Once You Get Past the Leeches, It's Great!

This past weekend Lizzie, Ilja (Lizzie's MSc student), Ashani, Kumara, Tharanga, and I piled into a van and headed off to Sinharaja, World Heritage Site, to explore the rainforest! Ashoka had warned us that 'rainforest' in Sri Lanka is synonymous with 'leeches' and I must admit that my initial enthusiasm for the trip was a bit dampened when I heard this. However, I wasn't about to let some blood-sucking parasites deter me from an adventure, so off we went! We had planned to leave at 8:30 AM on Saturday, but the van, and Kumara and Tharanaga (affectionately referred to as "the boys") were over an hour late. We also had to return to Tharanga's house to grab an appropriate pair of shoes - the brand new, flashy red sneakers Tharanga had brought didn't seem like the best option for the muddy trails we knew we would encounter. We finally left around 10 AM.

The 3 hour journey saw us through bustling towns, steep mountain roads, tea plantations, and crisp cloud forest. Before we reached the park entrance, we stopped in a small town for essential supplies: umbrellas, biscuits, and leech socks...yes, leech socks. Leech socks are made from a thick, cotton weave and are put on over your normal socks and pants - sorry, I should say 'trousers' for the U.K. audience (in the U.K. 'pants' means underwear). Anyway, these fancy shmancy socks reach to just below the knee where they are secured with a drawstring. The idea is that the leeches can't bite through the socks, but that means you have to constantly check for leeches crawling up your legs; if they can't suck on your ankles they will continue upwards until they find a more vulnerable location (e.g. stomach, armpit, neck, dare I say...crotch!). I found a few in some interesting locations, but I will get to that later.

The van was able to take us as far as the park entrance where we then hired a jeep to complete the final half hour of the journey. By the time we had purchased tickets, hired a guide, arrived at the guesthouse, and eaten lunch it was a little after 3pm. Visitors are required to return to the guesthouse by 5:30 PM, but the guide said we would have time for a hike, if we went quickly...famous last words. Sporting leech socks, bandanas, and long sleeved shirts we set off into the forest.

As I later learned, there are a number of trails that are relatively flat and make for wonderful strolls through the rainforest. You would think our guide would have chosen one of these routes since we were short on time, but no. Instead, he led us on a ridiculous mountain trek that normally takes 4 hours to complete, we had 2. I quickly became acquainted with leeches and was constantly flicking them off of my shoes and pants (agh, trousers!). The trail itself was rigorous - it was great training for the Tough Mudder race, which I am still determined to enter someday. We spent about 2 hours scrambling up the side of the cliff, but the view at the end was absolutely worth the hard work. We spent a half hour fannying around (as Lizzie would say) on the mountain top taking silly pictures and enjoying the view, only to realize too late that a huge rainstorm was on its way and we only had 15 minutes to descend the mountain. Ok, it really wasn't a mountain, more a very, very tall hill, but it definitely felt like a mountain! By the time we had gathered our packs and taken one last swig of water, we found ourselves caught in a downpour. We raced, and I literally mean raced, down the side of the mountain. Swinging from trees and jumping from ledge to ledge, we looked like a troop of monkeys taking the forest by storm. It was exhilarating! We made it back to the guesthouse by 6:15 PM soaked, but amazingly, all in one piece. We spent a few minutes peeling leeches off of ourselves, had tea, showered off, and enjoyed a fantastic curry dinner. Ashani fed 2 leeches that evening, the rest of us managed to avoid them.

Fortunately, I had brought a mosquito tent with me (thank you again, Liz!) because the mosquito nets in the guesthouse were all tattered and torn. The mosquitoes were really not a problem, but as I lay in my tent I kept thinking about creepy, crawly leeches inching all over my body. To be fair, they don't carry diseases and are commonly used in traditional medicine. I would rather have a leech on me than a tick that is likely carrying Lyme, but in the end I just prefer to avoid bodily invasions by insects. As you may expect given my wild imagination, I didn't get much sleep that night.

A guide was supposed to meet us at the guesthouse at 7:30 the following morning, but by 8:30 he still hadn't shown; the park entrance was a 30min jeep ride away and the morning was quickly slipping away. We didn't want to pay for another jeep (about $10 - yes, we're cheap) so we asked one of the park rangers for an alternative. He directed us to a trail that was supposedly a shortcut. Actually, it didn't prove too bad. It took us a little over an hour to hike to the entrance, find a guide, and return to the trail head. The hike itself was less grueling than the one we took the previous day, but it was not a good day for me as far as the leeches were concerned. At one point I discovered a leech on my neck; fortunately, Kumara was able to pull it off before it began feeding. Later, I felt a tickling sensation in my armpit; to my horror there was indeed a large leech there. Ashani impressively dealt with the situation while Ilja and Lizzie distracted me.

Despite the leeches, it was a nice hike. However, I was really depressed to find the rainforest "empty." My first experience with a rainforest was in Ecuador in Yasuni National Park during my study abroad trip at BU. My professor had described Yasuni as the most bio-diverse place in the WORLD - what does that even mean? I didn't truly understand until I went on this trip to Sinharaja. In Yasuni, there are literally animals and insect and plants everywhere. You could spend an entire day in a meter-squared plot and not become bored because there are so many things to see. The forest is a cacophony of birds, monkeys, and insects - there rarely is a quiet moment. Sinharaja, on the other hand, was disturbingly silent. A single bird call would occasionally break the monotonous drumming of rain and I saw only a handful of insects. We did see some flocks of endemic birds and 2 snakes, but that was about it. It hasn't always been like this, there used to be unimaginable numbers of species here, but thanks to human activities most of it is gone.

Environmental activists are always spreading the messages to think "green," to modify our behaviors so that we can save the whales, save the elephants, save the tigers, etc. But what they are really saying is, we need to make changes so we can save our species, Homo sapiens. As we lose biodiversity, humans become vulnerable: think climate change, think food and water shortages, think disease outbreaks, think over-population, think habitat loss for HUMANS. There have been mass extinctions throughout the history of the earth - the world keeps turning and life continues to exist, new species replace the ones that have been lost. Do we want to be one of the species that is replaced?

I don't mean to cast a dark cloud on humanity or to give the impression that it is too late to salvage what's left. Rather, I hope to move people into action! We humans are undoubtedly very intelligent beings and despite some character flaws, I believe many of us harbor truly incredible traits: compassion, justice, and respect, to name just a few. If we, as a species, can make the decision to moderate our actions with these characteristics, there is little we cannot achieve. There is still time to turn things around, IF we act quickly and decisively. We can't continue to hide our heads in the sand and ignore the challenges facing humanity- it's time to put on our game faces and stand up to reality. And now I'll leave you to think about all of that!