Around the Bend – Personal Journeys

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings."

Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness

Down the Rio Suerte you go. The river meanders. In places it widens out. A sandbar occasionally intrudes.

You'll probably see an alligator. Likely some large heron. Maybe even some monkeys.

For an intern heading to Caño Palma for the first time, the river isn't just any pathway – it's where you realize you’re leaving one world and entering another.

You find yourself slipping into that same sense of awe that Conrad experienced when he steamed up the Congo River. He described it as primordial and that may be what you're sensing too.

Why We Come To Caño Palma

But we come to the station with a purpose. It might be to take part in a project, to collect data for our own research, or just for some experience. But concealed behind walls of trees is another question: What am I going to discover about myself?

Your mind, wittingly or unwittingly, focuses on: What's around the next bend? What am I going to encounter beyond those trees? What will life be like out here? What kind of work will I be doing? Am I up to whatever the station asks of me? What affect will it have on me?

Change Afoot

Finally you disembark, and within a day or two, you see the possibilities that Caño Palma offers for exploration, on foot or in your mind. Something’s changed. You no longer feel like a visitor. Now you're part of the action.

Maybe things started to change when you walked the beach under the stars, aware that sea turtles have been coming here far longer than humans have existed. Or in the jungle when the wonder of bats making tents was revealed while monkeys howled out their whereabouts. Or when you sank into some mucky marsh, realizing that that muck is what makes wetlands so worth conserving.

Personal Journeys

I remember my own first time on the Rio Suerte. On the recommendation of a friend, I was heading to Tortuguero, having no idea that Caño Palma existed. In early evening dimness, the boat was delivering passengers up the channel. It stopped near shore and a person got off, waded through the shallows, and disappeared into the dark forest. Where's he going? What could possibly exist in there that would welcome anyone?

Further up the channel, we passed a dock with a Canadian flag hanging over it. It seemed out of place in a rainforest, yet it was obviously intriguing.

Only later, after returning to Canada, did I discover a huge coincidence. It turned out that Marilyn Cole, a zookeeper at the Toronto Zoo where I volunteer, was the founder of Caño Palma Biological Station.

I had passed the station without understanding what it was, who lived there, or why anyone would choose to disappear into that forest. Marilyn cleared things up for me.

And so it is with most interns who haven't yet fully realized what they're stepping into when they arrive at Caño Palma. You disembark and gradually you understand the place and yourself more profoundly. An internship at Caño Palma isn't just fieldwork, but an experience that can change you as you explore it.