Finito de 2019

31 Diciembre 2019

For the holidays, Becca and I traveled to Mompiche. The town was very relaxed, largely populated by surfers, which was perfect, and we returned to Jama-Coaque refreshed. The night we arrived, it started raining. My immediate thought was, ‘I guess we’ve leveled up now, the jungle didn’t think what we were doing was hard enough already.’ Impending rains meant some sites would become extraordinarily difficult to get to, so I turned my focus to those.

Day fifteen in the field we set a line in a tree near a river (and encountered a Tayra on the hike out). There was a beautiful tree right along the river. I couldn’t help but think of how alive the area must be, especially at night with all amphibians out and active.

View from below the tree

Since it was a rainy day, we decided to brew tea!

For those who aren’t aware, my aim is not the best. However, I had a good feeling about this tree, so I took the Big Shot and decided to fire the line. Finally! I made the shot on the first try! I did a celebratory dance.

With the tree being alongside a river, we had to yell back and forth in order to communicate, and both of us thought about how helpful walkie-talkies would be. The climb was straightforward. Mostly. Once again, I pulled through some smaller branches and dropped a few feet, but it is no big deal given all the safety protocols we have (Becca and I joke that I’m just too strong for the trees).

During my climb, Bola (AKA the Shaman [he guides people on Ayahuasca journeys]) was hiking down the trail and greeted Becca. He invited the two of us to come over for papaya some time. After the climb, we packed our stuff out further. The trail we embarked on required some clean up because there had been a few tree-falls fairly recently. 

Miles hiked: 4.25

PB&Js eaten: 63

Day sixteen was another unplanned adventure. The point we wanted to place a camera was in the cloud forest a few hundred meters off the Cordillera trail. My initial thought was to follow the contour line to the tree and clear a path along the way. Staying flat should be simple.

Famous last words.

An hour of machete-ing passed with little progress, so I decided to look for other options while Becca continued attempting to make a path. Further up the ridge, I found a property line. Heck yeah! A path to follow! After getting back to Becca, we started moving the packs the way we came, but the path we had been creating turned into a bit of a landslide down the steep face of the mountain. Carefully, we passed the gear across the landslide, and we were mostly successful but the machete we had been using practically grew wings during the swap. It slipped out of our hands and slid far out of our sight.

Following the property-line started simply, but quickly turned into mud skating. We had lost the trail but thought we could make a track in GaiaGPS and just find an acceptable tree.

In the cloud forest, especially so close to the ridge, trees cannot grow very tall because of the danger of wind exposure. Strong winds can knock over tall, emergent trees and because of this, there were no good options for climbing trees. We gave up the search and Becca suggested that we climb up to the ridge. By climb, I mean we were on our hands and knees trying to gain purchase on the mud through fallen branches and vegetation.

At the top, we rediscovered the property line trail! The day ended with us just finding a tree to climb the following day. It was frustrating, but we still managed to end the day smiling and ready to return.

Miles hiked: 4.95

PB&Js eaten: 67

Day seventeen began on a good note – we came across a Coati walking around as we hiked to our tree. Since we had a hiccup the day before, and since Shawn had returned with his family and a car (side note, for those who have not been to JCR being able to get up close to the reserve with a car is a huge deal. A road close to the reserve was completed a week before our project began and we were all shocked by it), we made a goal to get two cameras installed in one day.

The tree in the cloud forest went according to plan. The line went up quickly, the climb went easily, and before we knew it, we were climbing down the trail to head back to the bamboo house.

On the hike down, five Ecuadorian capuchins were hanging out along the trail. Of course, we had to pause and watch them. They watched us back too. In fact, a few capuchins moved closer and started shaking branches at us to scare us off. One even climbed to almost above us and urinated on the trail. Seeing those wild capuchins up so close was unbelievable. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but they ran off the moment I remembered I had a phone on hand.

We still had daylight by the time we returned, so Shawn gave us a ride to one of our other points. Getting a ride almost right up to our point was a luxury.

Daylight was running out, but we were determined to get another tree done. Despite encounters with bullet ants and the loss of light, we managed the final installation.

What a way to end 2019.

Miles hiked: 4.89

Total mileage: 94.99

PB&Js eaten: 71

CAIPs Installed: 14