Sneakin’ sneakin’…?!

Written 24th May 2007
24th February

In February, at the end of my stay in Explorer’s Inn, I decided to spend a few days in the jungle doing those things that I really wanted to do before I left.

A few days before this story starts, I had discovered several well-maintained but completely unmapped trails. Despite the occasional treefall or scramble they seemed quite passable. Unlike the other trails and the mammal transects, these have no markings at regular intervals to show the way. I think they were kept by someone who knows the forest well. Someone who can travel off the marked trails. Someone who knows the forest like the back of their hand. Someone, in fact, like Elisban. Elisban has grown up here. The land belonged to his family before Max Gunther bought it. He knows the trees, medicinal plants and how to track and call animals.

I’d also previously noticed a large trail heading off the main trail about 1 km before Cocococha Lake. I wanted to explore this “secret trail”. It was intriguing. The other RNs offered no suggestions as to where it might go. The only option, then, was to explore!

I roped a guide, Richard, who had a few free days, into coming with me. We set off after breakfast, a late 8am start. We took a nice boxed lunch from the kitchen and plenty of water. After 4 km we encountered the ‘secret path’.
“Oh yeah”, said Richard “it goes to another lodge but we don’t maintain it because they bring their tourists here to our lake and this causes problems, especially if they take the boats out and they aren’t there when we arrive with our tourists!” Well that was disappointing! What’s the point of walking a secret trail to see where it goes if you already know the answer?!! Fortunately, there was solution.
“I thought you meant the other trail”
“Indeed? Err... what other secret trail?” Aha! There was another, much less obvious trail and along this I set off with renewed enthusiasm.

It was much more interesting forest walking than the muddy main trail we’d been trekking along. Narrow and windy, but reasonably good going underfoot. There was the occasional scramble over a fallen tree which was kind of fun. OK, I admit it, it was proper adventuring in the jungle - like wandering in the woods at home, only more so. I was enjoying every minute! The muddy slides down a river bank and the breathless scrambles up the other side. Spotting strange fungi or searching for a calling bird.

But what about getting lost, you say? Well, there’s only one path and it’s fairly clear. Following it back shouldn’t be too hard. Plus I’m with a guide, albeit a slightly crazy one. We can’t get as lost as that daft tourist we all spent hours searching for not long ago. Just in case, though, I have my torch!

The path continued unmarked but fairly clear until we came to a fork. Straight on – we think it’s heading toward Cocococha Lake and the path is better used – or left, possibly heading towards another local community (I’d heard party music in the distance one night when we were sleeping at the hide in Cocococha).

Left it is then. Down, down, down to a little stream, then up, up the other side. At the top I was rewarded by the sight of some pretty leaves. Some insect had tunnelled just below the surface of the leaves leaving a very beautiful pattern. It had obviously been busy as a lot of the leaves on the ground were marked in this way.

Pretty leaves

“Come on, we left late, you can’t take too many photos!” Richard was urging me on. I do have a tendency to see something photo-worthy every other minute.

The trail became ever more faint and windy. It was also starting to branch. A long, thoughtful look behind us, and I decided we could easily miss the path back. A couple of fallen branches across the wrong path should help indicate the right way. Another fork a little later and I did the same thing. Richard seemed fairly confident. These pathways were obviously used by the local community. Probably to collect castañas, if the large piles of empty outer shells we come across with unmistakable directness and frequency are anything to go by.

Ten minutes later and I´m still not convinced. There was a whole network of paths and while they clearly lead to castaña trees, any other pattern or direction was hard to discern.
“Let’s go back” I said “and try the other path, because I reckon we’re going to get lost here. Look, which is the path we came by? Not too sure? Then we’re going back while we still remember, otherwise after half an hour of this, we really won’t remember all the twists and turns”.

We do manage to find our way back with only a little hesitation and I’m glad that we turned back when we did. There was also some fear that we would run into local hunters or castaña nut collectors from the community. As neither group of us was really supposed to be here, there may be problems, who knows? I’m sure we heard gunshots by the lake the other day. Not so long ago, white people were disappearing in the jungle – only their hats and boots left neatly in the middle of the path gave any indication of their fate!

