My winter (summer) holidays.

Well the first part of my epic journey, to try and see the majority of my friends and family spread across Europe, is underway.

On Friday night at 6pm (local time) I boarded a KLM flight from Lima to Amsterdam.  As usual I had forgotten a) how little leg room there is b) how nice their food is.  After watching 2 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, dinner was served. I had a nice conversation with the Norwegian woman sat next to me, and then I watched Slumdog Millionaire which, if you haven’t seen, you should watch.  I then tried to sleep. I dozed a bit, but was very relieved when I realised that it was light outside and they were serving breakfast!

We landed slightly ahead of time and then there was the inevitable dull wait for my bag.  The hotel (www.citizenm.com) was really easy to find, and is delightfully geeky  I did little more than drop my bags, have a wash and play with the room control pod for 5 mins, before heading back towards the Airport to catch the train into Amsterdam Centraal.

Once in the centre of Amsterdam I wandered aimlessley in the general direction of where I thought the Art museums were.  It had been pouring down when we landed, but soon the sun came out and I had a rather lovely afternoon meandering through the streets of Amsterdam getting some sun.  Eventually I arrived at the Van Gough museum and spent a couple of hours looking at pretty pictures.  Decided that Sunflowers is not that good, but really like the cherry tree ones. What you don’t get from the prints is just how thick some of the paint is – they are really highly textured!

As the museum was closing I decided to take another route back towards the train station, with the hope of finding food on the way.  In the end I went into a Mexican place just opposite the station as it was the first place I came across where I could understand the menu.  The owner was delighted that I spoke to him in Spanish, and then kept telling me how cute I was, which I found unnerving, especially as he was old enough to be my father!  Nobody else I had met that day seemed to be pleased that I was speaking Spanish.  Can’t think why…

Amsterdam, even though I have been there before, was a bit of a culture shock having lived in a predominantly Catholic, fairly conservative country for the last 18 months.  Tattoos, piercings, odd clothes, men holding hands and kissing each other in the street are just not things you see often in Lima.  Still, it is lovely to be looking at familiar trees, flowers and birds again – I got slightly over excited the first time I saw a jackdaw – even the grass is the right sort really feels like I’m back home (even though I’m not).

I got the train back to the hotel thinking that it wasn’t that late as it was still light, only to remember that it doesn’t go dark at 6 in northern Europe in the summer, and by the time I had showered, repacked for the morning, played with all the room settings some more, checked my email and got to bed that it was about 11pm.

Getting the plane the next morning was a piece of cake.  I went down for breakfast at about 7.30, left the hotel (having checked myself out on a funky little computer thing) at 8 and by 10 past was stood in the EasyJet bag drop queue.  No worries.  I think I will book myself in at the same hotel on the way back – it really takes the stress out of getting to the airport when you know you can walk it in 5 mins!

Thus ended the first part of my travels.

7 things

I am fairly new to blogging – I’m not really a computer geeky type and this blog was really a way of letting people keep an eye on what I’m up to in Latin America without sending them mass emails of the kind my mum is so fond of.  To be fair not many people read the blog – I prefer to think that this is because I don’t update it very regularly rather than the more likely scenario that I am just not that interesting…  However one person who does read it is Lorna (www.lornajane.net) and she recently tagged me in her blog (apparently – I am not 100% certain of what that means – I think it means she mentioned me and put a link to my blog.  If so I think I have just tagged her in return – this is all very complicated!).  The purpose was to get me to join in the memetic ‘7 things’ activity (rules at the end of the post).  I can’t actually tag 7 other people as it suggests as the only other person I know with a blog is Lorna…

 

