Refuge in the Clouds

To get to Hakalau you have to drive through the clouds. Literally. From sea level at Hilo, it’s a two hour drive consisting of a steady ascent along one murderously bumpy dirt road. For everyone who associates Hawaii with warm beaches and white sand, waking up with frost on your windshield and a thin layer of ice on your porch at the foot of the snow-covered volcano Mauna Kea, might come as something of a surprise. But it’s nothing compared to the strangeness of seeing a verdant, tropical rainforest spread out at the foot of a 13,800 ft. volcano. The crazy mish-mash of habitat that has to be seen to be believed. 

At one time in the not too distant past, this land was entirely forested and the great sweep of native rainforest was filled with endemic plants: the Pukiawe, ‘Ohia, Koa, and Hapu’u. Now it is fragmented, chopped into tracts of varying size and smothered by gorse which has arrived in such overwhelming density that it is impossible to escape. Sights like a lone Koa tree rising above the sea of gorse serve as reminders of a forest no longer there.

 But the patches of trees that do remain, persevering in the face of extreme environmental change and adversity, are some of the richest on the entire island chain and are home to many species of native and endangered birds. From the scarlet I’iwi, to the incredible Akiapola'au with its highly specialized beak, numerous endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers have found refuge in the high elevation forests of Hakalau. Curiously enough, while the daily cold mist and rain and the nightly frost and freezing temperatures might be a tourist’s worst nightmare, elevation is actually a honeycreeper’s best friend. Ensconced safely at 6,000 feet above sea level, these surviving species have reached the end of a remarkable elevational migration which took them from the warm lowland forests to trees at the base of the highest volcano in the state.

            The story of the downfall of the Hawaiian honeycreepers and the dramatic range shift of the few surviving species begins all the way back in the 19^th century. At this time, Europeans were arriving en masse to the islands and bringing with them a veritable animal army. Domesticated and livestock animals like cows, pigs, sheep, and dogs were brought across the ocean intentionally, in order to enrich the lives and diets of European settlers. And with these animals, came unintentional immigrants as well: rats and mice and much smaller creatures, the diseases and bacterium that followed their hosts over the waves.

            From the Galapagos Islands to the Hawaiian chain, the story of endemic island wildlife world-wide is largely the same. Evolved from founding species that showed up, storm-blow, wave-washed, and confused, island species developed in relative isolation from the rest of the world for thousands of years. If something didn’t exist on their island, they had no experience interacting with it. This ultimately meant that they fell easy prey to introduced predators like cats, and humans, and the weasel-like mongoose. For an example, consider the Great Auk, a now extinct Icelandic bird which remained fearless of humans even as thousands were slaughtered for food in plain view of the rest of the flock. This evolutionary naivety also includes lacking defenses against common diseases that mainland species have been combating and resisting for thousands of years. Hawaiian honeycreepers are no exception to this general trend. When Europeans brought fowl species infected with a disease causing organism called Plasmodium reticulum to the islands in the 19^th century, it sealed the fate of many Hawaiian birds.

            P. reticulum is a nasty little protist. If present enough in high concentrations in the blood, it causes avian malaria, a disease characterized by anemia, weakness, and pox legions. Initially however, the disease was restricted to the pheasants and chickens the Europeans brought as food and there it would have remained if not for the introduction of the mosquito in 1886. By biting an infected fowl, female mosquitoes themselves became infected with the protist. If they then bit a honeycreeper, the protist would be transferred to this new host via the bite. And, much like the Great Auks who couldn’t defend themselves from their human predators, the Hawaiian honeycreepers had no defense against this new and terrible disease. They too, were slaughtered in their thousands. Over a third of all honeycreeper species on the islands went extinct.

            The survivors are those that have adapted behaviorally to the presence of the protist and its vector species the mosquito. Abandoning the remaining lowland forests, species like the endangered ‘Akepa, the “I’iwi, and the ‘Amakihi, were chased up an elevational gradient until they finally reached forests that were too cold for the mosquitoes to successfully inhabit. Up here, above the clouds in Hakalau, they have finally found some breathing room.

Or so we believe. The truth is, not much is known about how native honeycreepers use this high-elevation habitat. Their home ranges, how far they travel, where they forage and nest, are largely unknown. It might seem a little odd: after all, these are brightly colored birds and their songs fill the forest canopy with continual noise. But they are small, spend most of their time high in the treetops, and are incredibly active making them difficult to track. This means that it’s often difficult to gauge not what parts of the surviving forest are of most use to these birds, and also how much time they spend in newly re-forested sections of the reserve.

