Sweat bees, spiders, snakes, heat, humidity. These are not the things I travelled halfway around the world for, but nonetheless encountered on my trip to Eastern Peru earlier this year. I also found exquisite soundscapes, beautiful wildlife and sadly logging and cattle ranching. Read on to find out more about my adventures in the Amazon rainforest.

I fell in love with jungles as soon as I set foot in one when I travelled to the Congo rainforest last year. I had a vague idea about what to expect from TV, books, films and other media, but being there was an absolutely amazing immersion into primal ecosystems that have not changed much in many millions of years. The soundscapes, the smells, the heat and humidity all add up to an experience that keeps calling me back wherever I’d be in the world.

Backing up data at Las Piedras Amazon Centre

Las Piedras Amazon Center

It’s therefore not a surprise that a few months after returning from Gabon I booked a 10 day stay in the Amazon rainforest, close to the Peru/Bolivia border. I chose Las Piedras Amazon Center for its remoteness, but also because it’s a place where scientists and researchers come to study the rainforest and the wildlife inhabiting it.

On this expedition I was joined by my friend Matt whom I previously travelled with to South Africa and Senegal. Our contact at the LPAC arranged for us to be accompanied by Julio Mamani Yana, a local guide who grew up in the rainforest and knew these places like the back of his hand.

We had an open platform with eco toilet and shower just for ourselves. From my bed I could hear beautiful soundscapes every morning, including the yowling of an Ocelot that came quite close. In the afternoon I could hear lazy insect choruses and even poison dart frogs a few meters away. A very interesting (and sometimes startling) sound was the call of the Howler Monkeys. Apparently these are the loudest land mammals and they make for an awe-inspiring wakeup call.

We ate together with the researchers, volunteers and other tourists (when there were any). The food was absolutely delicious and filling, even if we only had meat once during the entire trip. We spent the evenings socializing and exchanging stories from travels to remote places. Even if we were there for other purposes, the social aspect was one of the highlights of the trip for both me and Matt.

Jungle trekking

The LPAC is several hours drive and a short boat ride away from Puerto Maldonado. From the edge of the river we had to walk for a few hours on narrow trails to reach good recording spots. This was quite different from my experience in the Congo rainforest where elephants create proper highways in the rainforest and where there was almost never any human activity.

The very narrow paths made it difficult to navigate as sometimes we had to bend under logs, jump over trees or even crawl through narrow passages carved in the undergrowth. One of the best recording spots we found was about 4 hours away from camp next to a river bend where a female anaconda liked to rest after meals. We were able to find these places only with the help of Julio and the researchers at camp. Check out the first part in this video for a short teaser:

Boating on the Las Piedras river

We also had access to river boats at the LPAC. There was scope for longer boat journeys but our aim was to leave out drop rigs and to pick them up 24 to 48 hours later. As a consequence we decided against spending a lot of time on the boat and instead only went up the river for about an hour at most. This still offered opportunities to spot different wildlife and to record in a few excellent places. Next time I’m in the area I will surely want to explore places further afield by boat.

Sadly boating, while the easiest way to go up and down the river, also causes a lot of noise. A good part of the recordings I made in the Amazon is polluted with distant boat or generator noise and therefore mostly useless. It’s much worse for wildlife though. Species like Macaws depend on access to clay licks where they feed on the salts, but they’re rather shy and take a long time to gather at these so-called colpas. When a colpa is right on the edge of the river there will be boats going up and down scaring the macaws off. Increased boat traffic can spell extinction if the birds aren’t able to get enough salts and minerals.

Recording subjects

I recently realized that I need to go to a place several times before I can properly record it. Since this was our first time in the Amazon (and in South America for that matter) we decided to try and record as much as possible without having clear targets. We were continuously out on recces with our gear in tow and as soon as we found an interesting place we would set up our rigs and leave them out for at least 12 hours.

As you can imagine we were a bit all over the place. Certain locations proved very difficult to record in because of boat traffic on the river. Others were just too similar to what we had already covered. Sometimes we would leave the rig out and on our way back we would find a place that sounded way more interesting. This resulted in a bit of frustration but overall I feel like we covered the location quite nicely in the end.

It was also pretty stressful to always be in recce mode. We didn’t take much time off and went out for many hours every day. This resulted in exhaustion on most of the days and sometimes a bit of argument, even though we generally managed the group dynamics quite well. Also, waking up at 4 and finding the canoe submerged in the mud is not a good start to the day!

