(no subject)
There’s just not much that feels better for your body than waking up at 5:30, eating some breakfast outside, surrounded by sights and sounds of the Amazon, and then going on a 5-6 kilometer hike until your legs are on fire. Crossing streams on logs high up above them, and trying to track wild boar by their sent (which is awful, by the way) are certainly new experiences to me! And there’s not much that makes you feel more savage than literally running off the trail in hot pursuit of the monkeys that are swinging around in the trees above you, throwing berries at you the entire time. And the whole not showering and bathing in your own sweat thing really helps with the feeling “savage” part of the trip.
Well that’s just a bit of how I spent my weekend…
So the past 5 days or so have been Carnival Vacation here in Ecuador, which is basically the big celebration leading up to Fat Tuesday, Lent, all that fun religious stuff (yes, the same Carnival that everyone goes to Brazil for). This means time off from school, and for me and all the rest of the BU kids it meant a trip to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, located in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, along the Tiputini River, and surrounded by protected rainforests that contain jaguars, wild boars, armadillos, over 100 species of bats, toucans, birds that sound like crying babies (called “cara caras”), pumas, giant anteaters, at least 10 species of monkeys, anacondas (along with lots of other snakes), tons of frogs, and a variety of plants that can be used from everything from inducing heart attacks, easing the pain of cancer, to causing infertility (natural contraceptives!) It was absolutely amazing, and I really could have spent at least a month there. It’s basically a conservationist’s heaven, and that the land is protected and cannot be touched by the highly unpopular American petroleum companies that are encroaching on native people’s lands all around the rainforest, makes me feel good, gives me a little hope. It was also (and I think still is?) partially funded by BU back when it got started, and I think that’s the best reason I can imagine to have any school pride at all.
I won’t get into the list of things I saw, but it’s huge, and I must say, as ridiculous as this may sound, my experience at Tiputini was one of the best of my very short life thus far. I just wish it could have been longer.
Well that’s just a bit of how I spent my weekend…
So the past 5 days or so have been Carnival Vacation here in Ecuador, which is basically the big celebration leading up to Fat Tuesday, Lent, all that fun religious stuff (yes, the same Carnival that everyone goes to Brazil for). This means time off from school, and for me and all the rest of the BU kids it meant a trip to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, located in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, along the Tiputini River, and surrounded by protected rainforests that contain jaguars, wild boars, armadillos, over 100 species of bats, toucans, birds that sound like crying babies (called “cara caras”), pumas, giant anteaters, at least 10 species of monkeys, anacondas (along with lots of other snakes), tons of frogs, and a variety of plants that can be used from everything from inducing heart attacks, easing the pain of cancer, to causing infertility (natural contraceptives!) It was absolutely amazing, and I really could have spent at least a month there. It’s basically a conservationist’s heaven, and that the land is protected and cannot be touched by the highly unpopular American petroleum companies that are encroaching on native people’s lands all around the rainforest, makes me feel good, gives me a little hope. It was also (and I think still is?) partially funded by BU back when it got started, and I think that’s the best reason I can imagine to have any school pride at all.
I won’t get into the list of things I saw, but it’s huge, and I must say, as ridiculous as this may sound, my experience at Tiputini was one of the best of my very short life thus far. I just wish it could have been longer.