Pieces of Sky

News Bulletins

Creatures From the Sky

Our last update was from Cojiba, Bolivia, right on the border with Brazil. After a rather convoluted route getting into Bolivia we were finally one step away from reaching the Rio Manuripi to begin our search for Manchester and what was to be a very long paddle in a little canoe in one of the most remote parts of the Amazon. Two and a half months on we have a lot of tales to tell. Here’s a little taster………………

We’d been camping in the same spot on a little tributary of the Manuripi for several days. It was an idyllic spot too. Our hammocks hung from the giant strangler figs which towered over us and a golden beach of hot sand sloped a couple of metres away to the waters edge. Amazon terns and kingfishers dived into the water around us all day long. But it was hot. It was always hot. Every day had us dripping with sweat almost before the first coffee had boiled on the campfire in the morning. However, today we were even hotter than usual. We’d decided to follow the course of this little tributary on foot through the jungle, just to see where it went and what may be hidden along its path.

It was only 2 or 3 metres wide and the trees overhead came together above us, shading out the sunlight. Where the sun managed to struggle its way down to the forest floor it was hotter still and an explosion of emergent growth would block our way as saplings and vines competed for the light. We would wade through the water where we could but often we’d have to find a way round or cut our way through. Either way it was hard work in the heat. But at least we had plenty of water to drink. The tributary tasted of peat and leaves but it was cool and relatively free of silt. We’d been slipping and sliding our way up this watercourse since just after dawn, two or three hours ago, and we hadn’t seen much to write home about (literally). Our noisy progress had anything and everything running for cover long before we got to where it’d been prior to our arrival. We were beginning to feel like we were putting in a great deal of effort for very little reward. Even the tributary had lost the beauty it had had back at the campsite. It now felt foreboding, enclosed and the black flies that landed on us to feed on our blood with a bite like a horse fly had found us a long time ago. It was time to say enough was enough, turn around and make our way back to the camp for some food and another coffee.
Following our newly made path back the way we’d come, our progress was quicker and, more importantly quieter. Surprised lizards scurried in front of us, colourful birds used our route as a convenient flight path and giant butterflies and dragonflies danced around our feet and faces. I turned to Liz to comment about yet another new variant of butterfly and noticed a strange lump on the tree beside her. It looked like a part of the tree but the lump moved down the tree trunk with an eerie slowness. I stopped sharply and Liz walked straight into me.
“What’s up?” she said looking a little peeved.
“That is!” I replied, still not knowing what I was looking at. Half of me said ‘run like hell’ and the other half said ‘give it a poke with the machete to see what it does’. Liz turned towards the lump too and we both stood there squinting at the thing as an arm emerged from around the back of the tree, and then a leg. Slowly the lump moved a few inches further down the tree and then a head with a fixed grin turned towards us and met our gaze. It was a young brown throated three toed sloth.
“Holy shit” Liz said realising what it was.
“Yes, I think it is; coming down for a shit I mean”. After weeks of studying our precious copy of ‘A Neo-Tropical Companion’ as we lay in our hammocks each evening we’d learnt that sloths rarely come out of the tree tops but about once a week they scramble down the tree trunk at a snails pace to answer the call of nature for 5 or 10 minutes before returning to the branches again for another week. It seemed we were in the right place at the right time to watch at brown-throated three-toed sloth taking a dump. I’d never felt so privileged.

In the Amazon sloths are relatively common in the grand scheme of things but it’s vary rare to see one. They live so high and are so well camouflaged that you could stand next to one and never know it was there. If our lump-like sloth hadn’t moved beside Liz’s shoulder I’m sure we’d have never seen this one too. But here it was. Seemingly not too desperate to fulfill it’s needs as it just clung to the tree staring at us. Liz quickly stuck a camera in its face and began clicking away. Showing absolutely no fear it slowly reached out a clawed hand and pulled the camera towards it for a sniff. We both stood there in disbelief as it sniffed and wipe snot all over the lens. Amazing.

Once it had finished with our camera we took a few steps back and over the space of perhaps 15 minutes we watched our little friend fertilise the base of the tree as it kind of hung there in an immobile bliss before setting off for the canopy again. It was the first sloth we had ever seen outside of Chester zoo and we were going to treasure the snot on our camera forever.

I turned to set off down the path again knowing that every second of suffering through the biting black flies and the oppressive heat had been worth it when another lump shot vertically past my nose and landed at my feet with a thud. Jumping back in surprise we both looked down to see an adult female sloth lying at our feet in the missionary position. Arms and legs everywhere, waving in stunned confusion. A young baby also clung to her chest. We were even more shocked at this dramatic encounter than at the first one. It’s not everyday that a sloth comes down a tree to take a dump with you. It has to be even more rare for a clumsy mother to hurl herself and her baby out of its tree and land at your feet in what could be a provocative position if it was another species in another situation. It looked unphased by the fall but helpless in the position it was. Out of concern we tentatively picked her up to check she and the baby were both ok before clamping her back onto the nearest tree. Her fur was a coarse matt of hair that covered a surprisingly muscular and lean body weighing 5 or 6 kilos. Just like the first sloth she just hung there by great curved claws looking at us. No fear, just curiosity. The good news was that she and the baby were evidently fine. It almost seemed like such falls were a regular occurrence and perhaps it was nothing more than an every-day short cut. Judging by the initial thud though its fair to say that sloths definitely don’t bounce! The sloth seemed happy enough with the tree we’d clamped her to and set off up the trunk once she’d also inspected our camera in great detail and added her own snot to various parts that it’s probably wiser to try and keep snot free under any other circumstances.

The area around the Rio Manuripi is absolutely teaming with wildlife like sloths, big cats and giant otters and as worked our way down the river looking for Manchester there wasn’t a day or hour that didn’t have our jaws dropping at something.