I woke up early to finish packing my things which didn't
take long. Then Freddie and I went out for our last breakfast! When we got back
I went to my room to get all my things. Then went out into the lobby and gave
Louis and Freddie the rum and said good bye. Louis wrote on his phone on Google
translate; ‘it was a pleasure to meet you and you always have a friend in
Iquitos.’ I thanked both Freddie and
Louis. I also said bye to Wayne and Jacob. Then got into a motor taxi and left
for the airport. As we bumpily rode to the airport I shed a tear. I will miss
Iquitos I have had the most amazing time. I will never forget my experience
here it was incredible. At the airport I found myself replying and speaking to
a lady in Spanish about the weather and my time in the jungle. Of course it was
pretty basic but it just showed that I must have picked up more Spanish than I
thought.
Peruvian Amazonia adventures
Monday, 8 July 2013
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Butterfly farm
Watched Wimbledon this morning – Murray won. Success!! We
went to Pilpintuwasi butterfly farm, and took a motor car to the port and then
one to the farm. These are precarious and don’t have seat belts. We saw monkeys
out of their cages, sloths, an ocelot, a coati, a jaguar and birds. We saw
caterpillars, cocoons and numerous butterflies. Inside of a cocoon it is
completely liquid. All the organs completely change it is only the DNA which
remains the same. The farm ‘aims to preserve Amazonia Flora and Wildlife’. The farm takes in endangered species and
animals that had been injured and needed rehabilitation.
http://amazonanimalorphanage.org/News/
When we got back I bought a bottle of Rum for all the guys
as a thank you from the supermarket.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Freddie's Birthday
Today is Freddie’s birthday I gave him a birthday card and
Jacob, Freddie and I went out for breakfast. Freddie got on with some work
while I went to the supermarket, gave in some washing and had a wander around.
We then went out for dinner. We had chicken with Jacob and Louis in Freddie’s
favourite restaurant.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Quistakotcha field work day
Woke up had breakfast in the hostel with Wayne. Juan Cardo
then came to the hostel and we set of for Quistakotcha. We left Freddie’s machete
in the motor taxi– good start. The site we needed to get to was pretty straight forward. It was
slightly wet not as much as the previous Aguajales I had been in. On the walk
in we saw this beautiful, brightly coloured caterpillar. Wayne looked at Juan Cardo
and asks ‘peligroso? (dangerous?)’ and Juan Cardo replies ‘muchos peligroso!!’
Wayne seemed worried, but it was amazing so I decided to take pictures while
Wayne ran away. We went to two areas before lunch. Here we put down five
chambers and took measurements from each one every minute. We filled the
syringes, took air temperature, dissolved oxygen content in the soil and took soil
PH measurements every minute too. We couldn’t take measurements between 12.00
and 14.30 as at this time there would be major changes in the results. So we
stopped for a long lunch. We had a tin of sardines with crackers. We then
returned after lunch and took measurements in two more areas. We finished at
3.30 and returned to La Pascana. In the evening we went to a bar with a guy
named John who works at iiap. He wanted to collaborate with the PHD guys
staying at la Pascana and learn more about all the projects.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Protests continue ...
The protests were still going on which meant we couldn't go
out and Wayne and I couldn't get to Quistakotcha to do any field work. We had
breakfast in the Amazon Bistro. It was all pretty quiet and calm when suddenly
all the staff started running about and bringing all the tables and chairs from
outside in. Apparently the protests were coming this way! We walked back past
some army guys with guns and people with sticks. I helped Freddie with data
input. I typed into the spread sheet this time, which helped improve my speed
on excel. Also I learn some more family, genus and species names. I also helped
Wayne label all his exotainers. So we labelled them with the site name on and
the time. For example, the first one was QU,BR1,CH1,T0. The following ones went
up so T1 then T2 etc. We then had to get last minute things such as batteries
for the fans in the gas chambers and we borrowed one of Freddie’s machetes.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Protests in Iquitos
Last night I heard chanting and a loud uproar from outside.