            Re-foresting Hakalau has been a long-term project but a necessary one. Although there are no mosquitoes at 6,000 feet above sea level, Hakalau and other high elevation rainforests are still under attack from other unwanted invaders. The gorse, which blooms in such huge numbers that it blankets the landscape in yellow, and the wild boar which forage indiscriminately, uprooting delicate native ferns and vegetation, are two of the most prevalent and damaging species on the reserve. Between them, the rainforest continually loses ground and, if left unchecked, they could quickly overrun what remains. Fortunately, a dedicated corps of wildlife scientists, park rangers, and managers are working to contain both these threats and are re-planting native koa trees where they can. But trees take a long while to grow and the even the oldest groves of new koa are just starting to reach a height that looks forest-like, their understory just now beginning to thicken out with native shrubs and bushes.  

While this new forest looks promising from a human-perspective (Trees? Check.  Vegetation? Check) evaluating how effective this reforestation really is, understanding if these new tracts of koa are forming usable habitat for native species, requires one to follow the birds. In addition to setting up net lines to catch, band, and count individual honeycreepers, scientists at Hakalau have experimented with the delicate art of attaching tiny radio transmitter backpacks to individuals. Worn like a mini-harness, these miniscule transmitters bleep out the location of their owners as the birds travel through the landscape. The signal is picked up by special receivers, with each individual bird on its own frequency, and with enough dedication and ample luck, one is able to track the honeycreepers as they navigate through the reserve. By calculating where they spend the majority of their time and how often they choose to inhabit the tracts of new koa, scientists are hoping to better quantify the success of the reforestation effort.

In 2011, I spent a month in Hakalau working for the USGS, catching and tracking honeycreepers through the rainforest. There is nothing like holding the receiver and antennae in one hand, and trying not to slip and slide down stream banks, into giant tree ferns, or off elevated forest ridges to give one a healthy respect for just how far and effortlessly these birds travel over such thick terrain. Occasionally, I would look up and see them, darting high above me in flashes of wings and bright color.  Their songs made the beep of my radio seem tinny and subdued. Every so often they would alight when they thought you weren’t looking, and would sit on the wet branch of a Koa or ‘Ohia tree, fluffing up their vivid plumage and blinking their eyes against the light rain that came streaming down through the canopy. Inadvertently we have chased these remarkable birds here, to their last cloud-shrouded bastion, and we are now following them through it, chasing their vibrant afterimages through the dense trees, waiting and watching to see where they will go next.    

Eisa Drum Festival

KCC, Honolulu, 2012.

Sulfur in the Morning

There are very few groceries that prompt me to get up in the morning and walk 2 miles to the nearest convenience store. Diet Dr. Pepper is one of them. I rolled out of bed this morning with a minor headache knocking on my temples (which was funny because Nick and I were the only ones who opted NOT to drink last night at the Lava Lounge) and stumbled into the bathroom one zombie step at a time. Braaainn-I mean, soddda, I need sooooda.

                I had already decided this morning was going to be devoted to photography but the caffeine headache and the twitchy eyes more or less decided my route. That being said, it wasn’t like there was nothing to see on the road to the KMC military base and its tiny holy grail of a mini mart- we had walked this path last night on the way to the Lounge and Matt had pointed out several trails that were worth exploring further. Yeah, see, I reasoned with myself, it’s not a total surrender to soda. There were things to see. Photos to take. Shit to explore. Yeah.

                I skulked out of the house with my camera before my room mates even really realized I was going somewhere and hit the road. The sun was up and the sky had opted to cooperate by settling into that brilliant, cloudless blue that is its default when it isn’t raining (which is the norm) or voggy (also a norm.) Kilauea smoked and smoldered to my left and I detoured for a couple of minutes to watch the plume escaping from the floor of the massive caldera. 

Kilauea continues to smolder in the morning sun while the great shield volcano, Mauna Loa, sits impassively in the background.

