Magical cloud forest and crazy birds

In spite of some complaints about the volunteering experience at Santa Lucia, I did end up really enjoying my time there. I discovered that although they did seem to expect you to happily pay $15 a day just to weed in the plantations the entire day, if you asked for time off they were quite chill about it. I negotiated for a few mornings and afternoons off, so in the end I did get to go on a number of really nice hikes.

My favorite walk was to a gallo de la peña (cock-of-the-rock) lek. Cock-of-the-rocks are sexually dimorphic, medium-sized birds: the females are brownish-reddish and blend in more with the trees while the males are bright scarlet and visit mating areas in the forest called leks. At the leks, the males sing, dance, and strut their stuff, all to try to get a female to go home with them. These birds put on both a morning show right when it gets light out at 6am and also an afternoon show. I went to the afternoon show first but it started raining (as it almost always does in the afternoon) and there were not many birds there. The next morning, I decided to set out for the lek on my own to catch the morning show. I had been told it would take 2 hrs to get there, so I woke up at 3:30am, dressed hurriedly, crept out of the lodge, and dove into the dark, very damp night. It was drizzling when I set out but I decided to go anyway. I could hear water dripping from all the trees around and above me as I slipped and sloshed my way to the lek. The first half of the hike was all uphill, and I had thought I would be sleepy and tired from all the work I had done the day before. I was so excited though about going to the lek that I felt really energized as I charged up the hills in the darkness, with only my small headlamp to guide me. I stopped briefly at the post where a “common potoo” bird had been perching during the day. This bird’s daytime defense is to simply sit very very still and silently during the day, blending in perfectly with the dead tree trunk that it sits on top of. It is in plain view, completely in the open, unprotected by braches or leaves. But its guise is incredible; it really does just seem like an extension of the tree trunk! At night, supposedly this bird gets off its ass and goes hunting, but either it had already returned from hunting or was just plain lazy but it was sitting there as usual as I passed by around 4:30am. Its eyes were open though and they flashed bright orange, like sparks from a fire, as I briefly shined my light on it. I continued on, reaching the path leading down to the river. Here, it was especially wet and slippery and I found it actually easier to half-run down the hill instead of fighting my momentum at every step. I almost completely ate it a few times, but it was really fun, half-running through the darkness. The night was filled with the sound of water falling softly on all the leaves, and the misty air felt cool and fresh on my face. After crossing the river and climbing up another hill, I reached the lek after only one hour, with plenty of time to settle in before sunrise. I turned off my headlamp and waited for nearly an hour in the darkness, and then watched the forest as it slowly came to life. At 6am, the darkness began to lift. Gradually, I could see more and more: first, the outlines of the tree trunks and their branches, then their leaves, then the vibrant greens of the forest slowly began to emerge. Even as it grew lighter, a thin veil of fog clung to the trees. Shortly after it started to become light, I heard wings flapping, leaves rustling, and then a harsh squawk that ripped through the silence. A few seconds of silence followed, then another screech pierced the air, this time from a different location, followed by a louder one, then another and another until the forest was filled with the cacophonous sounds of these birds. Their calls grew louder and louder as more and more birds joined in, all trying to out-compete each other.

I was really quite taken aback by their call. I had expected a beautiful, melodic mating song. Instead, I found their call really harsh, jarring, and unnatural-sounding, like an electric can opener gone very wrong. I would not really describe it as melodic or beautiful in the slightest, but it was certainly interesting. At other times, they sounded like possessed squeaky toys, reminding me of a jazz gig that Tom and I once saw where they used squeaky toys to accompany the dissonant sounds and halting rhythms of the sax and trumpet. Sometimes, the birds would let loose with a stream of high-pitched witch’s cackling, which I found quite creepy and unnerving. I think if I had just happened to stumble across the lek without realizing what it was, I would have thought that these birds had suddenly just lost it completely. I felt a bit like I had stumbled upon an insane asylum for birds. Occasionally, their calls would die down and silence and order would return to the forest for a short time. Then one of them would emit a series of shrill cries, another would respond with crazed laughing, and then the rest of the chorus would join in at full force. This was definitely one of the strangest (but also coolest!) things I have ever seen or heard in any kind of forest.

