Things I will miss about Ecuador
Boys that know how to dance
1 dollar beers across the street from my college (Pilsener grandes, it is like 2 regular beers)
Soda made with real sugar and in a recycles glass bottle
The Andes, the Galapagos, the Coast (the Canoa surfer boys), and the Rainforest – all amazing places that I will never forget
Hanging out with a bunch of science nerds everyday
$2.50 lunches that include soup, a full plate, juice, and desert
Galapagos sunsets
Bananas prepared every way imaginable
Crazy fruit that I don’t have to feel bad about eating because it is grown locally
Having a maid make me food and clean my room everyday
Guanabana juice
The beach across the street from my campus in the Galapagos
Getting credit for going to amazing places and avoiding the classroom
Public bus that costs a quarter
Homemade soup (esp. cream of asparagus)
Pirated movies - 3 movies for 5 dollars
The picturesque clouds
Hearing the same 10 reggetone songs everyday on the bus, radio, restaurants, bars
Free shots at Chupitos and all the bartenders there
Things I will not miss about Ecuador
Cold showers
Having to drink bottled water all the time
Hangovers in Quito (the elevation makes them so much worse)
Not being able to choose what I eat
Language barrier
Queso fresco (Ecuador’s sad excuse for cheese)
White rice for every lunch and dinner
Fried everything
Worrying about being robbed all the time
Things I cannot wait for in the US
Buy an alcoholic beverage legally
10 year aged cheddar
Learning how to whitewater kayak
Making/choosing my own food
Japanese food
Mexican food
Black beans
Seeing my old friends
Trips to Madison to visit my new friends
Good beer (and beer pong with bad beer)
Having my own apartment without parents and with my wonderful roommates
Coffee
House parties
Having my whole wardrobe
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
back in Quito
5/5/09
Today I woke up to no clouds in the sky. This means that I visibility of the Andes on my way to USFQ is likely to be spectacular, and it was. I could see all the big snow covered mountains. (USFQ is in the suburb Cumbaya that is in the valley below Quito, so on the way down you can get great views.) It is mornings like this that make me love Quito and make me want to move to a city in the mountains.
At USFQ I went to the Aquatic Lab and commenced taking pictures of macro-invertebrates. The past 2 weeks I have been organizing, taking pictures, and then putting together a guide of macroinvertebrates. I have also been analyzing the data I took on the Tacayacu, measuring suspended materials and chlorophyll levels. It isn’t the most exciting work but it is interesting and I know I am helping out in the process of learning about Ecuadorian rivers and how to conserve them. I work from 9-5 Monday through Friday and have the weekends off. However all of my friends are in different cities so I almost prefer being in the lab, at least I have something to do and there are people around me. But being a homebody isn’t the worst thing ever I have been able to catch up on my blog!
On the way home from USFQ I took a green bus like I do everyday. Supposedly not all of the green buses go to the Rio Coca station where I catch my next bus, but I have never encountered this so I don’t pay much attention. Well today I found out that there are 2 different green buses, and the other one goes to the south side of Quito (near old town.) I slowly gathered I was on the wrong bus and soon confirmed it when we crossed a bridge that I had never crossed before. So I sat on this bus going to a place I had no idea about, trying to freak out. Luckily the sky was still fairly clear and I had never seen the scenery on this bus ride so I tried to enjoy it and convince myself I had wanted to see other parts of Quito anyways and it was a good adventure. After what seemed like forever I saw Quito, I slightly recognized it as old town, which I have been to a couple times. I got off when everyone else did and went down to the main street. I was hoping I would recognize something, but I had no idea where I was. I didn’t have enough money for cab home but I knew which way was home and I got on the correct side of the street and observed the buses. I saw a bus that said “La Marin” on it. La Marin is a large bus station that I have been to before and know how to get home from there, so I jumped on and hoped for the best. Luckily it did go to La Marin at which point I easily found the Ecovia which met up with the blue bus I usually take home. So somehow I took the completely wrong bus without actually getting lost (I consider lost having to take a cab or ask for directions.) I got home and rewarded my successful adventure with a little ice cream.
¡Feliz cinco de mayo!
Today I woke up to no clouds in the sky. This means that I visibility of the Andes on my way to USFQ is likely to be spectacular, and it was. I could see all the big snow covered mountains. (USFQ is in the suburb Cumbaya that is in the valley below Quito, so on the way down you can get great views.) It is mornings like this that make me love Quito and make me want to move to a city in the mountains.
At USFQ I went to the Aquatic Lab and commenced taking pictures of macro-invertebrates. The past 2 weeks I have been organizing, taking pictures, and then putting together a guide of macroinvertebrates. I have also been analyzing the data I took on the Tacayacu, measuring suspended materials and chlorophyll levels. It isn’t the most exciting work but it is interesting and I know I am helping out in the process of learning about Ecuadorian rivers and how to conserve them. I work from 9-5 Monday through Friday and have the weekends off. However all of my friends are in different cities so I almost prefer being in the lab, at least I have something to do and there are people around me. But being a homebody isn’t the worst thing ever I have been able to catch up on my blog!
On the way home from USFQ I took a green bus like I do everyday. Supposedly not all of the green buses go to the Rio Coca station where I catch my next bus, but I have never encountered this so I don’t pay much attention. Well today I found out that there are 2 different green buses, and the other one goes to the south side of Quito (near old town.) I slowly gathered I was on the wrong bus and soon confirmed it when we crossed a bridge that I had never crossed before. So I sat on this bus going to a place I had no idea about, trying to freak out. Luckily the sky was still fairly clear and I had never seen the scenery on this bus ride so I tried to enjoy it and convince myself I had wanted to see other parts of Quito anyways and it was a good adventure. After what seemed like forever I saw Quito, I slightly recognized it as old town, which I have been to a couple times. I got off when everyone else did and went down to the main street. I was hoping I would recognize something, but I had no idea where I was. I didn’t have enough money for cab home but I knew which way was home and I got on the correct side of the street and observed the buses. I saw a bus that said “La Marin” on it. La Marin is a large bus station that I have been to before and know how to get home from there, so I jumped on and hoped for the best. Luckily it did go to La Marin at which point I easily found the Ecovia which met up with the blue bus I usually take home. So somehow I took the completely wrong bus without actually getting lost (I consider lost having to take a cab or ask for directions.) I got home and rewarded my successful adventure with a little ice cream.
¡Feliz cinco de mayo!
