Puerto Maldonado, late December 2018

[cranefly]

1/1/2019: Part 2 -- Transect C
NOTE 1: LC tells me that Sarad (the Indian member of our group) is actually Saurabh.  Such is my hearing.  I'll use that name going forward.

NOTE 2: The ecolodge is officially called Las Piedras Biodiversity Station.  Located deep in the lowland tropical rainforests at the base of the Andean range, it is surrounded by one of the most bio-diverse areas on Earth.  

After lunch, Mohsin leads our intrepid band on a jungle trail he calls Transect C.  This is a magnificent trail, Mohsin's favorite, because it passes through some of the densest, wildest jungle.  Sadly, I cannot recall what specific wildlife we saw, nor can LC, due to sensory overload.  We've been on so many trails by now, seen so many things, that it all starts to blur together.  But it's a fair guess to say we see various monkeys (spider, squirrel, howler, capuchin, tamarin) and birds (parrots, woodpeckers, macaws, etc.), as well as lizards, frogs, toads, skinks, grasshoppers, katydids, mantids, exotic beetles, and lots and lots of spiders (though no tarantulas)...  We also see plenty of animal prints.  Some we can't identify, but Mohsin does point out peccary prints in one spot, overlaid by the larger print of something hunting them:  "That's a jaguar," he tells us.

What I remember best on this trail are the little human dramas, so that will have to suffice.

As we progress, we encounter several gorges with challenging downslopes, plank bridges and upslopes.  After my fall from that one plank bridge, I've grown leery of them.  I had waist-deep water to cushion my fall on that one, but since then they've been mostly dry beds.  A fall off one of these, considering my age and problematic hips, could have dire consequences.  Further, I've lost a lot of lateral stability (hard to walk a straight line).  Still, if I look straight ahead and walk at a steady pace and don't overthink it, I seem to do okay.

Coming to a large gorge, we pause before a massive Kapok tree.  Next to it is a dilapidated wooden framework with a large wooden crank.  Mohsin points upward.  Just visible through foliage is a wooden platform maybe forty feet up.  He tells us there used to be a rope (and presumably a body harness) by which people could be cranked up to the platform for a wonderful view.  Mohsin laments that the crank mechanism has fallen into disrepair and we can't take advantage of it.  We descend into the gorge, cross a plank bridge, ascend, and move onward.

We come unexpectedly on a camera trap.  We've seen some before on other trails, and Mohsin even set up a camera trap as part of an outing, showing us how it's done (most people set them up wrong, he told us, and only catch the backend of the animal).  But this camera trap surprises Mohsin, and he inspects it closely, as well as the attached note, which reads, "Do not touch."  He smiles.  "This is one of Paul's traps" [Referring to Paul Rosolie, normally on these expeditions, currently in India].  "I recognize his handwriting."   Mohsin tells us how he must make allowances in his email communications with Paul, who is dyslexic.  If he asks Paul a number of questions in one paragraph, Paul only answers the first one.  But if he makes each question a separate paragraph, Paul will answer them all.

Mohsin has spent a lot of time with Paul and his Indian wife Gowri.  He tells of a jungle owl in the region that always freaks him out because it sounds exactly like Gowri calling, "Paul!  Paul!  Paul!"

We pass through ever thicker jungle, requiring Mohsin to hack ever more at encroaching brush.  At one point we have to back up to give Mohsin more room to hack away at brush.  As I step back and aside to make room for LC, I edge into a log.  Clipped, I fall backwards over it into underbrush.  I'm fine, but it's embarrassing.

Of course, some branches and logs are simply too big to hack away, and we have to slip over or under them.

Mohsin pauses to inspect a thick branch crossing the trail at waist height.  Tapping his machete on it, he warns, "Bullet ants," then ducks under and onward.  Being next, I see that his tapping has riled the bullet ants up.  They turn in all directions, antennae gyrating, looking all about.  Because of my hip problem, I can't easily duck low under things.  As I clumsily hunch down and strain not to bump the branch while slipping under, I wonder if bullet ants are known to leap onto perceived threats.  But I'm fine, as is everyone else as they slip under and onward.

