Mar

Countless Connections in Peru’s Amazon Rainforest

by Eva Boynton on March 2, 2015

Two ants on the edge of a tropical leaf, illustrating one discovery on an experience in the Amazon rainforest that proves why study abroad is important. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Each species, big or small, has a part to play.
© Eva Boynton

Why Study Abroad Sticks Like Glue

My t-shirt was soaked in sweat from heat and humidity. Diverse shades of green were my landscape and horizon. Howling monkeys and buzzing cicada bugs echoed in the distance.

The Amazon rainforest was unlike any classroom I had ever known. What was once a distant place, the subject of textbooks, now came to life in accentuated brightness and flavor.

It became my home for a winter semester. And, as it changed the way I understood our interdependent and connected world, it answered the question, “Why study abroad?”

View of the Peruvian rainforest from an airplane window in the Amazon rainforest, the site for the writer's experience that answered the question, "Why study abroad?" (Image © Eva Boynton)

Wide rivers of the Peruvian rainforest not only provide a home to a variety of plants and animals,
but also serve as a main mode of travel for locals and visitors.
© Eva Boynton

Into the Peruvian Rainforest

Reaching Manú National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is not a simple task.

A map of Peru with names of cities and rivers, showing the towns the writer visited in the Amazon rainforest.

Hugging Bolivia, Puerto Maldonado
lies on Río Madre de Dios.

We arrived by plane in Puerto Maldonado, east of Cusco and the Andes.

After driving to Puerto Carlos, we took a boat across the Inambari River.

Then we drove to Boca Colorado and traveled by boat about six hours up the Madre de Dios River to Manú River that meanders through the park.

Listening to the motor roar in his ear for all six hours, a local from Puerto Maldonado steered the boat, dodging debris to take our group of 13 students and two professors into our classroom.

The dynamic route offered direct experience with the geography and landscape that set the stage for later connections.

A girl looking out from the edge of a wooden boat on a river in the Amazon, illustrating why study abroad has a lasting effect. (Image © Rydell Welch)

Watching for river otters, pink dolphins and
other wildlife along the river
© Rydell Welch

Biodiversity in Our Backyard

On the first day in the national reserve, we stepped into our new backyard with local researchers and guides René Escudero and Rufo Bustamante. We tiptoed on tree roots to avoid rain-flooded trails, ducked under leaves as big as my torso, and maneuvered around intricate spiderwebs seen at the last minute.

A tropical tree buttressed by large roots in the Amazon rainforest , a natural discovery made possible by study abroad and showing why a study abroad experience matters. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Buttress roots find nutrients in the soil and stabilize 200-foot trees.
© Eva Boynton

The rainforest was, in one word, alive! To put things into perspective, rainforests cover only 2% of Earth’s surface. Found within that 2% is half of all Earth’s plants and animals.

Manú National Park contains some of the greatest biodiversity on Earth. Consider the butterfly—Europe may have an impressive 321 species, but Manú National Park supports 1,300 species in an area 3% the size of France.

View of the top of the canopy in the Amazon rainforest, the site for the writer's winter semester that illustrated why the study abroad experience is so powerful. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The canopy is home to 80–90% of the animals in the rainforest.
© Eva Boynton

From Big to Small, Everything Counts

With each step of our explorations, we uncovered secrets of the rainforest, including many interdependent relationships.

One myrmecophyte (plant living in a mutualistic relationship with an ant colony) offers leaf pouches, called domatias, that serve as nests for particular ant species.
The ants, in turn, offer the plant an army for protection against other insects that might feed on it.
Ants trade protection for shelter.
© Eva Boynton

Howler monkeys, awaking us each morning with bellowing sounds, seem like independent animals. But they, too, rely on other organisms within this rich world of biodiversity:

The monkeys depend on leaves from the canopy for food.
Trees in the canopy grow by extracting minerals from the soil with the help of fungi on their roots.
The fungi rely on beetles that decompose litter on the forest floor, including the excrement of howler monkeys.

A howler monkey climbing in a tree covered with leaves in the Amazon rainforest, the site of the writer's winter semester that proved why study abroad is so important. (Image © Eva Boynton)

In the rainforest, when you look up, a howler monkey
munching on leaves may be looking back.
© Eva Boynton

Everything is connected in a cycle—monkey, tree, fungi, beetle, and back to monkey. As big as towering trees or as small as some of the 3,600 species of spiders, the organisms in the rainforest are connected by a web of interdependent relationships.

More Connections Under the Canopy

Study abroad plunged me into the vastness of the Peruvian Amazon and opened my eyes to countless scientific connections.