1. When I was born I had an extra (but boneless) finger on my left hand.  It had a tiny nail and everything.  The doctors broke this news to Mum by telling her it seemed like I had extra fingers and extra brains…  Just goes to show you should never believe what doctors tell you!  They removed it by tying string round it so that it was starved of blood and fell off (in a similar way to how farmers remove lambs’ tails).
2. In Latin America it is usual to have 2 first names and 2 surnames (your mother’s maiden name and your father’s family name) hence many people here keep trying to put my first names as Cally Margaret and my surname as Anabel Nixon.  I got a VERY strange look in immigration when I told the man that my mother’s surname and my father’s surname were both Nixon (at the time I didn’t know about the 2 surname thing and didn’t understand why he thought it was odd!)
3. I have just put up 12 new photos in my front room.  six are of fungi, three are of insects, one is of an arachnid, one is of an amphibian and one is of a  reptile.  According to my boyfriend this makes me quite weird for a girl.
4. I am secretly addicted to Strictly Come Dancing and watched almost the entire of the recent series via You Tube.  I was gutted to find out that the videos from the final were taken down by the BBC before I got round to watching them.  I  would be perfectly happy to pay the licence fee if it meant I could use i-Player.
5. My first properly distinguishable words (after the mama, dada kind of things) were Peter Sissons.  This provides a source of great mirth in my family.
6. Whenever I leave fruit too long and it starts getting infested by fruit-flies I try to look at the colour of their eyes to see if I can spot any mutants.
7. When we were young my sister and I used to play schools with our teddybears and dolls.  We even used to make them exercise books, set them work, complete it for them and mark it.  Now she is a primary teacher (maths specialist) and I teach biology to secondary pupils.

 

The rules;

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some wierd.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Christmas and New Year in foreign climes

The festive season is always less exciting when you are older than it was when you were a child, and with my family now spread out across Europe (or no longer alive) I wasn’t to worried about spending Christmas in Peru rather than trying to get back to the UK.   This Christmas was the second I had spent outside of the UK (having been in Spain with Mum and Anna last year) and it was quite a different experience! 

Firstly the decorations – they are everywhere as they are at home, but generally much more tasteful – peoples’ houses look gorgeous with all the white lights and an ocasional nativity.  I saw one inflatable Christmas tree decoration and NO Father Christmas ones.  In fact I barely saw a father Christmas – there was one in Wong (of course) – he doesn’t really feature in the Peruvian Christmas.  Christmas trees are a problem here though.  To say I hate artificial trees is far too mild a term to really cover my feelings.  I loathe their plasticy, uniform, ‘this is what shape a pine tree SHOULD be’, odourless banality.   Of course you can’t get real trees here.  So instead I had a christmas pot plant.  Sandra had bought me some Peruvian baubles as part of my Christmas present and I grabbed a discounted box from Wong on Christmas eve.  I couldn’t find any tinsel anywhere – I may have to import some… and by the time I got round to getting decorations most shops had stopped selling them anyway (the decorations go up in early to mid December here rather than Christmas eve like in my house!) so I didn’t manage to get any lights .  I still had an Angel that mum had  bought for me from Turkey to go on the top of the ‘tree’ so it wasn’t all bad!  I also have a little Peruvian nativity (another present from Sandra) 

 

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...

Secondly the temperature – I am from the Northern hemisphere, I am used to Christmas in the winter, short days, long nights, cold weather and at least the possibility of snow at some point during the holiday.  I just couldn’t quite get into the festive spirit as I did my Christmas shopping on Christmas eve in 3/4 length trousers, a t-shirt, sunnys and factor 50 sun lotion.  Somehow it just doesn’t feel right.  Especially weird for me is that they use snowflakes for christmas decorations even though it has never snowed in Lima, ever, and seeing snow when it’s hot is just odd!

 

Thirdly Christmas itself – I spent Christmas with Marco’s family at his house (but rather irritatingly forgot to take my camera…)  Christmas in Peru is all done and dusted by 3am Christmas morning as it starts on Christmas eve at midnight!  This seemed very odd to me as I was sat in my flat, having wrapped my presents, waiting to be picked up at 9.30 pm (obviously the original time I’d been given was 7.30 pm but this is Peru).  I think we actually left the house about 10.30 and went to Marco’s where his Mum and sisters were busy cooking turkey, some kind of mince, apple sauce, beetroot salad and Turkish rice.  They had some fireworks (bangers), bought off men in the street, (which to me looked incredibly dangerous but they happily allowed he kids to carry them around the house) which they set off after midnight in their front yard, and sparklers which they let the kids have in the house – I am frequently amazed that anyone in Peru reaches adulthood!

