Creature Comforts

Date of events depicted: 13 May 2012

Two Crazy Chicks Productions, in association with WorldWild PhotoGraphics and What Am I Going to Tell Your Mother? Productions, is proud to present episode 4 of The Adventures of Yumiko and Eden in Peru…

“Spikes!” José shines his flashlight on a species of palm that looks like it has mated with an angry porcupine.

“Spikes!” Eden repeats the guide’s warning for the benefit of the hiker behind her, who in turn passes it on to those behind him.

The adventurers on this night hike through the rainforest are careful to point out to one another the myriad potential hazards on the trail: fire ants, mud, army ants, low hanging branches and vines, spider webs with and without spiders, thorns, cobra ants…

But the jungle at night is more than a place of danger; it is a place of discovery. José’s light reveals tiny frogs, delicate mushrooms, strange insects, and tarantulas.

Miko and Eden usually don’t mind tarantulas. Unless, as had happened the previous evening at Yine Lodge, one suddenly appears in the folds of the shower curtain in a dimly lit stall just as Miko finishes her shower and the lodge’s generator powers down, leaving the bathroom building in darkness.

Our intrepid heroines and company are returning to Camp Sachavaca from Cocha Salvador, an oxbow lake upon which they had spent several hours observing wildlife from the relative comfort of the “catamaran,” a somewhat dubious-looking pair of weathered wooden dugout canoes connected by an equally dubious-looking weathered wooden platform.

Emerging briefly from beneath the forest canopy at the Manu River’s edge, the group is treated to a breathtaking view of the Milky Way. Before continuing on their way, Miko and Eden pick out the Southern Cross amid a host of constellations unfamiliar to those who dwell north of the equator.

Dinner is followed by cold showers by candlelight that temporarily alleviate the itch of the sandfly and mosquito bites our fearless females have sustained.  Miko’s bruised and scraped arm, they are relieved to note, is healing well.

It has been a good day, our fearless females agree as they enter their hut and tiredly crawl under the mosquito netting. As the boat had navigated the Manu River, they had been lucky enough to spot a capybara and had passed a clay lick where dozens of blue-headed parrots and several chestnut-fronted macaws had congregated noisily. On Cocha Salvador, they had caught glimpses of giant river otters, added “punk chicken” (hoatzin) to their rapidly expanding bird list, and, after sunset, used their flashlights to illuminate the eyes of black caimans floating silently on the lake while José told “jungle ghost stories,” tales of researchers and tourists who mysteriously disappeared in Manu, their remains either never located or found in the jaws of a jaguar or caiman. And, though Camp Sachavaca is even more rustic than Yine Lodge, Miko and Eden have not seen a single cockroach.

© Eden Feuer