Elisban

For Elisban – Master of the Jungle

 On Saturday 8^th of June, Jose Alban Armas  Diaz but known by everyone as Elisban sadly passed away at the young  age of 56. Admired by all those who have met him, he will be greatly missed. Not only a loss to those that knew him past and present but for the future also. After living in the Tambopata region all his life he knew and understood the jungle better than any book or dvd could teach you. Guides and Resident naturalist over the years learnt their best knowledge from Elisban. He knew every plant for its medicinal or traditional use, every mammal, bird and insect and its sounds, where to find it and how to catch it. He understood conservation and how to use the forest sustainably. His friendly attitude and easy going approach to life made him a role model for all. This is a little dedication to Elisban – master of the jungle.

Picture Time!

A SLOTH!!!!!!!! And at its most vunerable moment ...

when its doing a shit. poor thing only comes down from the tree top once a week todo its business and i was lucky enough to whitness it!

 This a Blue morpho butterfly these buterflies have the brightest blue colour in the animal kingdom on the inside wing, unfortunatly i have this nice picture of its eye spots insted because its flight around the forest is like a drunk on speed.

Red necked woodpecker














This is my favorite snake of all the amazon and was so chuffed when I finally saw it. look at those crazy eyes!!!!










White throated Toocan my favorite bird in the amazon and can often be heard in the afternoons around the lodge and in the forst. These birds can realy make a racket! noisey buggers.

Me looking a bit mental/crazy holding a white caiman.
















 Caracara -  it has red eyes!!!!












Me holding a teeny tiny sidenecked turtle.

 Beautiful blue and yellow macaws.

A little story about a big experience

Spider monkey experience 

After a frustrating wet and blustery morning, the afternoon was warm with scattered white clouds. With our bellies full of a delicious lunch mixed with eagerness to get into the forest to burn off some excess energy myself and fellow resident naturalist Jo threw on our jungle clothes wiggled into our wellies and took off into the jungle, with machetes in hand we headed down a very flooded trail called Laguna Chica. Our destination in mind is a section of another trail called Quebrada trail which is over 1.5Km away which needed some  attention to make suitable for walking.

 However not 100m into our journey I stop suddenly . 10 meters in front of me is a rustle in the long grass. I see nothing. Maybe a small bird like the ground dwelling Tinamou I ponder, so I advance to investigate. To my surprise what I find is nothing of the sort but instead a considerably angry snake. With its mouth wide open and its body reared up to knee height I am quite taken aback. Jo is hot on my tail and as soon as she sees the snake she recognises it immediately as the Fer-de-Lance. This is both an aggressive and venomous snake which has a striking distance the length of its body. Knowing this Jo encourages me to back away and without hesitation I do as she says. And with great luck it whips away and slithers into the under growth. With eye brows raised and now my mouth open I turn to Jo. Wow. She explained to me it was a Fer de lance and I realise I could have been in serious  danger if it had decided to strike. My heart pounding I was thrilled to have just experienced my first  Fer de lance. Being so close to the lodge we decide to head back to refer to our reptile guide book to check our sighting. The book confirmed our finding.

 Still buzzing from that encounter with a deadly snake we head back into the jungle for a second time this time being stopped at 500meters by a loud crash high in the canopy to my left. I pace around the corner to get a better look at “the noise” and there it was eliminated from behind casting a great silhouette of a ... well at first I was unsure.  My thoughts go into over drive considering all the possibilities. Surely too big to be a Red Howler monkey and black howlers do not exist in this area. Then it moved. That is the moment I knew. Spider Monkey! Its locomotion between the trees is undeniable and confirmed its presence. Swinging from branch to branch using swift elegant movements of its long slender arms, and extremely strong prehensile tail it can only be one primate. This primate is the only monkey in its geographic range that is large, black and has a prehensile tail and uses its arms to swing from branch to branch. Eyes wide, Jaw dropped for the second time that afternoon I turn to Jo with a shocked expression. To my delight she is mirroring my expression as she too has come to the same conclusion. In stunned silence we stand in awe taking in this magnificent primate. Keeping a safe distance high in the canopy the spider monkey semi circled around us making sure at all points it could still see us. Just by the way it was looking at us could you tell it was an intelligent creature. It didn’t just look at you it really looked at you, it felt it was acknowledging your existence on earth as much as it is aware of its own existence. It obviously felt alarmed by our presence because it was making loud defensive barks sounds as well as hanging onto branches with its forearms and shaking it aggressively sending fruit, seeds and twigs catapulting towards us. Recognising these alarm signals from other primates in the area such as the curious brown capuchin monkey Jo and I retreated and headed back the lodge for a refreshing cold celebratory beer.

