It's 3am and the sound of pounding rain wakes me despite the cold medication, and I am wide awake with these new jungle sounds. It is torrential - a perfect tropical storm. Each time I try to close my eyes, new lightning flashes and I find myself counting to hear the thunder to determine how far away it is. After an hour, I know I should put my ear plugs in, but listening to the storm is addictive and I can't bring myself to do it. We have breakfast and head to the workshop where we sit for hours and listen to the traditional stories of Juma, who is an indigenous Shaman. The room is hot, sweltering actually, and 14 pairs of hands fidget with fans, scribble with pens and stifle yawns. A giant iridescent insect buzzes endlessly through the room, fiercely in search of something and I think I will go insane with the incessant noise. He is the size of my thumb, looks like a wasp and I mentally try to tally how many pesos I have so I can hire a fellow classmate to murder it before it murders me. A black butterfly enters the space and flutters between Yuma & Diego, who is translating the shaman's stories to English for us. A red throated cara cara bird overcomes the voices in the room and I am lost in Juma's stories and song.
We walk to Mocagua village and take a tour of their charming houses, filled with hammocks, children and dogs. The buildings are painted with beautiful murals of different animals and plant life. Everything has a meaning and a story. We stop to watch an intense soccer match in a muddy flooded field, where boys run barefoot through brown puddles and spectators cover the hillside: this is Colombia.
After dinner, I finally get my chance to go on the Jungle Night walk with the amazing guide Jorge. Accompanied by Jay and Noah, We creep stealthily through the forest with our rubber boots and headlamps. I borrow Leanna's mosquito mesh hat cover that tucks in nicely to my shirt and I feel invincible. It's like a jungle superhero cape!
Jorge stops on 3 different occasions and says "Tarantula" but I'm too slow and keep missing them. By the 4th time, I am exasperated with my blindness and tell him that I can't see them! He then proceeds to grab a tiny twig, goes up to the giant hole in the ground and rummages around until a massive (and rather angry looking) tarantula comes out and twitches aggressively in his direction. I actually hate to admit it, but they are a beautiful thing: slow moving, delicate, graceful - the size of my hand. I feel bad for disturbing it, but she looks like she is facing death, so she'll be hugely relieved when we clamor away. I wonder if anything eats tarantulas? I mentally add this to the extremely long list of things to google upon getting a wifi connection.
We see dozens of different spiders and small insects and one little bird hiding under some leaves who looks wide-eyed into Jorge's flashlight, too stunned to move.
The jungle seems quieter from inside it than when I am lying in bed, and as we walk back along a creek, with only the light from our guide, I am completely overcome by an overwhelming sense of peace. Just total quiet and peacefulness like a spirit walk in the forest. The white light on the trees and leaves makes everything appear dead, or frozen: a world in black and white. It gives the forest a surreal quality that I never expected and as the three of us grow quiet, I am absorbed by the hypnotic sway of Jorge's flashlight, the calculated steps, placement of feet and the stillness of the forest with few sounds. The night walk is the shortest hour I have spent here, and so far, my favorite.
I arrive back at Calanoa in a state of total calmness, which is completely broken by the noises in my cabin which is in full swing. Everyone is laughing and telling stories as they weave on the loom that I am proposing for my final project (more details to come). It is perfect, and the loom is doing its job.
