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| Mount Totumas Cloud Forest |
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| Our cabin |
Remember December? Yeah, I know...it is the last day of February and I'm
just now getting around to writing about our adventures in Panama. We had a great time in Panama! I'll admit that I was blown away by how modern the country was compared to places we have visited these past six years - so it was a real change for us coming off of years of travel in Asia and a little bit of Africa. For example....the roads were paved! What!? Wow. Buses ran on time! We had seats on the buses! Wow. Oh - and the prices were way higher than what we were used to in Asia, but that was to be expected. I'm not done with Africa or Asia yet, but Panama was lovely and I'm happy that we spent some time in this fascinating little country. The best parts? Well jeez....the people were SUPER nice and happy. But I have to say that the rainforests, the mushrooms, and the birding took the prize. What a treat! We opted to spend our two weeks in four different places and our first stop was a cloud forest (this basically means a high elevation rainforest) close to the Costa Rican border. We spent one night in Panama City and immediately hopped on a domestic flight the next day to the town of David, in western Panama. From David we took a bus north to the sweet little town of Volcán where the owner, Jeffery, of
Mount Totumas Cloud Forest picked us up at the grocery store. From Volcán we headed up in elevation in Jeffery's 4WD along a bumpy road to a small lodge nestled along the border of La Amistad International Park. We had arrived in paradise! A soggy, windy, rainforest paradise....but a paradise nonetheless. We were at 2000 meters (~6500 ft.) where it wasn't going to be super warm but there was no doubt that it was going to be super awesome. It turns out that because it was the tail-end of the rainy season....no one else was there but Jeffery, his wife Alma, and their caretakers. This was awesome for us because Jeffery gave us a discount on their gorgeous cabin and he hung out with us a lot - imparting his incredible knowledge of birds, plants, mammals, and more!
About an hour after we arrived we took off on a soggy hike through the cloud forest on a trail filled with bromeliads. But then we came across this thing (above) and found ourselves stumped! Plant? Fungi? What the heck? Jeffery confirmed to us that it was indeed a plant and further research at home has informed me that it is a plant in the genus Helosis. It parasitizes plant roots so it doesn't need to be photosynthetic (hence the lack of green color). The chunky white stuff coming out of the stalks in the lower right photo (and top left) are the male flowers and the fuzzy white stuff on the plant in the upper right photo are the female flowers. How totally cool is biology? So freakin' cool. So cool. If you don't think this is cool then you need to go for a walk outside and open your eyes to the biological wonders of this planet.
Julie and one big freakin' leaf.
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| Jay and Jeffery with Reinaldo further down the trail |
The next day we went for a walk around the forest on a trail called the "Big Tree" loop. What a treat that Jeffery and
Reinaldo joined us. Reinaldo is the son of the caretaker for Mount Totumas and he is from the indigenous first nation Ngöbe Buglé tribe. He is currently in high school, learning English, and an amazing bird watcher who has sharp, teenaged eyes compared to us. I think if Jay and I did this walk alone we might have seen a few birds - but with these two on the trail with us we saw so many fantastic birds. Among others we saw (and got no photos of) a flame-throated warbler, back and white warbler, collared trogon, white-naped brush finch, Wilson's warbler, flame-throated tanager, common bush tanager, silver-throated tanager, merlin, sulphur-winged parakeet, and a yellowish flycatcher. YUP! Jeffery also said that we would be lucky to see any monkeys but we ended up with luck on our side because we saw all three species found in Mount Totumas (howler, spider, and white faced capuchin). Apparently that is only the fourth time in five years that the "three-in-a-day" sighting happened and Jeffery was really excited too. As biologists, we know better than to expect to see any particular species....so we were pretty darn well stoked to see all three species!
Gorgeous flowers (don't know the species)
This really neat bird is called the slaty flowerpiercer. Birds and plants have coevolved together - this means that birds tend to feed off of nectar the flowers provide to the birds and in return the pollen from the flowers is spread on the bird who then delivers that pollen to another plant....plant sex with a helping hand from birds (or insects, bats, etc...). But the slaty flowerpiercer is considered by most biologists to be a plant parasite! See that fancy hook on its bill? It uses the bill to pierce a hole in the back of the flower, accessing the nectar without getting any pollen on its head. Thus, the nectar is consumed and the flower doesn't get to spread its genes and reproduce with other flowers. This is a classic example of parasitism where one species benefits while the other is damaged. But what a gorgeous bird!
It rained a lot while we were here but that was to be expected, this is a cloud forest after all! Jeffery had placed a bunch of hummingbird feeders right outside our cabin and we could sit outside, under the deck roof and out of the rain, and watch these little guys and gals fight over feeders and feed off all the gorgeous flowers nearby. This is my favorite photo from the hummingbird shots - this is a tiny scintillant hummingbird feeding in the rain.
Jeffery was also an avid entomologist! He had a large collection of insects that he showed us one evening after a hummingbird watching session. Everything in his collection had been collected on his property at Mount Totumas - the diversity was staggering and beautiful.
During the middle of the night Jay and I woke to a strong earthquake. The first I've ever experienced! The cabin groaned, our bed shook, and we got out and stood under the door frame. Jeffery said it registered as a 6.7 and the epicenter was only about 25 km away from us! Scary! But Jeffery told us he invested most of his money in the foundations of his buildings so we were quite safe. Crazy feeling to wake up to a shaking bed.
The next day we woke up early and met Reinaldo for a slippery hike up to the top of Mount Totumas, seen in this photo to the left. It looked so easy, so benign, so dry.... .ha ha ha. The rainforest gods were laughing no doubt! This hike involved about 2000 ft. in elevation gain to get us up to about 2630 meters (~8600 ft.) at the top. This was a machete trail that Reinaldo hacked for us as we moved slowly up the slip and slide trail. Good thing we had rainpants on, I must have slipped a thousand times on the muddy trail. But my gosh, it was FUN!
Fungal diversity in Mount Totumas!
After a few hours of slipping our way up we made it to the magical top! The trees were huge and covered in a lovely rusty-colored moss (or lichen?). It was dense, humid, tropical, high in elevation, chilly, and stunning. Water gathered in droplets on everything you looked at and the mountaintop sparkled.
The way back down was a heck of a lot harder than the way up. On the way up when you slipped, you fell onto your hands. One the way down, you fell on your ass, your hands, and then you kept sliding down! I decided the safest way down was to just sit and slide. And jeez - sometimes I took off as if I was sliding on snow instead of mud. It was pretty fun until I whacked my elbow on a rock. Damn it. No worries, it was fine two days later. Jay and I must have fallen well over 10-15 times on the way down. How did Reinaldo do? His butt was completely dry and clean at the bottom. Nuff said. Teenagers.
We had grand plans to hike to the local hot springs after getting back from hiking up Totumas. But then the sun came out, we were pooped, and the birds called.... so we spent the afternoon sipping crappy tropical beer, watching hummingbirds fight over flowers, and enjoying the rare sun in this dreamy cloud forest.
This is a collection of my favorite hummingbird shots from our time in Mount Totumas. From the top two and then left in a clockwise direction these are the species: snowbellied hummingbird (two photos), green violetear (next three), and scintillant hummingbird.
We left after spending three nights/four days in this magical place filled with lovely people. If we ever go back I'll go with rubber boots and a full week to take in these wonders. The rubber boots would be key.
More stories from Panama to come!