 This sighting is brilliant news for the lodge and the surrounding forest as spider monkeys were previously thought to be extinct in the immediate area and this sighting suggests that there is still a possibility that spider monkeys are still living close by. These are large primates: a head and body size between 416 – 582 mm an incredibly long tail length that would exceed head and body length ranging between 680mm – 899mm and weight  of 5.9kg to 10.4kg. These monkeys live in troops with 20 – 40 members however often split into small foraging groups of 1-9 but will decrease further when food is scarce and reunite when food becomes abundant again. Their diet consists mostly of ripe fruits but will occasionally feed on dead wood and leaves. Spider monkeys have large home ranges of 150ha to 250ha. Group composition generally consists of 3 times as many female adults as males in a group. Reproduction in spider monkeys is low. Females are mature and are old enough to give birth at 4-5 years of age and will only have young every 3-4 years thereafter. Hunting and deforestation across the Amazon is increasing pressures on survival for the spider monkey and they are stated as endangered by the IUCN. Over hunting of this animal for its meat has significantly reduced its number in this area and its recovery rate is very slow due to the low reproduction as described above. It is therefore important to protect this species for the future individuals to be able to repopulate. 

Christmas and New year in the Jungle - Feliz Navidad y prospero año nuevo

Me and the other Resident Naturalists on christmas eve from left to right:Hannah, Jo , Me and Tris 

December 24th - Christmas Eve had beautifully cooked roast pork and lots of beer the pork was so good i dont remember eating anything else, as my mother will know I never eat the crackling at home but i have now been converted into a cracklin lover or it was just the way it was cooked or maybe i was drunk either way it tasted divine!!!

Explorers Inn Staff, guides and RNs

Christmasday was a beautifully sunny day 29 degrees Celcius i remember thinging I have never had a christmas this hot and back to civilisation Puerto Maldonardo where the girls and I were treated to a christmas dinner at a friends house who also guides at the lodge which included a humungus slab of turkey and potatoes accompanied by cocona and chilli sauce the best i have ever had. Cocona is similar looking to a tomatoe but its taste is very different and is used as a popular juice. with the beers flowing (naturally Cusqueña its the beer of peru) we met with other friends and introduced them to English drinking games. went down a storm espcially on the bus, with everybody happy and very merry we headed to the main square where there was a big party with live music and people dancing it was a brilliant way to spend my first christmas away from home.  

Newyear was a similar experience again I ventured to Puerto Maldonardo with a good friend and guide at the lodge Jorge who kindly let me celebrate the new year with him and his family. He has a massive family with lots of brothrs and sisters, cousins nephews and nieces it reminded me of new years at my nans with all my cousins aunties and uncles who would be there which was a realy lovely to be around especially at that time of year as his family was very warm and welcoming to this little blonde white girl in there house. Here in Puerto they have a tradition that on the strike of midnight they set fire to what I would discribe essentially as a scarecrow figure who represent a figure of authority eg a major or president and depending on how many people set fire to you determines how popular you are and in a crazy way the more people burn you the popular you are. After recovering in puerto for a couple of days it was time to head back to the jungle. once back at the lodge i started to feel a bit weird i thorght i might be getting my first tropical disease, without dinner I went straight to bed at 7 oclock and barely comeing to till about 10 o clock that evening where scampared down from my bunk bed rushed out side where i proceeded to projectile vomit everywhere on and off for a couple hours. lovley start to the year.  Concluding that it was only food poisoning after experiencing it for the first time only 4 months before. therefore thankfully I was right as rain the next morning.

January/Feburary High Lights

So the new year begins and that means so does work monitoring projects to complete and research todo however apart from this Janurary at the lodge saw some lovely visiters a couple particularly come to mind. firstly a lovley woman called Vivviana. let me paint a picture she is a british woman traveling alone and must have been in her early 70s she had the best british accent i have ever heard she prounounced all her words how they are suposed to sound and used such exciting discriptives in the most mundane of conversations, she has a wild and crazy side with a hippy edge and told the cutest of stories one of my favorites being of a story about a cat named bob. She is an artist and came to the jungle to get inspiration for her work. She stayed for 7 days which is unusual long stay for visiters her who normallay stay for an average of 3 nights. during her stay I think its fair to say everybody fell in love with Vivianna and we were all sad to see her leave, her charm and spirt to enjoy every moment of life i will always remember. 

A film crew came and stayed at the lodge they were a bunch of nutters and brought alot of soul to the lodge for the few nights they were here. they were film some survival documentary type thing that is to be shown on the discovery channel  in may, for the life of me i cant remember what its called however it was exciting to meet these people who were hard working and we all enjoyed a beer together on there last night of filming.  

below are the links to the December and January newsletter that the RNs put togethr every months i hope the links works there a fun read and gives you more of an insight to whats happening around the lodge and in the jungle. 

  https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=28079d4c608f1701#!/view.aspx?cid=28079D4C608F1701&resid=28079D4C608F1701%21137&app=Word

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=28079d4c608f1701#!/view.aspx?cid=28079D4C608F1701&resid=28079D4C608F1701%21139&app=Word