How 2 Rainforest

You only Panama once.

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More posts!

Even though I just arrived back in the USA, I will make a few more posts about working with the bats and other H2R survival tips. 

My laptop lost its ability to connect to the internet while in the tropics, so it was really hard to keep this blog updated, especially with the internet being as slow as it is anyway!

Thanks for reading and taking an interest in my adventures! :)

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Gamboa Style

While I am just leaving this place, I want to share where I have lived for the past 3.5 months - a place that has impacted me in profound ways.

13:00. Saturday. The air is split with 10 loud, long sirens, followed by 10 more in quick succession 5 minutes later. The earth shakes to life and the whole house shakes. The canal dredging division still actively works on it, creating large explosions that are just a part of life in Gamboa.

The world’s largest floating crane. It sits on the Panama canal in Gamboa

Gamboa. A place without. Without government, a proper store or restaurant, or a doctor. And hey, let me tell all you anarchists out there: when there’s no government, things don’t get fixed. And yeah, I know, sometimes local (and national) governemnts are notoriously slow at fixing simple things, but let me provide an example. When I first arrived in Panama on May 9th, there was a massive pipe in town that had a huge leak. It gushed forth with such vigor that it could be mistaken for a small waterfall. And hey, 92 days later, it still gushes, wasting thousands of gallons a day. If something breaks, be it a street light or a pipe, someone has to do it themselves if they want it fixed.

My home this summer (top floor) and the Bat Lab (bottom floor)

But this dysfunction is certainly part of the charm of Gamboa, a place where internet speeds are slow and there is only one, one lane bridge entering the town of about 500. Which, by the way, is closed for repairs several days a week from 8am until 12pm. During that time, no one can enter or leave Gamboa. Though Gamboa is without, it is also very much with. Gamboa is surrounded on 2 sides by rainforest and on 2 sides by the canal and river Chagres. There is immense beauty in its isolation, and the biodiversity found in and around the town is simply spectacular. There are very few places in the world that offer such access to rainforest and are a mere 30 minute drive from a major city. That being said, I have rarely made it to or from the city in that length of time – there are very few major roads in Panama, and the one that leads to Gamboa is just two lanes most of the way and also branches off to major highways and access points for the rest of the country. Imagine trying to funnel Chicago rush hour traffic on a road like this. It’s taken me 3 hours to get from the city before due to traffic. And on the whole, the pace of life in Panama is leisurely at best. Paradoxically, it also is home to drivers so aggressive it makes Chicago or even Boston drivers look tame.

Gamboa also is a magical place. It is known among locals to be “haunted” or very spiritually active. I even had my own encounter with “shadow person” – that’s how I learned that the town is shrouded in lore. Much to my amusement, the movie Chupacabra (English: the Immigrant) was filmed right in the Gamboa rainforests. Gamboa also makes an appearance in what is perhaps less of a B horror movie, The Panama Tailor, starring ­­­­Pierce Brosnan.

The view from my house/the Bat Lab

Besides the Smithsonian, the major employers/entities in Gamboa are the ACP (Panama Canal Authority) and the Gamboa Resort. The resort was built initially to be a stop on a cruise ship line that would go through the canal. Due to some political strife and what was probably a shady proposal from the beginning, this proposal never came to fruition. The resort is massive and appears nearly empty at times, so naturally the talk among the Smithsonians is that like many skyscrapers that stand vacant in Panama City, it is actually a money-laundering front.

There is only one store in Gamboa, the Tienda, where one can buy essentials (plantains, chips, beer, for instance), and it is about the size of a tiny bedroom. Like most grocery and convenience stores in Panama, a Chinese man runs it (interestingly, the Chinese comprise a large immigrant group in Panama). There is a pool in town that the Bomberos (firemen) periodically fill with water then drain it 3 days later due to the lack of filtration system and concern for water-borne illness. But no worries, I just snuck into the resort’s pool. During large thunderstorms, the Wi Fi in the whole town often goes out, and it can be days before it returns. Pokemon Go works in Gamboa, but I’m told there aren’t many rare Pokemon which seems odd since there are so many rare species found here. There is a bus schedule that one can take into the city for $0.65, but the drivers like to try to charge Gringos (white people) $1.00.  They are old school buses in a decrepit state that the drivers outfit with lights and a stereo system, and are notorious for being incredibly late or just not showing up at all (feel free to ask me about my SACA bus stories – I’m full of them!).