As we proceed, I start to notice a swelling in my hands.  I can't easily close them into fists.  I haven't noticed this on previous treks and wonder if it signals a developing problem.  Though this trail is challenging, it's not that much worse than previous ones.  Still, I've been pushing myself hard for several days now, and maybe my body is finally starting to rebel.

Mohsin lets LC try the machete at one point, but urges caution.  He tells of the time he was showing off to a group, using his machete to cut a watermelon.  Placing his palms on the dull side, he'd pushed downward to cut the watermelon in two.   Only when he saw blood welling out from below did he realize he'd wrapped his fingertips underneath and had cut off the tip of one finger.  He'd spent a long time afterwards holding the fingertip back in place, hoping it would reattach, which it eventually did, though he no longer has feeling in the tip.  Taking the machete, LC chops through some branches, clearing our way.  Then Mohsin takes the machete back and leads us onward.

At one point we come to large piece of bark on the ground next to the trail.  Ian is ahead of me at the time, and as he passes it he gives it the slightest backward glance.  "I know what you're thinking," I tell him.  "You want to see what's under that bark."  Not needing further encouragement, he comes back to it and, with nary a pause, kicks it over.  I'm a bit surprised, because he doesn't use a stick, and several of us are close by, and wouldn't it have been funny if a fer de lance shot out and nailed one of us -- but there's only a couple millipedes.

Our order keeps changing as someone pauses to inspect something, fuss with their pack, or drink some water, and I happen to be leading as we enter a soggy area and come to a log lying across the trail.  It's low enough that I can easily step over it, which I do -- or start to.  The ground suddenly gives under me, and my back foot sinks deep while my front foot settles on the far side and sinks deep as well.  I'm left straddling the log, sunk to my knees in what resembles modeling clay.  This would be a terrible predicament to be accosted by bees, wasps, or especially bullet ants.  Mohsin warns the others, who skirt the worst of it, getting past.  Mohsin then tells me to angle my back heel upward to work my foot out.  I tell him I can't, which he acknowledges when he sees that my knee is jammed against the log.  Still, I can slip my foot out of my shoe and out of the mud, but am reluctant to abandon my shoe a couple feet down.  Mohsin says to do it.  After I free my foot, he and LC reach down and, with considerable effort, wrestle the shoe from the clay with a big sucking sound.  I'm able to work my front foot up without losing that shoe, and after I've put the other one back on, I carefully skirt the worst of the soft clay and we move onward.

Sometime later, Mohsin calls for a halt.  We're in the thick of things, surrounded by deep lush, diverse jungle.  He tells us to close eyes and be very quiet, and to listen for a minute and count the number of different sounds we hear.  We do so.  There are birds, frogs, other cries.  Afterwards, he asks how many we got.  Most people count between 5 and 8 sounds.  Mohsin gets 11.  I get 10, but it's suspect because of my hearing.  We move on.

Mohsin checks with Ian, asking if he still wants to put his drone up, because this would be a beautiful area.  Ian is very interested.  The problem is, he needs an opening through the canopy, and there just isn’t any.  We move onward, and after a couple hundred yards we come upon the tiniest break in the canopy.  Mohsin asks if this will do.  It's very small, but Ian is willing to risk it.  Mohsin hacks down a towering frond leaf for a bit more space near the ground while Ian unpacks his drone.  But then Ian stops, realizing he forgot his smart phone that's needed to control it.  For a moment there seems hope if Mohsin can get exact coordinates with his own phone, but Ian decides it's unfeasible and sadly packs up the drone.

We head back, and the return trip is largely uneventful.  When we come again to where I got stuck in soft clay, Paula announces she'll try a running technique designed for such conditions.  Whereupon she takes off, high-stepping it, shoes slapping the mud hard and briefly, and just like that she's through the mud and over the log and to safety.  We're still marveling at what she did when Mohsin tears off, high-stepping it as well in impressive imitation, and gets through as well.  The rest of us take a more subdued circuitous route to join them.

