Last day in La Esperanza

Hola bloggers!

Today was our final day in La Esperanza, we have had a nice few days here relaxing and recharging the batteries before we make our way to the next study site - Cordillera Colan National Park.

We decided to walk down to the little patch of forest near the house to get some last minute night monkey data for Nicola and also to get back into the habit of walking in the forest and of course after having been a relatively dry day, it decided to rain while we were out. 

We have all really enjoyed our time here in La Esperanza and would like to thank NPC and the guides for all their help so far, we really could not have collected our data without their help.

(from left to right: Esme, Josie, Sophia & Nicola)

So all that is left for us to do is pack and get sorted for our journey tomorrow.

We are planning to stay in the forest for twenty days and there will not be any internet, so this will be the last blog entry for a while. However, as soon as possible we will report on how our data collection went at Cordillera Colan and we will hopefully have some more amazing photos to share with you.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading the blog :)

First study site completed :)

Hola!

It was a tough 10 days in the forest and the weather on a few occasions prevented us from walking the trails, but I am pleased to announce that Nicola and I have completed our census data collection at the first study site. If anything it has made us realise how dependent we are on the weather, so we will take that into consideration for the next site.

We both had a few great encounters with our study species and I even went out and helped with some of the night surveys. The forest is a completely different place at night, but it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, it's actually really pretty when the moon is out and there are fireflies everywhere...the only downside are the moths that fly into your face due to the head torch.

 

As we were leaving the campsite we came across a group of yellow-tailed woolly monkeys, which seemed the perfect end to our trip. 

However, we could also hear chainsaws again in the distance and after all the groups of monkeys and other wildlife that we have encountered during our time in El Torro, it is really sad to think that they could lose their homes.   

As an example, the photos that you see above, those trees were cut down during the the 10 days we were in the forest. But it is not all doom and gloom, by supporting NGOs like NPC we can protect the forests and find sustainable alternatives for local communities. 

For now we are back in La Esperanza re-charging the batteries and catching up on some much needed sleep before heading to the next study site - El Colan national park, it is at a higher altitude and we have just found out that no one has previously conducted any census research there. So all very exciting :) 

Sadly we will be saying goodbye to one of our Peru Girls (Asli), she is leaving us on tuesday to go off on some wonderful travels around Peru, she has been a great help during the project and we are all going to miss her lots and wish her a safe onward journey!

Until next time bloggers 

Chachapoyas

Hello from Chachapoyas!

We have had a lovely 5 days in Chachapoyas taking a break from our extreme hiking trips to the forest. We have embraced our inner tourists and done a lot of gift shopping, sightseeing and eating...a lot! Our first trip was visiting the ruins of Kuelap - an old city associated with Chachapoyan culture, dating back to the 6th century AD. According to the lonely planet guide there is nothing that equals to Kuelap except the ruins of Machu Picchu. 

On first looking at the outside of the city, the great walls suggest that it was perhaps used as a fortress, however it is now thought that it was a holy city, as there were bones found from several different cultures including the Incas. 

On Sunday (5th June) the Peruvian elections took place, it was between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori and it was very close. In the evening there were celebrations in the central plaza of Chachapoyas, with fireworks and a marching band, Ollanta had won! It was such a contrast to the conclusions of the elections in the UK.

Our next trip was to visit Revash - mausoleums located in the mountains. It was a 1 hour hike from the road (all uphill) and at altitudes approaching 3000 m above sea level, it makes it that little bit more difficult, but at least we have had 3 weeks of practice walking to the El Torro study site. 

Today we are returning to La Esperanza, the break has been great and we are now ready to go back to the forest in search of monkeys.

Thanks for reading! :)

Amazing encounter

Hello again from all of us in La Esperanza!

We have returned from our third trip to the forest, with I am glad to say less bruises and scrapes than usual. Esme did fantastically for her first trip (considering the rest of us are a few weeks ahead of her) and her clothes are now as muddy as the rest of ours.

The census is going well for Nicola, she encountered a group of night monkeys on the B3 trail :) unfortunately I have not been as lucky, but I am still hopeful for the next trip. 

(from left to right: Thiago, Asli, Nicola, Andrew, Josie and Sophia)

On our the final day before returning to La Esperanza, Asli, Andrew and myself decided that we would try to find some yellow-tailed woolly monkeys, as we heard them near one of the trails the previous evening. We were not too far away from the campsite when we heard the monkeys, we were immediately off the trail, scrambling uphill through the forest until finally we caught up with a group of around 10 monkeys. We followed them for 5 hours, Andrew was busy taking photographs while I was frantically taking notes on the behaviours Asli and I observed.

The group eventually stopped at a large fig tree, which made data collection a little easier, we saw very positive behaviours such as playing and allogrooming (when 2 or more monkeys are grooming each other), however there were a couple of aggressive interactions. It was truly an amazing experience and I hope that we will be lucky enough to have more encounters such as this...thousands of photos and 14 pages of notes later and we were finished for the day. 

The return journey to La Esperanza seemed to be tougher than usual for the group, but we still managed to keep our spirits up and have a few fun group photos taken along the way (see below). But we are all looking forward to having a little break from our extreme hiking.

(from left to right: Nicola, Asli, Armando, Ronal, Sophia and Esme)

Tomorrow sadly we say goodbye to our friend and honorary Peru Girl Andrew Walmsley (the AMAZING photographer), he will be greatly missed by us all and while he travels back to Tarapoto to fly back to the UK, the rest of us will be heading to Chachapoyas. The Peruvian elections are coming up and so we thought we would take the opportunity to have a few days of sightseeing.

(Above: Andrew Walmsley)

Catch you in a few days time with a more touristy blog entry.