At midnight we all said ‘Feliz Navidad’ and then Marco’s mum went through a weird ritual where she took the baby jesus doll out of it’s box, carried it round to everyone (who made a wish, then kissed the doll and then crossed themselves) and then placed the doll in the centre of the nativity scene.  I had a bizzare conversation trying to explain why I wasn’t going to kiss the doll or make any wishes over it, but that yes I did believe in God and I AM a christian and we do have Jesus in the non-Catholic world… in Spanish.  I really wish Marco had given me some advanced warning on that one!  We then drank champagne and opened the presents and then (at around 1am) sat down to eat Christmas dinner.  Watching two children, who were so tired that they could barely keep their eyes open, being forced to eat a full dinner at 1 am seemed a little like child cruelty to me.  Still, it was delicious food!  Unlike home there were no games, no cards, no Trivial Persuit, no Monopoly, no  Cluedo, just talking and eating.

 

Then I went home to bed and slept until 1pm on Christmas day!  I was amazed at how many bodegas and other shops were open on Christmas day and how many people were out in the park, sat in Starbucks  etc.  it was very strange for me!

 

New year was a quiet affair – a few of Marco’s friends came round to my appartment (at 1130pm), let some fireworks off from my balcony and had a drink and a chat and played with Sophia.  There were a LOT of fireworks being set off – it seems to be traditional here (but I suppose if you don’t have bonfire night you need an excuse some other time!) and I got a great view of them all from my balcony!  They left at about 3 am and tidied up themselves before they left.  Bonus!

Plans for the start of the year include going on holiday with Kevin and Lorna who come out in 4 days time  then either trying to book a last minute holiday to the Galapogos islands or somewhere in Latin America, or maybe doing an intensive Spanish course.  I have a lot of coursework to mark and a scheme of work to write too.  At the moment it seems like I have forever to worry about work, but I know that if I don’t try to get at least SOME of it started soon I’ll be doing it at 3 am the day before the marks are due…

The last month of school…

In the UK the last month of school is a fairly relaxed affair – kids in 6th form and year 11 are off on study leave and doing exams and the others are all dreaming of what they will do on their holidays.  The reports are all done, work is pretty easy – just the last topics to finish off and gained time to do other bits and pieces in.  Not so in Markham.  ALL the pupils in all the years sit exams in the last month.  These exams are written in school, invigilated by teaching staff, marked in school and count as 50% of their grade for the year.  If pupils fail a subject they have to do holiday work and sit recuperation exams in the holidays.  If they fail a number of subjects in recuperation then they have to resit the whole year.  It is tense to say the least and we have to have the exams marked and reports written for all the kids by the end of the second to last week.  We then come in on the Saturday morning to decide which kids have failed and need holiday work.  We then have to write the holiday work and the recuperation exams (and markschemes) ready for the lasst week.  The last week is on a COMPLETELY different timetabe – you have one or 2 lessons with each class that you teach to go through the end of year exams.  The kids don’t really care – the work ethic here is not ‘where did I go wrong and how can I do better next time’ but rather ‘did I pass the year – phew!’ If they didn’t pass the exam they listen, but only so they can try and beg a few extra marks. It’s quite sad really!  The IB kids also do their ‘Group 4 project’ in 2 days of the last week – the work never seemed to stop!

Also the S3 (year 10) Tambopata trip happens in the last month.  I went for both trips this year and hence had a week less than everyone else to write reports and do marking.  The Tambopata trip is great, but exhausting – you are working from 4am – 10pm (sometimes later if the kids won’t sleep) without a break, including the weekends.  I did actually get a bit of a rest, but only because I got stung by a scorpion while putting my trousers on one morning and had to spend a day in bed, then a day on the sofa.  I was lucky – the last person who got stung by the same species of scorpion had to spend a week in hospital with their whole leg swollen and paralysed – the guide’s quick action helped localise the toxins to my foot so 2 days not walking and one more limping about and I was fine!