Tena
4/14 – 4/21/09
My time in Tena was for my water quality internship. I was to collect samples from the Tacayacu River of water and algae. Tena is a same town that is the “entrance to the Amazon” it used to be the place to start rainforest tours, but now they are mostly booked in Quito. The main tourist attraction is now white water sports. This is how Matt (or locally known as Mateo) came to Tena. Matt has since started the Ecuadorian River Institution to help protect rivers from unnecessary pollution, mining, and hydroelectric. He has recently joined up with the aquatic biology department at USFQ, which is how I got involved. I stayed in an apartment above Matt that he kept for volunteers and storage. He also works with the local high school and Japanese volunteer, Chu, on water quality monitoring procedures. The first day Matt took me, Chu, and Fernanda (the Lab assistant from USFQ) on a short tour of the nearby rivers and gave us some background about the issues involved with their protection. Then we continued the tour on the Tena River in duckies (inflatable kayaks.) The next 2 days we spent in the field collecting data.
It rained both days but we were still able to collect all the data we needed. We collected water and algae samples that you later be anaylized, by me, in the lab in Quito. We also collected some macroinvertebrates. It was fairly straight forward and easy.
I was supposed to leave the Friday the 17th, but the USFQ wasn’t going to be open so we would have nowhere to store the samples. So Fernanda decided I would come on Tuesday instead. This was fine by me because it gave me time to do dome more exploring of the rivers. I wanted to do a rafting trip and Matt set me up with a company he knew called River People, owned by an Irish family, luckily they were looking for some more people to do a 2 day trip. I was hesitant at first because of the cost, but in the end decided if money was too trivial of a thing to stop me from this great opportunity. So, Saturday I got up and packed for my white water adventure. The plan was to run the Upper Hollin and Jondachi. The Hollin is a very technical river that is only run a couple times a year, so I was very excited. Unfortunately, the water was too high to raft it safely so instead we put in higher up on the Jondachi, part of the river that had never been rafted before, only kayaked. Our group consisted of 8 people, 6 in the raft and 2 safety kayaks. (Note: I need to learn how to kayak ASAP.) The level of the Jondachi was much more favorable so we eat a little lunch and put in. The rapids were very technical and our guide, Tim, and the kayakers, Victor and Hary, had to scout each one before the raft could run it.
In one rapid our plan didn’t quite work out and we got wrapped around a rock and couldn’t get out of it so me and the 2 other tourists had to get out of the raft to lighten it enough so get unstuck. The evacuation went smoothly and soon we were on our way again. There was a small rapid that we all had to get out of the boat and the guides pulled the raft trough because there was a drop that we couldn’t navigate. Around 4 we found a suitable campsite, an abandoned shack in the rainforest. We set our clothes out to dry and set up the tents. While some of the crew started dinner the rest us us went down to the river and attempted to start a fire on the small beach. This proved very difficult, since we only had wet wood. But after about 3 hours it was finally a decent campfire.
It poured all night and the next morning we woke up to a raging Jondachi.
The water had risen about 2 meters, a dangerous level, and had turned to a milky brown color. The guides decided we had to wait to see if the river would go down, before breakfast the river went down about 10 cm. After breakfast Victor checked the level, and it has risen again. It must have rained in the highlands as well as around the river, because although the rain had stop where we were the river was still pulsing. To kill some more time we went to a cave across the river. The cave is a common visit for people rafting the Jondachi and lead to a 8 m cliff perfect to jump off. I like jumping off high things, but it always takes me a little while to get the courage up. Luckily there was one person who took even longer than me so I wasn’t the last to jump. We went back to camp and the river had gone down almost a half meter so we had a little snack and started up again. The rapids were intense and the water was moving so fast the breaks between rapids were pretty much nonexistent. Our crew was doing great, until we fit this hug wave. Usually you have to worry about getting wrapped on a rock, but in this high of water you have to worry about getting flipped by a wave. The wave didn’t flip us but 4 of the 6 people fell out, including me. We all quickly and successfully got back in and found an eddy to rest and catch our breath. Soon we reached where the Hollin and Jondachi join. The Hollin had gone up since yesterday and was a monster. 
It was a dark chocolate milk color and the waves were enormous, which means there were holes the size of houses that would suck you in with no difficulty or hesitation. We found what was left of the shore and set up for lunch. Our guide sent out a distress call to his office, which means it is high water and they should send more food because we would need to stay the night. After lunch they made the decision to run the rest of the river, so we went up one guy to tell the bus to meet us at the take out. The one with this job happened to be our strongest paddler in the raft. We rearranged setting to try to make the sides as even as possible and started the uncertain journey down the Jondachi-Hollin. Around the corner was a bridge about 2 meters above the current water level that had been taken out, yesterday must have been incredibly intense, thank god we did not try to run the Upper Hollin (good call Tim!) The largest rapid is called the Wafflemaker. Our guides scouted the rapid and Tim returned after about 30 minutes with the news that we could have to portage around it. The kayakers and Tim would run it with the raft. He sad there was about a 90% chance of flipping and he didn’t want to take that risk with us in the boat (one of the paddlers was not feeling well and could certainly not handle swimming the rapid.) We trekked around a trail; ‘trail’ was not what I would exactly call it since we had to machete through for most of it. We got to the other side and waited for the raft to come through with Tim, Victor, and Hary. Luckily they made it through upright. We got back in the raft and the kayakers got back into their kayaks and continued onward. We reached the take out about an hour before sundown, perfect timing, but our bus was not there. There was obviously some miss communication, but about 45 later the bus showed up. We packed up and headed home.
This was definitely the most exciting, and at times frightening, rafting experience I have ever had and I loved every minute of it.
My time in Tena was for my water quality internship. I was to collect samples from the Tacayacu River of water and algae. Tena is a same town that is the “entrance to the Amazon” it used to be the place to start rainforest tours, but now they are mostly booked in Quito. The main tourist attraction is now white water sports. This is how Matt (or locally known as Mateo) came to Tena. Matt has since started the Ecuadorian River Institution to help protect rivers from unnecessary pollution, mining, and hydroelectric. He has recently joined up with the aquatic biology department at USFQ, which is how I got involved. I stayed in an apartment above Matt that he kept for volunteers and storage. He also works with the local high school and Japanese volunteer, Chu, on water quality monitoring procedures. The first day Matt took me, Chu, and Fernanda (the Lab assistant from USFQ) on a short tour of the nearby rivers and gave us some background about the issues involved with their protection. Then we continued the tour on the Tena River in duckies (inflatable kayaks.) The next 2 days we spent in the field collecting data.
