The Chair

Trip Start Jun 13, 2007
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Trip End Jun 26, 2007


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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Another 4am start today - this morning we were making a vertical journey to the rainforest canopy platform, which is a wooden platform that has been constructed 120ft up in the boughs of a giant ironwood tree. It is accessed basically by sitting in a metal framed canvas chair, which is then hoisted on winches by some very strong men. As you sit in the chair and are hoisted upwards and you suddenly become aware of the space around you and the fact that you can see the tops of bushes, then the tops of small trees, then the tops of bigger trees. Once up on the platform, the view was awesome, you could see lake Soledad below and for miles across the top of the rainforest. We took up our positions on the platform and waited for the sun to come up, which once again was a remarkable experience, the sun rose with beautiful golden, oranges and reds, making it seem like the sky was on fire. After the sun was up, it wasn't long before the jungle began to wake, there were birds and monkeys beginning to call out, small birds started flitting in and out of the tree we were sat in and eventually at a distance we could see Red Howler monkeys and Spider monkeys starting to come out onto the branches of trees. A toucan flew into our tree, just feet from where we were standing, I never ever expected to be so lucky, to see a toucan this close up - the time was passing so quickly, it seemed as if we had only been up there for a short time when Joselyn realised that we had all lost track of time - once again - and we had been up there hours and we were, not for the first time, going to be late for breakfast. Time has no relevance in the jungle, you lose track of date, day, time, and any concept of the world going on around you. In the past I have heard commentators or news reporters saying how the world watches on, or the world stands by with bated breath - it doesn't!!!!  In these remote parts of the world they have no concept of what is going on in the rest of the world, there are no tv's, no radio's, no newspapers. Everything seemed so far away, I could picture myself as a tiny little dot in the middle of miles and miles of nowhere, it was fabulous. We were in for a treat this morning at breakfast - home made pancakes and a type of maple syrup - scrumptious!!! We all loved them and we got Joselyn to ask the cooks if they would make us some more, they were happy to oblige and we all happily sat around chatting and tucking into a second round of pancakes, when breakfast was over it was still only around 9am, so we had the whole day ahead of us.
 
I wasn't sure that the day could get any better, we'd seen so much already, but it wasn't long before I was proved wrong. We went on a jungle walk, Joselyn brought Cinka with her, he would go on ahead and find things for us to look at, Cinka could not speak any English and he had told Joselyn to tell us that we should be quiet as there were monkeys around - we had learnt by now that when this 14 year old boy told us something, it was wise to listen as 99.9% of the time we would see whatever he told us was close by. He was a few yards in front of us when he turned around and put his finger up to his lips, we knew something was about to happen, but we were not sure what. We stood there in silence for a few minutes and then all was revealed, a large troupe of squirrel monkeys started to leap around in the trees above us, there were loads of them at all different levels in the trees, some high, some low and at one point we were completely surrounded by them, in the trees to the sides of us and above us. On a branch just literally a few feet away from us some of them stopped to play and groom each other, I honestly could not believe what I was seeing, I felt so emotional, I had goosebumps on my arms and the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck - what a privilege. We did see various other species of monkeys on that walk, but nothing will ever compare for me to that moment when we were surrounded by the squirrel monkeys - it is another memory from this trip that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
 
Back to the lodge for lunch, then in the afternoon it was our turn to go back out on the catamaran canoe. This afternoon was hot and sunny and the jungle was very quiet, Cinka paddled us around the lake again and to be honest I was just content to sit in the silence and take in the trees, the lake and the sunshine, I was very tired and was happy to see nothing at all. Of course we did see things, turtles, caiman, and the usual birds that we had become accustomed to such as Yellow-headed Vultures, Bat Falcons, Roadside Hawks, Horned Screamers, Great Black-hawk, Scarlet and Red-and-Green Macaws, Ringed Kingfisher, Neotropical Cormorant and White-bellied Parrots to name a few, but if we hadn't I would have been just as contented.  Cinka had bought his bow and arrow with him as he wanted to catch a fish for his dinner, he stood perfectly balanced on the front of the boat and shot arrows in the water, but on this occasion he returned empty handed and the fish lived to see another day.
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