Back at school it didn’t feel like Christmas at all – all the kids were focused on their exams.  There were no christmas decorations, no cards, no presents, no games, no videos, no carol concert – it was very weird.  There was however a LOT of stress and grumpiness and a complete lack of communication which was getting very frustrating – there are a lot of new staff in science (including the HOD) and noone really told us what was going on.  The reporting systems in the school are sooooo complicated that we wasted a lot of time getting nothing much done working it out!

Back at the flat I woke up one sunday morning thinking I’d go and read my book on the sofa for a bit only to find myself splashing through the lounge.  I quickly realised that the neighbour upstairs had a broken pipe (or something) and the water was dripping through my light fittings and  ceiling.  Thankfully, once I’d got dressed and gone upstairs to try and explain, she sent the workman she had clearing up her flat down to mine.  The ceiling is still wet though, and starting to go mouldy.  The arquitecht has been and said that it could be another 3 months or so until it is properly dry (this was after he’d drilled a number of holes in the ceiling to let the water out faster!). Delightful!

There were, however, nice things to break up the stress.  The British Ambassador’s Christmas Party was excellent – the house and grounds were gorgeous with fairy lights and candles and the food was delicious.  A nice excuse to wear a skirt (although my legs were still covered in bites from the jungle!) and high heels  The last 2 days of school had no teaching, they were ‘Commendations assembly’ ‘Speech day’ and ‘Graduation’.  All formal occasions.  I was out by 10 minutes on the length of the headmaster’s speech too, so didn’t win the sweepstake (or the bottle of champagne the head donated when he found out what we were doing!).  We found out who the prefects and house captains would be next year (with some nice surprises) and which kids had won prizes etc.  Graduation is a very American like affair (after all it is only high school) but the kids love it – it starts at 7pm, the kids in LN or UB who have now finished their high school studies process in in caps and gowns with different stripes depending on whether they have passed or achieved merit, honours or distinction.  A lot of this depends on effort and conduct during the time at school and if they have been involved in extra-curricular things.  What is strange is that a lot of people there only applaud for their own child, and after that just have a bit of a chat with the people around them and stop listening.  What is considered impolite here is quite different to the UK!  After the ceremony was a cocktail party and a chance to say congratulations and goodbye to my UB students.  It did seem a bit weird to see them graduating when they hadn’t actually got their IB results yet…  

After the cocktails a number of the staff went out for a celebratory drink in a nice bar in Barranco.  Somehow we ended up in a ‘club’ nearby and wended our merry way home at about 3 am.  Thankfully we didn’t have to be in school until 1230 the next day…

The final day of school involved nothing but the ‘Headmaster’s Christmas Lunch’.  All staff were invited to the headmaster’s house where we found the garden transformed into something similar to a wedding marquee – tables set with lovely christmas decorations and waiters bringing round wine, cocktails and nibbles.  We then had a DELICIOUS buffet meal with turkey and beef, rice (well it is Peru!), and about 300 different vegetables  (that may be an exaggeration…)  I decided to forgo dessert (either lemon or chocolate cake of some sort) for second helpings of the main course – especially the carrots and onions (which were dripping in butter and honey) – Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Saying goodbyes was strange – a lot of staff are leaving this year and many others are going ‘home’ for the 2 month break.  I’m one of the few that are staying here without family  - I hope I don’t get too lonely (although I’m sure Marco won’t let that happen!).  I expect I am about to find out what a traditional Peruvian Christmas is like – apparently it all kicks off at midnight on Christmas eve (when all good English folk are at Midnight mass singing carols…)

All in all it has been a very stressful end to the year, but I now have 2 months off and lots to look forward to!

