Bye bye Iquitos

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

www.iiap.org.pe