Dawson White - BRIT In Fort Worth Texas and Andes to Amazon Research Station
Week 2 & 3

The Lung of the Earth

         Peru provides one of the most unique, diverse, and intriguing landscapes in the world. Eons of convection have forced the subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American plate, creating a rugged and relatively young mountain range we know as the Andes.  The ecosystems and life that have been created within the Peruvian region of this mountain range are incredibly diverse. Whether it be a bustling port city, long sandy beach, 23,000 foot peak, desolate desert, or congested low-land rain forest, Peru has every ecosystem for which an adventurer searches.

         I landed in Lima over three weeks ago (June 24th) to continue a botany internship in this ever-changing landscape.  The first part of my internship took place at the Botanical Research of Texas in Fort Worth with their Andes to Amazon Program. I have traveled to remote research stations to continue  my  botanical research  “in the field.” Although my time here had been very well spent, it was not until the Fourth of July, that I was hurtling down the Eastern slope of the Andes to begin work in the Amazon.

         My mentors are Dr. John Janovec and his dedicated team of graduate students that make up the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program (AABP). At this point AABP has been stationed at Boca Amigos in the Madre de Dios district of Peru, where I will be stationed later in July. Their work over the past four years has been quite remarkable.  John and his loyal graduate students have documented the plants in over 650 transects in this area; whereas beforehand, only a handful of transects would be documented before moving to a different area.  Currently, the program is searching for a new base of operations and a fresh ecosystem for science.  I was lucky enough to get to join John right as he had chosen a new area to explore. After flying out of Lima, we left Cusco by bus and headed nine hours east to a town that gets the most rainfall in the world next to Kauai, Hawaii, a deluge of 45 feet per year. The destination was in the eastern reaches of the district of Cusco, a town of two thousand people called Quincemil.

         After arriving under the cover of darkness and getting some much needed rest at Hotel Tony, I was awakened by roosters and found sunlight pouring into my bare hotel-room. What I saw out the window was the most pristine mountainous jungle scene I could ever imagine. This glowing town is situated at 1800 feet in elevation.  It was surrounded by modest-sized, lush mountains that were vomiting a verdant panoramic display of vegetation.  The mountainsides would play with my mind like a fractal, every tree was host to an entire ecosystem within itself, an endless amount of vegetation.  Bromeliads, epiphytes, parasites, insects, and birds were thriving on top of the hearty trees; a swamp of life suspended above the ground.  Lying below these trees were countless shrubs, ferns, and lianas.  I observed an endless sea of plants disappearing into their neighbors. Every bush and vine looked new to me, much as a pale redhead would among a tribe of jungle folk. Needless to say, John has found his new base of operation. The amazing landscape left me stupefied, while John was erupting with exciting ideas and visions of the future.  The most amazing thing about Quincemil is that none of its lifeforms have ever been studied.

         That same morning we coordinated a trek into a nearby river valley and set out with two porters on a four-day jungle adventure. We started walking out of the small town on a clay road that seemed to get most use of its use from leaf-cutter ants. We soon swerved from this road on to a clay trail and began to ascend the nearby mountain.  Up and down...Up and down. Finally, we popped out of the thick vegetation into a streambed and stumbled our way down for a few more hours.  We finally reached our destination; a pristine river valley a few hundred meters wide.  Our porters, Jose and Alessandro, gave caution to the clouds. Even though we were close to camp, the chaotic sky was always changing, and in a place like this the river could rise several feet in a matter of minutes (it happened every night).  Furthermore, they told us, four to five months of the year the drainage has so much water that the valley fills up like a ditch and passage on the banks is almost impassable due to the fortified understory. At the present time, the river was not much higher than Telluride’s San Miguel River. We had been hiking about five hours when we came to camp, a tarp used by local gold miners, including our porters. We had just enough time to make camp and dinner before the rain fell; we all gladly retired.

         We woke up in the morning and made a hearty breakfast of re-hydrated potatoes, alpaca, rice, and vegetables. The porters left us immediately after eating to begin cutting a trail up the ridge of a mountain. We were enthusiastic and determined to explore what this ecosystem had to offer. We left an hour later and found the two ‘macheteros’ quickly and easily, despite the time difference.  Immediately, we realized this forest was deep and congested.  The machetes needed frequent re-sharpening.

         I was amazed at what I saw on the steep slopes of these mountains. Every single square inch of space around me was living, even the ceiling and the floor.  Everywhere was green and the biodiversity was astonishing.  Over the next two days we hiked up these mountains and down the river.  It was only a few hours into the first hike before on of my mentors, Andy, the Sapotaceae connoiseur, called this place Eden.  Sapotaceae, being a large family of tropical trees  which included the tree from which rubber is extracted.  We stumbled upon a number of peculiar life forms, such as an hymenophyllum fern. This fern has a peculiar characteristic of containing leaves that are only one cell thick! We watched two species of monkey, one of which was a spider monkey, that were traveling together as scouts for the rest of their tribe.  There was a large cocoon and another moth that had become parasitized and killed by a fungus that sprouted from the backs of the moths. There were other parasitic fungi that grew on trees, tapping into the bark to extract all of the tree’s energy. We found frogs that stood five inches tall and aquatic spiders with an eight-inch legspan, a black and florescent yellow, ground-snake without eyes. This blind specimen liked to move in both directions, drive and reverse.  We found a grasshopper that had a bright green and orange three-inch body complete with two protruding antennae that extended another six inches! One immense tree, Erythrena fabaceae, was bare except for bright its red flowers and these added a gorgeous dichotomy to the foliage. Not to mention the birds, constantly singing, though the melodious avians were always out of sight amidst the entangled canopy. From camp we observed large tree turkeys called guans (without open fields, turkeys have adapted to an arboreal existence), toucanitos (small toucans), a toucan, kingfisher, and flocks of emerald green military macaws.  Que bonita!

         One night around the camp I was awakened by John and dragged outside to stare at the wall of vegetation.  As my eyes adjusted, I saw appeared to be a clear starry night punctuated with large blue orbs.  It Bioluminescent fungi had flowered. John said it was the second time in his life he had witnessed such an event. The small white bulbs grew all over the bamboo and would do so for only a few hours, a few times a year.  When I looked out at this forest I saw everything I thought a tropical jungle should be, and more.  This was quite possibly the greatest camping trip of my life.

We hiked out without difficulty and found the most important botanical specimen only an hour before Quincemil. One of the most primitive trees growing today, Magnoliaceae tallouma, has only been documented a once or twice in the world. John himself knew of only four specimens.  These trees produced rock hard fruit the size of softballs that was a meal for mastodons over twenty thousand years ago! Furthermore, these trees have only been found in lowland swamps, whereas we were at 1800 feet in the mountains. I imagine that the 15 meters of rain a year has something to do with their distribution here.

This was an unforgettable and beautiful experience.  There are not many places in the world like Quincemil.  I know I will be back!