After ten more minutes of walking, the trail unceremoniously dumped me across from the visitor center. I opted to forgo the assembled tourists and instead, cut around the building and to the right. If I continued to walk straight, following the road, I would eventually reach KMC. But, as Matt had pointed out last night, and as the multitude of signs proclaimed, I was coming up on the entrance to the Sulfur Bank Trail. I don’t know what was more exciting- the word ‘sulfur’ or the numerous warning signs that covered the start of the loop.

Steam vents, earth cracks, AND cliffs? Oh, happy day!

Indeed, as I soon discovered, half the draw of the sulfur banks seemed to be not just the cool chemical/geological phenomenon taking place several feet from the trail, but the danger said area posed to the unwary tourist. I think this one took the cake:

It's actually quite a terrifying illustration in and of its own right, isn't it? Looking at this, you’d expect me to be picking my way through a veritable lava mine field, replete with a Mordor-esque sky in the background and man-devouring cracks ready to swallow half of me in one go. 

This is what Sulfur Banks actually looked like:

Kinda peaceful, actually, if you don't mind the smell of sulfur in the morning.

Cracks in the earth extend down to the magma in the Caldera. Gases, like sulfur, escape from these cracks and emerge from vents in the landscape where they stunt plant growth and color the rocks with mineral deposits.

I cruised around the Sulfur Banks, following a nice boardwalk of a trail, only to find that it dumped me back on the main road anyway. People in passing cars looked at me a little oddly as I hitched my backpack (still smelling a little like sulfur) and struck out on the (typically) cars-only road. I don't know about you, but this has to be one of the nicest commutes to a mini mart. Ever.

Oh don't mind me, guys. Just going shopping.

Rods and Cones

First: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGiX9qTrfnE
Or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L73OLaG4_kA

Now.
Have a sun set over the Kilauea Caldera.

I thought I arrived too late to catch the actual sun in the sky

I was wrong

                                       

From the Waldron Ledge, looking out

The Caldera at night (45 second exposure)

Mordo- I mean, the Caldera again (2 minute exposure)

Bell Pepper and Wine, A Potato and Beer

What is it about field biologists that makes us head immediately for the alcohol aisle of a grocery store like it's got some kind of magnetic hold on us? From Colorado to Peru without fail, within seconds of entering a store the entire field crew will be perusing the wine/beer selection however expensive or meager it is. It was the same deal yesterday, when Daphne, Liz, Anicka, and I veritably burst into the small grocery store on the military base of Volcano National Park.
Without a car at our disposal, the walk to said store had taken us about half an hour and still ranks as one of the coolest grocery treks of all time. From our cabin, you take a trail which skirts around the rim of the caldera before plunging 'inland', into a veritable plain of tall dry grass and pockmarked by steam vents. We had hiked through this area in the customary early evening rain, and the sight of the giant clouds of steam rising into the darkening sky had been enough to make us stop and watch them for a while. The rains had chased most of the tourists away and so it was really just us at one point, standing silent in the middle of a rather alien landscape. You know. Just on our way to do some shopping.
The main impetus for this expedition for my crew mates had been beer. And wine. I just wanted some Diet Dr. Pepper. Not even a day out here for Liz and I, and less than a week for Daphne and Anicka, and we were all craving our respective poisons.It was not a very promising start for what promises to be a long, tedious haul of a field season.

Let me back up.

If anyone thought losing all my stuff in the Nanay in Peru would be the end of my field adventures, think again. This time, however, I applied for a job a little closer to home- a three month field stint on the Big Island of Hawaii, a convenient 45 minute plane flight from home. The study is officially entitled 'The Demographics of Hawaiian Forest Birds" but in lay man's terms all this means is populations- what's there, how big are the populations, where do individuals go, and is disease prevalent or not. This entails a lot of mistnetting and a lot of bleeding which are two of my favorite things to do in the field. It will also mean a lot of telemetry work. For those unfamiliar with the term, this means attaching a little backpack radio transmitter to target species and then going out into the forest with the receiver and seeing if we can pick up the signal so we know where they go on a day to day basis. And that's the study in a nutshell- disease, telemetry, banding, wet mornings, and black coffee.