It rained both days but we were still able to collect all the data we needed. We collected water and algae samples that you later be anaylized, by me, in the lab in Quito. We also collected some macroinvertebrates. It was fairly straight forward and easy. I was supposed to leave the Friday the 17th, but the USFQ wasn’t going to be open so we would have nowhere to store the samples. So Fernanda decided I would come on Tuesday instead. This was fine by me because it gave me time to do dome more exploring of the rivers. I wanted to do a rafting trip and Matt set me up with a company he knew called River People, owned by an Irish family, luckily they were looking for some more people to do a 2 day trip. I was hesitant at first because of the cost, but in the end decided if money was too trivial of a thing to stop me from this great opportunity. So, Saturday I got up and packed for my white water adventure. The plan was to run the Upper Hollin and Jondachi. The Hollin is a very technical river that is only run a couple times a year, so I was very excited. Unfortunately, the water was too high to raft it safely so instead we put in higher up on the Jondachi, part of the river that had never been rafted before, only kayaked. Our group consisted of 8 people, 6 in the raft and 2 safety kayaks. (Note: I need to learn how to kayak ASAP.) The level of the Jondachi was much more favorable so we eat a little lunch and put in. The rapids were very technical and our guide, Tim, and the kayakers, Victor and Hary, had to scout each one before the raft could run it.
In one rapid our plan didn’t quite work out and we got wrapped around a rock and couldn’t get out of it so me and the 2 other tourists had to get out of the raft to lighten it enough so get unstuck. The evacuation went smoothly and soon we were on our way again. There was a small rapid that we all had to get out of the boat and the guides pulled the raft trough because there was a drop that we couldn’t navigate. Around 4 we found a suitable campsite, an abandoned shack in the rainforest. We set our clothes out to dry and set up the tents. While some of the crew started dinner the rest us us went down to the river and attempted to start a fire on the small beach. This proved very difficult, since we only had wet wood. But after about 3 hours it was finally a decent campfire. It poured all night and the next morning we woke up to a raging Jondachi.
The water had risen about 2 meters, a dangerous level, and had turned to a milky brown color. The guides decided we had to wait to see if the river would go down, before breakfast the river went down about 10 cm. After breakfast Victor checked the level, and it has risen again. It must have rained in the highlands as well as around the river, because although the rain had stop where we were the river was still pulsing. To kill some more time we went to a cave across the river. The cave is a common visit for people rafting the Jondachi and lead to a 8 m cliff perfect to jump off. I like jumping off high things, but it always takes me a little while to get the courage up. Luckily there was one person who took even longer than me so I wasn’t the last to jump. We went back to camp and the river had gone down almost a half meter so we had a little snack and started up again. The rapids were intense and the water was moving so fast the breaks between rapids were pretty much nonexistent. Our crew was doing great, until we fit this hug wave. Usually you have to worry about getting wrapped on a rock, but in this high of water you have to worry about getting flipped by a wave. The wave didn’t flip us but 4 of the 6 people fell out, including me. We all quickly and successfully got back in and found an eddy to rest and catch our breath. Soon we reached where the Hollin and Jondachi join. The Hollin had gone up since yesterday and was a monster. 
It was a dark chocolate milk color and the waves were enormous, which means there were holes the size of houses that would suck you in with no difficulty or hesitation. We found what was left of the shore and set up for lunch. Our guide sent out a distress call to his office, which means it is high water and they should send more food because we would need to stay the night. After lunch they made the decision to run the rest of the river, so we went up one guy to tell the bus to meet us at the take out. The one with this job happened to be our strongest paddler in the raft. We rearranged setting to try to make the sides as even as possible and started the uncertain journey down the Jondachi-Hollin. Around the corner was a bridge about 2 meters above the current water level that had been taken out, yesterday must have been incredibly intense, thank god we did not try to run the Upper Hollin (good call Tim!) The largest rapid is called the Wafflemaker. Our guides scouted the rapid and Tim returned after about 30 minutes with the news that we could have to portage around it. The kayakers and Tim would run it with the raft. He sad there was about a 90% chance of flipping and he didn’t want to take that risk with us in the boat (one of the paddlers was not feeling well and could certainly not handle swimming the rapid.) We trekked around a trail; ‘trail’ was not what I would exactly call it since we had to machete through for most of it. We got to the other side and waited for the raft to come through with Tim, Victor, and Hary. Luckily they made it through upright. We got back in the raft and the kayakers got back into their kayaks and continued onward. We reached the take out about an hour before sundown, perfect timing, but our bus was not there. There was obviously some miss communication, but about 45 later the bus showed up. We packed up and headed home. This was definitely the most exciting, and at times frightening, rafting experience I have ever had and I loved every minute of it.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Coast and Galapagos
Southern Coast 3/17 – 3/22
This trip was to see the coastal marine environment. We had 2 hour lectures everyday and a day trip where we took field notes. My mom decided last minute to come on this trip with us. She hadn’t been to the coast so it was definitely a good idea. Ecuador is divided into 3 parts: the highlands (where Quito is), the Oriente (the lowland Amazon Rainforest), and the coast. Each of these places is so different and special a trip to Ecuador is not complete if you do not visit them all. Unfortunately she will not be able to get to the Amazon, but 2 out of 3 is pretty good. The first 3 nights we stayed camped on the beach near Puerto Lopez at a hotel called Alandaluz. We took a day trip to the fish market in Puerto Lopez and another to the tide pools of Montanita. The fish market was very interesting. I had never seen an actual tuna before and we saw a huge albacore tuna. I see livestock fairly regularly and it is easy to imagine where the meat comes from but fish is different. Living in Wisconsin you never see these ocean fish. Albacore are predatory fish and much larger than I expected at about 1 meter long and meaty. We also saw a 2 meter Mahi Mahi, loads of snapper, a sail fish measuring over 2 meters, 4 sharks, and tons of other fish I can’t remember or identify. We learned a lot about the fishing industry in this course. It is legal to catch sharks in Ecuador if is only as by-catch and a small percentage of your total catch. Shark finning is the reason to kill sharks and is having a devastating effect. In Ecuador each fin goes for about 15 US dollars and then gets shipped to Japan where they are sold for much more and made into shark fin soup, an expensive delicacy often served at weddings. As for the fishing industry as a whole, it is destroying the oceans and whipping out entire fish populations. Cod is commercial extinct and we are eating down the food chain to fish that used don’t even taste good because we have killed everything else. I won’t bore you with all the specifics but it is way worse than I thought and because of this and the high quantity of fish I have eaten here in Ecuador, when I return home I am going to become a full on vegetarian and stop eating fish. I will definetly miss my fresh water fish though… I may just be very selective on my fish choices. The Alaskan fishery is one of the only sustainable fisheries, so I may make an exception for Alaskan salmon and halibut. Anyways, we also visited tide pools in Montanita.