[Drunk Monk]

Getting stuck in that clay would sound better if you altered your tale and called it quicksand. So many old movies led me to believe quicksand was a genuine threat but I’m not even sure it really exists. Your clay story is the closest I’ve ever heard to it.

[cranefly]

Good point.  I didn't think of it as quicksand.  Then again, I've always imagined that quicksand would have a sign next to it saying "Quicksand!"  Apparently it's a myth that quicksand will suck you under; you sink in to your waist or chest and reach equilibrium.  If you orient yourself horizontally, you can then sort of swim your way out of it.

Anyway, this stuff really reminded me of modeling clay.  In fact, if I'd been alone and hopelessly stuck, I would have gathered some up with my hands and worked with it.  Years later when someone found my bones, they'd be greatly mystified to find a large and very perverse sculpture on the log next to me.

[Drunk Monk]

A sign that said 'clay' wouldn't have the dramatic impact of one that said 'quicksand'.  It's all about the embellishments.

And what would that statue have been?  A two-headed rhino? A madagascar roach?  I know - a sign that said 'quicksand'.

[cranefly]

1/1/2019: Part 3 -- Catch Basin
We get back to the ecolodge with time to spare before dusk.  But this merely provides an opportunity for yet another outing -- to a catch-basin maybe a ten-minute walk from the ecolodge.  Mohsin had meant to take us there yesterday, but forgot, so he's working it in now.

As for the genesis of this outing, I had earlier expressed an interest in looking at fish (in addition to all else), but figured it wasn't possible because the river is so muddy.  But Mohsin, ever accommodating, said, "Oh, I think there might be a way."  This catch-basin is what he had in mind.

So a lot of us, despite just returning from the long Transect C trek, put shoes and socks back on and fall in behind Mohsin.

Dusk is starting to settle as we walk a new path.  For whatever reason Saurabh and Paula bring up The Human Centipede again.  Saurabh remains amused that I docked it for scientific inaccuracy in using a millipede for a centipede.  As the conversation continues, Stuart, just ahead of me in his brilliant white dress shirt, is strangely silent.  I wonder what he thinks of me.  Even more, I wonder what Saurabh and Paula will think of me once they see the movie, which they intend to do upon returning home.

Mohsin brings our troupe to a halt to point out a big grasshopper near the tip of a leaf at head height.  It isn't alive, having succumbed to a zombie fungus that took over its brain and made it travel to this prominent spot, the better to disperse spores that will infect other insects.  I've seen such things before, but my morbid fascination knows no bounds.

Further along, Mohsin pauses to point out "a beautiful bloom," before adding with a snort, "with a bullet ant on it."  He has pointed out so many bullet ants during our travails that, upon returning to the States, I google their range -- and yes, we are in prime bullet ant territory.

At last we arrive at the catch-basin.  There isn't much to it.  The barest stream feeds into a tiny reservoir a foot deep by 15 feet across.  It looks natural, irregular in shape, tucked in by vegetation, but the ecolodge staff likely "encouraged" its formation.  A pipe runs underground from it to the ecolodge's water tank.

I'm disappointed, having expected a larger pond.  I was hoping to see some arowana, having recently read The Dragon Behind the Glass.  Arowana are a most prized aquarium fish, extremely rare in the wild, worth thousands of dollars to collectors (not that I would ever want to catch one), and we're in one of the few areas where arowana might still be found.  But this is much too small a body of water.

Dusk is settling in as we inspect the catch-basin.  The water is clear.  Things move about, possibly tiny fish, crustaceans.  It's hard to make out much, and poking at anything on the bottom stirs up sediment.  Some of us (self included) explore the tiny stream that feeds the catch-basin, but find little beyond mud and spiders.  The most interesting critter at the catch-basin is a water stick insect, sometimes called a water scorpion (there are roughly 50 species in South America).

LC and I didn't bring our camera, but here's a couple photos I found online:




Five inches long, it sits at water's edge with its head and mantis-like front legs underwater, waiting to snare some aquatic prey.  It breathes through the end of its long abdomen, by the way.  It can dive and hunt underwater, too.  Mohsin toys with it so that it dives in, then holds his smartphone beneath the surface to get some footage of it swimming. 