2nd Jungle Trip

As a biology teacher you dream of being able to do decent ecology practicals. The chance to teach the entire iGCSE ecology module to the whole of year 10 in 9 days in the Amazonian rainforest is a dream come true. However taking 2 groups of 67 pupils to the rainforest is not an easy undertaking. Thankfully Harry organises most of it, although Peruvian logistics makes it more interesting. I am sure that if you were taking a school group through an airport in the UK you would have to tell them in advance and they would arrange for people to get you through check-in, security, airport tax etc. Not in Peru. Chaos comes close to describing the scene in the airport. Add into this ‘Peruvian time’ and things get VERY tricky. In the end, after waiting for kids to get out of Starbucks and dealing with many officious airport staff we made it onto the plane – but we had to run from security to the gate!

 

Composting

 

 

 

Our first flight took us to Cuzco where we stopped to refuel, and then we continued over the Andes to Puerto Moldonado where we were met by our guides and taken to the offices of Rainforest expeditions for a cold drink of aguaje juice before splitting into groups. The kids that did geography went to a place to talk about sustainability and we went to a ‘tierra de los niños’ run by a local school – it is basically an area of land that has been legally given to the kids from the school for them to run as they want. They have planted a range of gardens with local food and medicinal plants. We were doing a ’service project’ to help them clear an area for their vegetable garden and paint the signs for the different things they were going to grow. Unfortunately they had very few tools and so most of the kids went for a walk into the surrounding countryside with the guides. We were also treated to traditional music and got time just to talk and play with the kids. It was good fun despite the suffocating heat and humidity!

 

Having fun

 

 

We then met up with the geographers at the port and boarded our boats for the hours trip upriver to the lodge at Posada Amazonas ( http://www.perunature.com/pages/home_posada.htm ) which is probably the best lodge in the region.  I had a room to myself which was an unexpected luxury, but only because I was going to be there for the full 9 days and the other staff were only doing 5 days each.  It is an amazing trip.  Each day the activities start at 5 am (4am get up, 4.30 breakfast…), lunch at 1, afternoon activities at 2 pm, dinner at 7 pm and late activities at about 8.30.  The kids get to do all of the different activities;

 

After the rain

 

 

Lake – visit an oxbow lake that is home to a family of giant river otters, where they get to fish for piranahs and learn about food chains.  A chance to have a swim in the river on your way back!

 

Sunset

 

 

Birds – walk to the 37m Canopy tower and climb up to see what life is like at the top of the forest and then go to a hide overlooking a clay-lick.

 

The tower

 

 

Mammals – a LONG walk to a mammal clay-lick where they make wax casts of the footprints and look for other signs of mammal activity as well as learning about nutrient cycles, and maybe having a mud fight.

 

Dusky Titi monkeys

 

 

Insects – Walk to a GIANT kapok tree, taste some termites  and also use the capture-mark-release-recapture method to estimate the population of any ant colonies found on the way.  Also a chance to think about classification.

 

Attack!

 

 

Ecology – Use various techniques to gather data (transects, quadrats etc.) and design their own research project as part of their coursework

 

Rhino beetle

 

 

Night insects – go and look at insects that come out at night attracted by a bright light placed in front of a white sheet

 

Assassin bug

 

 

Night walk – a slow wander through the jungle at night looking for the telltale  reflection of eyes.  

 

Tree frog

 

 

Night Solo – 20 minutes alone, in the jungle, without your torch.  Tranquil or terrifying depending on your point of view…

Day solo – 20 minutes alone, in the jungle, in the daytime – peaceful time to just look at the life going on  around you.

 

Agouti

 

 

Washing up – particularly for those kids who can’t be punctual, can’t use civil language, are far too lazy or are just being a pain!  Dishes from 67 students, 8 members of staff, 8 guides…  not what they’re used to in Lima!

 

The trip is just an amazing oppurtunity – I am so lucky to be able to go!

 

Funny fungi

Jungle diaries – 14th May

A very disappointing colpa – plenty of birds around, but they were nervous and didn’t come onto the clay. The lack of a telescope and getting stung by a STUPID bee that had crawled up my trouser leg and then got stuck didn’t help matters either! There were a couple of beautiful flashes when the birds got spooked by a vulture and a muscovy duck (neither of which predate macaws…) We also saw violaceous jays, orupendulas, a nun bird and heard a flycatcher.

