Exploring The Lower Half of Tatama

Right before the evening came me and Jaime had a chance to walk around a little and see a bit before we lost the sunlight.

Just in the hour we had to walk around a little we got to see a little bit of what was just a big teaser for the next day.  Of course while there are many unique plants endemic to that part of the Colombian Choco I was mostly drawn to the abundance of the bryophytes all around especially the different species of plagiochilas growing on several wooden surfaces and rocks.  

Funny little story, as we started walking back to where we had planned to stay for the night I kept hearing a loud buzzing sound that was following us for quite a distance.  Of course it's the rainforest so I knew it was some sort of bug but I kept wondering what sounded so big and why it was so persistent.  I finally gave in and asked Jaime what that bug was and he said just walk faster...okay.  I stared at him blank while walking back down until finally he said what it was. I definitely will never forget how he described the insect in spanish as being a big fly that bites cows and other livestock and making them scream because of the pain and also how children that get chased by these flies would jump into a river to get away from them.  Then it came back to me as to what kind of fly he was describing.  The familiar buzzing noise were similar to the horse flies I occasionally ran into back in California and Mexico except this one was more loud.  I remember flinging rocks at them with my slingshot as a kid because of how aggressive they were and I suddenly got a reality check when I realized insects in colombia were way bigger than insects back home!  This horsefly was definitely going to do some damage so arming myself with a fallen branch non the less I was ready for it if the situation came to that.  

Shortly Jaime followed suit and sure enough it finally started coming in for the attack on both of us prompting me and him to swing those branches like wild men.  Honestly I don't know to this day who ended up landing the blow but finally we were able to pace ourselves comfortably after that ordeal.  Only in South America.

I really tried to make do with the amount of sunlight we had left and of course if I wasn't photographing everything, I sure was staring at it.  Just every niche being jam packed in all sorts of rare and unique flora - it's definitely a must see if your into that sort of thing.  

Views like this throughout Tatama and Finca Montezuma are the norm.  It's breathtaking to say the least and once you really start running into the fauna and learning the history of this land you can't help but only appreciate it more. 

Even in the areas of the mountain where lighting his heavily filtered through the rainforest canopy there is life and quite in abundance.  Ferns, Pileas, Begonias, Gesineriads, are all just some of the species that can be found in just one niche. 

This one shaded grotto alone had at least 30 different species of ferns and other plants. Probably spent 30 minutes just counting them all too.  

Jaime admiring a bloom of an unknown anthurium species growing under some large miconias

Drymonia turrialvae growing low key in a dark part of a slope.  This is my favorite species in the genus and is found throughout the Choco down into Ecuador but is still rare to find insitu.  

To better understand this mountain  I had to really look at everything around me to be able to grasp the bigger picture of what was really going on wherever I wandered into.  What I mean specifically is trying to comprehend as to why certain plants grew how they did in those environments and why certain ones could even be found there in the first place.  Think of it sort of as a puzzle; many plants are symbiotic with each other including with certain animals which tends to be a basic common knowledge in biology.  While the biodiversity scale here is one of the highest in Colombia we want to figure out why that is. That's when you start developing theories and hypothesizing as to what certain plants benefit from certain birds and how they continue to thrive when sometimes the odds are against them or vice versa.  There really is a lot going on that we want to understand and it's only due to recent years the scientific community is now able to explore this region more freely without the worry of the Colombian militias that used to survey most of the Choco - especially in Tatama. 

In terms of elevation typically rainforests and cloud forest are categorized in 3 elevation levels:

• lower elevation - climate usually more warm in the high 70's to low 90's  

• intermediate elevation - in between both lower and higher elevations which consists of temps swinging between the mid 60's and lower 80's range

• higher elevation - lower temperatures from the high 60's with occasional lows into the high 40's low 50's          

One of the many colorful ericaceaes endemic to Tatama

Most of Tatama and the surrounding area can be placed in the intermediate range since temperatures rarely drop below 64 degrees and exceed 80 degrees.  While the climate does have a major role in regards to growth habits of the plants the soil content is also a major factor in their survival.  Those and more would only just be bits of what I spent 3 days documenting especially since it was all so important for the one plant I traveled all those miles to find...