Rainforest Reflections
I imagine I am not the only husband to experience this but sometimes I am expected to know what my wife Tracy is talking about based on relatively scant information. This morning, for example, shortly after we woke up, she said “I think this is the best thing I’ve ever done”. Now I hoped she was not talking about sleeping in separate beds, which we have been obliged to do in our rainforest accommodation. Maybe she was talking about becoming a successful racehorse owner. After all she had, one might say, ‘encouraged me to be awake’ at four o’clock in the morning to show me the video of Ready to Shine’s latest glorious victory, which had occurred whilst we were asleep. It is a wonder of modern technology that we were able to download and watch a horse race taking place in regional New South Wales whilst staying in a lodge in the Peruvian rainforest, three hours travel from the nearest civilisation. It’s down to Starlink, which is all about satellites, and something to do with Elon Musk.
No, what I believe she actually meant was “this is the best travel experience I’ve ever had”. And I’m not going to argue with that. The last three days have been wonderful. Literally, I mean. Full of wonder.
The decision to spend some time in the rainforest was taken with relatively little forethought. It just seemed like a good idea. The thought process was: we’re going to The Galapagos for Tracy’s birthday, it’s a long way to go so what else can we do whilst we are in South America, how about we go into the Amazonian Rainforest? We briefed Emma, our trusted travel manager, she came up with some options and Tambopata Research Centre looked like the best bet. The Tripadvisor reviews were almost universally effusive, so we booked.
It's called a Research Centre because that’s what it is. They also refer to it as a lodge. The idea is that the lodge accommodates researchers, eco-tourists (like us) and guides. We were assigned our own guide, the fabulous Fernando, who looked after us throughout our stay. The income from the eco-tourists helps fund the research, and the researchers also do educational talks for the benefit of the eco-tourists. It’s a symbiotic relationship, everyone benefits.
One example of the research being undertaken is looking for new species of moths. This involves a large light suspended alongside a white sheet. At night time the researchers look at all of the moths, trying to identify any that might not have previously been documented. They then send a sample for DNA analysis, to see if it is indeed a new species. At first it felt like this was really important work but on reflection I’m not so sure. I mean, the moths won’t care that the homo sapiens have become so developed that they are now trying to map the very life source of every other species on the plant, turning it into combinations of zeros and ones in a giant digital store. I suspect the concept might be beyond them. All the moths want to do is be attracted to the bright lights, mate indiscriminately and flake out. What the homo sapiens would call a week in Vegas. The benefit to the researchers of identifying a new species is that they get to name it. If I had that opportunity, I would hope the moth were a beautiful and joyous one which I would call Heung-Min Son, or colloquially the Sonny Moth. If it were a big ugly one I’d call it Erling Haaland.
Moths were far from being the most interesting species that we saw in the wild. We didn’t see any Jaguars or Pumas, which are there but very rarely seen. We did see six of the seven different types of monkeys including Howling Brown Monkeys, Spider Monkeys and Capuchin Monkeys, the latter being the most intelligent. Ross’s monkey Marcel was a Capuchin. You know, in Friends. We also saw a fantastic array of beautiful birds and butterflies and too many other species to mention.
If you have been looking at the pictures we posted at our Insta account you may wonder how we got so many really good close up shots. These were all taken with either Tracy’s or my iPhone but with the benefit of Fernando’s telescope. Not to mention his ability to line up the phone camera with the tiny orifice on the telescope. Everything we shared was seen by us in the wild, by naked eye and through the telescope.
Fernando was brilliant. The way it worked was that we would walk behind him and he would be scanning for sights and sounds that would help him identify something worth looking at. Every now and again, for no reason evident to us, he would quickly set up the telescope on its tripod, aim it in the direction of the trees and excitedly encourage us to look through the lens. Our reaction was invariably ‘wow, that’s amazing’. Next, he would quickly grab Tracy’s iPhone and take a picture, many of which we later shared with you. His ability to find monkeys, birds, and other creatures was remarkable. Sometimes he would make bird or monkey sounds and on occasions they even replied to him!
Tracy and I do appreciate how privileged and fortunate we are to have the time and resources to experience adventures like this. I do maintain that there’s an element of choice involved though. Plenty of people spend their time and money on extravagant but less life affirming experiences. Like, dare I say it, a week in Vegas?!
Finally, I would like to apologise to any Chileans who might have taken exception to my referring to them as being like Oompa-Loompa’s in my last essay. Tracy thought it was racist, I thought it was a joke. Trying to be vaguely comedic is a minefield these days. Now I’m worried that people who enjoy Vegas think I’ve likened them to moths! It’s not my intention, we like Vegas too. As Mark Twain said…you pays your money and you takes your choice.
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