Long Flowers
Getting lost is easy
Here's some good advice. If you ever choose to wander in a tropical rain forest, even on trails, carry a GPS or at least a compass. Never one to take my own advice, I set off to wander the forest trails behind the Makerere Field Station in Kibale National Park in Uganda, having studied the trail "map" posted on the bulletin board, noting that there was a sort of grid of trails with distances posted every 100 meters, although distance from what was not specified. It seemed reasonable that finding one's way in a such a grid was no harder than finding one’s way in New York City north of SoHo, and as the field station did not spring for anything as useful as a xerox copy of this "map", I left my AntCourse colleagues and set off merrily down the hill and over the stream.
The terrain was dissected by anastomosing (big word!) stream valleys dividing heavily forested hills, with here and there a giant emergent monster tree that made me stop to crane my neck to see up to the canopy. Several times I saw a white flower that seemed to have been stretched by some unknown force into the longest flower I had ever seen. It made me think of Darwin's prediction that a Madagascar orchid with an extremely long nectar tube would be found to be pollinated by a night-flying moth with an extremely long proboscis (aka schnozzer). Famously, his prediction turned out to be correct--- the pollinator was a sphinx moth with a proboscis several times longer than its body. That would be a good flower to draw, I thought, and hoped I could locate one during my return trip to the station.
At the first major trail intersection, I turned left to keep the stream to my left, that having been my conclusion from studying the pretend "map." This turned out later to be a grievous error as the stream valley was doubled at this point and I should have turned right. But temporarily oblivious, I made my happy way on the trails, noting the meter markers, making choices until I finally ended on an old logging road (logging in a national park? Well, this was Uganda, after all!) near a ridge top. Well, I thought, this old logging road will lead back to an earlier point in the trail grid, so I set off, finding much of interest along the way, but getting increasingly unsettled as I covered more and more distance without coming across any more intersections or meter markers. Finally, after a couple of hours, I decided I didn't have a clue as to where I was, and started back, finding the obscure trail entrance through which I had arrived on the logging road with considerable difficulty. Back on the grid again, I noted the meter-markers and figured if the numbers kept going down, I must be getting closer to the station--- ha!
The valley bottoms were mucky, pocked with half-meter deep elephant footprints and sprinkled with Impatiens flowers. To step in this muck meant sinking in up to my knees, possibly having to retrieve a shoe. The going got harder and muckier, and I did a lot of zigzagging to find firmer ground, until finally, I heard human voices. Homing in on the voices brought me to three black research workers whose job was to spend all day every day following and watching a group of chimpanzees and recording their every move, including which flea bites they scratched at what time. I'm lost, I said. No problem, they said, we'll take you back to the station, and they did, straight through the forest, no trail, no veering, with me struggling to keep up behind them.
Back at the station, 4 hours later than planned, nobody had missed me. So much for concerned friends. Later, looking at the so-called "map", I saw that my first choice had taken me to the southern grid, while I foolishly thought I was on the northern grid. When you are two degrees from the equator, the midday sun provides almost no directional cues.
The next day I started back down the same trail, being careful to make the correct now-informed choice, and found some of the long, tubular flowers to draw. They were identified as Randia longiflora, and as expected, they too were pollinated by a night-flying sphinx moth.
Also as expected, my confidence in my way-finding ability has yet to recover.
Stay found!!
Lovely and scary account and a treat to read! I had a similar experience. Going south (I thought) on a country road west of PDX, I was actually going west! If I hadn't figured out after seeing the Coast Range getting closer and closer that I was 90° off, I would have landed up in the Pacific Ocean! Like you, my hithereto unshakeable confidence in my inner gps was shattered and I now carry a compass in my car and on my trekkrng pole!