01-22-2020, 11:42 AM
[Another correction: Earlier I described us going to the Bird Copa (clay lick), admitting I didn't remember the day. I've determined it was this morning (we always made at least three outings a day, and usually four). Oh, and copa should actually be collpa. Let me reconstitute the bird collpa entry here, as it isn't long.
1/2/2019: Part 1 -- Bird Collpa
We get up early, and I'm feeling fine. After breakfast we boat across the river, dock on a clay bank, and walk up and aside through jungle and back down to an overlook of the river. A couple rotting planks serve as bleachers. We sit and watch a reddish clay cliff on the far bank. Scarlet macaws come swooping in to land in the trees around it. Some perch high up and to the sides, serving as lookouts. All are very loud, communication more important than stealth. Eventually one swoops down to land in a shallow recess on the cliff. Others slowly join it. They pick away at the clay. Some mouth a chunk and fly up into a tree, where they use a talon to hold it while picking away at it. There's 50-plus macaws, and they take turns on the collpa, with occasional loud disputes over a landing spot. It is believed that the macaws eat the clay for its toxin-neutralizing properties (like humans eating charcoal to neutralize poison), because their diet includes toxic or caustic substances. Bird collpas are very rare, as it takes a very special kind of clay. Also, they're extremely vulnerable, often in plain sight on a riverbank, hard to protect from poachers. This is one of the biggest bird collpas still around.
Occasionally a sentinel gives an alarm, and some macaws take flight, eventually to circle back. Finally they all take flight, becoming a big flock that heads off, though soon they will break apart, each to go its separate way.
1/2/2019: Part 2 -- The Brazil Nut Trail -- Outward Bound
After lunch, we start getting ready for the Brazil Nut Trail. LCF and I are careful to totally fill our water bottles, though we don't have snacks to take along. Mohsin makes sure everyone is ready for the undertaking. Paula helps out by standing in front of us and miming the whole flight attendant pre-takeoff rigmarole (she used to be a commercial airline pilot for Delta). At last we set off.
Just to recap our group, there's Paula the elite triathlon athlete; the snaker Swedes Olaf and Magnus; Stuart in his blindingly white dress shirt; the deceptively resourceful Indian Saurabh; the young adventurer couple Ian and Mina (also very much snakers); and LCF and me -- all led by Mohsin. JJ does not come along on this long outing.
We're on common trails at first, ones we've traversed before; but eventually we come to a fork where the Brazil Nut Trail branches off. We pause while Paula strips down to running shorts and tank top and changes into her running shoes. It's something Mohsin discussed with her earlier. Paula has been wanting to get in longer runs to maintain her conditioning, so Mohsin suggested she run the Brazil Nut Trail ahead of us. He can carry her change of clothes, and Mina straps her hiking shoes to the back of her backpack using a convenient bungee cord feature.
So off Paula runs, and the rest of us follow at a more moderate pace, on a wending trail that dips and rises by turn but is overall uphill. Like I've said, this is a long hike. Mohsin has instructed Paula to turn back when she reaches a wooden gate structure (two tall posts to either side of the trail). Beyond it is where the rain forest has lots of Brazil nut trees, and he doesn't want her going in there by herself.
Mohsin had called Transect C his favorite trail because of its vegetative density and wildness, but I have to think this trail rivals it. Again, I can't remember what birds, monkeys, insects and animals we see, because after five days it all starts blurring together. Healthwise, I'm holding up fine, though my hands are swelling up. I first noticed this problem on the Transect C trek. It's getting worse on this outing, to the point that I can't fully make fists. Still, I feel fine.
We brought our camera on this hike -- a Nikon D3300 -- but it is turning ever more finicky in these humid conditions. It seems to be fogging up inside, so that the focus forever searches. We do get a few pictures.
A small birdwing butterfly:![[Image: uc?export=view&id=1KYGrIZJgAVvgvgSMANww4cOeD0Mopw7X]](https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KYGrIZJgAVvgvgSMANww4cOeD0Mopw7X)
An iridescent beetle:
![[Image: uc?export=view&id=1v_rhjNe73ka4IfwLf1y2a1XDqQvU7ZMt]](https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1v_rhjNe73ka4IfwLf1y2a1XDqQvU7ZMt)
A small mantis (best of half a dozen photos due to major focus problems in high humidity):
![[Image: uc?export=view&id=1WBoAh3pG-GUJbUNcArkbhrNML0v38C8Q]](https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WBoAh3pG-GUJbUNcArkbhrNML0v38C8Q)
We come to an extended swampy area just off the trail to the left. There are leaf-cutter ants all about, various columns snaking in different directions. I'm fascinated to see how each column features a different kind of leaf, indicative of the tree they are currently harvesting. I get separated from the group while looking at them, and when I finally rejoin them, Saurabh asks what I thought of the big leaf-cutter ant nest. Dammit. I missed seeing it.
