8. Night forest walk and disco, July 2006

Nighttime adventures: July 2006

Finding the larvae of the weevils responsible for making the resin lumps on the copal trees was easy, but for the first week of our time at Jenaro Herrera, we had not found any adult weevils on the trees during the day. Since a weevil expert had told me that many species are nocturnal, our team decided to try scanning some of our trees at night. I had not been particularly keen to do this since many snakes are active then, but with Nestor and Bandito as our guides, Victor, Angel and I set forth.

Soon after entering the trail to the plantation, we learned that our caution was justified. A small but very poisonous pit viper with an orange body and black that is locally called “aguaje machaco” was lying in the middle of the path. Bandito seemed intent on sniffing at it, but fortunately he also maintained a safe distance. After carefully taking a few photos, Nestor tossed it to the side with his machete while the rest of us stepped around.

Our outings produced observations of several other interesting denizens of the dark. The largest of these were whip scorpions. I had first encountered these fearsome looking critters while living in the Tembé Indian village in Brazil. They were always stationed on the walls of my outhouse at night. I was scared at first that they were going to leap on me and painfully impale some soft tissue with their multi-spined pincers. After awhile, though, I realized they were quite content to stay still and wait for insect prey – perhaps some of the plentiful cockroaches. In Peru we also saw three types of spiders in the forest – small spotted white to large fuzzy brown. Other neat sights in the nighttime forest were tiny glowing green lights. Looking closer, we saw that the phosphorescence usually came from patches of a fungus on a rotting tree. One night when we returned to the station, we were treated to the site of a tarantula on the wall of a residential house.

The trips were less productive for their intended purpose. We examined dozens of copal trees from high on their trunks to the ground. Angel even dug down a bit in the earth around the base of some trees to see if weevils were hiding there. On two nights of searching, we didn’t find a single adult weevil.

Our other nighttime excursion was to the lone discotheque in Jenaro Herrera. Since the IIAP truck was already in town, our small group left the station on foot for the half-hour walk well equipped with our knee-high rubber boots over the muddy road. In a town without a movie theatre or internet, the Jungla (pronounced “hun-gla) provides a vibrant gathering point for many young people. To preserve the quiet in the downtown residential areas, Jungla is located about half a mile away near farm fields. Even so, as we crossed a tiny wooden bridge on the outskirts of town, we began to hear booming techno vibrations. The building itself was a simple off-white structure. Some people were hanging around outside with various motorcar drivers waiting to take patrons home.

As we walked in, it seemed our arrival was greeted with recognition of our non-regular status (maybe the rubber boots gave us away) with neither welcome nor hostility. There was no cover charge at Jungla. Their business went by selling cheap drinks from an unadorned window; the choices were bottles of beer, water, Coke, Inca cola (a very popular yellow Peruvian soft drink), and cups of a mixed drink with aguardiente (similar to rum) and some citrus juice. The large dance area was a smooth grey cement floor surrounded by small tables and chairs. A balcony on one side provided more sitting areas to look down over the dance floor. Disco accoutrements included a few strobe lights, a swirling ball with multi-colored lights, and a loud if not high-fidelity sound system. The music included a mix of techno, Peruvian pop and some classic western rock. The dancers were mostly tamely moving male-female and female-female couples. In the midst of what I assumed to be conservative rural Peru, it was interesting to see that the most active and colorfully dressed dancers were two male-male couples. After awhile, Angel, Marissa, Xanit (a visiting Peruvian forest researcher doing a PhD at Miami University in Ohio) and I added our energy to the dance floor.

Eventually the smoke, sweat and aching eardrums led me outside for a break. It was wonderful to take a breather in the cool clean air. I didn’t recognize the southern hemisphere constellations, but a night sky full of stars without soot or light pollution is welcome anywhere on the planet. After one more round of dancing, drinking water and several trips to the overly close-quartered men’s room, I felt like calling it a night. It was a great way to get aerobic exercise, and it definitely fit into the category of a “cultural experience.” Our group was very happy to get a ride back to the station in the back of the IIAP pickup truck.