But like all field projects, this one is taking a while to get off the ground. With Liz and I arriving on the evening of the 31st, the entire crew was finally assembled all together in one place- in a three room field house in the Volcano National Park. But this wasn't an indication that we could finally get things rolling. On the contrary, the next couple of days have been designated for a variety of menial paperwork, safety training, and a mandatory driving course- in short, the boring, day wasting, mind numbing process necessary to launch a field season on the right foot. This wouldn't be an issue if it was handled correctly, but for some unknown reason (probably Eben's schedule), the routine has been spread out over four long days. Yesterday was paperwork day- which took all of 20 minutes and then we were free to...well, to grocery shop. Which is how we found ourselves buying beer and Diet Dr. Pepper in the evening with Liz and Daphne tried to counterbalance their alcohol purchases with some produce (Liz- beer and a potato, Daphne- wine and a bell pepper). Points for effort, but it just made their checkout all the more awkwardly hilarious. Dinner at our house, courtesy of Eben and his wife, meant a lot of chicken, home made salsa, bread, and salad, followed by ice cream and cookies. And then, before we all sank into an inevitable food coma, we hauled ourselves out of our chairs and walked down to the caldera where you can see the glow of the lava, burning hot and virulent in the night.

Today was supposed to be 'defensive driving' day- a promised 4 hour video on driving and driving safety followed by an online test which, upon completion, would give us the authority to drive government vehicles to our field site. But, what should have been a simple (if brain numbing) exercise quickly dissolved into chaos when no one's laptop would load the driving software. It took almost two hours of trial and error and IP checks and restarting computers before Eben told us to get out of there and take the rest of the day off. For lack of anything better to do.
Back to the field house. Time to lie out in the sun, crack open a beer, and watch the apapane fly by overhead.
Nick demonstrated he didn't need defensive driving by loading up Grand Theft Auto on our arthritic PS2 and proceeding to run into lamp posts, hookers, and cop cars alike.
Shower time.
Sunset over the volcanoes.
Possibly karaoke later tonight.
Will keep you posted.

About Time

It had started to rain.

That in itself was nothing new- hell, it would have been odder at this point to have a day in which we didn't get drenched by torrential rain. No. What was new was that we experienced that day's rainforest downpour from the hard wooden seats of a bulky, ungainly, motor-propelled boat which was crawling up the Nanay (or down it, depending on your point of view), taking us to our next field site. We had embarked almost two hours ago to bright sun and humid weather but our poor, straining, diesel engine couldn't outrun the looming clouds. The rain arrived with the dusk.

The storm hits the Nanay.

We had taken a 'shortcut'- a channel cut into the forest that would skirt an otherwise long river bend when the storm hit. Our motorista, to his credit, had the eyes of a harpy eagle and did an insane job navigating against the current in the downpour, dodging floating debris and the larger logs even though he was perched way in the back by the motor and had to contend with the limited visibility of storm and gringo heads. Even so, there were several times where we bumped up against the banks and had to be poled off again, or scraped against a protesting tangle of branches. More than once, we had to scramble out and give the old boat a shove free as its motor whined and strained in its attempts to get free.

All of the 20 some person crew was in this one boat and she was riding low to the water. Most of us sat with our backpacks in our lap and our rubber boots on as the bottom of the craft, not completely leak proof, oozed slow pulses of river water around our feet. The motorista seemed nonplussed at least as far as his boat was concerned. He was less sure about the second boat, the gear boat, which had been loaded with all of our food, our banding supplies, our day packs, and Judit whom we had last seen perched precariously on the giant mound of stuff.

Look at the boat. Look at the waterline. Look at my bag, sitting there like a condemned sailor. Look at the crate of papayas about to fall in even at a standstill. And take a wild guess what happens next. 

Only Todd, good old cynical Todd who could always find something to worry about, had any worries about the situation. The rest of us had just been happy to finally be on board and on our way (we had gotten lost trying to find the docks and what was only supposed to be a half hour van ride had taken closer to 2). Here. Have some pre-disaster pics!

The crew, hopping off the vans and organizing gear for the river trip.

Jonno and amazing his bottle of white wine which would be put to good use later that night.

                                     

As we disembark, storm clouds start gathering over the Nanay.

Finally on our way.

Best seat in the boat! Watchband from an Iquitos street vendor (7 soles watch repair), Chernz bracelet from Mr. ShankJim, and a grupo chevre bracelet from Gerson. <3

The last rays of sun poke through the storm clouds.

After another hour and a half of navigating the Nanay through the rain, we finally arrived at our next field site- the *relatively* developed San Martin community complete with a schoolhouse (our campground), a corner store (more warm cokes and cookies!), and a satellite. We hopped off the boat with our small backpacks, trudged up the hill to the community, (the more hardcore birders of us noting the massive colony of caciques that were watching us from a nearby tree), and then stood in a semi-circle wondering what to do next. 