Tide pools are another thing I have never explored before and they are rather amazing. All these little filter feeders and grazers that are quite wonderful to observe. The coolest thing was definitely seeing an octopus. A local fisherman showed us some that he had caught, soon to be turned into chiviche, and we also found a live one in the rocks. There are also these things called nudibranchs which are like naked snails, and are usually brightly colored.
For our last 2 nights on the coast we stayed in Quayaquil. Quayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and I don’t have much more to say about it since we were strongly encouraged not to go out at night, even in a cab, since it is so dangerous. During the day we visited the nearby national park and saw Mangrove forests. Compared to the Amazon and tide pools no one was very interested or impressed by the forest, but it was good to see. We also visited a shrimp farm, one of the major treats to mangrove and dry forests. ( Another reason for my giving up seafood.) On the 22nd we got on our plane to the Galapagos, we were all obviously super excited.
Galapagos Cruise 3/22 – 3/29
These 7 days were amazing. I went into this Galapagos trip not expecting too much, the Galapagos have such a huge reputation I was assuming I would be disappointed if I expected that much. However, it was so much more than I even imagined. For our group we needed 2 yachts, I was on the Guantanamera with half the students and the other half were on the Eden. The Eden was slightly larger and roomier, but the Guantanamera was very nice as well. On the upper deck we had a nice covered area and some lounge chairs in the sun. I slept on these chairs at night and it was amazing. We were usually cruising at night to another island so we were in the middle of the Pacific with no light and the stars were spectacular. Our boat went to 1 or 2 different islands every day. We visited South Plazas, Floreana, Bartolome, Rabida, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Seymore, Espanola, and Genovesa. The first wildlife we saw was the Galapagos Sea Lions.
These are so adorable. They are rather clumsy on land but amazing in the water. On land they are usually just sleeping and snuggling. They usually line up in a row to sleep and the outside one always wants to get in the middle and watching them try to call what we coined “the wedge” to get into the middle spot was always entertaining. The baby pups were another level of adorableness, they waddled looking for their mom and it took all of our willpower not to snatch one up and take it home. We saw some blue footed boobies here and there, which was what I was excepting (not getting my hopes up), but on the third day we saw more blue footed booby than I thought existed. The Galapagos are so protected now that the animals don’t hide they are in our face, on the trail, and you have to move around them as to not step on them or in their nest. There were tourist with huge camera lenses and they literally had to wait to step back for many of the shots. I even heard on say “that is bird is too close for me.” Which brings me to the tourist factor, there were way more than I was expecting. I really despise feeling like a tourist when I travel, but for this cruise it was utterly unavoidable. It was mostly old white rich people with huge cameras and bodies covered in high-tech sun protection clothing, like the hats with the neck covering flap. It was amusing a lot of the time just to people watch, but the animals were luckily the main attraction. Along with our land trips we usually went snorkeling twice a day. There aren’t coral reefs in the Galaps, the water is too cold, but it is still great for marine fish. One day I saw 5 white tip sharks, I never thought I would snorkel with sharks, it was tremendous. The highlight of snorkeling was definitely when some young playful sea lions found you. The first time this happened I could not contain myself it was so awesome, and the next couple times I was able to actually interact and play with them because I was over the initial shock and astonishment. When you dive down they fallow you, they blow bubbles, and play chicken I with you. They are literally just playing, we must look and act ridiculous to them and they just think we are hilarious little toys. The tropical fish were so beautiful; some of the most amazing were the Moorish Idol and Hieroglyphic Hawkfish. There were also creole fish, razor sturgeon fish, angelfish, blue-chinned parrotfish, yellow-tailed damelfish, ring-tailed damselfish, giant damselfish, yellow and red snapper, sergeant major, pufferfish, triggerfish, blennies, and many more. I also saw a huge blue lobster and an eagle ray. Definitely the best snorkeling I have ever done. On the last day we saw the penguins on Bartolome, and even saw them while we were snorkeling. They are not playful like the sea lions but it is still pretty cool to see them swim underwater. A couple days before seeing penguins we saw flamingos. That is how amazing the Galapagos are, flamingos and penguins on the same archipelago. On Santa Cruz we saw the famous giant tortoises. They used to be on more islands but were heavily hunted by early explores and inhabitants, including Charles Darwin. The evidence of them is still on the islands though. On each island the prickly pear cactus looks slightly different. On the islands where there were tortoises and land iguanas they are almost tree like and have large sharp spins, an adaptation so the tortoises could not eat them, and on islands where there were never tortoises or iguanas they are closer to the ground and the spins are almost hair like. The Darwin Foundation is working on a reintroduction program for the giant tortoises, but hasn’t had much success yet. Other famous things we saw were Darwin’s finches, which aren’t too spectacular to look at but you can see some of the characteristics Darwin saw in beak size. The last full day on the boat we finally saw red footed boobies and matting frigate birds. There are actually 3 kinds of boobies; blue footed just get all the attention for reasons unknown, maybe because of their courtship dance. But there are also Nazca boobies (formally called masked boobies) and red footed. The Nazca are nothing that amazing, they what I would consider a classic beauty, not anything spectacular but definitely pretty. 
The red footed are certainly my favorite. They have red feet, obviously, and pink and blue beaks. Also, they nest and live in trees which is just hilarious to see a large webbed footed duck perched in a tree. The frigate bird males have large red pouches that they fill with air to attract females. It was magnificent when a female flew over the sea of males because they all would flap their wings and honk in a wave as she passes, then she would land by the one she found fit. Leaving the boat was definitely sad but we still had another week and a half on San Cristobal, which made it a little easier to leave. All and all the Galapagos cruise may have been the most amazing week of my life. (By the way, I took almost 6 GB of pictures and videos in this week alone…)
San Cristobal 3/29- 4/9
Our time on San Christobal was spent mostly in lecture and doing our mini research projects. We had host families and I was with a nice family whose house was 2 blocks from what we called the “lobo beach”.
Lobos marino is the Spanish word sea lion and the saying of San Cristobal was “lobos marino, la cara de San Cristobal” and it was true. My roommate and I got into a routine of watching the lobos almost every night. At night they all came on the beach to sleep but there were always some active ones to entertain us. They was also usually a pup that could not find its mother and went around trying to get milk from any female, and got chased away. I am very surprised one of us didn’t jump over the fence and give it a bottle and claim it as their own.
