The Ogden Trust

Dan Betney visited the Amazon in the Summer 2009 on a BSES Expedition sponsored by the Trust

 

The expedition lasted from July 21^st until August 21^st. Of this month, we would be spending just under 4 days either in airports or in aeroplanes; around 5 days on moving the boat to and from its location; 6 nights in the jungle; and therefore, around 16 days out on scientific transects or turtle egg collection. This may seem the itinerary for the expedition but in reality my experience was so much more than this brief summary, much more than I could describe in this report.

 

The 45 young explorers and the 12 leaders were split into 4 groups known as fires; each named themselves a distinctive name: Tribe, Wild, Caiman and Ucayali (my fire). Of these fires they were separated into 2 boats, the Lobo and the Pithecia, that were stationed on different locations on the river; we switched boats after 2 weeks. Tribe and Ucayali were initially on the Pithecia, Wild and Caiman on the Lobo. My first experience of the Amazon was a speedboat journey that would take us to the Pithecia that was awaiting us at a guard station in the Pacaya-Samiria national reserve. On the speedboats I could see the vastness of the Amazon, with the scattering of fishing villages that lined the sides of this tributary either side but still hundreds of metres apart. Initially we began on the ‘white’ river that led from Iquitos, but soon after, the colour of the water drastically changed to a black colour; this was when we realised we were on the Samiria river that would be our home for the next month for both boats. The Pithecia was located 10 miles downstream of the Lobo, both boats on confluence points on the Samiria.

 

I had many incredible experiences whilst on this expedition; however, many of these were definitely when I was out in the jungle. In total I spent 6 nights in the rainforest: 4 nights of this were on ‘Wild Camp’, 1 night on the macaw survey, and the last night on ‘Jungle Living’. It was my fire that was first to do the Wild Camp and see the jungle, because of this it was my fire that had to setup the base camps and learn the lessons for the other fires. We used canoes to move around the area and the river, this was our main source of transport for the entire expedition. On Wild Camp we all learnt the skills of macheteing, camp building, canoe skills, and general skills to live in this hostile environment. We set up an initial camp, where we spent 2 nights, then set up another further along the river where we spent the final 2 nights. Both areas were incredible: whenever we would swim the river dolphins would appear, wherever we trekked through the jungle troops of monkeys would drop down to see us, nocturnal canoeing unmasked the clearest night time sky I have ever seen, and we would canoe down rivers that lead through virgin rainforest.

 

The macaw survey was physically challenging, we would canoe early in the morning and late in the evening in order to record the macaws flying from and to their nests. This was a lot of canoeing, over the day and a half we canoed 30km up and back down the river. During the night we had an epic storm, forks of lightning constantly striking the trees above our head for over 4 hours. It was on the macaw survey when I witnessed the most beautiful sunrise of the expedition that was followed later by an equally incredible sunset, it was in these extreme hours when the Amazon could show its true colours. My best experience of the entire trip was Jungle Living. This was only 1 night in the jungle; however, unlike the other fires we were the last group to do this so we had complete freedom in the options open to us. After much debate we agreed upon the idea of building a raft at the camp on the cocha (a lake formed by the drop in water level during the dry season), we would then paddle it down a river linking the cocha to the Samiria and then onto the Lobo. With an axe and machetes in-tow we cut the wood down, and built the raft. It was then that we realised that the small linking river was overgrown and would have to be cleared. So me and 3 others waded to over waist level into stagnant bath-warm water known to be infested with stingray, electric eel, river snake and caiman and macheted away the mangroves and bushes that impeded the way. By cutting and moving we managed to move the raft 180m in 2 hours, we realised that our mission was impossible. This extreme, adventurous part was what I was looking for in the expedition and I had it multiple times in the trip climaxing in my Jungle Living experience.   

 

When not in the jungle I was on the boat completing transects, each day it was one of the following depending on the rota: 10km walk through the jungle noting mammals seen, 5km float in a boat recording river dolphins, 5km float recording turtles, or a night time search for caimans. On top of this, for 3 nights we also went out and collected turtle eggs and moved them to a secure area away from collected turtle eggs and moved them to a secure area away from poachers; unfortunately, on 1 night we were too late and the poachers had cleared the entire beach. The most amazing animal that I saw in the jungle was whilst on a 10km wildlife transect. In a tree 25m away a guide pointed out a ball, he and the other guide began shouting in joy. They led me and 2 others down towards it and shook the vine it was attached to, I was now only 5m away, it was a 3-toed sloth, a much rarer and larger relative of the more common 2-toed sloth; we even saw it laboriously move away up the vine and around the tree. Putting the science and jungle experience to the side, I had most fun with the people that I was with on the expedition, I definitely made some friends that will be with me for a long time yet.