So, a new path to follow. To the lake? It does indeed seems to circle the lake. We are walking fairly high up and there seems to be a lower, more open space down to our right, where I imagine the lake to be. Perhaps somewhere here is Elisban’s path to the nesting Agami herons? We do come across a path that leads downwards. We start along it but there’s no sign of water near. Time is pressing us on – it’s already 1 pm. The other path is calling us onwards and we head back to (I think) circle the lake.

It’s hard to see any signs of water, although a thinning in the trees to our right suggests that the lake is down there somewhere, or perhaps it is just lower ground. After a while, though, I have to agree that we’re heading away from the lake, however close we might have been.

This highlights the problem of walking in the jungle. Navigation is extremely difficult. You can see about three or four trees away at most to either side (about 10 metres), and the canopy is above you. It feels like you’re walking along a straight path, but the twists and bends are deceiving. I mapped a section of trail with Javier, a researcher from Cusco who works with my former colleagues in Leeds. The final map looked nothing like the sketch I’d drawn! What can you navigate by? The shape of that bush? The way that liana hangs? It’s not easy. Takes practise, I reckon.

Sometimes there’s a noticeable change in the scenery, like a swamp for example. Someone has laid narrow tree trunks along the way in this swamp to form a kind of path. They are partly submerged, and almost as wide as is my foot. Richard cunningly cuts some bamboo poles to use as holding posts. He jabs one into the murky water in the middle of the first section of tree trunk. It is quite stable and provides a welcome hand hold. I’m given my own to hold. I use my pole to probe the water and to balance. The logs we’re walking on have a distinct tendency to move underfoot, rolling around or sinking at the ends. Thanks to Richard’s ingenuity, we make it across about 6 log paths without getting too wet. I jam my pole into the ground on the last stretch, either for when we return or for the next adventurers to pass this way.

Anyway, we’ve been walking along and the trail is becoming more obscure. Richard is using the machete to hack a path through fallen vegetation and fast growing saplings that are threatening to regain the path. Suddenly, I smell something from my childhood. Strong, striking and highly reminiscent of being small. What is it? I remember: The old tin of Germolene™ ointment (you can’t buy ointment like this anymore, but my mum still has the tin in the first aid box, at least 25 years later!). Germolene?! Huh? I don’t reckon anyone’s left a tin of it lying around here. I don’t reckon anyone else in the world still has any! I start sniffing the recently cut trees looking for the culprit... I find it! It is indeed a tree and Germolene is exactly what it smells like. It has to have antiseptic properties, surely? Elisban is the man to ask. I take a photo of the bark, and Richard bends the tree down for me so I can take a picture of the leaves. Unfortunately, it snaps in the process – it was quite deeply cut with the machete. Well, now I can take it back to Elisban and also use it as a pole to re-cross that swamp. Any hopes I had of a round walk have long since been forgotten.

Germolene-smelling tree: bark

Germolene-smelling tree: leaves

Some of the trees we’ve seen have had white plastic tape on them. Strange, as we don’t use this for our markers. The mammal transects are marked with red tape and the lodge trails with plastic poles every 100 metres or so, declaring the distance. These white markers are becoming more frequent. Occasionally, I spot numbers and letters; F3. Odd. Then there’s a whole patch of tree with numbers, B3, B4, B5 etcetera. It must be research and clearly not trail markers as I first thought. But who is researching out here? We must be eight or nine kilometres from the lodge, maybe more.

Suddenly, we turn the corner and our narrow trail ends at a T junction with another much wider, clearer trail.
“Aha”! Says Richard, “as I thought – these are the pathways of another lodge - Pasada Amazonas.” How exciting! I’ve wondered what the other lodges are like. “We should go and say hello” he adds. I agree, but first we should eat lunch. The trail to the “viewpoint” looks promising...

We ate our lunch sitting on a nice bench looking out over the river Tambopata. On the other side of the river, there are some nice examples of the caña brava close to the water and small trees further away, but really, this viewpoint isn’t as impressive as that at our Sunset Point. Sunset Point is situated at a curve in the river Tambopata, and near where the smaller tributary, Rio La Torre, joins the main river. You can see a good way in either direction along the main river, and the enjoining river makes pretty patterns with the water. I like our viewpoint better. But this one is an excellent spot for lunch. Lunch was good, really good. It’s 2:45 pm and I was pretty darn hungry!

Viewpoint across the river at other lodge.