It was still raining when we arrived. Daniela carries the last of our gear up the banks as our motorista tends to his boat.

                                

Judit hadn't given us specific instructions or directions or even told us the name of the hombre in charge. Kids gathered in droves to stare at us. A few missionaries wandered through in the background curiously unconcerned with the whole affair. And then, thankfully before things got really awkward, a group of men and women came up to us with an official welcome and asked us to make ourselves at home inside the school building. When they asked where Judit was, all we could do was shrug and say 'coming' (we hope.) 

The next several hours dragged by. We didn't have tents to set up. Gear to sort. We didn't have food. No one really knew what to do. Chris, Adam, and Todd began scouting out the cacique tree. Veronica and Alvaro took it upon themselves to communicate with our hosts and for lack of anything better to do, Daniela and I went with them. Night was falling. We sat on the 'porch' of a house, surrounded by the skulls of alligators, piranhas, and javelinas and talked to several men of the community- the nicest of which, I'm ashamed to admit, I can't remember his name. The conversation turned from Judit and the boat to the community, to the benefits of Ayahuasca- a drug our host claimed granted tranquility and inner sight. He was just about to smoke some, he admitted, like he always did around this time of night. Travelers came from as far as Australia to experience the sensation...would we like to join in? Alvaro and Veronica considered the proposition with more enthusiasm than I did. With night on us and still no sign of Judit, I had the sinking feeling that the gear boat had, well, sank. 

Daniela agreed with me. As we walked to the corner store to buy a Coke for a sol, leaving the Spaniards to the Ayahuasca, she added glumly, "And if the boat did sink, I don't think they will be able to retrieve everyone's bags. They're so heavy, they'll sink like stones." 

"I bet mine's gone," I answered. 

I was only partly kidding. I was suddenly sure, in an indescribable grim way, that my bag would be one of the 'unrecovered' ones, lost at the bottom of the Nanay, surveyed by curious piranha and the occasional river dolphin. Don't ask me why. I guess I know that I just have that kind of shit awful luck.

The sun set on us.

Our faithful boat 'at anchor.'

A calm sunset after the storm.

8 pm. Word came from the river, from a boat man that didn't even stop, that a boat had sank upriver. No one was really surprised.

 9 pm came and went. Our hosts provided us with rice which we cooked up and served in a meager dinner. 10 pm, Daniela and I walked down and got a second coke. We drank it on the steps of the school house and eyed the river in silence. And so it was that we were in a good position to see the sudden flare of lights on the Nanay and to watch as an unfamiliar vessel, sitting low in the water, drifted into our view. We weren't the only ones-a minute later and the crew had all stopped what they were doing and converged on the shore to watch in silence as a decimated looking Judit docked at San Martin.

She didn't say anything to us. Just hopped over the side and stood in water up to her knees, conversing in a raw voice with the boat man. We edged closer, hoping to hear. The boat man's motorista had already begun the task of unloading the craft and that galvanized us into motion. We saw that he was lugging a day pack to the shore with difficulty disproportionate to its size but quickly realized when we sprang to help, that that was because the day pack was soaked. It was drenched. Permeated. What had once weighted 50 lbs now weighed closer to 90. And they were all like that. Everyone's gear had very obviously gone into the river.

The crew dragged backpacks up the shore one by one. Everyone helped-- but everyone, I know, was keeping a lookout for their own, and their relief was evident when they found it. Daniela, struggling with her massive pack, asked me in passing if I had seen mine. 

I hadn't.

As the pile in the boat dwindled it became evident that 1) our food was completely gone and 2) my pack was nowhere to be found. When Judit finally turned her red-rimmed eyes on the crew who stood, breathing hard over the wreckage of out supplies, and asked who didn't have their stuff, Katie beat me to it. "I don't either," I told her. Judit looked about to cry. She didn't say anything.