Map of Gamboa, courtesy of STRI, with my edits in red and green

STRI owns some of the houses in Gamboa that we can rent from them directly for a really fair price. The house prices have been steadily increasing, so this is a nice option, though the houses are generally in somewhat poor condition. I lived on top of the bat lab in STRI housing. The other buildings owned by STRI are a small apartment building, with the first floor comprised of a tiny lab and mailroom, and the schoolhouse, which is one of the largest buildings in Gamboa. STRI researchers use the first floor for research and there’s a couple of moderately sized labs. This is the hub of a lot of STRI activity in Gamboa, along with the Insectaries, an area that holds a bunch of stuff like greenhouses, butterfly houses, the famous amphibian rescue center (ARC), and the bat flight cage where I worked.

Entrance to the insectaries

The flight cage in the insectaries, where my mentor Claire and I did experiments

STRI has numerous other locations throughout Panama, including Barro Colorado Island, the premier tropical research location in the world, from whence a majority of our knowledge of tropical ecology comes. Each week on Thursday, there is a talk given at BCI by researchers that are staying or passing through, and STRI people could take a boat from Gamboa to reach it. Each week on Tuesday there is another talk at Tupper (same guy as Tupperware) which is located in Panama City. After the Tupper talks, a lot of people get groceries and hang out in the city for a bit. 

I love Gamboa, but it’s nice to get out every once and awhile. :)

The view walking to the insectaries

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Last weekend, I had the wonderful fortune of experiencing a cloud forest, a unique type of rainforest found atop mountains. Gamboa (where I live) is wonderful and offers a unique way to access the rainforest, but it isn’t very remote. The National Park that surrounds it is fairly heavily used by field biologists, birders, and tourists. There are definitely plenty of hiking paths that go further out in the National Park, but it still feels as if civilization isn’t THAT far away (OK, even though I managed to get hopelessly lost).

Darién Province is generally much more remote than Panama Province, and to access the Chucantí mountains requires a 5 hour long hike uphill or ride by horseback to even get to the base of the mountain.

I was feeling a bit skeptical on the first half of the hike, as all around we were surrounded by pasture. Seeing all the cows and horses was disheartening and surprising given the high climb. But once I saw where we were headed, it was more beautiful than I ever thought possible.

My friend Lynette, who studies beetles, was one of our group who paid an extra $30 to ride a horse up to the camp. Her horse wasn’t in very good shape – heavily laden with bags, her horse fell down to her knees while Lynette rode her up a steep hill. So we walked her up the majority of the climb. Leading a horse up steep slopes is extra challenging when she refuses to move – we often had to physically pull her up the mountain! Poor girl.

The altitude of Chucantí is nearly 1500m – tall enough to be totally swallowed by clouds. After hours of driving and hiking, I was just hoping we wouldn’t have to climb all the way up that same day! It looked absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, mysterious, and romantic all at once. Keeping my sights on the slopes ahead was enough motivation for me to avoid collapsing from exhaustion (but barely).

We had a group of about 25 people, and all hiked at different paces according to our respective fitness levels and how many times we stopped to take pictures or identify beetles. Lynette and I hiked for a distance by ourselves before meeting more of our group, where we learned we had another 20 minutes or so of hiking. They were waiting for more members of the group, but it was already 6:00pm which meant it would be totally dark in 45 minutes, so Lynette and I decided to forge ahead alone with Kelly (the horse). It sounded simple enough: cross the river and follow the path. Crossing the river, we finally entered the rainforest. However, as anyone who has spent time in the rainforest will tell you, the forest floor gets dark far sooner than outside. With only a small flashlight, we encountered numerous splits in the “simple” trail and mud at least a foot deep. Kelly decided she had enough of climbing and slipping her way up the mountain at this point and simply refused to move any further. Lynette and I began to yell out for help, hoping that the camp would be close enough for them to hear us. Thankfully, a guide magically appeared right as panic was setting in and told us which way to go. Unfortunately we got lost yet again and yelled for help, then realized we could hear voices of our friends up the hill. It was completely nightfall by the time we reached the camp, and we literally collapsed from exhaustion. At least we had a hot meal waiting for us, and plenty of rum.

