Rain and rivers

Explorer's Inn in the rainy season.

Yep, it's raining. Quite a lot actually. Tell me you can hear the thunder!

Entry in journal: 16th February 2007

February. The rainy season is finally upon us. There was one heavy shower in January; 140 mm in our rain gauge. Today is the second day of really heavy rain this week. Yesterday I left at 7 am to try and hitch a lift into town on a boat. I went with Vanessa, the manager, to the INRENA checkpoint. Here all the boats which go up and down river have to stop and register. INRENA is a bit like the National Parks Authority, but with more reach, given that half the country is rainforest. They issue permits for and restrict activities such as gold mining, and monitor the number of tourists and the activities of researchers in the area. The guys that work at the checkpoint are really nice. There’s a guy and a girl who came over to play football with the lodge and community on Sunday. We waited at the checkpoint for 2 hours but only one boat came and it had no space.

Then the constant rain turned into a torrential downpour. After half an hour more it was clear that the rain was going to last for some time and that no boats were going to venture out in this weather – it would be dangerous. Few of the boats have full roofs, most are at least partially, if not fully, exposed to the elements. You’d spend more time bailing out the water than going anywhere! We headed back to the boat from our lodge which had brought us to the checkpoint and then the guys had waited with us (this is the advantage of going with the manager!). We got soaked in the 30 second dash to the boat and then utterly soaked going the two hundred metres from the boat to the lodge!

Rainy river. No boats are going out in this!

It feels like it’s been raining for well over a week with one sunny day to break the monotony and to allow us to do our washing. If it’s not sunny it can take days to dry in the 100% humidity!

When it rains here, it really rains. The rain is fat, heavy and falls straight down very fast (presumably to make way for the millions of drops following immediately behind). The pathways around the lodge become lakes and the pathways in the forest, streams. Last time it rained so much, Gino and I went frog-hunting.



Frog-hunting

The frogs like to come out and shout for mates when it’s raining. We didn’t even make it the 10 metres to the forest before we heard them. A small pond had developed behind the Bungalows (it was just grass the day before) and the sound the frogs were making around here was almost deafening! Despite being able to hear them from every direction, we spent ages and ages looking for them, quite unsuccessfully. I think they were hiding high up in the trees (they’re not called “tree frogs” for nothing). That or they spotted us coming and hid. As soon as we gave up and started walking into the forest we spotted some. The trail was, as described, more a stream than a pathway and there we saw a tiny frog swimming. No! Two tiny frogs - their calling had obviously been productive as they were busy mating. I don’t think mating and swimming at the same time is very easy, even if you are a frog!


Mating frogs. We helped them to a bit of dry land and they seemed to find it easier after that!


As we walked we investigated new wet areas of forest near the path. This was an excellent time to look for frog hot-spots as we could hear them calling. Normally we have to walk about 2 km to the swamp to find frogs, so it’d be nice to find somewhere a bit closer to the lodge. We tried two areas with no luck – we could hear them but not see them. Then we arrived at a new “swamp” – our destination. I had spotted this before as a wet area near the path (and only a few hundred metres from the lodge), but hadn’t heard frogs. Gino and I came at a much better time! The “swamp” was a wet area, but with firm ground below, unlike the other swamp where the ground was really boggy and deceptively deep in places. The water was quite high but it was possible to walk carefully without it going over the tops of our wellies.

Gino investigating another wet area. Who cares if you get wet feet!?

The noise here was again completely deafening and... what a reward! There were literally hundreds of frogs here! It was still daylight and we could see tens upon tens of them hiding in each tree. As we approached, they would climb higher or jump into the water to escape us. Perhaps explaining why we hadn’t seen frogs in the other places. It was amazing! Easily the most frogs I’ve even seen in one place! They were mostly small yellow tree frogs – Hyla species. Everywhere I looked I could see a frog, hiding behind a leaf, climbing upwards. This was magical! I found myself thinking of my friend Lera Miles who spent much time studying the Amazon rainforest. She loves tree frogs and now I understand why. I wish she could see this!

Yellow treefrogs. There are at least 5 in this photo!!

We had a good wander around and found frogs everywhere! It was hard to get close to them though, as they could see us coming. We decided to return at night when either they are more inclined to be still, or the light of our torches holds them momentarily transfixed.

Little yellow treefrog hiding!

The only thing to watch out for in the swamp is the tangarana trees. Each tree is jealously guarded by a nest of ants who will attack anyone who comes too near. I got a little bite on my neck just to remind me that they were there. It could have been much worse. There were some frogologists staying at the lodge a day or two after we found this amazing frog-spot. We told them about it, but we didn’t know that they were going to kill the frogs and take specimens. I like to think of it as Karma, but the main researcher got most of a tree full of tangarana ants fall upon her, and the students didn’t do so well either. Yes, it could have been worse.