The crew started to disperse, dragging their gear back up to the hill to take stock of the damage. Katie and I followed them in a kind of sleepwalk. I tried to take inventory of the things I'd lost as I walked. My tent, my brand new, first ever field tent--gone. My sleeping bag--gone. My pack itself--adorning the river bottom. My favorite field shirts--fish food. And then I thought about the things I had the foresight to take with me like my camera and my notebook and  my ipods and my favorite knife and I realized things could've been much worse. Katie and I watched as the crew lugged their field packs into the school house and began to inventory the damage. Tents and bundles of wet clothes were pulled and hung on makeshift lines indoors. Sam's Kindle was ruined. Field guides, utterly soaked, were lined up next to the data laptops in the vain hope that they would dry. What had once been a vacant school house now looked like a refuge camp.

Judit still hadn't said a word to us.

It was only when the majority of the team, their stuff hung to dry, finally decided to try and get some sleep, that my emotions teeter-tottered back into despair. No one had clean, dry clothing. I was still wearing my contacts and didn't have their case or solution. I had no blankets, no towel, no sheets, no mosquito repellent. No shoes except my teevas. I looked bleakly around at my tired crew mates, stretched out on the floor in rows and almost as if sensing my despair, Jonno appeared out of nowhere with a bulky brown bag under his arm. He caught my eye and gestured to the door. I knew what was in that bag. Katie was already waiting.

And well fuck it, I thought as I heaved myself up off the bench and followed him (headlight less) into the Amazonian night, I could use some wine.

Alvaro, Veronica, Cesar, and Blaine joined us as we sat on a convenient log on the banks of the Nanay, making a considerable and effortless dent in the bottle. Boats cruised lethargically up and down the river, sometimes lit, often not. Vero lit a joint. Passed it around. Insect song filled the night. The stars were out.

"Well shit," Jonno said at length. "What now?"

"No idea. Go home, I guess," I said.

"Seriously?'

"I don't have a tent." I could buy replacement field clothes. I could buy replacement headlights and boots and foot powder. But a tent, a real working, I-can-survive-Amazonian-downpour tent, was going to be a challenge. I didn't mention the host of other issues we had discussed about the experience. They went without saying.

"I don't blame you," he replied at length.

"What will you do?"

"Stick it out," he said, and then washed down that statement with another gulp of wine. "At least for another site. And then...I don't know. Go traveling around Peru for a bit, I guess."

"Machu Picchu?"

"For sure."

We were quiet for a time. Finished the wine.

And then, out of nowhere- splashing- movement- something large cutting through the river in front of us. Ghostly shapes in the water through the beam of their headlights. We pointed, voices raised.

"Did you see? Did you see?"

The shapes moved on with muted splashes. 

Afterimages of dolphins.

-------------------------------------

The next day, mid-morning, the park service boats came to take Katie and me back to Iquitos. It was a rushed departure. We barely said goodbye. We stopped at the sink site on the way- found a boat already there, scavenging- saw a tell-tale bottle of yogurt on its stern.

 From the port Katie and I took a moto taxi all the way to Iquitos, jouncing along the road, re-entering that city of dust and noise feeling like we had been gone for weeks and not just a single day. Back to La Pascana. 

Phone calls. 

Emails.

I started them all the same way- This is the story of the Amazonian Titanic.

-------------------------------------

In the end, I went home. In the end, I believe that was the smartest thing to do. Katie met up with Judit in Iquitos and tried to tough it out for at least another field stint but the last I heard, her parents were demanding she come home ASAP. When Judit did arrive back in Iquitos, she brought Sara and Daniela with her- the two had decided a boat sinking was the last metaphorical straw and were opting to go home. Daniela and I flew out on the same day and caught the same plane out of Iquitos. We sat together, not saying much, watching as the jungle vanished below us.

Lima crawled into view.

At the airport, we clambered down from the tiny Iquitos plane and boarded a shuttle to the main terminals. It was cold and gray outside. I waited with Daniela for her bag at baggage claim. When it didn't show up right away, we joked that it had survived the Nanay only to be lost in the airport but almost as soon as we had made the joke, it appeared on the carousel. From baggage claim it was a short walk to the main floor of the airport.  Daniela made me promise to stay in touch. I told her I was extremely grateful for all her company and advice these few short weeks. We hugged. And then she turned and walked outside to catch her bus and just like that, it was over.

I watched her go.

And then I turned my back on the airport doors and went to check in for my 8 hour layover.

Manateeeeeeeeeeeee

This story needs to be told and who gives a damn if it's almost two months old by now. The tl;dr version is that this was a once in a lifetime experience. And it involves manatees. 