Dusk has settled as we walk back, and we turn on our headlamps.  Along the way Mohsin spots something.  We gather around as he points out a possum mouse.  Shortly thereafter, he points out another.  They are incredibly cute.

Possum mouse photo found online:


We return to the ecolodge, remove shoes and socks, and start cleaning up for dinner.

[Drunk Monk]

So you ever going to finish this story cf? It’s like a tv show that got cancelled before the overarching story arc finished. 

We’ve been waiting for half a year now ... what did you have for dinner?

[Drunk Monk]

FINISH THIS!

don't leave us hanging

[cranefly]

Okay, so I did a google search of Wonder Woman animated gifs, and there's a lot of them.  A LOT of them.
DM has effectively goaded me into resurrecting this tale.
I have a responsibility, after all, to spare DOOM further such carnage.

Be forewarned; there's a slow and reflective start to it, which may tempt you to fast forward to the fight scenes.  But it is what it is.

---

Note:  To recap, it's 1/1/2019 (New Year's!), JJ was ill in the morning, but eventually (after lunch?) took us on a medicinal plant walk.  Later, Mohsin took us on a much longer walk following Transect C into one of the wildest patches of rainforest.  We got back near dusk.  We then made another shorter outing to the Catch Basin (that supplies the ecolodge with water) to look at water denizens.  After that, we were just getting ready to have dinner.

LCF has since corrected me that after getting back from the Transect C hike we actually had dinner first (with darkness falling), and after that Mohsin rounded us up for the short walk in the dark to the Catch Basin.  The order isn't that important, I suppose, but let me resume this tale with us just getting back from that long Transect C outing with dusk falling, the howlers active, and we're getting cleaned up for dinner.

1/1/2019: Part 4 -- Dinner

It's dinner time; in the distance I hear the others getting their food.  Once more I'm a laggard, lingering in our shadowy room, headlamp propped upright on my bunk to serve as crude lamp.  This time it's not a matter of finding some clean clothes.

 I'm having some trouble with my left eye.

It started as some flickering squiggles moving about in my vision, something that occasionally happens.  Most likely it's an ocular migraine (without the headache), caused by reduced blood flow or spasms of blood vessels in the retina or behind the eye.  It's usually a minor nuisance lasting about ten minutes.  However, my ophthalmologist has lectured me to call the emergency hotline without delay if it ever persists or gets worse, as it could mean a blood clot on the optic nerve, stroke, etc.

Well, it gets worse.  The flickering squiggles intensify and then blackness.  I'm a Cyclops.  Well, this isn't good.  It's not like I can call an emergency hotline out here in the middle of the jungle.  Nor is it clear what good it would do to tell the others what's going on.  So I don't.

I wait it out, staying relaxed, making funny faces to ascertain no part of my face is going numb, move my arms and legs, flex fingers and toes...

Ten minutes later the black curtain breaks up into a blurry kaleidoscope that slowly dissipates.  My vision is back.

I head to dinner.

As usual, LCF has saved me a spot.  Dinner is largely uneventful.  We talk about various things.  One is the lack of rain.  We haven't had a good rain since we got here 5 days ago. Once or twice there was the start of a shower, prompting us to grab our clothes in off the railing ... only to put them back almost immediately as it fizzled out.  There's something ominous about it: a rain forest in rainy season, and no rain...

Mohsin gives us an update on tomorrow's outing.  We'll be trekking the Brazil Nut Trail.  It's the longest, a five-hour trudge, so he urges us to bring plenty of water and maybe some snacks.

After dinner, LCF and I linger at the table.  JJ has joined us, and in the flickering candlelight we chat.  He's feeling better now.  LCF hit it off well with him from the start, finding common ground in -- of all things -- motor vehicles.  JJ has a ten-year-old Toyota pickup and doesn't see the point of getting new cars all the time.  Also, it's a stick, and he doesn't like automatics.  As it turns out, LCF has a Toyota Echo that is 17 years old, and it's a stick.  JJ is suitably impressed.  (I have a 13-year-old Toyota Prius.  When buying it, I asked if there was a stick version and got laughed at by the dealer.)