Orupendula

After a well needed shower and breakfast we had an hour to doss about and I got talking to some Aussie tourists and had a look at their photos. They don’t seem too hacked off that there are 20 kids ‘ruining’ their dream holiday, which is great really!

We then went to the bowl with Harry to look for caymen. We found them, but couldn’t catch any! We saw some other great wildlife on the way there and back. The battle between the Golden Orb Spider and a random wasp for the corpse of the dragon fly was enthralling – a rare sight indeed. In the end the inevitable happened and the spider, irritated past endurance by the wasp, shot some silk at it and wound it up to save for postre… We also got very close to a couple of curious dusky titi monkeys and came across fresh evidence of anteater activity.

Golden orb spider

At the bowl itself, besides the myriad of dragonflies, damselflies, sandflies and other miscellaneous fly-type things, we saw a pair of tiger herons, some Spinx’s guan, a lizzard, and what may have been a cardinal bird. We also saw a beautiful orupendula and a pair of bright green, small birds that were a gorgeous metallic colour and are as yet unidentified. Perhaps a green kingfisher or a honey creeper. I favout the latter, Harry the former…

Dusky Titi monkey

On returning to the lodge I spotted a largeish (30 cm mas o menos) lizzard under the boot removal place. It ran as soon as it saw us, but was pretty non the less.

Jungle Diaries – 13th May

The 0445 start for the Colpa made last nights decision to do the night walk seem very foolish – still, it was worth it to see the tarantulas…

The colpa was good – not as sunny as last week, but pleanty of good views, and as the kids weren’t that interested I got to use the telescope a lot and saw loads of different birds including; mealy parrots, dusky headed parrots, orange cheeked parrots (which are absolutely beautiful) and a couple of woodpeckers and a flock of orupendula.

After breakfast I went out with the mammals group looking for mammals or signs thereof (and socretea trees – the group’s project was to see if there was any relationship between the perimeter of the roots and the height of the tree. You see – it is a science trip and not just a great holiday…) We didn’t see any mammals (although some peccaries saw us and scarpered before we got to them ) but we did find some trumpeter birds, some dung beetles and LOTS of socratea trees.

Trumpeter birds

After lunch I fell asleep in the hammock. I woke up to find all of the kids had gone on their second activity so I went to bed and woke up about half an hour before dinner, just in time to download some of my pictures onto Harry’s laptop before eating.

Weird caterpillar

After dinner I went out to look at the insects and saw a couple of species I hadn’t seen before including a beautiful white moth, only about 2 cm across, that looked like it had been edged with gold leaf! Nature throws up the most amazing things really when you think about it!

Jungle diaries Day 10

Today I made a small error, but nothing too major! The geography kids who do standard level biology left with Geoff and Henry and I was left with the remaining kids who were all filling in their booklets. I went off with 2 of the giudes and 2 of the kids to try using the climbing gear – it was good fun, but VERY hard work. I was glad I only had to go 5m off the ground and didn’t have to go to the top of the tree to check on the macaw nest like the guide did! We also saw a mixed flock of tanagers (Thraupidae family) which included some Paradise tanagers (Tangara chilensis) which are stunningly beautiful, multicolored birds! There were also a couple of curious spider monkeys watching us climb (and presumably laughing at how bad we are at it…)

Me tree climbing

tree climbing

After lunch I deceided to let them rest until 3 when we were going to go off on a walk to cut a trail through an area that had become overgrown. We thought the others would be arriving at 6 ish, but they arrived at 3, just as we were about to leave. The guides continued without us, leading to the second problem. We needed the kids to go out in their groups and look for potential design projects. The lack of guides meant that I had to lead one group out for a while to get ideas. It wasn’t too bad really and they came up with some great ideas, but I was constantly terrified that we would come across a dangerous snake or an enraged herd of Peccaries or something dangerous! As it was, we didn’t see much wildlife at all! Just before we set out the taira appeared and 2 of his offspring (cubs, kits? not sure what you call baby taira!) came out of the undergrowth for long enough to get a good look at them – que lindo! We also glimpsed a couple of saddlebacked tamarind in the trees next to the lodge, excellent.