I decided to do a research project on ring-tail Damselfish with Nicole, Carl, and Brenna. Damselfish have gardens that they protect and we were going to use model fish to see if they would chase juveniles of their same species or just let them come into their territory in case they were their offspring. Turns out our models were not very good and the fish were either scared of them or did not care at all. Unfortunately one of our group members was not convinced the models weren’t working and we wasted 3 days doing the model experiment before our professor told us we should change and convinced everyone it was the best option. We changed to just observing the fish in 5 minute focals look at what fish they chased. In this experiment I learned that one of my friends is not the best work partner and is actually quite stubborn and demeaning to other group members when it came to the project idea that this person came up with (which happened to be the model idea which wasn’t working). Our friendship was probably what kept us from confronting this person at the first sign of failure. But in the end we got some interesting data from our observations and all remained friends, although we will probably never choose to work with this person again. We had our Marine Biology final on the 7th. Part of the field exam was in water and was without a doubt the best exam I have even taken because in between questions I was able to play with sea lions.
The next day, our final full day in the Galaps, we took a fun snorkeling trip to kicker rock (locally know as leon dormiendo, “sleeping lion,” because it supposedly resembled one). On the way we stopped at a Lobo Island and were literally surrounded by at least 10 playful pups. Kicker rock was also great snorkeling. The wall of the rock was covered in beautiful coral, not reef building coral, but still brilliantly colored. There were also these amazing, funny little fish that swam at the surface and at first glance looked like bubbles, until you realized they we just lingering. The next day we all said our goodbyes to the sea lions and Galapagos and reluctantly headed back to Quito where we would have a couple days to write our final research paper and present a group PowerPoint on it to the class. Then we would all start our month long internship.
This trip was to see the coastal marine environment. We had 2 hour lectures everyday and a day trip where we took field notes. My mom decided last minute to come on this trip with us. She hadn’t been to the coast so it was definitely a good idea. Ecuador is divided into 3 parts: the highlands (where Quito is), the Oriente (the lowland Amazon Rainforest), and the coast. Each of these places is so different and special a trip to Ecuador is not complete if you do not visit them all. Unfortunately she will not be able to get to the Amazon, but 2 out of 3 is pretty good. The first 3 nights we stayed camped on the beach near Puerto Lopez at a hotel called Alandaluz. We took a day trip to the fish market in Puerto Lopez and another to the tide pools of Montanita. The fish market was very interesting. I had never seen an actual tuna before and we saw a huge albacore tuna. I see livestock fairly regularly and it is easy to imagine where the meat comes from but fish is different. Living in Wisconsin you never see these ocean fish. Albacore are predatory fish and much larger than I expected at about 1 meter long and meaty. We also saw a 2 meter Mahi Mahi, loads of snapper, a sail fish measuring over 2 meters, 4 sharks, and tons of other fish I can’t remember or identify. We learned a lot about the fishing industry in this course. It is legal to catch sharks in Ecuador if is only as by-catch and a small percentage of your total catch. Shark finning is the reason to kill sharks and is having a devastating effect. In Ecuador each fin goes for about 15 US dollars and then gets shipped to Japan where they are sold for much more and made into shark fin soup, an expensive delicacy often served at weddings. As for the fishing industry as a whole, it is destroying the oceans and whipping out entire fish populations. Cod is commercial extinct and we are eating down the food chain to fish that used don’t even taste good because we have killed everything else. I won’t bore you with all the specifics but it is way worse than I thought and because of this and the high quantity of fish I have eaten here in Ecuador, when I return home I am going to become a full on vegetarian and stop eating fish. I will definetly miss my fresh water fish though… I may just be very selective on my fish choices. The Alaskan fishery is one of the only sustainable fisheries, so I may make an exception for Alaskan salmon and halibut. Anyways, we also visited tide pools in Montanita.
Tide pools are another thing I have never explored before and they are rather amazing. All these little filter feeders and grazers that are quite wonderful to observe. The coolest thing was definitely seeing an octopus. A local fisherman showed us some that he had caught, soon to be turned into chiviche, and we also found a live one in the rocks. There are also these things called nudibranchs which are like naked snails, and are usually brightly colored. For our last 2 nights on the coast we stayed in Quayaquil. Quayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and I don’t have much more to say about it since we were strongly encouraged not to go out at night, even in a cab, since it is so dangerous. During the day we visited the nearby national park and saw Mangrove forests. Compared to the Amazon and tide pools no one was very interested or impressed by the forest, but it was good to see. We also visited a shrimp farm, one of the major treats to mangrove and dry forests. ( Another reason for my giving up seafood.) On the 22nd we got on our plane to the Galapagos, we were all obviously super excited.
Galapagos Cruise 3/22 – 3/29
These 7 days were amazing. I went into this Galapagos trip not expecting too much, the Galapagos have such a huge reputation I was assuming I would be disappointed if I expected that much. However, it was so much more than I even imagined. For our group we needed 2 yachts, I was on the Guantanamera with half the students and the other half were on the Eden. The Eden was slightly larger and roomier, but the Guantanamera was very nice as well. On the upper deck we had a nice covered area and some lounge chairs in the sun. I slept on these chairs at night and it was amazing. We were usually cruising at night to another island so we were in the middle of the Pacific with no light and the stars were spectacular. Our boat went to 1 or 2 different islands every day. We visited South Plazas, Floreana, Bartolome, Rabida, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Seymore, Espanola, and Genovesa. The first wildlife we saw was the Galapagos Sea Lions.