So anyway, LCF asks how much traveling JJ has done.  He's been to Europe a couple times -- but never to the US, though he'd like to visit the US some day.  LCF points out that it's not the nicest of places these days -- politically.  We get on the subject of history, and JJ asks who lived in America before we came there (Note: JJ is worldly wise in a lot of ways, but he does have some blind spots).  We tell him of the Indians.  He asks what happened to them, where are they now, and we tell him about reservations.  He asks if anyone ever goes there, into the reservations, to contact the Indians.  We explain that they aren't isolated, that they live in the modern world for the most part.  They've been given special concessions to hunt and fish and collect eagle feathers, etc., forbidden for the rest of us -- in theory so they can continue their way of life -- but it's largely a symbolic gesture.

"So they don't live like they used to," JJ says, "isolated."  We tell him that, other than in the Amazon, the only place we know of where people live in isolation from the modern world is on a small island off the coast of India, mentioning the misguided Christian missionary recently killed there.  JJ takes this all in.  Then in the flickering candlelight he leans in close and says in a hushed tone, "They're close.  Very close."  I realize he's talking about uncontacted tribes.  "There's a lot of them, too," he adds.  He looks at each of us in turn.  "A LOT of them."  Then, gazing past us into the jungle, he slowly shakes his head.  "But we can't go there."  He looks troubled, even haunted, and I sense he knows much more than he's willing to tell, that he's had some close brushes with them, or knows people who have.  Still gazing into the distance, he repeats, emphasizing each syllable, "We cannot go there."

[Drunk Monk]

Okay, so I did a google search of Wonder Woman animated gifs, and there's a lot of them.  A LOT of them.
DM has effectively goaded me into resurrecting this tale.

It wasn't me. 

It was Diana Prince.  The WWgifs will continue until this tale is done.  Not sure if that's an incentive or punishment, but there you have it.

[cranefly]

[NOTE:  As I mentioned prior to the previous part, after coming back from Transect C we actually ate dinner first (just covered), then donned headlamps to go for the night walk to the Catch-Basin, which I previously covered.  Just so you know.  This incorrect ordering doesn't really affect the gist or causality of events.]


1/1–2/2019: Part 5 -- Night Angst

I lie awake late into the night, something I've been doing a lot of lately.  It takes ever longer for my body to recover enough from the day's exertions for me to sleep.  As I lay there, I think about what JJ was telling us, just how remote this place is (to be reinforced a couple days later when Mohsin shows us our location on a big map, points out maybe three settlements upriver from us and on nearby rivers.  "These are the last outposts," he says, pointing them out not far from us.  "Nobody goes beyond them."  He then gestures at the vast area of jungle beyond, which is where the uncontacted tribes live).

How fortunate to have this opportunity and at my age.  It's been a wonderful experience -- so far.  But things could go south in an instant.  That spell of blindness in the left eye has given me pause.  If it had become a real problem, how would that have impacted the organization, our group, LCF?  And why hadn't I told anyone?

LCF, under mosquito netting in the other bunk, turns on her headlamp and fusses around.  After five minutes she turns it off and lies down.  The next day when I ask her what she was doing, she'll tell me she found a tick crawling on her.  A tick?  Why didn't she tell me at the time?  Why are we hiding our little problems?  No one is thinking very straight these days.  It's the fatigue sinking in.

I'm wondering if I need to skip the Brazil Nut Trail tomorrow.  I want to go, but I don't want to slow the group down.  My body is showing signs of breaking down.  And the Brazil Nut Trail will be our longest and most difficult outing.

That brief spell of blindness isn't the only problem I'm having.  Even before bedtime I make several trips to the bathroom.  When LCF asks if I'm okay, I tell her yes.  It isn't diarrhea, just frequent urination.  My body is clearly getting out of whack.

