I woke up early this morning. I used my fingers to deal with the crusties in the corners of my eyeballs. We were told that the bus departs at 6 AM. On this particular morning we are headed to a field station by the name of Bilsa. It is to our misfortune that we would be working with the familiar unsavory tour guide, Giovanni, that organized both Bilsa and the last field station we visited, Jatun Sacha. Part of Giovanni’s hyper organized, down to every last detail, staying-up-late-at-night-with-thoughts-racing-through-his-brain-about-all-the-potential-deadly-outcomes-of-situations-as-well-as-potential-tourist-activities-that-we-would-like-to-do trip involved stopping at a particular restaurant of his choosing for lunch. After we picked him up in the morning and the wheels of the bus took us further towards our destination in the Choco Andean corridor of Esmereldas, Giovanni announced that lunch would be in a town that was, “particularly unsafe due to its level of poverty and the concentration of Afro-Ecuadorians”. We’re thinking that this statement was rather bias, but it’s Giovanni, so it makes sense, but then I question why we are even stopping in this particular town at all if it is “unsafe”? Let’s get this straight: this restaurant was his choice. Nonetheless, we stop for lunch at this location and to our surprise Giovanni has arranged a police escort for our lunch. As we sit at this restaurant sipping our hot soup despite the oppressive humidity, there is a group of police standing directly outside and patrolling the street. Ok… a little bit overprotective and unsettling, but ok.

We got back on the road and soon enough we are told that we will be transferring modes of transportation. No longer will we be riding in the luxury of the air-conditioned bus. The second leg of our trip will take place in a truck bed. I was thinking that this would only add to the adventure and the situation did not disappoint. The picture I was painting was not of comfort, but what unfolded was outside capabilities of my imagination. Let’s do a fun thought experiment. In your mind’s eye try to picture a truck pieced together in the most cost cutting, grab-whatever-is-in-arms-reach manner to transport, let’s say, livestock. Picture four walls not quite reaching six feet tall and wearing a metal bar for a hat that runs along the perimeter of the wagon. Now, running down the spine of the vehicle is a bamboo spear. The truck bed measures some 12-14 feet long and 5 or so feet wide. Now imagine a pile in of more than 34 swollen bags packed for a week in the Jungle accompanied by 34 humans all stuffed into the bed of the truck. Has your brain short-circuited yet? Somehow we fit everything into the truck bed. “Fit” offers the wrong connotations because the manner through which we got into this truck bed was more along the lines of stuffing everything into your suitcase lat minute, jumping up and down on top to cram everything in, eventually sitting down on the thing to close the latches, and then taking a shower afterwards because you worked up such a sweat getting the thing closed. That is a more accurate portrayal of how the situation unfolded, except there was no shower and we had a two-hour voyage ahead of us.

A foreshadow of what’s to come surfaces no more than two minutes on the road. We continuously conquer bumps and concaves in the road. The truck bed bends and shakes in response to the road causing a torrent of squeaks and cracks revealing that the structural integrity of the grab-whatever’s-in-arms-reach-conglomerate truck bed is compromised. First the bamboo spear breaks. Then the weight of the truck causes a stall in the mud on a hill, so we back up and try it again, and again, and again, and eventually it has been decided that we will walk to the top of the hill. We are haunted again by mud as we round a bend and the wheels on the right hand side sink into the mud. The truck is now venerable to toppling over, but with sharp and active minds we all instantly try our best to throw the majority of human weight to the other side of the truck in an attempt to balance. In the moments that I could avoid planning an emergency escape route I was admiring the vast landscape, the wide valleys, and the tall hillsides full of lush, green life. There was an abundance of human life out in these hills and I was surprised by the lack of neighboring commerce. But of course, I am conditioned for a much different form of luxury and life.

Eventually we make it to the field station despite the truck’s best attempt to crumble into pieces along the way. Well, we’ve almost made it. At this point we get even more intimately familiar with the mud. This mud isn’t the normal half-inch deep mud that I am used to. No, no, this mud is boot filling deep mud that can only be conquered through careful calculations of each and every step. Unfortunately a few classmates of mine didn’t carry the slip in their mud calculations (rookie mistakes really) and arrived at the field station with boots and butts covered in mud. This mud became a haunting theme for this station. It covered every trail and hillside. As took our first guided walk through the jungle that afternoon I kept getting distracted by the syncopation of our boots squawking, squishing, squelching, farting, and splashing in the mud.