We walk onward, and like I said, we see lots of stuff, but it's blurred with the other walks now -- just lots of birds, monkeys, frogs and toads, spiders, butterflies, and buttress-rooted trees everywhere. The canopy is dense, and rarely lets in a ray of unfiltered sunlight.
I notice a watery puddle of poop edging the trail. Others walk by, but I linger, puzzling over it. Mohsin comes back, looks at it, and is equally fascinated. He strongly suspects it is sloth poop. That's the only time they come down to the ground -- to defecate. Anyway, we look up and about, trying to spot a sloth, but there's simply too much vegetation to see up very far.
At one point Ian and Mina hang back and Ian flies his drone up through a rare break in the canopy for some good footage of the rain forest from above. I wish I had known; I'd was wanting to watch that.
We've been trekking almost two hours and are close to the Brazil nut tree area and Mohsin is a bit concerned that Paula hasn't come back yet. Then she appears ahead of us, coming back, and she stops to report in. As it turns out, she never saw two tall posts (the gate) where she was supposed to turn back. As we soon discover, they're gone. Mohsin doesn't know who removed them or why. But Paula ended up running deep into the Brazil nut tree area and only turned back when the trail was blocked by a fallen tree and brush. Mohsin says that the trail further on is nicknamed The Labyrinth and for good reason, as it branches repeatedly and is notorious for getting people lost. Anyway, Paula isn't done running yet, so she slip past us to run down the trail in the direction we came from.
The rain forest is now interspersed with giant Brazil nut trees, and there's a few nuts scattered on the ground near the trail. Mohsin shows us what a good Brazil nut looks like and has us gather a few into piles on the trail, to be picked up on our return. He is tense as we do this, and tells us not to linger. It's dangerous being under a Brazil nut tree. Brazil nuts can weigh up to eight pounds and give no warning when they fall. People have been killed by falling Brazil nuts. We move on, coming upon more Brazil nuts, piling up the best of these at the edge of the trail, ever ushered onward by an uneasy Mohsin.
At one point I'm walking with Mohsin while the others are some distance behind. Hearing Stuart lecturing the others about Brazil nuts, Mohsin smiles and chuckles. "That Stuart, just having a need to be an authority on things." Mohsin isn't nasty about it, just mildly amused, noting a character trait. Days ago I'd overhead Stuart telling about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, except he got the time-frame wrong and mischaracterized the crater as the Gulf of Mexico (there is no visible crater; you have to dig into the sediments on the Yucatan Peninsula and into a small part of Gulf to discover where the 100-mile-diameter crater used to be).
It's always interesting to reflect on what was the most dangerous part of some adventure. For me, that first-day river dip might have been my closest call, when the current surprised me and almost carried me out of the calm shallows into the river proper. Then again, falling off that plank bridge could have been disastrous, considering my bad hips, especially if there had been snags underwater. Now, walking under these Brazil nut trees certainly carries a certain amount of "Russian roulette" risk for all of us.
But little do we suspect that, lying in wait just ahead, is another formidable candidate for closest call.
1/2/2019: Part 1 -- Bird Collpa
We get up early, and I'm feeling fine. After breakfast we boat across the river, dock on a clay bank, and walk up and aside through jungle and back down to an overlook of the river. A couple rotting planks serve as bleachers. We sit and watch a reddish clay cliff on the far bank. Scarlet macaws come swooping in to land in the trees around it. Some perch high up and to the sides, serving as lookouts. All are very loud, communication more important than stealth. Eventually one swoops down to land in a shallow recess on the cliff. Others slowly join it. They pick away at the clay. Some mouth a chunk and fly up into a tree, where they use a talon to hold it while picking away at it. There's 50-plus macaws, and they take turns on the collpa, with occasional loud disputes over a landing spot. It is believed that the macaws eat the clay for its toxin-neutralizing properties (like humans eating charcoal to neutralize poison), because their diet includes toxic or caustic substances. Bird collpas are very rare, as it takes a very special kind of clay. Also, they're extremely vulnerable, often in plain sight on a riverbank, hard to protect from poachers. This is one of the biggest bird collpas still around.
Occasionally a sentinel gives an alarm, and some macaws take flight, eventually to circle back. Finally they all take flight, becoming a big flock that heads off, though soon they will break apart, each to go its separate way.
1/2/2019: Part 2 -- The Brazil Nut Trail -- Outward Bound
After lunch, we start getting ready for the Brazil Nut Trail. LCF and I are careful to totally fill our water bottles, though we don't have snacks to take along. Mohsin makes sure everyone is ready for the undertaking. Paula helps out by standing in front of us and miming the whole flight attendant pre-takeoff rigmarole (she used to be a commercial airline pilot for Delta). At last we set off.
Just to recap our group, there's Paula the elite triathlon athlete; the snaker Swedes Olaf and Magnus; Stuart in his blindingly white dress shirt; the deceptively resourceful Indian Saurabh; the young adventurer couple Ian and Mina (also very much snakers); and LCF and me -- all led by Mohsin. JJ does not come along on this long outing.
