El Aguajal

I woke at six to the barks and chatters of the Titi monkeys energetic conversations. Grabbing my boxer shorts and blue t-shirt, I walked to breakfast thinking of Tuco’s hot pancakes smothered in the sickly sweet ooze of condensed milk and followed by a bowl of papaya. After breakfast, Will Minehart, an ornithologist studying antbirds, approached me, reminding me of our plans for a trek in the Aguajal.

Donning my polyester pants, wool socks, and tall rubber boots I prepared to trek through the palm swamp. The first trail was wide and we walked abreast listening for mammals wandering through the damp brush of the primary forest. It led to the retired airstrip, which upon entering, blinds the passerby with a sudden inundation of blazing sunlight. Heat waves shimmering over the short grass give the stretch of open air a surreally vast feeling compared to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the verdurous forest; but as soon as you realize that you’ve been walking for 10 minutes and you’re only halfway, it no longer feels so enchantingly dreamlike and pleasantly airy—just uncomfortably hot. Birders frequent the airstrip to admire the blue and gold macaws feeding in fruit trees, turkey vultures circling overhead, and great black hawks gliding royally through the endless sky. Passifloras and purple clitoralis flowers line the well trodden path leading back to the familiar dank humidity of la trocha Huangana.

Blue and Gold Macaws in a Cecropia on the Aerodromo. (photo by Will Minehart)

Turning onto the seldom traveled trail, Mauritia, the path narrowed, traversing down a steep hill over dried creek beds and under thorny trees. We paused to snap photos of a terrestrial orchid and an inch long bullet ant, whose famed bite apparently feels like a gun-shot wound. Not wanting to test the theory, I remained a respectable distance from the menacing pincers while Will impishly directed the savage ant in circles by blowing in its face.

The solid dirt paths spaced loosely with grandiose ficus trees and chirping trogans suddenly gave way to thick marshy grasses and shrieking parrots. Shiny green vanilla vines scaled lichen spotted aguaje palms while cumulous clouds garnished the pool blue sky. Ferns freckling the islands of palms tenaciously grasped nutrient rich dirt and dangled their flighty branches over tea-colored swamp waters. Palms whose tops had fallen provided nesting grounds for parrots. Oropendulas sang drippy songs, clucking to one another and flicking their bright yellow tails as they built hanging nests from palm fronds and small vines. Orchids as small as my pinky nail, a caterpillar resembling a peachy 1970’s shag rug, a neon red, striped mushroom, black and yellow spiked spiders, and fantastic clusters of algae captured our attention, and we often stood for minutes just admiring the untouched beauty of the remote creatures.

Moving slowly without a machete, I blazed a trail across the soft terrain and tested the ground ahead of Will, his reasoning being that ladies should go first. Spotting the bullshit in seconds, I considered his puckish interests of self-preservation pointing out that I would be the one to fall in the hidden swamp holes and serve as anaconda bait. He graciously offered to fight off any attackers. Muchas gracias, amigo.

High hopes of staying dry in this swamp were futile. Only twenty minutes into the trek, we faced the inevitable and began to venture onto the wetter parts of the trail, never sure of its depth until we stopped sinking. Gasping when apparently solid ground gave way to waist deep muck, we would giggle and pull each other from the resolute grip of the mud, sucking our boots from our feet. We lost the trail numerous times, yet getting lost is never a waste of time—it’s a part of the adventure. The numbered orange tags marking the trail are supposedly spaced every 25 meters (75 feet), but the lively forest never fails to exploit free spaces, so many markers are often obscured with leaves or mistaken for colorful flowers. Even after admitting water into our sweaty boots, our trip hardly moved faster. Walking to the next trail marker, even when visible, could take as long as 10 minutes in some spots, in part because we wanted to move quietly and slowly so as not to scare wildlife from our sights, but mostly because we could not move any faster.

Passing a stretch of fallen trees, I looked up to see the New York City of spider webs. The massive cobwebs and intricate rings hung in a thick cloud for 20 feet and rose 4 feet in places. It was nearly impossible to move around the obstacle, so I reached out to carefully pull a visible thread from a branch in order to pass. When I removed the thread, an audible BING reached our ears, just as if I had snapped a piece of fishing line. Impressed by its durability and extreme stickiness, we carefully crept around the cloudy mess of thread and continued to lose and find the trail.

El Aguajal

As we entered a darker portion of the swamp, this time under the cover of some woodier trees, the path became more solid, and our encounters with deep water became less regular (though only a little). Rounding a thorny bush and avoiding a spiny trunked palm, I suddenly saw a yellow and black head jerk at the sight of my movement. I too reacted, but with a shriek, jumping backwards, nearly running into Will. Peering over the shrubs with wide brown eyes, I laughed. I had to. It was a tortoise. Though grinning, Will admitted that he would have jumped too. We gringos can never be too sure of ourselves in an Amazonian swamp. Armed with band aids and rubbing alcohol, we were not exactly prepared to cure the nibble of an unfriendly fer-de-lance or any number of foreign bug bites, so we keep on our toes.

While hiking through the swamp, I was struck with the desire to take a photo so purely swampish that while I’m sitting at a computer killing time in a gray Kentucky January, I will feel like I’m breathing the heavy air of the swamp once again. Six hours and 200 photos later, I could still only hope that I had begun to capture the uncontained rapture I felt for the unique ecosystem. I cannot say for sure, but perhaps my attraction for the swamp stems from my childhood. On hot summer days I would don my favorite purple bathing suit and turn on the hose letting it dribble into the permanent mud puddle in the depression of the sidewalk from my suburban Midwestern home. I would play for hours, content to plop in the mud, covering my skin, and making monstrous faces at passerby’s walking to the park and professors driving to the neighboring University. My love for mud was followed by an interest in frogs and I was later nicknamed “wee toady” by my mother’s boyfriend, Paul, an ecologist. Canoe trips to swamps as a teenager always excited me as much as they unnerved me as I grew more aware of what actually lived in a swamp, but growing through my irrational fear, I find myself slopping through mud and swamps once again.

Caterpillar...1970's shag rug?

Dumping our boots in the ditch next to the laundry line, mud, insects, thorns, sticks, seeds, and a number of unidentifiable objects spilled out, the rest sticking to our pants and socks. We had arrived late for lunch, but covered plates waited patiently on the white and gray flecked tile counters of the cool kitchen and we eagerly plopped on the wooden benches of the comedor to devour the fried yucca, chicken, rice and chicha morada, a refresco made from purple corn. Full, hot, happy, and showered, we settled into our respective cabins to do what one does best during a hot Amazonian afternoon after a long day in the field: take a siesta.