Interesting Locals

By Bradley Rehak - Guest blogger studying in Quito, Ecuador Having given a brief description of the cloud forest reserve, I'll now describe some of the interesting details of the location, that is, the interesting inhabitants that make up the forest and that draw people to the refuge. A tree that largely dominates the secondary growth areas in the cloud forests of Ecuador is known in English as the dragon's blood tree, or merely drago in Spanish. Why? When one jabs something sharp into the bark (such as the small knife that the guides use so the tree will heal quickly) it quickly begins to ooze sap, a sap that happens to look and flow almost exactly like blood—almost as if it were the backdrop of a horror film. The sap can then be rubbed on one's skin, causing it to turn white and foam. This is done because it is an effective antibiotic; the many old scars in these trees attest to its capacity in this from machete wielding locals who sold the sap to Western pharmaceutical companies. Another tree has bright green leaves with red tips that make it appear to be dying; in fact the color is a signal for hummingbirds to feed, as the flowers of the tree hang hidden below the leaves. Hummingbirds happen to be one of the most populous inhabitants of the area, and there are dozens of species of them here as well. It's impossible to walk around the trails without one of these birds buzzing, literally, past your head every once in a while. The sound is that of a giant mosquito, and therefore takes a while to become accustomed to. The secropia is the easiest tree to pick out (at least when it's full-grown). In adulthood the leaves acquire the ability to reflect light, and therefore appear as bright white spots in the forest when viewed from far away. As young trees, however, they look completely different, as the leaves grow from being the size of a hand to the size of a large piece of poster board. My favorite species of wildlife was the tapaculos, which means show-ass. These birds apparently have the habit of sticking their butts up in the air and then back down quite rapidly and continuously—a fact which I was unable to verify because they are difficult to spot. More heinously, they have a cry that sounds almost exactly like that of a member of a Mexican mariachi band, the guy that yells "rrrrrrrRRRRRRRR AH HAAAAA!" The birds lack the "AH HAA" part, but their trill lasts for ten seconds or more, rising in pitch the entire time. Needless to say, it gives the impression that while walking through the forest one is really entering a raucous party.