We're on common trails at first, ones we've traversed before; but eventually we come to a fork where the Brazil Nut Trail branches off. We pause while Paula strips down to running shorts and tank top and changes into her running shoes. It's something Mohsin discussed with her earlier. Paula has been wanting to get in longer runs to maintain her conditioning, so Mohsin suggested she run the Brazil Nut Trail ahead of us. He can carry her change of clothes, and Mina straps her hiking shoes to the back of her backpack using a convenient bungee cord feature.
So off Paula runs, and the rest of us follow at a more moderate pace, on a wending trail that dips and rises by turn but is overall uphill. Like I've said, this is a long hike. Mohsin has instructed Paula to turn back when she reaches a wooden gate structure (two tall posts to either side of the trail). Beyond it is where the rain forest has lots of Brazil nut trees, and he doesn't want her going in there by herself.
Mohsin had called Transect C his favorite trail because of its vegetative density and wildness, but I have to think this trail rivals it. Again, I can't remember what birds, monkeys, insects and animals we see, because after five days it all starts blurring together. Healthwise, I'm holding up fine, though my hands are swelling up. I first noticed this problem on the Transect C trek. It's getting worse on this outing, to the point that I can't fully make fists. Still, I feel fine.
We brought our camera on this hike -- a Nikon D3300 -- but it is turning ever more finicky in these humid conditions. It seems to be fogging up inside, so that the focus forever searches. We do get a few pictures.
A small birdwing butterfly:
An iridescent beetle:
A small mantis (best of half a dozen photos due to major focus problems in high humidity):
We come to an extended swampy area just off the trail to the left. There are leaf-cutter ants all about, various columns snaking in different directions. I'm fascinated to see how each column features a different kind of leaf, indicative of the tree they are currently harvesting. I get separated from the group while looking at them, and when I finally rejoin them, Saurabh asks what I thought of the big leaf-cutter ant nest. Dammit. I missed seeing it.
We walk onward, and like I said, we see lots of stuff, but it's blurred with the other walks now -- just lots of birds, monkeys, frogs and toads, spiders, butterflies, and buttress-rooted trees everywhere. The canopy is dense, and rarely lets in a ray of unfiltered sunlight.
I notice a watery puddle of poop edging the trail. Others walk by, but I linger, puzzling over it. Mohsin comes back, looks at it, and is equally fascinated. He strongly suspects it is sloth poop. That's the only time they come down to the ground -- to defecate. Anyway, we look up and about, trying to spot a sloth, but there's simply too much vegetation to see up very far.
At one point Ian and Mina hang back and Ian flies his drone up through a rare break in the canopy for some good footage of the rain forest from above. I wish I had known; I'd was wanting to watch that.
We've been trekking almost two hours and are close to the Brazil nut tree area and Mohsin is a bit concerned that Paula hasn't come back yet. Then she appears ahead of us, coming back, and she stops to report in. As it turns out, she never saw two tall posts (the gate) where she was supposed to turn back. As we soon discover, they're gone. Mohsin doesn't know who removed them or why. But Paula ended up running deep into the Brazil nut tree area and only turned back when the trail was blocked by a fallen tree and brush. Mohsin says that the trail further on is nicknamed The Labyrinth and for good reason, as it branches repeatedly and is notorious for getting people lost. Anyway, Paula isn't done running yet, so she slip past us to run down the trail in the direction we came from.
The rain forest is now interspersed with giant Brazil nut trees, and there's a few nuts scattered on the ground near the trail. Mohsin shows us what a good Brazil nut looks like and has us gather a few into piles on the trail, to be picked up on our return. He is tense as we do this, and tells us not to linger. It's dangerous being under a Brazil nut tree. Brazil nuts can weigh up to eight pounds and give no warning when they fall. People have been killed by falling Brazil nuts. We move on, coming upon more Brazil nuts, piling up the best of these at the edge of the trail, ever ushered onward by an uneasy Mohsin.
At one point I'm walking with Mohsin while the others are some distance behind. Hearing Stuart lecturing the others about Brazil nuts, Mohsin smiles and chuckles. "That Stuart, just having a need to be an authority on things." Mohsin isn't nasty about it, just mildly amused, noting a character trait. Days ago I'd overhead Stuart telling about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, except he got the time-frame wrong and mischaracterized the crater as the Gulf of Mexico (there is no visible crater; you have to dig into the sediments on the Yucatan Peninsula and into a small part of Gulf to discover where the 100-mile-diameter crater used to be).
It's always interesting to reflect on what was the most dangerous part of some adventure. For me, that first-day river dip might have been my closest call, when the current surprised me and almost carried me out of the calm shallows into the river proper. Then again, falling off that plank bridge could have been disastrous, considering my bad hips, especially if there had been snags underwater. Now, walking under these Brazil nut trees certainly carries a certain amount of "Russian roulette" risk for all of us.
But little do we suspect that, lying in wait just ahead, is another formidable candidate for closest call.