Bears, Tarantulas, Piranhas

Back at the very beginning of this trip we were told, at the Shivananda Yoga Centre, about Prana, Shivananda's word for positive energy, which he believed to be more abundant in the countryside than the town. We instantly christened it 'piranhas' between ourselves.

I rather agree with Shivananda here. I think there is more positive energy to be gleaned from natural surroundings. Certainly throughput this trip I have often commented on the difference in my own mood in cityscapes versus treescapes, for example. Here at the Maquipucuna reserve in the tropical and cloud forests I feel calmer, more relaxed, sleep better and generally find that my reserves of patience, cheerfulness and 'get up and go' are far more plentiful than I have noticed them in Quito, where I have found myself more tired and prone to fretting over nothing, than I had been otherwise in this trip. It is a separate thing to health, in fact by this evening I find myself  dealing with yet another of the ubiquitous sickness and diarrhoea bouts which have characterised South America for me, instead it is a mental agility, an adaptability and a freedom from the more pointless pressures like physical appearance or money. I feel beautiful here, less because the climate or mirrors agree with me, more because I  so surrounded by natural beauty I am just better able to perceive it in myself, less critical and harsh in my self judgements.

The idea that life of any kind is beautiful is never more obviously demonstrated than here. Bugs, bears, birds, wasps, plant life, everything are regarded here as being worthy of study. I am surrounded by people who, like me, will not kill a spider, will step over ants rather than crush them, and will admire rather than recoil when faced with insect life. There is no room for harsh self judgement.

And so we are up at six thirty to begin our day with a bird walk before breakfast. Armed not only with binoculars this time, but a powerful stand alone telescope. We see a big Toucan, the highlight by far for me, sitting far up in the trees, honking and hooting to himself and to our guide, who honks and boots back. He is bright with a yellow and black beak and despite us all being too excited to keep as quiet as we should, he is perfectly composed n his perch. We see a ruffled red tummied Collared Trogon with a long black and white tail, and tiny bright blue and bright green Tanagers, landing to nestle their heads together and kiss on the black peaked roof of one of the huts.

What we don't see, we hear. We listen to the call of a Toucan Barbet, the rumble of a turkey, the cry of a vulture, and several other trills and whistles from birds which stay hidden but sing for us like the dawn chorus that they are.

After breakfast we take another route, but get completely side tracked less than half way into it because, unusually, the spectacled birds have moved down even lower into the primary forest, and seem to be attempting an up close and personal interaction with us.

Walking along we pause suddenly, hearing the cracks and rustles of a large animal making its way through the undergrowth. Seconds later we spot a bear, on all fours, its black and white face unmistakable in the greenery. We all hold our breath and watch. We have never seen one so close, or on the ground before. The bear ambles forward, catches sight of us suddenly and then gives a panicked start and bolts back into the forest.

We breath again. It seems surprising that the bear would show such panic at the sight of us. These are protected bears who have never experienced any negative interaction with humans, other than to be gawped at by them every year when they come down from the clouds to mind their own business and eat fruit. Also, the fact cannot be escaped - these are bears. Large bears with claws sharp enough to shred bark and teeth sharp and strong enough to rip off branches. If anyone ought to be running off in alarm, it should be us. And here we are focusing our cameras.

This realisation stays with me as we come across a bear climbing a tree literally yards from the path we are on. At the top of the tree is a juvenile bear, her cub, says our guide, and the best now climbing up to join him is a big mother bear. Although the bears we have been seeing are big, they have mostly been juveniles - this is the real deal. And she's huge. Moreover she is huffing and blowing and making low gurgling noises in her throat.

"She is angry" says our guide, casually.

I am not sure I want to be standing this close to an angry bear with a cub, and when the bear comes back down the tree again, heading straight for us, I find myself scuttling a little way up the road. But she simply reaches the ground and wanders off, not bothering to waste her claws and energy on us.

Later, when, with great excitement the rest of the staff at Maquipucuna Lodge join us, one of them explains to me that the bears are not at all aggressive.

"When she comes down," she says, "she is telling you 'don't you dare touch my cub' and she us huffing on the way up to tell her cub, 'don't you dare come down out of that tree till I am sure it is safe."

She recalls a time another year, when there were two cubs who were really still quite small, who were playing - running up and down the tree trunk chasing each other. The Mother bear came back, saw the humans and got really upset with the cubs, huffing at them and growling so that they scurried back up into the tree and stayed there.

I ask if the bears have any natural predators. She tells me it is possible that a mountain lion might try his luck in the very top mountain forests, or a puma might try to take a cub. But she remembers an incident years before when the bears were in the trees eating the fruit, and the mother bear with two cubs was puffing and growling a lot. They were nervous, concerned that their presence might be disturbing the bears, and that she was huffing at them when, out of nowhere came a hawk which made a swipe for the cubs. To this day she doesn't know what exactly happened but the mother bear somehow managed to just grab both cubs and pull them downwards, deeper into the tree.

We stay for a long time watching the bears. The lodge staff are triumphant and full of excitement though, ironically, once they join us, we never have such a close encounter with the bears, who stay safely in the tree tops. This is not a world in which humans are fearful of animals, be they bears or tarantula. This is a world in which violence is inconceivable. It reminds me a kind of Eden, a lost time in which there are no living beings not worthy of wonder, and in which nothing has anything to fear from another. It seems to me that the animals themselves have an instinct to avoid the humans, however, which is sad. I long for a time when the language barriers between humans and animals are broken down and it is possible to simply communicate our intentions, and reassure each other that our children are safe. Perhaps this time will never come. Perhaps it has never been.

After lunch we leave the bears in peace and go to visit the lodge's organic garden and coffee business, where we learn just how labour intensive the process of turning beans into coffee really is. Then we take a walk to the nearby waterfall and the swimming hole, where we strip off and plunge into perfectly clean, clear water, surrounded by overhanging trees and gleaming rocks. It feels lovely. We absorb piranhas galore.

We chat over a drink before dinner, with a young documentary maker who has been with us earlier on the trails. We talk about faith and travel and the consequences of having time outside your normal world to think about what is important to you. He tells us we are wise. We keep seeming to convince people that we are wise or admirable in some way and I feel a little guilty, as though we have been somehow disingenuous. In turn we find that what he has to say is wise, though he protests. Perhaps it is simply an extension of that feeling, that everything and everyone is previous. The lodge is filled with that feeling. I want to bottle it and bring it home.

Our night walk, after dinner, is more giggly than before, M and I being joined by two others and there is much good natured scaring of each other. The phrase 'ten minutes' or 'fifteen minutes to live' becomes rather bandied around, and there us much talk of 'this being a jumping spider' or of pumas attacking people with beards. I think this bears no small debt to the fact that we are all, male or female, large or small, a little scared. It becomes clear that we are literally walking through a forest which is scattered with silent tarantulas. As we move our torches they seem to be waiting on every leaf. These are smaller spiders than usual, though no less hairy, and of the tarantula family, rather than tarantulas exactly, but they are poisonous, however many minutes they may or nay not give you to live.

I am struck once again, by how different the forest is at night, the creatures who inhabit it taking turns to make it their domain. I have glamorised the lodge and the lifestyle in it, but in the forest life still plays out with bloody necessity. There are still predators and their prey, life or death on every corner. It's still beautiful, but it is given part of its beauty by that darker edge.