Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Charles Darwin fi rst encountered a tropical rainforest in Brazil's Bahia state
during one of the
Beagle
's fi rst landfalls. His excitement spilled over into the
journal he was writing:
The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feel-
ings of a naturalist who, for the fi rst time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The
elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the fl owers, the
glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, fi lled me
with admiration.
When Darwin visited Brazil, in early 1832, its coastal rainforest stretched
almost unbroken for 3,000 kilometers. He could simply stroll to the out-
skirts of Bahia's largest city, Salvador, and fi nd himself in primeval forest. But
most of Brazil's coastal forest has now been destroyed. To see a comparably
undamaged rainforest today one must go elsewhere.
Rainforest diversity
In 1994 I ventured for the fi rst time into the rainforests of Peru's upper Ama-
zon basin. I had no idea that this trip would be the genesis of a research proj-
ect that would consume me for the next fi fteen years.
The project began by accident. I was in Peru because I was writing a book
about how human diseases have evolved over time. I had the chance to talk
to many people who had experienced Peru's severe cholera epidemic, includ-
ing doctors and nurses in some of the rainforest towns and settlements that
had been especially hard-hit.
During the trip I seized the opportunity to visit Manù, the country's larg-
est national park, on the theory that every biologist should, like Darwin, have
the chance to wander through an untouched rainforest. The remote Manù
region includes both cloud forests on the slopes of the eastern Andes and
densely forested fl atlands that form part of the great Amazon basin. The low-
land forest is fi ligreed with serpentine brown rivers and dotted with oxbow
lakes that the rivers have left behind as they writhe with imperceptible slow-
ness across the landscape.