View from Sunset Point

After eating, we make our way back along the new trails towards the lodge. It was interesting to see what it’s like somewhere else. I particularly like their trail signs marking the way at each junction. They are made of wood and shaped into the animal that lends its name to the trail; Tapir or Peccary, for example. They are much nice than our painted squares stating the trail starts. Then there’s a sign that says “Canopy Tower”. Hmmmm... that sounds cool!!

Richard suggests that we’ll probably have to pay to go up the tower. Well, at least, I’ll have to pay. This could be a problem. Why on earth would I be carrying money in the jungle? It’s one of the joys of living here. The trees don’t charge me to walk past and the monkeys only ever want bananas in exchange for watching them. Anyway, it’s late and if we talk to the people in the lodge, it’ll take at least thirty minutes and by then it’ll be getting dark. It would be interesting to at least look at the tower. I’ve never seen one before... We exchange glances and grin. Let’s head for the tower then!

It’s a long a nicely maintained gravelled pathway that makes the mud-bath that our main trail has become in the rainy season and with forty students tramping up and down it every day, look pretty poor. Soon we find the tower. It’s a huge metal staircase. Thick cables extend outwards into the forest, keeping it in place. There’s no one there and it’s open....

Sneakin’...

Oh, how could we not go up!

We climb the stairs carefully. The metal rings with each footstep and we try to go as quietly as possible. With every level, the view is amazing. I am so close to the leaves and branches of the lower stories of the forest. The sign at the bottom proclaims it to be 124 feet high. That’s a lot of steps.

The view at the top is...stunning! My breath is completely taken away. For almost four months I’ve lived in the forest, walked in the forest, seen a hundred thousand trees, but always from the bottom looking up. Now I stand on a gently trembling tower looking down on these might trees. It’s incredible! Just there is a huge castaña tree – one of the giants of the forest. I can see the castña nuts hanging on a branch below me!

Castaña below me (circled in red)

Macaws! Flying past us, above the treetops. One settles in the tree and we look down on it.

As far as I can see stretches a green, green sea of treetops – palms, cecropias and a hundred, hundred others. The Rio Tambopata snakes through them. It is the only opening in this ocean of trees. Trees, the river and the sky above. This is a paradise!

Rio Tambopata

Green forest as far as I can see

At the top of the tower

Trees below me

Voices! Someone’s coming! It’s going to look pretty bad if they find us at the top of their tower. Bad for Explorer’s Inn, Bad for Richard in his job as guide, bad for the RN program. But there’s only one way down...

Sneakin’ sneaking’....
Quick! Quick!! Quiet!!! Shhh! Faster! But they are coming!! I see them through the trees. Oh but if they look up now...! No time. Faster, faster! We circle down and down the tower as silently as possible. Each step sounds like a bell! It’s going to look bad if they find us coming down their tower! What are we going to say?! I hear the crackle of a CB radio. What if they’ve already seen us?! What if someone’s spotted us at the top of the tower and they are coming for us? They are nearly here.... but we are at the bottom!! There’s one other path leading away from the clearing. We make it about 6 metres down the path and duck behind a tree to wait. My heart is racing. At this moment we hear two people start to climb the tower. Peruvians, people who work in the lodge. They are talking about... nothing really. Not us! They don’t know we’re here! We’ve escaped, for now. But we need to take the path back past the bottom of the tower to head back to our own lodge. Fortunately we have binoculars and can check what they are doing. It looks like they might be up the tower for a while and it’s hard to see the ground from the top...

Sneakin’ sneakin’ sneakin’
Past we go... From the top of the tower you can see bits of the path leading up to the tower... if you’re looking. Quietly does it. CB radio!! We freeze. Have they seen us? Binoculars out to scope the tower. No! They’re still at the top and looking the other way. With a sigh of relief, we carry on. We find a shortcut back to the trail we first encountered and head back home.

It’s about 10 km back and it’s now 3:30 pm. It will be dark by the time we get there. Good job I bought the torch, then. I’m kind of tired and it’s a long walk, but who cares?! I’ve seen the rainforest from above and I will never, ever forget it. And sneakin’ was kind of fun too. It makes me smile at all the tough places on the way back to the lodge. ... hee hee... we snuck in... hee hee, we saw the rainforest and the river... hee hee... we escaped from the tower!!