The next morning I woke up to the bass heavy, booming vocalizations that allow Howler Monkeys to be heard from far off in the distance. The highlight of the day came in the evening while another classmate (Red) and myself were on an evening walk. When darkness had nearly fallen we spotted a pekway (peccary highway) easily visible in the mud. We inspected the tracks and Red quickly identified the critter. After a few minutes we heard vocalizations in the distance that confirmed our suspicions. We found ourselves following our curiosity down the pekway. With each step the oinks and squeaks became more amplified. As we poke our heads through the bramble we rudely interrupt a mother peccary and her two babies who couldn’t have been more than two weeks old. The mother immediately sprints off (what a hero) and leaves the two babies to fend for themselves. What a visual and auditory treat this was. The baby peccaries were pocket size. We watched them for a while as they wandered around, stumbling in their attempt to walk up hill. We kept our distance as not to scare or contaminate the baby peccaries, but in time the baby peks started heading in our direction. We didn’t move. We didn’t want to scare them. They were curious of us, of our scent, and they were headed right towards us. “Don’t touch them, and don’t pick them up,” I thought to myself. “As much as you want to bring one back home, you just simply cannot.” It becomes nearly irresistible to ignore these thoughts as the baby peccaries brush up against my boots, snort and squeal, walk around me, and then eventually take off.

The next morning is once again welcomed by the low registering frequencies projected by the Howlers, except the next few hours play out much differently than the day before. A few of us left the station before sunrise to the place where another group of students put the Howlers to bed. We arrive at the location 30 minutes before sunrise, put down our tarps, and wait for them lovelies to wake up. Time slowly churns as we try our best to stay awake. As the first photons from the sun begin filling the sky, silhouettes of the group begin to take form. Suddenly, the silence of the morning explodes with boisterous howls. This explosion fills the sonic spectrum and they silence the Jungle in their wake. The next few hours are, frankly, boring. The four of us sit, pace around, and try our best to stay awake while we watch the Howlers sleep. Around 9:45 the group begins to stir and finally there is movement. The next few hours are filled with very minimal Howler movement. They lazily munch leafs from the tree they occupy, and every so often a stream of bodily secretion hits the forest floor. All the while they are making eyes at us, checking us out and making sure we aren’t going to come up and eat them. Then the first exaggerated movement occurs and one Howler begins moving in our direction until he is immediately overhead. With my head cocked up forward, neck straining from the hours of looking up, I see something falling down in my direction. Hmmm, what is that, is that, oh shit, it’s shit! I try to dive out of the way, but the last few hours of stagnancy slowed my reflexes and I am no…covered…in…dung. Well, that was pretty much it. We sat around watching these guys, they pooped on me, and around noon we left for lunch.

On the way back to the station I begin to notice that I am feeling fatigued, but I don’t pay much attention to it. I end up heading to my bed to rest and end up not eating lunch. As the hours fade away I become more lethargic and begin to feel the beginning of an illness. I lay low for the rest of the day and other mild symptoms of a fever begin to accumulate. The onset of a severe fever surface the next day: I have chills, hot cold flashes, chronic fatigue, poopy and pukey issues, and yerp; I admit to myself that I am very sick. I find a bit of humor the next morning as my rise back into consciousness is greeted by a symphony of alarms heard easily through the only-partially-existent thin walls of our rooms. A chorus of voices grouching, “Turn that off”, accompany the alarms. Despite the sickness the humor continues through the day. Later on as I am reading The Fellowship of the Ring, the Company leave Rivendell en route for Mordor, and, of shit the saliva glands in my mouth are watering, I gotta go throw up – heads up Bret. Erk. The illness continues like that for a few more days and I’m finally beginning to feel better as we are leaving the station. The ride back to Quito was about as unbearable as the ride in, except we were all covered in mud and the filth of 7 days in the Jungle. Eventually we made it back, I shower, and find my happy place.