Protests have begun in Iquitos. I woke up early to go to iiap again with
Freddie. There were not many motor cars
around and everything was pretty quiet. We managed to find a motor car and
jumped in. On the way to iiap we realised that no one was out. The roads were
covered in rubbish as people knew the bin men and cleaners were on strike so
the public abused this. There was broken glass on the roads to stop the motor
cars from going out. The aim of the protests was to stop everything from
functioning. The protesters didn’t want anyone using the roads or having their
shops open. We went down one street and there were guys with sticks and masks
stopping people from exiting the roads. There were lots of police in the main
square but not on the roads with guys and sticks. We decided it was too
impossible to go to iiap as it was too dangerous. So we turned around and went
back to La Pascana. Freddie was going to show one of the guys in the centre how
to use a corer. In La Pascana I spoke to Wayne and Jacob for a bit and another
guy joined us. He is involved in a project to regain traditional, cultural
aspects to village life. For example, types of food that were traditionally
grown in villages if re-grown would provide profit for the village. He also
spoke to us about utilising medicinal plants in the forest. It was really
interesting.
Wayne then spoke to me about his research and showed me his
field work equipment. He had gas chambers which are plastic containers with an
inner tube surrounding them. You place the container on water. Then attach a
syringe to the tubing coming out of the container. Then you get rid of the air
in the syringe and collect the gas with it. Then you insert the collected gas
into an exotainer. The exotainers are examined in the UK.
For lunch due to the protests most restaurants were shut.
However, the burger restaurant was pretending to be shut by having the shutters
down but in fact it was open, so we crept in through a tiny side door to eat
lunch. We then went to get money out and while Jacob had his back turned a
swarm of people were approaching running up the road. So Freddie tapped Jacob
on the shoulder and said ‘err Jacob I think we need to get out of here!’ so we
power walked out of there while the sea of people followed.
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
iiap - Iquitos Research Institute
We went to iiap – the Research Institute in Iquitos this
morning. First we met with a man named Ricardo who helps to organise all the
boats and logistics for researchers. Freddie and Wayne spoke to him about boat
availability and organised dates for their next trips into the field. We then
met a guy called Dennis Del Castillo Torres, who is the director of iiap. He
had a great knowledge of the forest - particularly Aguajales. Lots of this type
of forest is being destroyed and used to grow oil palm on. Many Peruvians see
Aguajales as a waste of land and pointless. This is because they do not see any
short term profit from it. However, Aguajales are ecosystems with great
importance. For one thing, they store carbon and if destroyed this carbon will
be released into the atmosphere. In addition, the forests regulate water and
provide many ecosystem services regionally and globally. Dennis works with
scientists in order to protect the forest. The more papers that are published
the better as they provide scientific proof to how important the areas are and
the necessity of protecting them. The
government and local people need to understand and see the scientific research
showing the importance of the forest in order to want to protect it. At the
moment people are concerned with profit. Dennis had to persuade the owner of
quisakotcha zoo not to destroy the Aguajales, she wanted to expand the zoo. The
only way he could do this was by saying scientific tourism will bring money
into the area. Researchers will come and spend money to study the area. In this
way the owner saw the benefit of protecting the Aguajales. He did not argue for
the ecosystem benefit as this would not have worked as the lady would not have
seen any economic benefit in the short term.
Wayne’s work looks at the gas emissions that forests give
off. In quistakotcha there is a secondary forest and grass areas due to human
impact. So Wayne wants to get data from the areas affected by humans and the natural
areas in order to show the difference. If the data difference is drastic enough
then it will ultimately help to protect the area. I asked if there was a
balance that could be made where humans can use the forest and impact it without
destroying it. Freddie said not really as the ecosystems are so fragile and
must not be disturbed. The best solution would be if projects were put in place
to protect the area and make them national parks. For example, if REDD funded a
project to protect the area and allowed locals to live there still but had
rules and regulations in place. The inhabitants would be compensated for this so
could get by.
We then went for lunch and when we got back Freddie’s PHD
friend Jacob was there. His work looks into birds and floristic compositions.
Freddie seemed keen to pair up with him to do some work which sounded
cool. Jacob was interested in writing a paper
about comparing deforestation footprints.
For example, it might be better to efficiently extract oil in a way
which causes the least damage possible than to use an area of forest to farm
cattle. To make the same profit a larger area of land must be destroyed to farm
cattle than to extract oil.
I helped Freddie do some more data input into excel spread
sheets. I read the figures and species names and Freddie typed it into excel.
Went to Kekiricks for dinner – yummy chicken and chips and
chaufa.
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