But there were personal connections, too, the kind that made me say “Oh, I see!”

I found that I learned best when lessons were non-linear and sprang from discovery. Study abroad is immersive (so different from textbook lessons). The direct hands-on experience that it provides transformed the Amazonian world into my greatest classroom.

Hawk's wing pulled open by researcher, showing a hands-on approach of studying abroad in the Amazon rainforest. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Hands-on interaction in the Amazon meant letting your senses make the discoveries:
listening, smelling, tasting, and touching.
© Eva Boynton

Study abroad, also challenged me to become familiar with something unknown and different. I saw, just as the organisms in the Amazon rainforest depended on each other, that I, too, fit into an interdependent world larger than my neighborhood. I made the connections, and my way of seeing changed in the process.

When people make personal discoveries like learning style, face challenges, and find their unique roles, they connect the dots of the diverse network that is our world. And that’s why a study abroad experience sticks to people like glue and stays with them for life.

The Amazon river with a wall of rainforest behind it and one cloud in the sky, a magnificent discovery during a winter semester in the Amazon rainforest, proving why study abroad is so important. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The wall of forest signifies a moving, grooving, buzzing home to the world’s most diverse habitat.
© Eva Boynton

For more information on Amazon biodiversity check out Discovering Peru.

To learn about conservation of Peru’s rainforest visit Amazon Conservation Association.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 2 Comments

Nature Discovery/Peru/Study Abroad

Jan

On Foot: A Walk Across America

by Eva Boynton on January 28, 2015

A brown pair of hiking boots, illustrating the essential tool for a walk across America. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The essential tool for a long walk
© Eva Boynton

Rules & Reasons of Long-Distance Walking

For 22 years, Dr. John Francis explored much of the Americas on foot. A hundred years earlier, John Muir walked 1000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico.

For Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, and Francis, founder of Planetwalk, on-foot travel led to environmental activism. For others, time on the road spent in long-distance walking led simply to gratifying “Oh, I see” moments.

Cirrus Wood is one of them. Following in the footsteps of his mentors—call them globe-trotters, great pedestrians, planet walkers, pilgrims, or simply people on foot—Wood took an 18-month walk across America through 16 states from San Francisco to Seattle and on to Maine.

His vehicle? A pair of sturdy hiking boots and his own two feet.

Cirrus Wood Makes His Own Rules

Along his journey, I hosted Wood at my house in Olympia, Washington. Wood’s walk was remarkable to me for it was the first time I met someone living and traveling on foot through town, city, and wilderness.

Most of us have time and stamina for only a week-long hike or a trot through the park. Still, Wood believes:

There’s nothing remarkable about what I did. A lot of folks could do it. Left foot, right foot, repeat as desired.

Highway stretching through mountains and valleys, illustrating the view of an on-foot traveler in a walk across America. (Image © Cirrus Wood)

New landscapes are best discovered step by step.
© Cirrus Wood

Reflecting, Wood explains how his change of lifestyle developed through a series of doors that opened and closed:

I had no mortgage, no car, no financial obligations other than the maintenance of a few cubic feet of bone and flesh. So what had been a delirious Plan B—“what if?”—became an insistent Plan A.

On May 30th, 2010, Wood decided it was time to walk the “airplane distance.” Bringing only what he could fit into a backpack, he set out and pledged two rules:

Rule #1. No riding in motor vehicles.
Rule #2. Accept whatever anyone offered unless it conflicted with rule #1.

Wood's backpack leaning against a fence, showing how an on-foot traveler on a long-distance walk across America carries only a very few things. (Image © Cirrus Wood)

Wood’s gear follows another good rule for long-distance walking:
Bring only what your legs and back can carry.
© Cirrus Wood

The Great Pedestrians

Wood had studied the travels of long-distance walkers like John Muir and Dr. John Francis.

In the 1970s, Francis, now an environmentalist and author of Planetwalker, began walking from his home in Inverness, California, to Washington, D.C., and south to Central America.

John Francis playing a banjo and walking down a railroad track, illustrating a traveler's long-distance walk across America. (Image © Glenn Oakley)

Francis began walking to work after the 1971 oil spill.
© Glenn Oakley

Francis calls the lessons learned while walking “moments of obligation to experience.” By that, he means giving time and attention to his relationship with details of the environment.

John Muir, known as the “father of our national parks,” recorded similar moments of connection to the environment:

I drifted from rock to rock, from stream to stream, from grove to grove. Where night found me, there I camped. When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell.

