In the forest; you have to watch where you walk, listen to every sound, feel the soft forest floor beneath your feet, touch the prickly stud-covered bark of the great sable tree, smell the thick humid air. As I told my group of eager pre-teens before we started our first walk, if you open your senses and pay attention to the forest; you will come to an understanding beyond knowing the difference between an epiphyte and a bromeliad, and begin to appreciate the complex biological rhythms that are constantly going on.
Last week, I joined Eco Sport Adventure Learning on a 4 day trip to study and immerse ourselves in some of the most amazing remnants of tropical forests, dry forests, and mangroves in Ecuador.
Everyday was a lesson in biodiversity, ecology, natural history, and conservation. Our trip leader, Maria Clara, never missed a beat. Right as we left the Quito's limits, she turned around in her seat and asked in a hoarse voice: "OK, look out the windows of the bus, open the curtains, put away the electronic devices, what do you see?"
Day 1: Quito to La Perla reserve (La Concordia)
After meeting the doting parents in the parking lot of Colegio Menor in Cumbaya and packing suitcases larger than the some of the children carrying them into the busses, we were on the road. As we left Quito behind and passed the mitad de mundo (equatorial line, literally middle of the earth) Maria Clara asked, "What do you see?"
"mountains...trees...dust..."
Ok, but why is it dry? The cold air from snow-covered Cayambe and the other volcanoes and mountains in the region meets here with the warm air from the coast and creates an uplift and in Guayabamba it is extremely dry. As we moved down in elevation, we periodically chatted with the students about their observations. We saw corn being planted to prepare for the coming rainy season in the sierra. And as we dropped in elevation, we started to see the tell tale signs of the cloud forest, such as the epiphytes growing on the roadside trees.
Later as we passed through the town of Pedro Vicente Maldonado, and that was my cue to discuss the cultural history of the area and the Yumbos. For me, the cultural history is just as interesting as the ecology of an area, so I was happy to engage our bus in a conversation about the Yumbo Indians who started as a tribe on the east side of the Pichincha mountains and then migrated to the west and to the coast. They created a great system of trails for commerce between the mountains and the coast. Their trails became known as culuncos, and the Spanish made use of them as well. Due to the over 400 years of continuous use, these trails have eroded and walking or mountain biking through them is a unique experience because they are more like tunnels in some places, a few meters below ground level, weaving through the dense forest, supporting their own mini-ecosystems.
Soon we passed through La Concordia and arrived at La Perla Reserve. Less than 100 meters from the highway with sounds of huge trucks screaming by, we walked for 10 minutes and were immediately transported into a tropical forest rich with biodiversity.
We stepped off of the dirt road into a dry stream bed and Boa, our guide (the lead guide of La Perla and the administrator of the area) enchanted the group with his enthusiasm and depth of knowledge about the place. Along the riverbed we encountered poison frogs, a snake, birds, anteater burrows, too many insects to name, and more.
Later, we walked through the forest on ground level and were introduced to the sable tree, a giant of the area. We ended at the animal rescue center, where Boa has several monkeys, a group of tapir-ish large rodents, and several birds currently being held in captivity until they are ready to be released into the wild.
After a full evening of a hot dog picnic, a futbol game, an extremely challenging and partly embarrassing fire building experience where our group learned cooperation and patience, a patrol of the tents after 'lights out' time, I crashed in my tent.
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| Boa introduces La Perla and the tropical forest |
Day 2: La Concordia to Reserva Caimito
In the busses by 8:30 and on the road again. The excitement was building as we approached the coast. Passing through Esmeraldas we saw the oil refineries that process the oil coming through the Trans Ecuadorian oil pipeline system.
Side note: The pipelines stretch from the Amazon basin over the Andes, down to the coast; over 503 kilometers in total. There are two pipelines in operation with one for light crude and one for heavy crude. There were two major spills this year on these lines in April spilling 5,500 near Esmeraldas and in May spilling 11,000 barrels more into the Coca river and rendering the city of Coca's population of 800,000 without a reliable water supply. It is unconscionable that the Ecuadorian government is pledging to "responsibly" extract more oil from the Yasuni reserve near the Tiputini river after these spills.