The next day, we were to go on a shorter hike, and then on Saturday, we would climb the summit of Chucantí and walk along its ridgeline. I was so sore and had strained a muscle in my leg the previous day, so this small hike was certainly a struggle. But at least we got to sleep in until 8:00am (funny, because I usually wake up at noon as a batgirl, but it was later than 5:30am which is when I got up the day prior). Hiking through primary rainforest with a gaggle of biologists is definitely my idea of a great time.

For me, the real magic of this day happened at night when a fellow Bat Lab member and I set up a mist net to see what species we would encounter.

Some background: Chucantí has been seen by very few people, let alone scientists. Rainforest ecosystems are home to incredibly specialized species due to a variety of reasons, but montane ecosystems can hold many specialists as well due to the ecosystems’ isolation. So combined, rainforests and mountains are biodiversity hotspots.

We had been told repeatedly that we would likely find numerous novel species here, but I didn’t seriously expect to catch an undescribed bat species. But that’s exactly what happened. This adorable fellow looks similar to the Shaggy Bat (Centronycteris centralis), but is noticeably distinct: its ears are curled instead of sickled, its face is black and not pink, and several of its body measurements were different. Finding a new mammal species is pretty much what every budding scientist dreams of (or at least what I’ve always fantasized about), so I was definitely too excited to sleep that night. Now, this guy could still be a Shaggy Bat, but there are so few specimens of Shaggy Bats that perhaps he is a variant or a subspecies. Even if he isn’t totally undescribed, the fact that we caught such a rare bat was totally exhilarating!! We are sending pictures to experts and hope to gain some insight into his status. :)

The next morning, we began our ascension of Chucantí in 2 groups: the birders/fast hikers and the entomologists/slow hikers. Needless to say I was with the latter group, which I was more than happy with! It was amazing to experience this rainforest with so many people who knew about so many different things. It wouldn’t have been the same if I didn’t know what to look for or what I was looking at.

On our climb (which was very steep, I might add), we noticed a distinct and abrupt change in the composition of the rainforest. Suddenly, as we entered the cloud, we noticed more and more ferns, moss, and fungi. As we got really high, there were hardly any insects at all – a strange phenomenon to experience when they are omnipresent everywhere else. The temperature dropped significantly as we were enveloped in water vapor.

Once we reached the ridge, I could have sworn we had stepped straight into the Cretaceous period. Moss and ferns covered everything completely. We saw all kinds of new, endemic species to the area: salamander, flowering plants, specialized moths, frogs, and a tiny fern that’s only ONE CELL layer thick.

There are few, if any, moments in life where you’re surrounded by complete silence. No traffic noise, no bug chirping, not even water moving through the pipes of your wall. Besides the occasional intermittent frog and bird call, there was no ambient noise, whatsoever. The cloud that surrounded us completely blocked any external sounds from the outside world. There are no words to describe these feelings and sensations. The overwhelming sense of my own insignificance in the universe. Knowing that there are still corners of the Earth that haven’t been destroyed by our species, yet. Being transported back 65 million years ago when Earth was covered in forest and giant reptilians. Feeling how transient our time on Earth is. I am one of the very lucky few who lived these feelings firsthand.

We climbed up straight 90 degree walls and crawled through tiny openings, surrounded on all sides by thick water vapor and a mysterious void that surely led to another dimension.

On our descent, we encountered more mysteries: a helicopter crash site from ~40 years ago. No one knows how or why there are two “US ARMY” crafts here, right next to each other. The forest swallowed them up along with all their secrets.