At the mercy of nature’s elements and the speed of their feet, Muir and Francis were free to observe moments of grandeur and the subtleties of their environment. This was the impetus that propelled Wood to create his own rules and begin walking.

A Day in the Life

Walking changes not only the pace of travel but the very nature of daily life.

Wood found his bedroom took many forms: national forests and parks, pastures, spaces under bridges, barns, abandoned houses, culverts, and offered couches.

A railway bridge, illustrating a place to spend the night during an on-foot traveler's long-distance walking trip across America. (Image © Cirrus Wood)

Bridges offer a place of rest for the night.
© Cirrus Wood

Wood cooked his own meals, comprised mostly of beans and lentils as well as the occasional meat scavenged from the side of the road. He explains:

I like to limit my necessities so I can better enjoy my luxuries. . . . I like to put myself, in small and innocuous ways, at the dependent mercy of the location.

At times, Wood’s on-foot journey was characterized by the people he encountered. Many offered an outstretched hand (food, a dollar, bed), and others doled out suspicion (he was reported to police, chased by dogs, cited for vagrancy).

Although he holds meaningful memories of people met, Wood’s travel consisted mostly of miles walked alone. He recalls solitude as the most important gift of walking:

I think I felt what I most wanted by being alone. Every joy was my own, and I could take full credit for each act of idiocy. . . . I could always stop and listen at just the right moment. What I mean is that I allowed myself to have an experience. . . .

A trail stretching through grass hills, showing one path during an on-foot traveler's walk across America. (Image © Cirrus Wood)

Pausing to view the landscape or to listen to the wind is a luxury of walking.
© Cirrus Wood

Miles Covered, Steps Retraced

On-foot travel can test a person’s resiliency. If one path does not work, turning around and retracing steps (for miles or days) is the lengthy consequence.

Boot tracks in the snow, illustrating one terrain crossed by an on-foot traveler during long-distance walking. (Image © Eva Boynton)

It’s not hard to walk 100 miles.
It’s hard to walk them twice.
© Eva Boynton

In April 2011, winter had passed and Wood set off from Seattle to cross the Cascade mountain range. One month later, he was still on the wrong side of the mountains, having retraced his steps when three of the four possible routes failed.

Back near Seattle for the fourth time, he finally succeeded when he took the highway to Stevens Pass. He was on his way to Maine.

The Cascade Range in Washington, illustrating part of the terrain covered on foot by Cirrus Wood during his walk across America. (Image © Nick R. Lake / iStock)

After trekking through the Cascades, flat land is a welcome sight for any on-foot traveler.
© Nick R. Lake / iStock

Freedom Springs from Limits

Through long-distance walking, Wood discovered an overwhelming sense of freedom that sprang from being “limited” by his own two feet. Walking in his own time frame, he was free to surrender to the whims of the path, letting weather, terrain, food, and the desire to listen and look decide the course.

It took Cirrus Wood 18 months to walk across America. One moment on foot can be an opportunity to learn and pay attention. Imagine 18 months of them.

Thank you, Cirrus, for sharing your story. For more information about long-distance walking trails check out American Trails.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

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On Foot

Jan

Bike Co-ops of Mexico: A Cyclist Movement

by Eva Boynton on January 12, 2015

Repair class in a bike co-op that is part of a larger cyclist movement. (Image © Ernesto Asecas)

A repair class at a bike coop gets bikes moving and fuels a bigger cyclist movement.
© Ernesto Asecas

How a Broken Chain Got Me Going

A bicycle can travel the globe, but any pedal-powered steed may need a tune-up along the way. On a cycle trip through California and Mexico, I walked into Casa Ciclista, a bicycle co-op in Guadalajara, looking for nothing more than a new chain. Instead, I emerged with a renewed sense of empowerment.

Little did I know a simple part replacement would gear me towards self sufficiency and a “hands-on” community looking to solve problems: themes of a cyclist movement in Mexico.

Two people holding up a bicycle wheel, illustrating how people in a bike co-op come together in a cyclist movement. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The Cooperative: A Place for All

Bike co-ops are participant-run spaces for a burgeoning bicycle culture in Mexico. Each is unique in how it creates a free space for people to unite, learn, and make city changes.

Casa Bicitekas, a cooperative in Mexico City, describes itself as un lugar para todos (a place for all). Its aim is to be “a community center around the culture and art of urban cycling, offering a space for connection and coexistence . . .”

At each co-op I was warmly welcomed with a bed (literally). Not only did I find a vibrant community of people and talents but also cyclists who wanted to educate others as well as themselves.

