About the Rainforest

I'm assuming that most people who are reading this blog have never been to the rainforest before (except for my Ecua-group!). So I want to try to describe as best I can what it is like to be in what I think is the most beautiful place in the world.

• Headlamps - these are a necessity. The sun rises a little before 6am and sets a little after 6pm with amazing consistency because we are so close to the Equator. Nightfall is really sudden and because the canopy is so thick, it gets very dark very fast.
• You trip all the time, everywhere. Since the rainforest is so hot and humid, the leaf litter on the ground decays very very slowly. So there is usually a thick layer of dead leaves on the ground that hide treacherous roots and sticks. I'm pretty clumsy anyways so I trip like once every 5 minutes. Or more.
• COBWEBS, IN YOUR FACE. No matter how many times you walk a trail, even within a day, you will walk into spiderwebs if you are the first in line. It is especially bad in the morning, when the spiders have had all night to string their nets across the trail and you are walking in the dark with your headlamp. This is probably my least favorite thing about the rainforest. I hate peeling spiderweb off my mouth and eyelashes.
• The rainforest can be loud. Cicadas day and night are probably some of the loudest sounds. But you can also hear birds, frogs, and monkeys screaming if you are lucky. There's always a falling branch every so often, knocking down leaves and other branches on its way down from the canopy. We're studying in the varialles forest, which is stunted and somehow much quieter than terra firme, which I feel like is always loud.
• Speaking of falling branches, tree fall is very common in the rainforest. Since the soil is so nutrient poor, plants don't bother sending their roots deep into the soil, but rather spread out on the soil surface if they can. This makes it very easy for trees to fall down, and take down others in their path. But clearings are often quickly filled in by new growth. However, this means that you have to step (or clamber) over fallen logs like every 10 minutes when walking down the trail. Another tripping factor.
• The mosquitos aren't that bad in the dry season. They are still there, but it's not as bad as a buggy New England forest. I'm sure things will change as we head into the wet season, but even then I feel like it won't be ridiculous.
• What WILL be ridiculous are the sweat bees. I don't think these exist the US. There three kinds here - tiny black ones, smallish yellow ones, and large black ones. Once you start sweating (i.e. all the time), they start landing on you and lapping up the sweat from your skin. They don't sting unless you half-squash one, and even then they don't really hurt. They are mostly just annoying - the sensation of tiny tiny bugs crawling on your arms and back and constantly flying around your face.  They kind of tickle too. I don't mind them on my arms and back too much but it's really annoying when a bunch are hovering around your face, trying to land, when you are trying to process a bird or eat your lunch. They say that in some places they get so bad that they start to fly into your eyes and get all up in your yogurt and stuff. I'm glad I brought a mosquito head net.
• Everywhere you look, you will probably see something new. At first glance, you look around in the rainforest and just see strange and unfamiliar plants. But if you look closely and are patient, you will see all sorts of cool things. I find this most striking with all the insects, because any given insect you could see might be a new species! I mean probably not, but with the ridiculous number of insects in the rainforest and how little we know about them, it's certainly possible. At first I thought that this was just a piece of lint on James' socks, but no! A trash bug! Que fantastico!