One of the most impactful moments of the trip was learning the history of how Guido, our main guide, managed to acquire this beautiful landscape. I’ll do my best to relay his story, but I’m sure I’ll mess it up. An avid birdwatcher, Guido was in search of some highland species ~10 years ago and came across this mountain range. He rounded up a couple of people to go with him, and he saw amazing species that he hadn’t seen anywhere else in Panama. Thrilled, he began to spread the word and collected another small group of scientists/birders to come with him a second time. When he returned only 2 weeks later, the spot where he saw the rare bird was leveled. In its place was only pasture. Seeing deforestation firsthand inspired him and his fellow adventurers to action. They knew they had to try to do something: this place clearly was incredibly precious and contained undescribed and highly endangered species of birds (and many other organisms, as they would soon learn). He located the owner of the land who had cleared it, a farmer, and tried to convey the importance of the forest to him by describing all the biodiversity it contained. Seeming to empathize, the farmer said that this was the only way he has to pay to send his son to school. Guido asked him how much it would take to make saving this rainforest worth it to him monetarily. He thought a moment, and replied $10,000 for 100 acres of rainforest. Guido promised to return in a few weeks with the money (that he didn’t have) and the farmer agreed.

Once he found the money from generous donors, Guido returned with a check for $10,000, but the farmer was nowhere to be found. And instead of precious rainforest, chainsaws and giant tractors greeted him. Furious, Guido stormed down the mountain and asked around for the farmer, found him, and confronted him. The farmer replied that his son needed school supplies immediately, and he had no way to pay for it without the loggers’ money. The contract was already written, there was nothing more the farmer could do. Guido decided to try to reason with the loggers.

They agreed to sell him back the land if he would pay the original price, the cost of the road they constructed, and only if he would reimburse them for all of the trees they had yet to cut down. Their contract allowed them to take 200 massive trees; they had taken 30 so far. Guido braced himself for a crushing blow and asked, “how much?”

$12 per tree.

Sold. Just like that, the loggers picked up their equipment and left. And Guido had saved 100 acres of rainforest.

Guido enlisted the help of his Smithsonian friends to try to find funding to buy even more land from the neighboring land owners. Fortunately, there was a donor. A professor in charge of a large sum of money who had been donating to various conservation networks wanted to find a cause he could help directly, and where he would know exactly where his money was going. The stars seemed to align. With this money, Guido bought another 200 acres of rainforest. He expanded his land a couple more times with donors’ help, even when the price of land in Panama shot up a few years ago and he bought 50 acres for at least triple the initial cost of his first plot of land.

I have mad respect for Guido. This is what I used to imagine would happen with all of these huge American and international conservation funds: they would simply go and buy the land directly from the landowners. However, this is not what happens, and that simply blows me away. After hearing how affordable it is to buy a patch of rainforest, and how simple it is to acquire, it quite frankly shocks me that this is such an unusual story. Where does all the money go? When people donate to tropical conservation efforts, they want their money to go directly to buying and preserving the forest, not to bureaucratic interests. While it’s certainly important to engage in the political sphere, and these larger conservation groups do, how much precious rainforest is being lost to logging in the days, weeks, and years they spend writing emails to politicians, engage in public outreach, and expand their payroll?  

It’s imperative that conservation efforts center on engaging local communities and enlist passionate individuals to educate their fellow community members in a grassroots fashion. That’s the only way the rainforests will be able to be saved from destruction. The system is rigged against these direct efforts and globalization has overshadowed the importance of local, civic engagement. Communities that rely on destroying the rainforests for their welfare must be restructured and individuals must be monetarily and morally incentivized to maintain the forest. People like Guido and organizations like Adopt a Panama Rainforest make this possible and give me a sliver of hope for preserving havens for biodiversity.

More pictures here

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H2R Lesson 14: Ants are ubiquitous.

I was warned prior to arrival to keep all foods in the refrigerator or in tupperware. But I didn’t expect the multitudes of teeny tiny ants that cover the counter tops and somehow are always on your body. They are so small that they make the smallest, most annoying tickling sensation.

For unknown reasons, whenever I leave a glass of water for more than 12 hours, it becomes full of ants that have drowned themselves??????

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H2R Lesson 13: In the rainforest, it rains twice as hard, you sweat twice as much, and people party twice as hard.

Parties are characterized by booming salsa music, dancing, games, and lots of food. 

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H2R Lesson 12/Things to Avoid: Africanized Bees.

Ok sorry for the gruesome picture

While we were searching the tunnels for roosts, we encountered the sounds of a swarm of Africanized bees. You can hear them from pretty far away - they form extremely loud swarms with deep buzzing. It was really eerie and terrifying. 

