Savanna Safari v Rainforest Reality

Alan Lee, February 2007. A few months ago I was explaining some of the finer details of why parrots and macaws visit the clay licks along the Tambopata with great regularity to a well travelled German tourist who perhaps felt an affinity for a form of wildlife with as strict a habit of time keeping as himself. After I had outlined the importance of the project in the light of the approaching developments crunching their way towards us with the development of the Interoceanic highway, he said: “But surely this must all be a bit boring for you as a South African with your game ranger experience on the African savannas?” “Not at all!” I replied without hesitation, “I prefer it here in the jungles of Peru.” I may have been biased in my reply after having spent at that stage about eight months in the field between the Rainforest Expeditions lodges of Posada Amazonas and Refugio Amazonas. But having just finished a 2 week safari through South Africa’s flagship conservation and ecotourism success, the Kruger National Park, I feel I am in a better situation now to reevaluate my comment of 5 months ago. And I still do love the jungles of Peru, you may be surprised to know after hearing that during those two weeks amongst endless ungulates in feline heaven my fiancé, father and I encountered the big 5 already on the second day of our self drive safari. Our tally for the end of the trip was: elephant encountered every day; buffalo every day bar one; rhino for the first 4 days in a row; 4 lion prides; and 3 leopards (one of which was encountered on two consecutive days at the carcass of a giraffe). “Wow!” has been the response of most of my friends to whom I have related my encounters. Surprisingly, some of my South Africa friends have never actually seen a leopard, and this was the first time out of maybe 5 major trips to the park that I had seen one of these most beautiful and iconic of predators for which there must exist more coffee-table books than for all the other big 5 combined. But this is the problem, this is the obsession. I am an avid birder but after the second day I was ignoring all sorts of challenging birds that fluttered across our vehicles path as we fell victim to the thrill of the next big sighting, a desire to see cheetah and wild dog – a fruitless quest in the end despite racking up nearly 1000km of game viewing and probably missing out on hundreds of avian delights all for this single-minded search and because it is all too easy. Sitting in a comfortable vehicle, elbow on the window, one hand on the steering wheel, watching the endless mopane bushes rolling by interspersed by herds of impala seeking shelter from the relentless sun which we escape with our motorized breeze and in really sticky moments with the help of the green light on the button “Aircon On”. The lion and impala stare at us in our little boxes, moving limbs and expressions of delight like the faces of people in a Castle or Cusquena commercial on TV. We are mobile features that come along, stop, wield the latest brands of Nikon digital camera and Swarovski binoculars before moving on. To the lion and impala it must be like skipping through channels on satellite television. Just like the cheetah cub fighting for survival in a wildlife documentary we are trapped in a glass steel box fighting for a real experience. Something that will tease our noses with memories of a pet on a rainy day, our ears with the delicate nuances of the bird like greeting of the mother to her cubs - beyond the thrum of the overland vehicle and crinkling of Nik-nak packets, the rough edge of a branch in our way of that real life interaction that is something so much more real than these safe sighting from our sealed cages. In contrast, my pulse races as I feel the yielding mud of the worn rainforest path that is eager to record my presence through my tracks in a rain puddle. Alone, I am distracted trying to hear through the background drone of cicadas for the next movement from the wet green ferns and palmiche palms that will direct my gaze to the source of my attention, the focus of all my senses, that dark shadow moving through the broken beams of light of a thousand leaves from a hundred different trees. My attention is long gone from the distant mealy parrot that held my attention moments before as my sub-conscious struggles to piece together the clues of sound of distant vegetation broken by a hidden body. I stand frozen in the fragmented light as in the back of my mind I imagine the scurrying bodies of coati nosing their way through the undergrowth towards me and then these images are dispersed by the quickening tread of not many small bodies, but one large body as it now makes its way rapidly towards me. I catch the first glimpses of the tawny fur covering the muscles built from the blood and sinew of deer and the wild peccary of the forest before he is revealed in all his real, alive, threatening beauty. Still walking down the trail towards me, magnificently painted black rosette fingerprints interchanging their forms with the shadows of the surrounding jungle as she offers her concealing protection to her ancient guardian and protector. If the jaguar (Panthera onca) had seen me it paid no attention. I had to hiss eventually when I felt that it would certainly walk into me. It paused, eyes diverted from the interplay of fallen litter to this intruder in his territory. Whether it was the magnetism of his large, yellow eyes that hypnotised me with a view through a window to a majestic soul that was now harried by the imperceptible sound of distant chain-saws eating away the edges of his home, or simple common sense and training that had instilled in me the importance of not turning my back and running, I stayed still and stroked that beautiful body with my eyes while my heart took a new view of the inside of my body perched within my throat. Eventually, after an eternity captured in less than a minute of the time on my Casio digital watch, he took a step to the side of the path, glanced once more in my direction, and melted into the green brown fabric of the jungle leaving no trace of his ever being there, only his image forever imprinted on my memory. I walked on, hearing again the mobile call of the mealy parrot and my eyes reached for the heavens to find him while my heart continued to beat the drum of awe in honour of that moment where I had become part of the fabric of the life of a jaguar. From a strictly professional point of view, Peru wins on the number of parrots – nearly 10% of the world’s 350, with up to 20 different parakeets, parrots and macaws found around Posada and Refugio. South Africa hardly features with 4 species found naturally and a handful of exotic escapees that break the monotony of the murmur of traffic in the urban gardens of the larger cities. The 5 largest countries that are featured in most of Southern Africa’s bird books list just over 900 species. Peru, a country of comparable size, boasts double that – over 1800! Don’t get me wrong - I love Africa. But I realise that in a world where the biggest bottom line attracts all the attention, that the millennia of rainforest evolution has adapted the multitude of animals that live within it to being so well concealed from predators that now they cannot attract the tourists whose very attention provide an avenue of survival in the face of development where vast tracts of forest are daily being converted into pastoral agriculture, where those hidden lives are lost or displaced to the warlike rhythm of machetes and heavy machinery. So I feel privileged to be in a position where I can stop and take the time to seek out the katydid that forms an extra leaf on a branch, so well concealed that it even mimics the bites of other insects in its wing coverts. I can linger on the whip snake lying perfectly still amongst the leaves near my boots, convinced that I cannot see him as long as he stays still. I can laugh at the troop of howler monkeys moving through the branches above me as I fall backwards to avoid their raindance of falling branches, urine and faeces. In the rainforest the experience is more than the mere documentation of events through a lens or excel spreadsheet - it is the primeval experience of life itself. I had to walk nearly 1000km for that experience with a jaguar, and those 1000km stretched over an entire year. During that time I also had close encounters with ocelot and margay. In terms of encounters per kilometre, that safari was impressive, but the rainforest won. In terms of encounters per hour though the safari was the winner. The savanna and rainforest are experiences that complement each other. Those of the rainforest are too often overlooked. As a potential ecotourist visit both, but be sure to afford the time the rainforest needs for your heart to slow to her beat and in time she will offer you a glimpse of her secrets.