How a coati saved my life

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday we got back from our excursion to the Oriente, and it was absolutely amazing! We were at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, which is run by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. TBS is in a very remote part of the Oriente, there were no people around us except for a few indigenous villages across the river. To get to TBS we had to take a half hour flight from Quito to a city called Coca, then a 5 minute bus ride to a hotel, then a 1.5 hour boat ride, then a 1.5 hour bus ride, and finally another 2.5 hour boat ride before we actually got to the station. Most of the Oriente is parceled up into blocks, each of which is controlled by a separate oil company. To to TBS we had to go through Block 16, which is controlled by Repsol, a Spanish oil company. We had to pass through their checkpoint to get on the bus to take us to our second boat, and they put our bags through an x-ray machine and made us walk through a metal detector. It was very official and a little nerve wracking, but we all made it through okay.

For the first four mornings that we were at TBS we were split into four groups, and each group did one of four activities. The morning activities were going up into a canopy tower, going on a suspended bridge, taking a boat down the river, and doing a hike. For each activity we had an indigenous guide (most of them were Quichua) which was awesome because they all knew so much about the plants and animals in the rainforest. The activities were all really fun, and we saw some really cool stuff. The only downside was that we had to start at 5:30 am, because starting later would mean a ton of bugs at the tower and bridge, and more heat and humidity. Once we got back from whatever we were doing we would have breakfast, and then the rest of our day would be filled with lectures, field exercises, and other activities. We had lunch at noon, and then usually a break until 2 or 2:30 where we could play cards in the air-conditioned lab, go swimming in the river, or anything else we felt like doing. After the break we would have more activities until 5, lectures from 5:30 to 7, dinner at 7, and then more lectures or activities until 9. It was a very grueling schedule, but we packed a lot of really cool stuff into 6 days.

Here are some highlights from the week:

On Tuesday we had a "drop off" where we spent about two and a half hours by ourselves in a designated spot along one of the trails. A guide dropped us off and picked us up, and it was a time for us to make our own observations about the forest and stuff like that. While my group was walking along the trail behind our guide, Don Meyer, we came to a bridge that was basically just two wooden planks. Don Meyer stopped to point something out to us, and seven of us were standing on the bridge when he stopped. All of a sudden we heard a crack, and then the bridge broke! We all slid down into the little creek below us, and thankfully the worst injuries sustained were scrapes. It was pretty funny though, and afterward someone decided that we were all on "The Ultimate Drop Off."

On Friday after our morning activities we split up into "interest groups" and hiked to different places to see/learn about different things. One group went to a bird lek (a communal mating ground), another group went to see tent-making bats, another group learned about ethnobotany, and my group went to a saladero (salt lick). My group consisted of me, three of my friends, and our guide Ramiro. As we were walking along the path Ramiro stopped all of a sudden and pointed into the forest, where we could all see a small reddish animal that looked kind of like a fox. It was really close to us, but didn't notice us until it got to the path so we all got to see it really well. After it ran away Ramiro told us that it was a coati, which are pretty rare to see. About 15 seconds later we heard a huge crash ahead of us and saw the top of a tree falling down on the path. Ramiro gave us all high fives and told us that if we hadn't stopped to watch the coati, we would've been directly underneath the tree when it fell. So basically the coati saved all of our lives, and we all decided that it was Ramiro's spirit animal keeping us safe in the forest.

After dinner on Friday we went for a night hike (with guides and flashlights) and got to see a lot of cool things that aren't out during the day. We saw a lot of walking sticks, lizards, insects, and even a group of nocturnal monkeys! I think my group was the only one to see the nocturnal monkeys, which was pretty cool.

Saturday was our designated insect day, so we spent the morning running around and catching different insects. I definitely was not excited at first, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. My group caught some really cool bugs, and we saw a lot of interesting things that we normally wouldn't have noticed.

On Sunday we had a "free day" where we got to sign up to go on all day hikes or follow one of the two monkey researchers around for the day. I ended up following Dan, one of the researchers, around for the day with four other students. Dan studies dusky titi monkeys, and is working on a project about monogamy. In the morning we followed a group of half habituated titis around, which meant we were basically clambering around in the forest trying to find the monkeys. In the afternoon we went to a habituated group that had a new baby that wasn't even a week old! It was so incredible to see the difference between the two groups, the habituated group didn't care at all that we were there and let us get pretty close to them. It was a really really fun day, and it was really cool to get to see what kind of research they do at the station.

Even though the heat and humidity were at times unbearable, the trip was absolutely incredible, and it was definitely one of the best weeks of my life. It was amazing to be in a forest that was so completely undisturbed by humans, and we got to see a lot of things that most people don't. It was also really cool to be in a place with so many types of monkeys (there are 8 species at TBS, I saw all but one) that live practically in your backyard. It was really sad to leave yesterday, but I'm really glad that I got to see everything and experience everything that I did there.

I put some new pictures up on my photobucket account, so check them out if you get a chance!

http://s934.photobucket.com/albums/ad189/cbarr520/Ecuador/?albumview=grid

Hasta luego,
Caroline