It's a rough night of little sleep.  Seven or eight times I get up in pitch darkness and slip outside and down the walkway (headlamp set to red so it won't wake me more than necessary), being careful of the sections without railing, and into the toilet, never knowing what creepy-crawlies will greet me each time.  Afterwards I make sure to drink water, but not too much, not wanting to overwork my system.  It's a delicate balancing act.

Miraculously, come morning, I seem to be okay.

[Drunk Monk]

This is getting kinda Heart of Darkness.  The horror...the horror.

Actually I just wanted to search for more Wonder Lynda gifs.  Don't judge.

[Greg]

Totally judging.

[Drunk Monk]

Totally judging.

[cranefly]

[Another correction: Earlier I described us going to the Bird Copa (clay lick), admitting I didn't remember the day.  I've determined it was this morning (we always made at least three outings a day, and usually four).  Oh, and copa should actually be collpa.  Let me reconstitute the bird collpa entry here, as it isn't long.

1/2/2019: Part 1 -- Bird Collpa

We get up early, and I'm feeling fine.  After breakfast we boat across the river, dock on a clay bank, and walk up and aside through jungle and back down to an overlook of the river.  A couple rotting planks serve as bleachers.  We sit and watch a reddish clay cliff on the far bank.  Scarlet macaws come swooping in to land in the trees around it.  Some perch high up and to the sides, serving as lookouts.  All are very loud, communication more important than stealth.  Eventually one swoops down to land in a shallow recess on the cliff.  Others slowly join it.  They pick away at the clay.  Some mouth a chunk and fly up into a tree, where they use a talon to hold it while picking away at it.  There's 50-plus macaws, and they take turns on the collpa, with occasional loud disputes over a landing spot.  It is believed that the macaws eat the clay for its toxin-neutralizing properties (like humans eating charcoal to neutralize poison), because their diet includes toxic or caustic substances.  Bird collpas are very rare, as it takes a very special kind of clay.  Also, they're extremely vulnerable, often in plain sight on a riverbank, hard to protect from poachers.  This is one of the biggest bird collpas still around.

Occasionally a sentinel gives an alarm, and some macaws take flight, eventually to circle back.  Finally they all take flight, becoming a big flock that heads off, though soon they will break apart, each to go its separate way.

1/2/2019: Part 2 -- The Brazil Nut Trail -- Outward Bound

After lunch, we start getting ready for the Brazil Nut Trail.  LCF and I are careful to totally fill our water bottles, though we don't have snacks to take along.  Mohsin makes sure everyone is ready for the undertaking.  Paula helps out by standing in front of us and miming the whole flight attendant pre-takeoff rigmarole (she used to be a commercial airline pilot for Delta).  At last we set off.

Just to recap our group, there's Paula the elite triathlon athlete; the snaker Swedes Olaf and Magnus; Stuart in his blindingly white dress shirt; the deceptively resourceful Indian Saurabh; the young adventurer couple Ian and Mina (also very much snakers); and LCF and me -- all led by Mohsin.  JJ does not come along on this long outing.  

We're on common trails at first, ones we've traversed before; but eventually we come to a fork where the Brazil Nut Trail branches off.  We pause while Paula strips down to running shorts and tank top and changes into her running shoes.  It's something Mohsin discussed with her earlier.  Paula has been wanting to get in longer runs to maintain her conditioning, so Mohsin suggested she run the Brazil Nut Trail ahead of us.  He can carry her change of clothes, and Mina straps her hiking shoes to the back of her backpack using a convenient bungee cord feature.

So off Paula runs, and the rest of us follow at a more moderate pace, on a wending trail that dips and rises by turn but is overall uphill.  Like I've said, this is a long hike.  Mohsin has instructed Paula to turn back when she reaches a wooden gate structure (two tall posts to either side of the trail).  Beyond it is where the rain forest has lots of Brazil nut trees, and he doesn't want her going in there by herself.