These are so adorable. They are rather clumsy on land but amazing in the water. On land they are usually just sleeping and snuggling. They usually line up in a row to sleep and the outside one always wants to get in the middle and watching them try to call what we coined “the wedge” to get into the middle spot was always entertaining. The baby pups were another level of adorableness, they waddled looking for their mom and it took all of our willpower not to snatch one up and take it home. We saw some blue footed boobies here and there, which was what I was excepting (not getting my hopes up), but on the third day we saw more blue footed booby than I thought existed. The Galapagos are so protected now that the animals don’t hide they are in our face, on the trail, and you have to move around them as to not step on them or in their nest. There were tourist with huge camera lenses and they literally had to wait to step back for many of the shots. I even heard on say “that is bird is too close for me.” Which brings me to the tourist factor, there were way more than I was expecting. I really despise feeling like a tourist when I travel, but for this cruise it was utterly unavoidable. It was mostly old white rich people with huge cameras and bodies covered in high-tech sun protection clothing, like the hats with the neck covering flap. It was amusing a lot of the time just to people watch, but the animals were luckily the main attraction. Along with our land trips we usually went snorkeling twice a day. There aren’t coral reefs in the Galaps, the water is too cold, but it is still great for marine fish. One day I saw 5 white tip sharks, I never thought I would snorkel with sharks, it was tremendous. The highlight of snorkeling was definitely when some young playful sea lions found you. The first time this happened I could not contain myself it was so awesome, and the next couple times I was able to actually interact and play with them because I was over the initial shock and astonishment. When you dive down they fallow you, they blow bubbles, and play chicken I with you. They are literally just playing, we must look and act ridiculous to them and they just think we are hilarious little toys. The tropical fish were so beautiful; some of the most amazing were the Moorish Idol and Hieroglyphic Hawkfish. There were also creole fish, razor sturgeon fish, angelfish, blue-chinned parrotfish, yellow-tailed damelfish, ring-tailed damselfish, giant damselfish, yellow and red snapper, sergeant major, pufferfish, triggerfish, blennies, and many more. I also saw a huge blue lobster and an eagle ray. Definitely the best snorkeling I have ever done. On the last day we saw the penguins on Bartolome, and even saw them while we were snorkeling. They are not playful like the sea lions but it is still pretty cool to see them swim underwater. A couple days before seeing penguins we saw flamingos. That is how amazing the Galapagos are, flamingos and penguins on the same archipelago. On Santa Cruz we saw the famous giant tortoises. They used to be on more islands but were heavily hunted by early explores and inhabitants, including Charles Darwin. The evidence of them is still on the islands though. On each island the prickly pear cactus looks slightly different. On the islands where there were tortoises and land iguanas they are almost tree like and have large sharp spins, an adaptation so the tortoises could not eat them, and on islands where there were never tortoises or iguanas they are closer to the ground and the spins are almost hair like. The Darwin Foundation is working on a reintroduction program for the giant tortoises, but hasn’t had much success yet. Other famous things we saw were Darwin’s finches, which aren’t too spectacular to look at but you can see some of the characteristics Darwin saw in beak size. The last full day on the boat we finally saw red footed boobies and matting frigate birds. There are actually 3 kinds of boobies; blue footed just get all the attention for reasons unknown, maybe because of their courtship dance. But there are also Nazca boobies (formally called masked boobies) and red footed. The Nazca are nothing that amazing, they what I would consider a classic beauty, not anything spectacular but definitely pretty. 
The red footed are certainly my favorite. They have red feet, obviously, and pink and blue beaks. Also, they nest and live in trees which is just hilarious to see a large webbed footed duck perched in a tree. The frigate bird males have large red pouches that they fill with air to attract females. It was magnificent when a female flew over the sea of males because they all would flap their wings and honk in a wave as she passes, then she would land by the one she found fit. Leaving the boat was definitely sad but we still had another week and a half on San Cristobal, which made it a little easier to leave. All and all the Galapagos cruise may have been the most amazing week of my life. (By the way, I took almost 6 GB of pictures and videos in this week alone…)San Cristobal 3/29- 4/9
Our time on San Christobal was spent mostly in lecture and doing our mini research projects. We had host families and I was with a nice family whose house was 2 blocks from what we called the “lobo beach”.
Lobos marino is the Spanish word sea lion and the saying of San Cristobal was “lobos marino, la cara de San Cristobal” and it was true. My roommate and I got into a routine of watching the lobos almost every night. At night they all came on the beach to sleep but there were always some active ones to entertain us. They was also usually a pup that could not find its mother and went around trying to get milk from any female, and got chased away. I am very surprised one of us didn’t jump over the fence and give it a bottle and claim it as their own. I decided to do a research project on ring-tail Damselfish with Nicole, Carl, and Brenna. Damselfish have gardens that they protect and we were going to use model fish to see if they would chase juveniles of their same species or just let them come into their territory in case they were their offspring. Turns out our models were not very good and the fish were either scared of them or did not care at all. Unfortunately one of our group members was not convinced the models weren’t working and we wasted 3 days doing the model experiment before our professor told us we should change and convinced everyone it was the best option. We changed to just observing the fish in 5 minute focals look at what fish they chased. In this experiment I learned that one of my friends is not the best work partner and is actually quite stubborn and demeaning to other group members when it came to the project idea that this person came up with (which happened to be the model idea which wasn’t working). Our friendship was probably what kept us from confronting this person at the first sign of failure. But in the end we got some interesting data from our observations and all remained friends, although we will probably never choose to work with this person again. We had our Marine Biology final on the 7th. Part of the field exam was in water and was without a doubt the best exam I have even taken because in between questions I was able to play with sea lions.
The next day, our final full day in the Galaps, we took a fun snorkeling trip to kicker rock (locally know as leon dormiendo, “sleeping lion,” because it supposedly resembled one). On the way we stopped at a Lobo Island and were literally surrounded by at least 10 playful pups. Kicker rock was also great snorkeling. The wall of the rock was covered in beautiful coral, not reef building coral, but still brilliantly colored. There were also these amazing, funny little fish that swam at the surface and at first glance looked like bubbles, until you realized they we just lingering. The next day we all said our goodbyes to the sea lions and Galapagos and reluctantly headed back to Quito where we would have a couple days to write our final research paper and present a group PowerPoint on it to the class. Then we would all start our month long internship.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Some multimedia to keep you entertained
http://www.youtube.com/user/bribbanyhin2 - videos
http://brittinecuador.shutterfly.com/ - photos
enjoy
http://brittinecuador.shutterfly.com/ - photos
enjoy
Friday, April 24, 2009
Galapagos Pics
I have started to post pictures from the Galapagos. I am very busy with my internship and am now back in Quito and in the Lab all day. My trip is winding down and before I know it I will be on the plane back to the states... Sometimes I cannot wait for that day but mostly I dread it.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hey
So, I have been crazy busy lately. Last wedsnesday was my Marine Bio final in the Galapagos and Monday I presented my research, handing in my research paper and field notebook then Tues i left for my intership in Tena. Unfortunetly I forgot my journal on the bus to Tena, so it is going to take me alittle longer to get the Galap blogs up and they won't be as detailed as my jounal, but I will try my best. Today I went out on the Tena river in a ducky and learned how to take algae samples. Tomorrow I go out with a group of 6 local students to take data, I am very excited and love being on the river. Hopefully I will get do to some fun rapids before I leave, afterall Tena is the white water capital of Ecuador and this trip isn't all work.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Update
TBS photos are up on my shutterfly account and I head to the coast tomorrow for a week then to the Galapagos for 3 weeks! Hope all is well in the States!