It sounded like there were at least 20 birds or more, but because the forest was so dense I could only see about 10 or so. The birds that were not hidden by the branches really stood out though. Even without binoculars, I could see brilliant bursts of scarlet scattered amongst the dense green foliage. Especially compared to camouflaged birds like the potoo, these birds really stick out from everything around them, both in terms of their appearance and their sounds. Upon closer inspection with my binoculars, I could see their strangely shaped, bulbous heads. Their head is bright red, with a large, strange, rounded protrusion on their forehead, as though they had all bumped into a tree and received giant, swollen lumps on their foreheads. Strangely enough, it reminded me a bit of the cyst on Jean Claude Van Damme’s forehead. (I think I watched too many action movies on the buses in Peru). Apart from screeching like lunatics and showing off their bright red feathers, once in a while one of the males would vigorously flap its wings while clinging onto a branch, desperately trying to impress the ladies. I sat there for about 45 minutes, quite stupefied by their bizarre, discordant songs. Then it suddenly began to rain very heavily, the cries died down, and the birds flew off. I presume some of the males went off to shelter from their rain and canoodle with their new conquests, while others skulked off, soaked and empty handed.

I threw on a poncho and headed back to the lodge. I was so excited by what I had just seen that I felt giddy as I rushed down the hill, across the river, and back up the other side. The rain stopped after a brief downpour, but the towering trees with their long, soft beards of mosses were still draped in swirling mist. Everything around me looked so fresh and magical! I felt so invigorated by the beauty of the forest that I made it back to the lodge in no time, had a quick breakfast, then walked down to the banana plantation for another full day of machete work.

I enjoyed my early morning hike to the lek so much that I went again the very next morning! I think the guys working there thought I was a little crazy. Santa Lucía is known for its birding, as it is home to many different species of hummingbirds, toucans, tanagers, and more. While I was there, I saw large plate-billed toucans, golden tanagers, golden-breasted quetzals, brilliantly colored blue-green hummingbirds with impressively long tails, and more! Apart from going on some great hikes, there were also a lot of other things that I really loved about Santa Lucía. Rosario, the cook for the first week I was there, was an excellent chef. After getting back from working during the day, I would often help her out in the kitchen. She really loves cooking, and you could tell from her food. She has the ability to transform very limited and simple ingredients into delicious, flavorful dishes – some of the best food I’ve had in the past 7 months! I also just really liked Rosario as a person and really enjoyed helping her out and chatting with her in the kitchen. I really really loved almost all of the staff at Santa Lucía. Though I questioned the value of some of the work we did, I really liked that we worked side-by-side with the local guys working there. The guys – Carlos, Julio, Noe, and Wilson – were all really interesting and chill people. They definitely made the work more enjoyable than it would be otherwise, and it was lots of fun joking around with them. Noe and Carlos both had the same dead-pan sense of humor, like the first day when Carlos told us completely straight-faced, “Oh, it’s Monday, so there won’t be any lunch today.” Eventually, I also discovered that although the guys did not often offer information about the forest, if you asked, you would find that they were actually incredibly knowledgeable about a lot of the plants there. I really enjoyed my plant conversations with Noe and I spent a few rainy afternoons poring over the field guides at the lodge with him, trying to identify plants I had seen on my hikes. It was also very interesting talking to them and getting an insider’s perspective on how the cooperative worked. Then at night, sometimes Julio would play his guitar and sing and we would all dance. I got along with everyone there really well, and they all started affectionately calling me “Terasita” which I thought was really cute.

So, while I had some mixed feelings about the volunteer work there, I really loved the experience as a whole, the people there, and just being in such beautiful forest. I would recommend going there as a tourist, probably more than any other place I had volunteered at (with the exception of maybe Piedras). I think what they are trying to do is really great, as far as being collectively owned, run entirely by local people, and offering local people alternatives to deforestation.

After leaving Santa Lucia, I spent one day in Nanegal before heading to my next destination. Wilson, one of the guys who works at Santa Lucia, was really nice and offered to show me around some of the local sights. He took me to a really great waterfall in Nanegal, where we scrambled up to the top of the waterfall, swam in its freezing cold waters, and then sunbathed on a large rock. We then watched Julio play in a football (soccer) match, which was a lot of fun. I was sad to leave the guys, but I was also excited about spending another two weeks in a different part of the Choco cloudforest at Los Cedros.