After our two week stint in Irapay, we had three days in Iquitos to get in contact with the outside world, catch up on some much needed sleep and showers (and oreos and cokes), and generally do whatever the hell we wanted. In-town highlights before Sunday included an amazing egg, tomato, and avocado sandwich, drinks at the most precarious bar ever, and more ice cream than I've ever consumed in my life, eaten with the group in a kind of wordless happiness at night, beneath the lights of the cathedral. 

And just when it seemed like things couldn't get any better, Daniela (I miss you so much, buddy) got it into her head to visit the manatee rehabilitation center. She did all the work of figuring out where it was (just outside of Iquitos), how we should get there (bus), how much it would cost (1 sol for the ride), and when it was open (until noonish on the weekend.) I was vaguely aware of her asking La Pascana's receptionist about something but it was only when she came over to my table and asked me if I would like to visit the manatees that I realized this was something you just don't say no to. 

Or you shouldn't. Chris and Adam were all game to accompany us but the rest of the gang was sleeping off hangovers or shopping for replacement bug spray/snacks for the field, so it was just us four that set off for the corner to catch our bus. Turns out, our group's small size was actually more conducive to bus travel in Iquitos than anything else-because what seemed initially like a spacious bus when we first got on,  filled up with alarming speed to the point where there were anywhere from 3-5 people sharing a single seat and more than twice that number, standing in the main aisle. Adam quickly made for the back, which was the only place he could stand where his head didn't brush the ceiling. And to make the sardine-like conditions even more hectic, the driver's assistant decided to collect fares halfway through the ride, going around, squeezing his body through impossible cracks between passengers, collecting a sol from every person personally. Daniela and I handed over our change, exchanging a look in silence.

Crazy, right?

Oh yeah. 

The bus disgorged us at our stop with some difficulty, hacking us up and spitting us onto the dusty road along with a woman and the two chickens she held, swinging in her hand by their feet. We looked at our destination.The dusty road turned away from the main street, shot straight past a pair of massive iron gates (thankfully open) and in front of a guardhouse whose uniformed occupant had stuck his head out to regard us. We approached and were waved over before we had gone a few feet.

Hello, hello. Buenas. 

Passaportes por favor?

Passports? Oh, shit. 

It's one thing to bring your passport with you when you're traveling from place to place and quite another to have the actual document with you on your day around town. In all fairness, I should have had a copy at the very least but no one knew we needed one. Daniela had her Chilean driver's license/ID, but none of us gringos had so much as a driver's license on our persons. It was Daniela who saved the day, begging with the guard for some kind of legislative mercy. "Please, no one told us we needed to bring our passports. We've come from so far away, all of us. This is our one day to see the manatees," etc. It was her polite Chilean epicness that finally won the guard over and, thanking him over and over and over again (with more than one handshake thrown in for good measure), we made our way into the reserve.

Past watery fields. Past herons fishing in the shade. Down a grassy slope, into a modest building, following the wooden arrows planted into the ground with the single tell-tell word etched into their surface.

"Manatee."

Daniela finally gets her wish.

Adam and I take our turns feeding the manatees.

Curious and gentle, the manatee babies investigate visitors' hands without fear.

There's something indescribably special about the manatee. Maybe it's its goofy appearance- a cross between bovine, cetacean, and walrus, couple with its tiny little eyes, embedded above a whiskered mouth that looks almost toothless. Maybe it's the manatee's demeanor- placid to the point of being almost docile, slow but not quite lethargic. Unrushed. Unhurried.
These are not small animals. The ones we fed were siblings and only a few months old yet, already, they weighed a few couple hundred of pounds and were probably around four feet from the nostrils to the tip of their paddle-like tail. Yet they came off as completely benign.
Gentle.
There's really no other way to describe them.
The rehab center was, by all accounts, doing good, successful work. They rescued manatees who had been orphaned, their parents primarily killed by local communities for food and the misconception that manatees damage riparian ecosystems. All individuals stayed within the center until they were old enough, and large enough, to be released back into areas with fewer humans. If this center had been in the U.S., we would never have been allowed to do what we did- touch, feed, interact with these animals. We would have stared at them behind glass walls watching through that artificial barrier and we would have been charged an arm and a leg to do even that.
But here, it was free to feed baby manatees. Donations? The label on the jar said 'Appreciated but not required.'
We almost filled it up.