Spring Break 2009
3-15-09
SPRING BREAK ’09! Last Friday was the last day of class before spring break and also my 21st birthday. Class was pretty painless since all we were doing was giving presentations about our Tiputini research project. After class we went to the bar across the street from USFQ, Carlitos, for a few beers. My host family planned a birthday dinner for me and invited Dave and his family, my mom (who arrived in Quito on the 3rd,) and my friend Nicole. Dinner consisted of champaign, spaghetti with a mushroom alfredo sauce, and some wonderful birthday cake. Then the real 21st birthday activities started and I headed to the Mariscal to meet my friends for drinks. We started at Middle Eastern place where they have 1 dollar beers and 3 dollar hookahs. Then we headed Chupitos for my free birthday shot(s) and continued to dance the night away to reggetone music. It was definitely a birthday I will never forget, it would have been nice to celebrate with all of my Milwaukee/Madison friends but I cannot complain at all. The next morning I woke up at 8am (without no alarm somehow) and headed to the bus station with my mom to meet Nicole, Carl, and Alex to start our spring break travels. Our plan was to go to Banos for a couple days then spend to rest of the time on the beach in Canoa. Banos is a popular destination for foreign tourist and Ecuadorians alike. They are most noted for being next to a Volcano and having natural hot springs. The first night we went to the hot spring pool and it was incredibly packed with almost no gringos, a pleasant surprise. The next day we took a bike ride to see the numerous waterfalls outside of the city. Renting a bike was 5 dollars for the whole day and was advertised as mountain biking. Turns out the whole trail is on a busy road, a little scary because Ecuadorians drive a touch crazier than in the Midwest. Although most of the tunnels had a trail around them for bikes, the shortest tunnel did not. These are tunnels through the mountains and have no lights, and we did not bring our flashlights so it was mildly scary riding a bike though a 100 m tunnel in the dark, but we made it out alive and continued our journey. Nicole had been having some trouble going up hills and we noticed her tire was slightly flat, so we stopped quickly to pump it up with the small hand pump they gave us. Very soon after I was riding behind Nicole and noticed that her tire was completely flat. So, we stopped to change the inner tube. Luckily they gave us a spare tube, but only gave us a wrench to remove the tire. None of us had ever completely changed an inner tube, but my mom and I had a pretty good idea of how it was done. So we took the wheel off and attempted to take of the tire with the wrench, but were horribly unsuccessful. We got information from a local that there was a bike repair shop in Rio Verde so Nicole and my mom took a bus there while the rest of us biked. We met back up and Nicole was ready to go with a fully inflated tire. We ended up in Machay, a large waterfall that you can hike down to and swim in the pools below and climb on the rocks. A friend had told me about a secret spot to go to at the falls, but unfortunately it wasn’t too secrete anymore and they put a barbed wire fence where the trail was. But Carl and I were determined to get over there and found a way. It was about 2pm at this point and although we would have liked to stay longer we were all getting sunburned and failed to remember sunscreen. So we headed back up and took a Chiva (bus without sides, the common form of transportation in Ecuador) back to Banos. We returned the bikes and tred to get a refund because we didn’t have the proper tools to change a tire, but the women who rented the bike said everyone in the world knows how to change a bike tire with a wrench, which was obviously a little bit of an exaggeration. In Ecuador and there isn’t the same sense of liability as in the States and that combined with the language barrier we were forced to leave without a refund. The next day we planned to go canyoning, which in Banos means belaying down waterfalls. I have never heard of this sport before, but I guess it is semi-popular. Since none of us had even been canoying before we had no idea what to expect and knowing that Ecuador has a different view of safety it was mildly frightening. We hiked up to the top of a canyon with 4 larger waterfalls, between 10 and 20 m, and several smaller falls. Then our guide gave us a debriefing of technique and safety, in Spanish, at this point we were more than mildly frightened. I had to keep telling myself that so many other people had done this, but then I would think about how old and worn the equipment was and scare myself more. Going down the first waterfall was more fear then adrenaline, but by the third I was enjoying the rush. The last 2 small waterfalls we slide down on our rump, it was a great way to end. We got back into town, ate, and headed to the bus station to catch a late bus to Quito where we would meet our friend Jane before heading to the coast. We didn’t know exactly when the bus left Quito but we were hoping to make the last night bus. We got to Quito at 11:30pm and the last bus for the coast had left not even 10 minutes prior. We were forced to stay in Quito and since our host parents we not expecting us we thought it would be best to stay in a hostel for the night. We saw a couple across the street and headed over to check them out. The first one we went into the man behind the front desk seemed to be drugged out and we decided that would not be a good place to sleep, the next place looked equally as run down but we were tired, it seemed slightly more safe, and the price was right at 4 dollars a night. We settled in and tried to sleep, but were all a little worried about safety. We all sleep with our money on us and our cameras well hidden as well. Nicole, Alex, and I we ready to sleep, but Carl could not stop pacing and thinking of all the worst things that could happen to us. Finally it was the morning and we had made it through a night at the sketchiest hostel we ever hope to stay at. Unfortunately we got a call from Jane saying she was vomiting all night and wasn’t going to come with us. We caught the 8am bus, sadly without Jane, and 10 hours and 3 buses later we were in Canoa. Canoa is a small surf town that during high season gets very busy but since we were there during the week and low season it was very chill. We found a hostel across the street from the beach for 7 dollars a night unloaded our luggage and headed to the beach for a drink and some food before bed. The next morning we went to Main Street to buy some groceries. The streets do not have names in Canoa, but you can tell which on is Main Street because it is one of the only of 2 paved roads. After breakfast we headed to the beach, it was cloudy but we were not going to let clouds stop us from bumming on the beach. Nicole and Alex both played volleyball in high school and were eager to play on the beach. For some reason volleyball nets in Ecuador are very high, even though on average Ecuadorians are much shorter. But we found the shortest net on the opposite side of the beach as our hostel and started a 2 on 2 game. Soon some locals asked to join then some gringos and we got a pretty good game going on. After awhile we were hot and tired and went for a swim in the ocean. The sun had came out a little and Nicole, Alex, Carl, and some of the other Americans we met went to a cave with some locals, but I was tired and decided to take a nap. When I woke up all the local surfers had come out and were enjoying the waves. I was too shy to talk to anyone, but it was fun just watching them. That night Nicole and Alex had plans to meet up with their new Canoan friends and go to a local bar. We played pool and had some drinks before going to a discoteca to dance then were invited to a bon fire on the beach where the locals played guitar and sang till the wee hours. After this first day we were completely in love with Canoa. The next day I realized I was badly burnt on my back stomach and legs, ouch, so we all made sure to load up on sunscreen because obviously clouds do not help enough with the equatorial sun. During the morning the waves are fairly small so Carl and I rented surf boards. I have been surfing