Taira

I got to practice a bit of spanish with the local staff today which was nice – typical touristy stuff – job, family, do I like the food in Peru, do I like the jungle etc. but they understood so my accent can’t be too bad! The dynamics are very different now Harry is back, the kids ADORE him and I’m very much 3rd choice (Loki is here now too!)

Jungle diaries day 9

I can not believe the kids here! I am the first teacher up at 0630 and there are some kids up and working! Amazing! Less amazing are their manners – they take a LONG time to tidy everything away for meals and you have to ask them about 20 times before they do anything. It was amazing how much faster it was when we said they weren’t getting any food until they’d done it properly…

We had a good walk to the palm swamp and back this morning, the group were MUCH better that yesterday and I had plenty of time to talk to the guide, which was lovely. I was still too much of a wuss to go up the tower though. On out way to the swamp we saw a tiny lizard eating a small insect it had just caught, which was nice.

Aguaje palm in the palm swamp

The main species of palm in the palm awamp is the aguaje palm (Mauritia flexuosa) which has tasty fruit liked by the blue and yellow macaws that nest in the trees and also by monkeys. More recently humans have developed a taste for them and have been cutting down the trees to get to the fruit. One of the local projects has been to teach local people how to climb the trees and harvest the fruit sustainably and provide them with the climbing equipment they need to do it. Isn’t conservation wonnderful!

We got back about an hour and a half before lunch, ample time to shower, change, and play a few rounds of cards with Geoff before they all went to do a LONG transect and I did some marking (see – it was work, not a holiday…) to the deafening sound of “Macaw Wars” going on in on of the trees – at least 4 pairs of scarlet macaws were fighting over a nest hole in the tree behind the lodge. As I’m used to the sound of screaming macaws while I’m trying to work (there are some in the mini zoo behind my classroom) I managed to
get my marking finished just before it got dark and the geography kids returned.

Jungle diaries day 8 ish

The colpa was slightly disappointing on the macaw front but we saw a number of other birds. When we got back for breakfast one of the biology kids looked at me in utter pity and said ‘you had to go to the colpa again, how boring! You’ve already been twice…’ They have absolutely no idea at all how awesome this opportunity is!

After breakfast I went with a group into the terra firme forest (the bit that doesn’t flood). We had 2 guides with us, one of the more experienced guides (Claudia) and another guide who has not worked on our school trip before. Once she had been shown the best part of the forest for the activity and the kids had started quadrating, Claudia and I went off on our own. It was FANTASTIC, we saw loads of birds, including 2 white throated jacamar, blue throated guan, flycatchers, a smooth billed anis, some song birds and a puff bird of some sort. The white throated Jacamar are only found in this area of peru and nowhere else in the whole world – how cool! We also got a SUPERB view of the macaws. We also saw some fresh Jaguar poo (there weren’t many dung beetles there yet…) and some rather nice fresh tapir footprints.

Lunch was followed by an hours nap and another foray into the forest. I felt absolutely lousy after the short nap and really didn’t want to go out into the jungle with a bunch of noisy students, who argue with each other all the time, however I’m really glad I did! We saw a troop of spider monkeys go past – to see them in the wild is phenomenal – the grace and ease with which they move through the trees, using their tail as an extra limb and the speed is breathtaking. Add to that the cuteness of one of the females who was carrying a baby on her back, unbelievable!

The group were quite slow (and really inaccurate!) with their tree beating and quadrating and it was after dark when we headed back to the lodge. On our way we passed a tarantula nest and saw the babies and adults scuttling to safety – wow!

The night walk after dinner was good too, we saw a tree frog, a number of katydids, crickets, grasshoppers, wolf spiders and some kind of weird insecty/arachnidy type of thing that is not a true spider, but isn’t an insect either. There was also a salamander and no cayman. Iwent staright to bed, and quickly fell asleep, when we got back, fully contented with a sighting packed day!