Africanized bees have made it to Panama, though they usually aren’t found near Gamboa. This was the closest and loudest my labmates had ever heard them. They are extremely dangerous because they do not stop chasing you even when you run, and they are faster. You can’t ditch them by jumping in the water, either. I learned that the methods to ditch them are to either run in a zig zag pattern with lots of 90 degree turns, or jump in the water and cover your head when you come up for air with a T shirt. 

We got in the truck and left that area, but we could still hear them in the distance.

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H2R Lesson 11: Everything wants to hurt you.

I realized this on my first night mist netting. The best advice is to not touch anything. You could put your hand on a scorpion. Or a cecropia tree that’s guarded by Azteca ants. Or you could grab a snake thinking it’s a vine. And nearly all the plants have some variation of spines, prickles, or super sharp thorns. Even if you manage to avoid all of these things, there are lianas everywhere that try (and succeed) to trip you.

Moving through the rainforest is not a graceful process.

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H2R Lesson 10: Tunnel Swimming

While normally I work at night, sometimes members of the Bat Lab decide to do a “roost capture”, which involves locating a roost of bats (usually small groups 3 - 15) and capturing them during the day. The roosts that we know of are found in mysterious abandoned bunkers in the jungle and in small tunnels under the dirt road we take through the jungle to go mist netting. 

After checking the tunnels, one by one, for the species we study - Trachops cirrhosis - we block off one end of the tunnel and “box them in” on the other side with mist nets and mosquito nets. To get them out, one person must crawl through the tiny tunnel to scare the bats out so the people waiting in the box can catch them. I volunteered to be the tunnel crawler.

But halfway through the tunnel was flooded and I had to swim in a space that was so narrow I couldn't even turn around. If you’ve never tried it, I’ll go ahead and tell you that crawling backwards is extremely difficult and slow-going. 

I gotta say, feeling fish swimming through my legs and knowing there were oodles of creepy crawling things an inch above my head was disconcerting. But the only part that really scared me is that these tunnels have been known to collapse. One had collapsed just a few days prior. While this is certainly a risk, generally we presume the tunnels to be safe unless they exhibit signs that indicate they could be structurally unsound. 

The bats were so scared they would fly as deep back as they could and then started flapping on top of the water surface - it was comical but also really pitiful. Especially when we realized that 3 of them had pups. :( 

We caught them all and the pups had to reattach to their mommies’ bellies. This was really sad because it was so stressful for the bats. Pups hold onto their moms until they are big enough to fly on their own in tandem with mom. 

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This almost made getting lost worth it. I finally got a good view of the Capuchins while being a safe distance away so as not to get fruit thrown at me or to get peed on!

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Lessons from getting lost: It’s just as important to have a reliable cellular network as it is to have a reliable network of friends.

I haven’t posted about this misadventure yet because it was so scary. 

Typically, in the rainy season in Gamboa, it rains some time between noon or 2pm until 4pm. This is an unfortunate fact for a girl who works with bats; because of my late work schedule (2:30am some nights), I usually sleep until about noon. I’ve hiked in the rain before here, and it’s certainly unpleasant, but this time I brought extra clothes and shoes and started out around 1pm. 

I went hiking on a trail I’d been interested in awhile. After about an hour of hiking, the trail started tapering off until it became indistinguishable from the rest of the forest flora. Trying to be smart, I turned around. At this exact moment, it began to downpour. In the tropics, raining isn’t always a gradual process like at home. Instead of sprinkling and then gradually raining harder, it was a sudden onslaught of water like I hadn’t experienced previously here. But I was prepared for this; I had brought my headlamp because down on the forest floor in the rain it gets too dark to see, even in the day time. In spite of my headlamp, I couldn’t see. The rain was coming down so hard it looked like a whiteout - like when you try to drive in a blizzard. 

In no time flat, whatever was left of the trail disappeared and washed away. Apparently, I had the extremely unfortunate timing of being in a floodplain when it started raining. I walked in circles, looked for landmarks, retraced my steps, and tried to remain calm. Then I ran in circles and the panic began to set in. In a few minutes the ground turned to mud and then to standing water. I found a dryish area under a palm and cried. I was so upset I didn’t notice at first that the water around me was rising rapidly. 