16th Feb cont. River travel

Today I have been all the way from the lodge to Puerto Maldonado boat!! It has rained almost continuously for 2 days and the river is very high, so the journey is relatively fast. It took just over 2 hours this morning going downstream with the current. However, the rain storms have brought down many trees – probably where the river bank has eroded – and we have to be very careful. If one log hits the prop, it can break the (already fragile) engine, and potentially capsize the boat!

Entire and enormous trees floating downstream

I like travelling on the river. For one thing, it’s the only time I’m ever cool. The other day I got wet from the rain spraying in, and in the wind that is the boat moving I actually felt cold! Cold enough to wear a jumper! For another thing, I love the motion of the boat, even when there aren’t waves. But most of all, because there’s the combination of water, sky, and forest. My three favourite environments combined. The forest along the riverbanks, like the sky and the river, is constant but ever-changing.

The forest changes as you travel the river, and you can spot other things too. The trees may be dense and shrubby in one place and open and tall in another. There are sections of caña brava (“strong cane”, like bamboo), sections of shrubby trees with bright-coloured flowers, and, when the river is high, sections where only the crowns of the trees are visible above the water. Sometimes we pass farms. These are evident as the trees have been cut and the forest is less dense. Sometimes banana trees can be seen, and sometimes it’ll be a lower-growing crop obscured by the riparian vegetation that remains at the riverside.

We often pass homesteads. Sometimes all that can be seen are steps cut into the sides of the riverbank. Sometimes the palmiche-thatched roofs are visible. Occasionally there are families at the river bank loading boats with fruits or doing their washing in the river. Most of the time they wave back at me.

The boats on the river vary a lot too. There’s our boat which is medium-sized and has a bench running along either side to sit on. There’s a flat roof above to keep off the sun or protect us (a bit) from the rain, depending on the weather. It has a fairly good, albeit old, outboard motor, and there are life jackets for us and the tourists.

One of the Explorer's Inn boats

If we’re in the middle of the boat scale, at one of the extremes is the canoe such as that used by the people in the chakra (small-holding) opposite our lodge. This is a small flat boat which may look like little more than a hollowed-out tree but is in fact well-designed and constructed of planking. It’s sides are fairly low to the water and it may or may not have a plank seat at one end. It is powered by either a pole (and I’ve seen the grandmother from the chakra cross the river on her own this way!), or by a paddle. It looks like it could hold 2 or 3 people, but I have no doubt that the entire family and all their produce probably travel in them.

The canoe belonging to the family in the chacra (small holding) across the river. It's REALLY hard going against the current!

The far opposite end of the scale is the ultra-fast boat of the TPL lodge. Whilst it may be fast and comparatively comfortable, it leaves a huge wake which severely rocks all the other boats on the river and causes large waves to wash along the entire length of the riverbank, causing who-knows-what erosion.

In between the man-powered canoe and the high-powered boats, there are several other boats that deserve a mention. Firstly is the Tiberande (the “shark”), the slow but sure local river taxi that transports people, packages, pets and livestock up and down the river twice a week. Then there are the big wide boats of the gold miners. Loud and very slow, these are more like mobile houses – a square upright box on a boat. Covered in blue plastic (don’t ask me why, but it’s almost always bright blue). Sometimes they are set up at the edge of the river, sucking up the mud from the bottom and conveying it along a platform. I’m not sure how the gold is extracted, except that mercury is used to bind the gold particles together and inevitably some of this ends up back in the river. This has the potential to be a huge health problem, particularly as it bioacumulates in fish which are then eaten by the local people, who also, like us, drink the river water. We at least boil and treat it first, but I’ve seen people scoop it out the river and drink it with no ill-effects, despite the brown colour and rich texture.

Gold miner's boat or is it a house...?

Finally, in the boat-categories is the peki-peki, so named because of the sound the engine makes peki-peki-peki-peki. The engine is something like that of a lawnmower (possibly a car), which is connected to a long stick with the prop at the end. This can be lifted entirely out of the water if necessary to avoid debris. These boats are also fairly loud. They are often uncovered boats, somewhat larger than the canoes. I often saw them laden with goods, covered with tarpaulin. Sometimes they do have a roof. Sometimes there are entire families on board too!

Peki-peki being loaded up with fruits for the market

The Rise of the Rio La Torre
The day after writing this, the La Torre, a small tributary to the Tambopata, adjacent to our lodge, became the most destructive force I’ve seen in my life! To read more, or at least see the pics, you can visit:

http://riolatorre.blogspot.com/ "The torrent of La Torre"

This was sort of wrtiten to persuade the lodge owner to respond to the emergency, but it's probably of interest to all. I ought really to update it...