Mohsin had called Transect C his favorite trail because of its vegetative density and wildness, but I have to think this trail rivals it.  Again, I can't remember what birds, monkeys, insects and animals we see, because after five days it all starts blurring together.  Healthwise, I'm holding up fine, though my hands are swelling up.  I first noticed this problem on the Transect C trek.  It's getting worse on this outing, to the point that I can't fully make fists.  Still, I feel fine.

We brought our camera on this hike -- a Nikon D3300 -- but it is turning ever more finicky in these humid conditions.  It seems to be fogging up inside, so that the focus forever searches.  We do get a few pictures.

A small birdwing butterfly:
An iridescent beetle:

A small mantis (best of half a dozen photos due to major focus problems in high humidity):


We come to an extended swampy area just off the trail to the left.  There are leaf-cutter ants all about, various columns snaking in different directions.  I'm fascinated to see how each column features a different kind of leaf, indicative of the tree they are currently harvesting.  I get separated from the group while looking at them, and when I finally rejoin them, Saurabh asks what I thought of the big leaf-cutter ant nest.  Dammit.  I missed seeing it.

We walk onward, and like I said, we see lots of stuff, but it's blurred with the other walks now -- just lots of birds, monkeys, frogs and toads, spiders, butterflies, and buttress-rooted trees everywhere.  The canopy is dense, and rarely lets in a ray of unfiltered sunlight.

I notice a watery puddle of poop edging the trail.  Others walk by, but I linger, puzzling over it.  Mohsin comes back, looks at it, and is equally fascinated.  He strongly suspects it is sloth poop.  That's the only time they come down to the ground -- to defecate.  Anyway, we look up and about, trying to spot a sloth, but there's simply too much vegetation to see up very far.

At one point Ian and Mina hang back and Ian flies his drone up through a rare break in the canopy for some good footage of the rain forest from above.  I wish I had known; I'd was wanting to watch that.

We've been trekking almost two hours and are close to the Brazil nut tree area and Mohsin is a bit concerned that Paula hasn't come back yet.  Then she appears ahead of us, coming back, and she stops to report in.  As it turns out, she never saw two tall posts (the gate) where she was supposed to turn back.  As we soon discover, they're gone.  Mohsin doesn't know who removed them or why.  But Paula ended up running deep into the Brazil nut tree area and only turned back when the trail was blocked by a fallen tree and brush.  Mohsin says that the trail further on is nicknamed The Labyrinth and for good reason, as it branches repeatedly and is notorious for getting people lost.   Anyway, Paula isn't done running yet, so she slip past us to run down the trail in the direction we came from.

The rain forest is now interspersed with giant Brazil nut trees, and there's a few nuts scattered on the ground near the trail.  Mohsin shows us what a good Brazil nut looks like and has us gather a few into piles on the trail, to be picked up on our return.  He is tense as we do this, and tells us not to linger.  It's dangerous being under a Brazil nut tree.  Brazil nuts can weigh up to eight pounds and give no warning when they fall.  People have been killed by falling Brazil nuts.  We move on, coming upon more Brazil nuts, piling up the best of these at the edge of the trail, ever ushered onward by an uneasy Mohsin.

At one point I'm walking with Mohsin while the others are some distance behind.  Hearing Stuart lecturing the others about Brazil nuts, Mohsin smiles and chuckles.  "That Stuart, just having a need to be an authority on things."  Mohsin isn't nasty about it, just mildly amused, noting a character trait.  Days ago I'd overhead Stuart telling about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, except he got the time-frame wrong and mischaracterized the crater as the Gulf of Mexico (there is no visible crater; you have to dig into the sediments on the Yucatan Peninsula and into a small part of Gulf to discover where the 100-mile-diameter crater used to be).

It's always interesting to reflect on what was the most dangerous part of some adventure.  For me, that first-day river dip might have been my closest call, when the current surprised me and almost carried me out of the calm shallows into the river proper.  Then again, falling off that plank bridge could have been disastrous, considering my bad hips, especially  if there had been snags underwater.  Now, walking under these Brazil nut trees certainly carries a certain amount of "Russian roulette" risk for all of us.

But little do we suspect that, lying in wait just ahead, is another formidable candidate for closest call.

[Drunk Monk]