crazy Kafkan metamorphosis has taken place.  This is actually an artifact of Stuart's early efforts to break the ice with everyone, handing out tiny plastic snakes, frogs, lizards and other things (I got a frog and a lizard, LC got a tiger).

While waiting, Olaf, Magnus, Ian and Mina take the vine snakes and tree boa down near a small tree just off the deck.

Olaf with tree boa:

As they handle them and take photos, Mohsin and Stuart go down there too.  Mohsin is talking to him about why it's important to catch the snakes and bring them back to the ecolodge.  It's for "show and tell," to help educate people and change their attitudes so they have a greater appreciation for the wonders of the jungle.  After a day or two, the snakes will be returned to where they were found and released.

Mohsin with tree boa:


Mohsin then has the snakers put the snakes in the small tree for a more natural background and gives some photography tips.  LC goes down and takes photos too.  It is not easy getting good shots of snakes.


It doesn't help that the tree boa keeps curling up.


Ian brought some hardcore camera equipment to the jungle, including a drone.  On the day of our arrival he flew it while most of us went for a swim in the river.  I asked him later how it went, and he showed me this short but amazing clip of dense, verdant canopy.  I had also seen him using this weird contraption on the camera when shooting by hand.  I asked if it was a Steadycam.  He said it was a programmable camera gymbal allowing yaw, pitch and row control.  I asked him if he ever did any time-lapse filming, and he said some.  I mentioned a friend who did a lot of time lapse and also used drones, and that one of his recent projects seemed to be combining the two, though I didn't know how.  Ian seemed intrigued.

Soon it is breakfast time, and we eat.  JJ shows up during breakfast.  He's low energy, says he has a sore throat, but we wonder if it's a hangover (I'd heard him with the ecolodge staff partying late into the night).  As JJ goes off to get ready for the outing, Mohsin tells us that JJ mentioned a sore throat the day before, so it's probably a combination of that and a hangover.

There have been a growing number of ailments among the group.  LC's back has threatened to go out a couple of times, but she's managed to fight it off and get up each morning.  Ian sprained his left ankle -- actually, a re-sprain.  Olaf and Magnus have had bouts of stomach trouble, and maybe others.  Paula is having a different kind of problem; with so little body fat and her high metabolism, she's like a hummingbird, needing to eat more often than our meals.  Running low on fuel is physically hard on her and also affects her mental state.  Sometimes she gets very loopy.  As for me, I'm feeling my years, finding it ever harder to recuperate after each day's activities.  I'm also having a harder time sleeping, often lying awake for hours through the middle of the night.  All in all, though, the lot of us are holding ourselves together.

JJ returns, ready to go, and we follow him into the jungle on the medicinal plant walk.   I bring pencil and notebook, but ask LC to do the honors since her hearing is much better than mine; in exchange, I carry her stuff.

JJ uses his machete with masterful precision, cutting into things just enough to reveal what he's talking about.  He shows us roughly a dozen medicinal plants on our walk.  There's bark with a garlicky smell that can be made into compresses for arthritis;  a houseplant relative (patiquina) with poisonous leaves that, if properly prepared, can be applied topically for "bum problems"; a cinchona tree (viney and hollow, resembling a strangler fig) whose under-bark is rich in quinine and can be boiled and ingested to treat malaria; the leche-leche tree, so named for its milky sap, which is good for treating coughs (JJ has brought a teaspoon along and takes three teaspoonsful on the spot; LC tastes a teaspoonful and says it has a very mild milk taste); the Caña Caña plant that has spiral growth up to 8 feet and contains acetylsalicylic acid, an ingredient in aspirin -- drink a little, take a bath, and sweat it out; the Vicks vapor rub plant (our bastardization of what it actually is), which contains mentholatum; wasayi (sp?) palm whose red roots can be crushed and boiled, good for kids; [non-medicinal] pona palm, also known as penis palm (for obvious reasons); a tree used for parquet flooring; sanipanga (sp?) plant, whose crushed leaves create a reddish dye that acts as a mosquito repellent; the Sangri de drago (sp?) tree with heart-shaped leaves, whose brown sap turns creamy with rubbing and is good for the skin (some take it internally); the pedi-pedi (sp?) plant, a grass whose tuberous roots can be crushed and boiled, good for digestion.

JJ also shows us the plant (a bamboo relative) used for the leaf-bundle rattle used in the Ayahuasca ceremony.  The way to identify the plant (which Mohsin later tells us has always befuddled him) is to pick some leaves, shake them, and if they make the right dry rattley sound, it's the correct plant.  The sound is anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing), which helps prepare the subject for the Ayahuasca journey ahead.  JJ tells us he has taken the journey three times.  He says it mustn't be undertaken lightly, that it involves 7 hours of prep time, then a 3-hour ceremony before ingestion.  One must be in the right state of mind.  He says it can be very effective treating drug addicts, changing their lives.

We return to the ecolodge and eat lunch.  After that, we get ready for another outing.  Mohsin will lead this one.  It's his favorite trail, mysteriously called Transect C.