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Tambopata Research Center, Oct-Nov 2006
The Tambopata Research Center (TRC) is a combination research center and ecotourism lodge constructed at the edge of the Tambopata National Reserve. This tract of rainforest is one of the highest biodiversity regions in the world. In fact, one naturalist has argued that this region could serve as the Ark for planet earth, providing sufficient genetic material to repopulate the world if necessary. This region is being threatened by logging and mining operations that are illegal, but that are backed by the muscle of a mafia that has intimidated law enforcement. A highway is under construction that will connect Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, and that will pass within 30 km of Tambopata. The impact of the highway may be huge. Speculation has already driven up land prices.
The private-sector company Rainforest Expeditions single-handedly launched the ecotourism business in this area in the mid 1980s, along the Tambopata River. The TRC, which is the most remote lodge owned by the company, nine long hours from Puerto Maldonada by boat, was constructed in 1989. While Rainforest Expeditions is currently managed by businessmen from Lima, the intent is to transition management and ownership to the native community of Infierno (Spanish for 'Hell') in a few years. In the meantime, native peoples are being hired to fill lodge staff and research assistant positions, providing both a long term and short term incentives to protect the rainforest. The hope is that a pristine rainforest will be more economically valuable than logging, mining, and agriculture operations.
The lodge is a mix of primitive and luxurious. The lodge has 18 rooms, each with three walls of cane (similar to bamboo), open at the top and to the rainforest. The result is an intimate relationship with the rainforest, each morning waking up to the sounds of Howler monkeys, thousands of birds, millions of frogs, and billions of insects. The room is also host to jungle creatures, with frequent visits by cane rats, macaws, bats, and a brazillian species of insects. On the down side, I was bitten or stung by at least a dozen species of insects and arachnids, including mosquitoes, ants, bees, wasps, sand flies, fleas, and chiggers. I was spared being bitten or stung by bullet ants, scorpions, and spiders. There is also a lack of privacy from other human guests. The walls are so thin that I not only could hear my neighbors snoring, I could hear them breathing. On the other hand, people were wonderful, the food was excellent, and the bar was well stocked.
Currently, most staff positions at the lodge are already filled by persons from Infierno and Puerto Maldonado, along with about half of the guides. With the goal of transferring management to the native community, comes the requirement that more of these people learn to speak foreign languages, particularly English. A few people have been sent to Lima for intensive language training. However, a volunteer project, coordinated by the British company "i-to-i", is attempting to bring English teachers to the rainforest. It was through this program that I came to TRC for six weeks as a volunteer.
However, teaching English was largely a bust. TRC only has a staff of about 6 persons, and these guys work hard. When they do get time off, they understandably want to relax. As a result, I was only teaching about an hour every other day or so. I tried playing card games and chess as an excuse for teaching, but with only minimal success. With so much time on hand, I helped out around the lodge. I assisted the macaw research project by doing data entry, carrying equipment, and helping to raise nest boxes. I translated and edited emails for one of the owners of Rainforest Expeditions, who was visiting during my first week there. When one of the guides learned that I was a karate (Kenpo) instructor, I acquired several students, including three that came close to earning yellow belts. I also worked on improving my Spanish and read almost every book in the TRC library.
The Macaw Research Project
One of the most remarkable phenomena in the region is a large claylick that is visited each morning by hundreds of parrots and macaws, representing dozens of species.
The event looks like a dance party with some birds performing aerial ballets while others are hanging on the cliffside, eating clay. Part of the research taking place at TRC is to discover why the birds eat the clay. Theories include nutritional supplements and the absorption of toxic chemicals in fruit.
There is also a belief that the morning claylick party is a social event - something fun to start the day.
Visitors to the lodge are awakened at 3:45 am in order to be at the claylick before dawn.
One of the projects at the TRC was an attempt to hand-raise and release macaws into the wild, a pilot program to re-introduce macaws in parts of Costa Rica. These 15 macaws, affectionately called the Chicos (Spanish for children), live in the forest surrounding the TRC.
