Follow the smoke and hammers!


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South America » Peru
February 8th 2010
Published: February 8th 2010
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So, as it turns out, one of the most terrifying things in the rainforest happens to be your imagination. In combination with my slightly elevated levels of paranoia, I have managed to have several unwarranted panic attacks, embarrassingly in the presence of others but much to their amusement. There was that time that we were out baiting traps and I became convinced there was a jaguar in our presence and proceeded to pull out my swiss army knife as a legitimate means of defense (turns out the noise was howler monkeys). And that time that I heard some large animal moving outside the cabin at night (which actually could have been a jaguar) and woke up my cabin mate to let her know something was prowling about outside. Basically any time I hear a noise that I’m unfamiliar with I assume it’s a jaguar and act accordingly; it’s better to err on the side of caution, I believe.
At any rate, every slightly scary incident contributes to your paranoia reservoir, until it inevitably reaches that tipping point when everything comes gushing out the top with no way to stem the flow. Hence the following story. Now, one night before Erin and I went out to follow our tagged group of tamarins, I experienced a sequence of events that managed to shake me up a little. First, I had gone out at night to look for frogs with Lucy, a filmmaker currently residing at the station. For some inexplicable reason, Lucy decided that this would be a good time to mention the foraging habits of the aggressive and terrifying bushmaster snake, which comes out at night. Despite this, Lucy was pretty content to splash merrily into the swamps (including the one with the caiman) while I was significantly less venturesome and stayed back a bit closer to the trail. As she was searching for the frogs, I heard a growl in the distance. I tried to block it out and told myself it was nothing, creeping up a little closer to distract myself with the amphibians. However, a few minutes later I heard a growling noise that sounded extremely close, extremely threatening, and extremely long. Obviously, I automatically diagnosed the mystery growler as a…jaguar…and proceeded to grab Lucy and march steadfastly back to camp, talking as loudly as possible to scare off the animal. Though we returned unharmed, both of us were pretty uneasy about the situation and never determined the source of the noise. Interesting note: jaguars don’t actually growl and don’t make much noise being stealth predators, so if you’re going to be killed by one, you at least won’t have time to process that fact.
Shortly after the whole frogging debacle, I headed back to the cabin with my roommate Emma. I have to give Emma credit for dealing with my random bouts of extreme fear (Yes, I did wake her up one night when it was raining super hard because I was freaked out, don’t judge me please). As she was leading the way up to our porch steps, I heard a loud thump squarely behind us and frantically began screaming “Go! Go! Go!” Emma, in a frenzy, began to sprint up the stairs, only to spring back screaming as if she had hit a wall. Turns out a huge black hairy spider had built a web directly in front of our door and, as a result of my screams, she had run straight into it! Much to her displeasure, I obviously found this hysterical and proceeded to laugh for a good five minutes while she wiped the web off of her body.
Finally, as we were getting into bed, we heard something tinging against the screen of our cabin and both froze. We had both been startled by the spider incident and thus were a little peeved to find a mouse scurrying around our cabin, but quickly got over it once we were safely confined in our mosquito nets. In the jungle, the mosquito net is a beacon of light, the only truly safe haven in which you feel comfortable letting your guard down. The day I find something inside my net will be an unpleasant one indeed.
Well, as you might imagine, all these little events had managed to transform themselves into a healthy dose of unease and fear by the next morning. As Erin and I set out around 5am to happily follow our tagged group of tamarins (FC!), I was a little on edge but eager to get a good day’s worth of data. And the day did start out well, as we managed to follow them for roughly three hours, getting good observations and focal recordings. Around 8am, though, things took a turn for the worse when the little buggers decided to start climbing up and down deep ravines on trails with which we were unfamiliar. Now, when you’re following the tamarins, you’re basically not paying any attention to where you are, as you’re constantly looking up to try to keep the little guys in sight, even when they’re really high up in the canopy and are just silhouettes against the bright sunlight. Thus, they can lead you to some pretty crazy places and really destroy your already meager sense of direction so that you are hopelessly confused. Which is what they decided to do this morning. Erin and I kept our eyes affixed to the sky as we bushwhacked through any brush lying in our path, climbed up and down steep embankments and haphazardly pushed aside thorns and cobwebs. Despite this, we managed to lose the group relatively quickly on one such incline.
Normally, in such a situation you simply use the tracker to find the group again and orient yourself according to the nearest trails. It was only after we pulled out the GPS that we realized that we had no clue where the heck we were and that maybe following them up and down embankments in unfamiliar terrain hadn’t been the greatest idea. This was compounded by the fact that the GPS we have is semi-useless when you are actually lost. That is, the compass on the GPS doesn’t work and it can be more than 20 m off when it directs you to any point. Of course, we had forgotten to bring the legitimate compass that actually helps you determine direction. So here we were with no idea where we were actually located and no means of figuring it out except a trail map enclosed in a ziplock bag to protect it from the rain. Logically, we decided to sit down and eat our lunches and then deal with the situation at hand. As we were starting to feel replenished after a tiring morning, I heard an unknown noise and, as aforementioned, this clearly equates to jaguar in my mind. Erin handled my anxiety attack pretty well, but once she said that she thought she saw some terrestrial animal moving nearby, I was done. Even food couldn’t placate me by that point. I sprung up and became insistent upon getting off that dratted incline, though I had absolutely no idea where to go.
In the midst of all this, I heard a pounding noise in the distance and began pointing in that general direction and screaming, “Hammer! Hammer!” My thought was that such a noise could only be coming from CICRA, so Erin and I, not knowing what else to do, decided to follow the pounding. We began climbing up the incline, which turned into an embankment of sorts, and just decided to suck it up. We pulled ourselves blindly up the slope, getting our front sides entirely covered in mud, as we frantically moved in the direction of the no longer existent hammering noise. Just as I was beginning to question whether this was a mirage-type situation and we had imagined the pounding, we spotted smoke in the distance. “Fire! Fire!” I screamed excitedly and we continued up in that direction. Finally, we spotted some CICRA cabins just as it was starting to rain and happily trekked the remaining distance to the field station.
Arriving safely, we took the afternoon to regain our bearings and reflect upon the situation. After close examination of the map, we realized that we had not been in even remotely uncharted territory. Rather, we had managed to not only lose the tamarin group but ourselves as well in a region between two well-established trails relatively close to camp. Quite a blow to our self-esteem, but after some chocolate we began to feel significantly better. And we vowed to learn a critical lesson: always carry a compass with you (never mind the fact that we have forgotten to take one out with us every day since). We can always follow the smoke and hammers back to camp!
Hope all is well, more to come about camp life next time, hopefully! And also, starting next time, I swear I’m going to try writing shorter blog posts more often…sorry this is so long and thanks to the two people who actually read it!


