Tambopata, Explorer’s Inn…………Back to Maldonado

Explorer's Inn

So, permits obtained we were then on the EI bus up the dusty road to the Infierno Community where we caught the boat up to Explorer’s Inn (EI). It’s about an hour’s trip upriver from there. I’d been here a year ago and nothing had changed apart from one of the pet macaws had been eaten by an ocelot. Big changes for the lodge are in the pipeline though. Watch this space.

Explorer’s Inn Amazon Lodge and Research Station lies in the 240, 690 hectare Tambopata National Reserve, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world. It was here that world records in bird, butterfly and dragonfly diversity have been set and remains the best lodge on the river for wildlife sightings. It was the first ecotourism lodge to be built in the region and is the only one situated fully within the boundary of the reserve.

Boat on the Tambopata river

Jaguar watching the world go by...

Doing the plots!

We set to work doing some tree surveying using Gentry Plots. At regular interval down Main Trail we stretched 50 metres of rope out into the forest from each side of the trail (100m in total) to ID and measure trees and shoots. The aim of this is to eventually work out where there are the most fruiting trees thereby creating a possible link to the number of mammal species found there. This was pretty hard work as it meant physically pushing ourselves through the thick undergrowth. Throughout this process, all or some of us got scratched, spiked by spiky Walking Palms, showered in ants, chased by angry bees and generally got very hot and smelly.

Waking up in the morning at EI is always special. Deep in the forest you tend to live by the sun. So it’s early to bed soon after dinner and up with the lark. In this case it’s not a lark but a chorus of amazing and exotic birds that pull you out of dreamland. After a sultry night of frogs and cicadas it’s the Red Howler monkeys whose eerie roar booms across the forest that first rouses you. If they are close then it’s really loud! It’s a most unmonkey-like sound and most people are baffled by it at first. Perhaps joining in next is the rising and falling of the Dusky Titi monkeys call from somewhere hidden in the forest. The most distinctive bird call has to be of the Thrush-like Wrens. It’s a rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat! In a tall, thin palm just outside the bungalows lives a colony of caciques which also join in with their rattling chorus. Also, the oropendula with a call that can only be described as the sound made by a pebble being dropped into water is like nothing you’ve ever heard from a bird. (Try googling some of these). The occasional shrill cry of a macaw flying overhead or a flock of speeding dusky-headed parakeets completes the whole picture and it’s repeated every morning. You’ll never forget it!

Red and green macaw

After several days of ‘plotting’, welcome showers, chats with tourists and the odd Pisco Sour it was time to go upriver to the Baltimore community to meet Victor again and to see if there was anything FFT could do up there. After an hour and a half we arrived at El Gato (the cat) where Victor’s chakra (farm) was. The main part of the community was on the other side of the river which we would visit later. El Gato consists of the chakra where banana, papaya and oranges grow. Several wooden building which would be used as sleeping quarters for volunteers, A communal comedor (eating area), kitchen, a river, hammocks, an extensive area of forest, a friendly cat and a pet chestnut-fronted macaw.  There is a network of trails through the forest, which lead to fishing areas and a hide where you can view a small collpa (parrot clay lick) from early in the morning.  Parrots need to eat clay as part of their diet. It’s thought that the clay helps to detoxify the accumulation of poisons in their diet of seeds.  They come down to the river bank in large numbers to hang on to the vertical surface and nibble away at the clay.

Parrots at the collpa

We spent the day in discussions with Victor, walking the trails, being fed delicious local food by his mum and swimming in the river. There was certainly plenty that volunteers could do there, from building a new bird hide to making informative signs on the trails amongst other things. At night we settled down into our beds under mosquito nets and slept to the sound of EL Gato river rushing by.

The following day before we left, we paid a visit to the main part of the community across the river. Baltimore has an unusual resident in the shape of Robin, an American who moved there when he was about sixteen. He apparently came to visit and liked it so much he decided to stay! He has his little house there and chakra and is involved in reforestation projects. Unfortunately that day he was out so we weren’t able to meet him. Instead we were guided by the town’s shaman.  (Shamans treat ailments and illness by mending the soul. They are said to enter supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community; operating primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment). (Wikipedia). This shaman was a very friendly, little bloke with a fondness for waving his arms about.

There was a well set up medical centre, many houses, a football pitch and a couple of communal buildings. One of these building needed a new ceiling which is a definite job  FFT volunteers could do. You can see my photos of our visit by going to: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/109904179711235572664/BaltimoreRecce?authkey=Gv1sRgCOH70rnn9q24xQE&feat=email

Back at EI we discussed things with Chris and it was decided that we needed to get back to PEM for a few days to catch up with some marketing work, this blog and many other administrative tasks. EI does have Internet but the window of opportunity to use it is small due to electricity demand (generator only used infrequently) and the number to people needing to use it. This will all change soon though as we are getting proper WiFi installed next month! Hooray!

FFT HQ back garden (work in progress)

So back in PEM with its 24/7 drone of moto taxis, the squeaky horn of the occasional ice cream vendor, the barking dogs and the crowing cockerels it’s back to ‘civilisation’ (and pizza). One interesting thing we had to do was to collect sackloads of castaña (Brazil nut) shells. The guys had cleared the weeds from the FFT house back garden and we now needed something to cover the rocky earth with. You can get as many castaña shells as you want, free from the place where they actually shell them. It’s big business here. A Brazil nut concession can yield a huge amount of nuts every year. The trees are huge and the nuts themselves come in canon ball size outer casings which fall from the tree with an almighty thud. Only one animal, the rabbit-sized agouti has strong enough teeth to crack them open. It buries the nuts like a squirrel and in so doing is hugely instrumental in the trees’ dispersal. In PEM, in the nut shelling factory, they do it another way. From dawn to dusk, the employees of this particular nut-shelling ‘factory’, shell each nut individually using a hand-operated nutcracker. It can’t be the most inspiring work and risking crushing your finger every second of the day must be pretty bad. We are going to bring tourists here so they can see the work that goes into providing those nuts we all hand out at Christmas…

Shelling the Brazil nuts

Brazil nut shelling 'factory'