Consequently we didn’t manage to record species and individuals too well. Leaving out surround or spaced omni rigs will yield beautiful soundscape recordings, but recording wildlife up close takes a different workflow. Even with the help of the researchers on site we found it difficult to identify bird roosts or mammal dens where that we could mic up. Having said that, our unattended rigs managed to pick up many beautiful calls that with a bit of work can be used as sound effects and not just ambience.

Creative field recording

On the other hand, I succeeded at a different aspect of field recording that so far I hadn’t even considered much. After I would leave one or two rigs out I’d take a step back from the constant recce/recording mindset and just wander around without much on my mind. It’s during these periods that I found extremely interesting sound sources like bee hives up trees or larvae eating rotten wood from the inside. What does that sound like? Check the soundcloud player above.

We tried attaching mics to a mirror that photographer Mark Fernley brought into the jungle but I didn’t get much usable stuff this way. There was a pigeon that kept pecking at it and a mouse that ate one of the Clippy mics, but I’m not sure that counts. Trying to mic up a colpa where Macaws liked to hang out didn’t work because of boat traffic on the river.

Putting microphones on mirrors in the jungle

Other creative approaches to field recording include taping lav mics to the edges of a canoe while going out canoeing at dawn, and taping lav mics to a cross-shaped long stick that I left by the edge of a beehive in the forest. This is where Lom MikroUsi mics and Bubblebee WindBubbles came in handy, as they collectively survived long downpours and kept recording. We did lose two lav mics to rodents but I think that’s avoidable as long as I don’t use light colored wind protection anymore.

As can be seen in the rain video above, this is where I perfected my approach to rain recording. While the Cinela blimp is waterproof and the Kelly raincover can protect from very soft drizzle, a bespoke platform made of twigs and leaves is the best way to make usable recordings of rain without sacrificing equipment or audio quality to the rain gods.

The not-so-glamorous part

As I hinted above, 10 days in the rainforest isn’t all fun and relaxation. If you’ve ever set foot in a tropical forest you know how hot and humid it gets. While it doesn’t get as hot as my recent trip to the hottest place on Earth, humid heat is worse because sweating isn’t effective in cooling the body anymore. Add 9-10 hours of sustained physical activity per day and it’s going to result in a bit of discomfort.

Insects abound in the rainforest, that’s been established. Luckily the bees we found were stingless (unlike the ones in Gabon) so they were merely annoying when trying to enter eyes, ears and other openings. Mosquitoes would attack anything not continuously moving which meant we basically couldn’t ever stop. Flies would swarm on any item of clothing we put out to dry. Spiders would sometimes walk on our clothing items, and some of them leave tiny hairs that cause very annoying itches. Matt wasn’t too happy when he realized he was wearing spider itch a few hours into a jungle hike.

Dry clothes soon became a rare commodity, especially underwear. We foolishly thought we’d just do some laundry about halfway through our stay at LPAC, but that proved a bit problematic when we noticed that it rained everyday and the sun was very inconsistent in its appearances. Around the 5th day I managed to do some laundry but left it out to dry and the rain kept it pleasantly moist for the remainder of the trip.

At one point there were tiny mushrooms, mosses and lichens growing on my trousers (which I ended up wearing since the other pairs were too muddy). The worst part was the mornings when we had to put on wet, clammy, stinky clothes. It was bad for about 10 minutes but afterwards we got used to it and moved on.

Conservation

Diploglossus fasciatus - one of the rarest reptiles in the Amazon

As mentioned already, the research being conducted on site had immediate implications for conservation. Everyone there could see the effects of climate change, excessive logging, poaching and land grabbing first-hand. One of the reasons the LPAC even exists is so that the land isn’t sold or given away for slash-and-burn agriculture or cattle farming.

There are several such initiatives along the Las Piedras river, including JungleKeepers, Fauna Forever, Wild Forests and Fauna and several others. While conservation can seem like a lost cause sometimes, finding out about these organizations and seeing their work was incredibly encouraging. And what better way to see the effectiveness of these initiatives than finding one of the rarest reptiles in the entire Amazon living right next to the LPAC camp?

On top of wildlife research and protecting land, these organizations work with local communities in several ways. Camp staff, boaters and guides are hired from the nearby villages. All food served on camp is grown locally and is mostly vegetarian. They are also encouraging sustainable activities such as cocoa farming in the forest. The roasted cocoa beans I got from them were some of the most delicious treats I’d ever tasted!

Results

I returned from the Amazon with more than 600GB of data. Several months later I’m almost done going through all of it. I will release a surround sound effects library as soon as I manage to identify the species in my recordings. I also have material for a vlog and several other videos but it will take some time before I can get these done. Until then you can listen to some of my recordings in this Soundcloud playlist. Enjoy!