GoMad Nomad Travel

By Danielle L. Krautmann

Danielle will chop your head off with this machete if you complain while on the rainforest expedition!

It’s 8am and I am in my best mood, sipping coffee, sitting alone in the open-air lobby of the main lodge writing in my journal.  For almost a month now, I have gone to sleep and dreamed of spending my days walking through tangles of vines, trees taller than my apartment building, watching animals eat other animals, nature unfolding in front of my eyes.  For almost a month, I have woken up in the morning to find that it was not a dream and today I will walk through the forest again.  I allow my thoughts to flow onto the pages of my journal with little attention to spelling, grammar, or whether or not my audience will like it.  My journal is only for me.  So I write this morning’s thoughts…

“Dear Journal, I never knew how many different shades of green existed until this past week when I started working on names for them in my head.  When Crayola gets word of this I want to be the first employee who’s job it is to label the colors.  There’s leaf-cutter-ant green, naked-tree green, Mealy-Parrot green, and we can’t forget Orange Cheeked Parrot green, the purest green of them all.  Am considering changing my favorite color from yellow to…”

I pause from my writing as a flustered middle-aged woman plops down next to me with a dramatic sigh commanding me to look up from my journal.  As I raise my eyebrows towards her she declares “If you are writing about this company, I hope you write about what a bad job they do preparing their guests for what to bring.”

I have no choice but to acknowledge her and at least appear that I’m listening by using the age-old trick of staring at her forehead.  She continues, “They said on the website that I should bring long-sleeved shirts, so I brought three, but I get hot when I hike and I only brought two short-sleeved shirts which will get covered in sweat.  And they said it might rain here, so I brought a rain jacket and rain pants, but it hasn’t rained so how can you explain that?”

I know she will go on, so I allow my mind to drift back into its stream of thought. I contemplate a decision as critical as changing my favorite color.  Have you ever tried to name all of the hues of yellow?  Would it be fair to Yellow to replace it without first visiting the sun or at least staring at it for a long time? I think to myself.  Then…Darn.  The lady is looking at me and awaiting an answer.  How long I have been staring at her forehead?  What was her question?

“Green.” I reply, then quickly try to recover, “I mean, um, what did you ask?  Sorry, the birds are so loud it’s hard to hear.”

She appears irritated with my lack of attention and responds “I know.  You would think they’d do something about that.  They could AT LEAST keep them further from the lodge.”

I can’t pretend to listen any more.  This is the first time I’ve felt irritated in weeks.  “What was your question?” I ask in the nicest voice I can muster.

“I asked if you’re writing about what a bad job the company does of telling people what to bring.”

“Um, no.  But when you fill out your evaluation, please try to be clear in what you felt was lacking.  But no, that’s not what I’m writing about.”  I respond apologetically only to be scolded with a “Well, maybe you should!” before she stormed off.

I work for, what is in most guest’s opinion one of the best ecotourism companies in the world. What I have learned most from working in the tourism industry is that some people travel for the sole purpose of complaining.  It bothered me a lot my first three weeks working in the Amazon.  I would ask myself, guides, other tourists: How in the world can you come to such an incredible place and find something to complain about?

While most travelers who visit the lodges are in awe and have an amazing time, I would find myself trying to scope out the bad eggs.  When a new group came in, I would think to myself, which one will it be?  Well, today I remember that she isn’t the first and won’t be the last.

But with less than a week left in this place, I cannot worry about her sweaty armpits.  So I take a sip of my coffee, and return to the most important decision I will make today.  I don’t think I’ll change my favorite color, but I’m definitely gonna write Crayola when I get back to Lima.

By Danielle L. Krautmann
My senses are heightened in the rainforest.

in front of a Ficus

Despite being legally blind in my right eye, I can see more clearly than ever before….maybe there’s just more to see.  Something as simple as sunlight illuminating a water droplet on a leaf is a vivid representation of the complexity of nature.  I look up to the trees and can imagine which leaf the drop fell from and how many leaves it rolled off before it landed on this one.  I look at the plant it sits on and hypothesize the path the drop will take to the ground and which of the surrounding plants, trees or vines will be nourished by it. This sense of sight can be heightened further with correct training.

Richard, a guide for Rainforest Expeditions (the company I’m working for), who specializes in birds told me how he became so expert at spotting them.  “Practice, Practice, Practice,” he told me.  He began by figuring out how far 20 meters was and practiced spotting birds and other animals.  When he felt good about it, he moved up to 50 meters, then 100 meters.  The other day I went for a nature walk with him and was amazed when he stopped walking, looked around, sniffed once or twice, then pointed directly at the bird or animal without
thinking twice.  I want to be able to do that!

I hear birds calling back and forth.  Some chirp timidly, others caw obnoxiously, while occasionally I’ll hear a terrifying screech, only to figure out that was also a bird.  Tree branches fall, monkeys bicker, insects buzz all at the same time.  It’s loud, but I’ll take it any day over the non-stop noise pollution of traffic, horns and construction which permeates Lima and makes me feel like I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It’s really not that much quieter than Lima, especially in the morning, but its far more pleasant.  Trying to distinguish who’s saying what is initially overwhelming, but when I listen closely, I realize how harmoniously they come together.  It’s as if the all the plants species of the forest along with her animals are in collaboration, functioning exactly as they should be.

If I concentrate and sit quietly, I can listen in on a conversation between two birds.  On a walk today, I heard a rain shower five minutes before it arrived.  The sound of the raindrops hitting the leaves became louder as the downpour approached, giving me just enough time to find an umbrella tree to stand under while the worst of it passed.

I’ve always had a keen sense of smell, but try to suppress it in the city because the scents of food, diesel fuel, and urine do not appeal to me.  I had almost forgotten that to truly experience an odor you must use more than your nose.  It involves breathing through your mouth and using your sense of taste.  You must then allow the odor to infiltrate your entire chest cavity and head until it brings back a memory or creates a new one.  Guides here can smell Howler Monkeys from two miles away.  I’m not that good yet, but can appreciate the fresh air, jungle fruits and nuts, flowers, leaves, even dirt.

Leaf Carrying Ants...these ants carry pieces of leaves, plant them to grow a fungus, and then eat the fungus.

Then there’s another sense.  I’m not talking about that creepy movie with that little kid who hangs out with dead people.  It’s the same full body sensation you get when you first fall in love with someone. When I hike in the forest, no matter how hot it is, or whether it’s raining and I’m soaking wet, my energy increases and I could hike for hours.  Worries cross through my mind for no more than a minute before I’m distracted by a jumble of vines, trees and plants competing with each other for sunlight.  They wrap around each other, always moving upward in a beautiful chaos until they explode through the canopy spreading their branches in every direction to celebrate their triumph.  My worries are forgotten and I realize I’ve been
studying the forest for what feels like hours, but maybe was only seconds.  This sense is timeless and unquantifiable.  It’s the same as falling in love, only this time I’ve fallen in love with a place.