Chaotic arrival at the much smaller campsite than the night before. But of the four unique preserves that we visited, this tropical forest leading right up to the ocean was surely the most spectacular, local guides could have been better, and I am sure they will be after some further training, but the place was unreal.
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| Ocean view from our camp in Caimito Reserve |
George is the lead native guide here. It is clear that George feels strongly about conservation. He is a member of a group of conservationists that meet weekly to discuss maintenance and expansion of the reserve. Currently, it is owned by a group of concerned citizens, and they want to keep local names on all the deeds and make a real grassroots effort, and although he says he is gaining momentum, there are many forces in the community and outside it that would prefer the immediate economic benefits of logging. Much of the forest is secondary growth and we walked though parts that are scheduled to be logged again in 2014 if George and his group of concerned citizens do not raise enough funds to buy the parcel of forest.
The beach where we had a nice swim is owned privately by a prickly old man, a life-long resident of the area whom George says is just waiting for the right buyer. Hopefully the buyers will share the community vision of preservation -- can you imagine a huge resort here...
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| Tropical Forest up to the beach - The entire coast used to be this and mangroves. |
After a refreshing afternoon swim, I found myself at the end of the pack with two of my group members on the hike back up. With a bit of encouragement, we made it up to our camp just before dark.
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| Chocolate Party
I crashed that night from complete exhaustion and with limited function after the chocolate making party and the 'night hike' which consisted of George heading off solo into the woods and some students fixated in the nights' wonders while others chatted.
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Day 3: Caimito through the Mangroves to the Samvara Lodge
Leaving Caimito was tough for me. There are few places like this left on the Ecuadorian coast and on the Pacific coast in general where tropical forest comes right up to the ocean.
I want to keep in touch with George and his project. One of his ideas for the future is to have parts of the forest for sale to outside groups, so a classroom in the US could "sponsor" a small portion of the forest through their fundraising efforts, etc.
While most of the attention is paid to the tropical rain forests in the amazon basin because of the threat of oil development, the costal tropical forest also needs our attention for many reasons, one of them being that it plays a vital role in the surrounding ecosystem by filtering pesticides and holding fresh water. Also, these forests host one of the highest percents of endemic species in the world.Before completely leaving the tropical forest for the coast, we stopped to watch the oropendolas. With bright yellow, black and brown coloring and hard to miss sack-like nests in clear view on the branches of the roadside trees, oropendolas are easy to spot.
But I felt most comfortable entering the mangroves and walking to the beach.
Aside from one student getting stung by a sting ray and having to take her to the local clinic, the rest of the day can be told with images:
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| Let's go to the Mangroves kids! |
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| Los valientes! |
Day 4: Lalo Loor Dry Forest and back to Quito
The main goal for the day was to arrive back at school by 6:30 pm to return the kids to their waiting parents. But first, our last forest: Lalo Loor Dry forest.
This forest is unique because it is the only dry deciduous forest that we visited on our trip. When we were leaving Caimito the change was drastic, and this time, I asked the kids:
"What Do You See?"
The dry forest was starkly different from the lush coastal forests that we had visited on Days 1 & 2. And to understand why, a brief explanation of the Humbolt and El nino currents: The (cool) Humbolt current hits the (warm) Nino current right here on the equator - near the tow of Perdernales and an cooling phenomena takes place, and (thank you wikipedia for your help on this one) the marine air is cooled, and therefore not conducive to generating precipitation although clouds definitely accumulate. So it is dry. There is much less rain and moisture in the air in the southern coast of Ecuador, and hence this last forest is deciduous, or it changes drastically in the wet season, and the plants and animals have adapted to conserve water during the dry season.
6:30 pm. Right on time. After a hearty lunch and a run in with a iguana look-alike lizard, we had a successful finish to an action packed four day immersion into four of Ecuador's costal ecosystems.
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| The whole group at Lalo Loor Forest |
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| Iguana relative at our lunch spot in Puerto Quito |
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