Do-It-Yourself

In my Guadalajara layover, I learned firsthand the power of the co-op’s educational purpose. Cooperatives function as bicycle repair shops with tools and parts that are donated or collected. They offer essential working space.

Tools in a communal workspace inside a bike co-op, illustrating one way the co-ops build a community as part of their cyclist movement. (Image © Eva Boynton)

To replace my chain, a volunteer at Casa Ciclista directed me while my fingers stumbled around the bicycle’s nuts and bolts. Although he could have jumped in with his own hands, with more speed and efficiency, he had me use my own.

Co-ops are centers for teaching and learning. The volunteer made clear that the time we invested in my repair was time well spent.

Oh, I see the power of using my own hands. They were their own problem solvers, not limited by something gone awry. I was learning to wheel through Mexico on a vehicle I could power and maintain myself.

Hands-On Solutions

Bike co-op advocacy extends beyond the individual, playing a role in regional and national issues.

Each co-op recognizes the benefits and potential impact of bicycles. BiciRed (bici is short for “bicycle” and red for “network”), a national association of cooperatives in Mexico, explains:

The bicycle is the most efficient, healthy, economic, and sustainable means of transportation along the urban roadways of Mexico.
Greater use of bicycles can bring about a new model for city living that prioritizes the coexistence between people.

This creative 1-minute video from Bicitekas is a testimony to the bicycle as an option for moving around a city comfortably and rapidly.

If video does not display, watch it here.

When issues that affect the community arise, members of bike co-ops take advocacy efforts into their own hands. Cyclists at Casa Ciclista get their hands dirty to create bike parking out of car parking.

Cyclists from a bike co-op in Guadalajara turning a car parking space into bike parking. (Image © Casa Ciclista)

Seth Domínguez and Kerem Meyeus are two people mobilizing their own ideas for bettering their city, Toluca. Seth, Kerem, and Seth’s dog Manouche are the co-founders of a bicycle cooperative called La Bicindad de Todxs (The Bicycle Neighborhood for All).

Seth Domínguez and Kerem Meyeus, part of the cyclist movement in Mexico, stand in the communal space of their bike co-op. (Image © Seth Domínguez)

The name, La Bicindad, combines the words bicicleta (bicycle) and vecindad (neighborhood). The “x” in Todxs (all) makes the word gender inclusive. The name reflects the spirit of community and unity for action in this Toluca co-op.

Seth is interested in utilizing La Bicindad to advocate for a bicycle-friendly city by installing bicycle parking, improving bike lanes, and holding maintenance classes for anyone interested. He clarifies why community members are relying on their own hands:

The whole idea of La Bicindad was that in Mexico everything is very bureaucratic, I mean everything. So, we wanted to do something bike-related and not have to depend on government money or belonging to a cycling group.

Pedaling for Pesos

Cooperatives are an oasis to cyclists—hosted space, tools, and instruction for free. So, how do they fund themselves?

As a true Renaissance man, Seth is a bicimensajero: a bike courier. He makes a living by picking up and delivering laundry, dry cleaning, and food.

In addition, using a heavy-duty industrial sewing machine, Seth sews backpacks, panniers, and hip bags out of recycled bicycle tubes for their co-op store. The proceeds go to La Bicindad.

Backpack made from used bike tubes in a Mexican bike co-op, illustrating how co-ops raise money for cyclist movements. (Image © Seth Dominguez)

Although funding can be challenging, Seth makes a better wage on bicycle than when he taught English as a Second Language (ESL) to businessmen.

Ernesto Asecas, a coordinator at Casa Bicitekas, explains that his co-op runs off of donations, sales of t-shirts, books, stickers, and fund-raising parties as well as bicycle maintenance work around the city. The t-shirt sums up the co-op’s advocacy mission:

T-shirt created by Casa Bicitekas, a bike co-op that is part of the urban cyclist movement in Mexico City. (Image © Casa Bicitekas)

Time invested and handiwork keep the co-ops pedaling forward.

Bicycles Making the Move

When I started my bicycle tour, I saw the bike as a fun activity or means of commuting, cheap travel, exercise, team sport and racing. After visiting one bike co-op after another in Mexico, I began assigning new meaning to the bicycle: a public opportunity for personal, sustainable and social change.

The hands-on cyclist movement has begun, and it’s open to anyone.

Ride a bike!

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Thank you, Seth, for the interview. Thank you to the bicycle cooperatives in Guadalajara, Toluca, and Mexico City for hosting me along my bicycle tour. Hope to see you all again soon.

Eva Boynton 1 Comment

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