While they live in the wild, they have a peculiar relationship with humans. Sometimes, they tolerate human attempts to pet them. Sometimes they view humans as competition for food: The Chicos are in constant surveillance of the lodge, raiding the kitchen and dining hall for dinner rolls, bananas, and pancakes.
They walk on the beams over each room, looking for containers of cookies to steal. I made the mistake of leaving out an individually wrapped Advil and one of the macaws ripped it open, sorely disappointed at the nasty little cookie it found.
On the other hand, the relationship allows tourists to see macaws close up and permits researchers to study their behavior. Macaws are supposed to mate for life. However, I frequently witnessed domestic disharmony. Pairs of macaws frequently fought with and screamed at each other like old married couples.
One dominating female picked on her mate relentlessly.
After only three years successfully raising chicks, the two macaws were observed to have switched partners. In the fourth year, the dominating female mated with the largest Chico male. This male did not tolerate her bad behavior and she acted meek and submissive around him.
In order to provide nesting sites for macaws near the lodge, the researchers have constructed and installed several nest boxes, each weighing around 100-120 pounds. These not only had to be raised high up in trees, but they had to be monitored every day during brooding season.
When one of the research assistants saw my size, he invited me along to help haul a couple of nest boxes up into tall trees.
I had a lot of respect for the fitness levels of these folks. The research assistants could schlep heavy packs, rig ropes, and climb (typically 100 ft up) as many as a dozen trees in a single afternoon.
The record for rigging, climbing, and packing up is approximately 12 minutes.
People
A major part of the reason that I have fallen in love with Peru is the people. With few exceptions (mostly in the capital of Lima), the people were honest, hard-working, jovial, and eager to help. I also found the people to be highly intelligent, but this may have been due to hanging out with scientists, grad students, guides, and other professionals. Even the cooks and housekeepers may have been atypically bright since these jobs were well paid and rather competitive.
A curious phenomenon was the fact that, while most of the hotel staff was male, the guides were 50-50 male-female, and the managers were all female. This pattern is not at all typical of Peruvian culture, which is still very much machismo in nature. The management of Rainforest Expeditions had other progressive policies. For example, the families of staff members were frequently invited to bring their children upriver to stay at the lodge, especially at holidays.
Perhaps the most interesting person at the lodge was Jerome, a young French man, who worked as a volunteer research assistant and was filming a documentary about the TRC. He had risked all of his finances to buy video equipment and a plane ticket to Peru.
Jerome was infamous for several reasons. For one, he had already had one case of Leishmaniasis, a nasty parasitic disease that causes ugly skin lesions and for which the only cure is antimony (a heavy metal) salts. His anxiety of catching the disease again caused him to wear a balaclava and gloves when in the jungle, despite the heat.
Imagine walking in pre-dawn hours in the jungle of a country with a known terrorist organization and you think that you are at the end of a line of hikers. You hear a sound behind you, you turn around, and see a young man, wearing a hood, and carrying a camera tripod (which in the dark could easily be mistaken for an AK-47). Several tourists were traumatized in this manner while I was at TRC.
Jerome was also anxious about finding time to film his documentary. For a while, every day that he had free was raining.
But Jerome was most famous for his fetishes. He has an obsession with kissing the smooth, hairless skins of animals: the heads and tails of tortoises, the bodies of macaw chicks, and the heads of vultures.
Finally, I met quite a few interesting tourists. A professor of legal philosophy who was once a government minister and had written the peace treaties between Peru and its neighbors. The director of the Peruvian equivalent of FEMA for the city of Cusco. An Australian navy commander who was weapons officer on a destroyer. Film crews creating television documentaries. A group of editors of bird watching magazines. A Canadian woman who had bicycled across Canada. A Mexican woman who was doing research tracking and trapping jaguars. The owner of a culinary academy in Texas. Professional guides. Book authors. Retired people who are roaming the world.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Dick Delanoy
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