Here is a different trail (taken on a different day) to give an idea of what they can look like. This trail was particularly dense

I had been reluctant to call for help because, frankly, it was embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t handle going on a hike by myself. But I couldn’t see much and had no idea how long it would continue raining. Waterproof bags can save your life in a situation like this. I pulled out my $15 Panama cell phone which miraculously had service and didn’t die in spite of being soaking wet from me touching it and called my lovely mentor, Claire, and tried not to choke as I told her I was lost. 

If I haven’t said so already, Claire is amazing. She was totally calm and confidently told me she would round up a search team. I told her where the trail was and all the turns I had taken and she set off immediately with a group of bat people. 

When I hung up, I finally noticed that I was now sitting on an island - I had to move or I’d be sitting in water. I waded through the water to another island, saw the futility in that, waded to a larger island, and within 5 minutes had to move again. By this time, the only high ground was separated from me by a swift river (that hadn’t been there before the rain). I figured if I didn’t go now, it would only get worse. And there could be crocodiles. I went for it and ALMOST lost my footing. 

The water was up to my waist. 40 minutes prior, it had been dry ground. 

After a series of calls from Claire trying to figure out the route I took, I finally heard a distant “JULIA!” and I screamed out with joy. I had to wade through water again, but I can honestly say I’ve never been so relieved in my entire life. 

I’m so thankful for my bat lab and rescue group. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of all of this chaos - but here is a picture of a cake I baked them as a Thank You.

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H2R Lesson 8: when you walk around town looking like a biologist, locals will stop you on the street and hand you jars of live arachnids.

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H2R Lesson 7: it's not a storm unless car alarms go off.

With hilarious regularity, every afternoon between the hours of 12 and 15:00 lightning strikes within a half mile of my house. Usually this sets off a car alarm or two. It's fun except when you're nocturnal and 13:00 is your wakeup time!

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Literally every day. Oh and there is no A/C :)

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Look at this sweetie ❤ He's a Jamaican fruit eating bat, and we are feeding him sugar water so he has enough energy to fly away.

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H2R Lesson 6

It's best to not bother shaving your legs because you might accidentally cut open your bug bites.

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Living in the Rainforest Lesson #5: You are living in a place video games are based off of (don’t read this, mom).

So I felt like a regular Lara Croft on my hike the other day.

You know, my favorite video game character of ALL time.

I climbed up the hill/mountain (hountain?) next to my apartment, the same one with the watchtower on top. My goal was to look for new trails. There’s an abandoned cable car station at the top, and I noticed a very small trail that went just underneath it. I decided to follow it and climb up the supports, which is about 5 stories high. And I gotta say - I had flashbacks to the many hours I spent in front of a computer playing Tomb Raider, with my backpack and hiking boots on, climbing up this old tiny ladder.

It’s much taller than it looks from these pictures

This is literally what my life is now

When I got to the top, the view literally took my breath away. There were some toucans calling to each other right next to me. I noticed one of the gondolas was nearly right under me and heavily contemplated full-on acting out TRIII, climbing the metal support cable over to the gondola. I even got on top of the cord, 60 feet in the air, but then realized I better work on my upper body strength first.

If she can, then so can I!

Toucan friend!

Before I even had a chance to take pictures (these pics are from a second expedition), the whole structure shook. Wind?

No, the cable cars shuddered to life!

My favorite picture of the bunch

Panamarama

My first thought was that someone saw me (it is a very exposed place way above the canopy) and the Panamanian police were coming to arrest me (OK, I have played WAY too much Tomb Raider), so I scrambled down the ladder as fast as humanly possible and did a little dive role into the bushes and watched and waited.

Turns out it was only a tour group from the resort.

Just remember: real life is not as glam as the video games. What they don’t show are the chiggers, bullet ants, mosquitos, Africanized bees, or the sweat dripping off your face 24/7.

Just floating up here (sorry, mom)

The trail from the ground

Just call me Lara. xoxo

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How to Rainforest lesson #4: It helps to think of the giant bugs as birds, or puppies.

This grasshopper was so big even the locals took pictures of it.

It’s hard to find a balance at night between seeing and preventing giant cockroaches from flying into your face because your headlamp is so bright.