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8th February 2010

back in the BoBo woods...
I hope that I count as one of those two people who you claim read this. Also, I think that the posts should be longer not shorter. Shorter means less stories and less info. I want to hear about everything. Its not the Jaguars that you need to look out for...its the deer/mountain lions. With all those trees for cover, every step could lead to a ninja deer attacking from the tree tops. You should know this we are supposed to be expert deer trackers after all. And if push comes to shove (in that a Jaguar does appear and you are forced to push and shove people out of your way in your attempt to get away) you can always push/trip Kappy down so that the Jaguar gets him first. Just like proposed with the mountain lions and the ninja tree deer. In case of Kappy not being there to lay down (get it you pushed him over!) his life to save yours, you can always find a ... friend (perferable not one you will need... and not your roommate who keeps you sane) to 'help' (fall as you trip them and run by). Best of Luck and keep the updates coming! Nick
8th February 2010

hahah nick i miss you so much. your comments make me so happy and i can now add ninja deer to the list of things that terrify me. i do really wish kappy was here because clearly he is the weak link and would inevitably be the one eaten. also i am so happy to hear that your job is awesome and i can't wait to actually hear about it in person when i get back! hopefully we can be boston buddies. keep in touch!! (and yes i counted you as one of the two who reads my blog, the other being my dad. actually i'm not even sure he reads it, it's fine.)
9th February 2010

hi Karina! amazing story.. not only because of the objective facts u mention but also because of the thrill that u transmit in the narration. Even if u "listen jaguars" pretty often, it is great to hear that u havent been in real danger so far. I agree with Nick, long stories are better. love from the south of south america. let.
1st March 2010

Leticia! Hiii!!! Thanks so much for reading the blog and commenting. HOw are you?! I'm REALLY sad that I won't be able to make it to BA to visit you while I'm in South America...did you get to meet up with Will ever?? I hope so. But i miss you lots and you better not forget about our New YOrk City reunion! (coming up soon, I think!)

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