in Hawaii so I could just rent a board, but Carl had never surfed before and had to get a short lesson before getting his own board. We caught some nice waves before the tide started to come in and the waves got a little too big for us. At this point we went over the other side of the beach by the locals and found our friends from the night before. We played volleyball till sunset then headed back to our hostel for some food. So, at this point it was pretty clear that the local boys were rather good at picking up gringa girls and did this quite often, but it was part of the experience of Canoa and we were having fun. We went out dancing again then to another bon fire. The next morning our boys were supposed to give us surf lessons but there were no clouds and I did not want to go out into the sun for that long. This was our last night in Canoa and there was a huge party at the Discoteca for one of the local’s birthdays. It is such a small town that everyone knows each other and by the end of the night we felt like we also knew all the locals. It should be noted that it was mainly local boys, and Carl was a little miserable because of the lack of chicas but our friends helped him find some local girls to dance with. The next morning we packed up our stuff and out it in the kitchen so we could check out and head to the beach. I spent practically all day in the shade because my sunburn had turned into blisters and it was very painful to go in the salt water. Some new gringas had arrived and we enjoyed watching the Canoan boys flock. At one point our friends called their friend over who was talking to the new gringas and his friend made a joke about “la arta de Canoa” (the art of Canoa) referring to picking up the tourists. We all had a little laugh. As we were talking my friend motioned to his surf board and said “mi tabla es mi novia” (my board is my girlfriend) and I think that pretty accurately describes the Canoan lifestyle: surf all day and hit on gringas all night. Nicole, Alex, and I were wondering what happened to these boys as they got older because we only saw the younger generation of surfers. Where were all the old surfers? Is this a new phenomenon or do they completely give up surfing once they get to a certain age? We may never know, but hopefully went I make I back to Canoa in 10 years it will be the same chill town that I grew to love. (Also, I hope to go back to Canoa for a week after my program is done if I have enough money left.) Finally it was time to leave so we headed back to the hostel got our bags and went to the bus stop, where our boys were waiting on the curb to say goodbye. Something they have obviously done before. We said our goodbyes and reluctantly headed back to Quito. Canoa is one of those places that is really difficult to describe with words but when you are there you know you never want to leave.
SPRING BREAK ’09! Last Friday was the last day of class before spring break and also my 21st birthday. Class was pretty painless since all we were doing was giving presentations about our Tiputini research project. After class we went to the bar across the street from USFQ, Carlitos, for a few beers. My host family planned a birthday dinner for me and invited Dave and his family, my mom (who arrived in Quito on the 3rd,) and my friend Nicole. Dinner consisted of champaign, spaghetti with a mushroom alfredo sauce, and some wonderful birthday cake. Then the real 21st birthday activities started and I headed to the Mariscal to meet my friends for drinks. We started at Middle Eastern place where they have 1 dollar beers and 3 dollar hookahs. Then we headed Chupitos for my free birthday shot(s) and continued to dance the night away to reggetone music. It was definitely a birthday I will never forget, it would have been nice to celebrate with all of my Milwaukee/Madison friends but I cannot complain at all. The next morning I woke up at 8am (without no alarm somehow) and headed to the bus station with my mom to meet Nicole, Carl, and Alex to start our spring break travels. Our plan was to go to Banos for a couple days then spend to rest of the time on the beach in Canoa. Banos is a popular destination for foreign tourist and Ecuadorians alike. They are most noted for being next to a Volcano and having natural hot springs. The first night we went to the hot spring pool and it was incredibly packed with almost no gringos, a pleasant surprise. The next day we took a bike ride to see the numerous waterfalls outside of the city. Renting a bike was 5 dollars for the whole day and was advertised as mountain biking. Turns out the whole trail is on a busy road, a little scary because Ecuadorians drive a touch crazier than in the Midwest. Although most of the tunnels had a trail around them for bikes, the shortest tunnel did not. These are tunnels through the mountains and have no lights, and we did not bring our flashlights so it was mildly scary riding a bike though a 100 m tunnel in the dark, but we made it out alive and continued our journey. Nicole had been having some trouble going up hills and we noticed her tire was slightly flat, so we stopped quickly to pump it up with the small hand pump they gave us. Very soon after I was riding behind Nicole and noticed that her tire was completely flat. So, we stopped to change the inner tube. Luckily they gave us a spare tube, but only gave us a wrench to remove the tire. None of us had ever completely changed an inner tube, but my mom and I had a pretty good idea of how it was done. So we took the wheel off and attempted to take of the tire with the wrench, but were horribly unsuccessful. We got information from a local that there was a bike repair shop in Rio Verde so Nicole and my mom took a bus there while the rest of us biked. We met back up and Nicole was ready to go with a fully inflated tire. We ended up in Machay, a large waterfall that you can hike down to and swim in the pools below and climb on the rocks. A friend had told me about a secret spot to go to at the falls, but unfortunately it wasn’t too secrete anymore and they put a barbed wire fence where the trail was. But Carl and I were determined to get over there and found a way. It was about 2pm at this point and although we would have liked to stay longer we were all getting sunburned and failed to remember sunscreen. So we headed back up and took a Chiva (bus without sides, the common form of transportation in Ecuador) back to Banos. We returned the bikes and tred to get a refund because we didn’t have the proper tools to change a tire, but the women who rented the bike said everyone in the world knows how to change a bike tire with a wrench, which was obviously a little bit of an exaggeration. In Ecuador and there isn’t the same sense of liability as in the States and that combined with the language barrier we were forced to leave without a refund. The next day we planned to go canyoning, which in Banos means belaying down waterfalls. I have never heard of this sport before, but I guess it is semi-popular. Since none of us had even been canoying before we had no idea what to expect and knowing that Ecuador has a different view of safety it was mildly frightening. We hiked up to the top of a canyon with 4 larger waterfalls, between 10 and 20 m, and several smaller falls. Then our guide gave us a debriefing of technique and safety, in Spanish, at this point we were more than mildly frightened. I had to keep telling myself that so many other people had done this, but then I would think about how old and worn the equipment was and scare myself more. Going down the first waterfall was more fear then adrenaline, but by the third I was enjoying the rush. The last 2 small waterfalls we slide down on our rump, it was a great way to end. We got back into town, ate, and headed to the bus station to catch a late bus to Quito where we would meet our friend Jane before heading to the coast. We didn’t know exactly when the bus left Quito but we were hoping to make the last night bus. We got to Quito at 11:30pm and the last bus for the coast had left not even 10 minutes prior. We were forced to stay in Quito and since our host parents we not expecting us we thought it would be best to stay in a hostel for the night. We saw a couple across the street and headed over to check them out. The first one we went into the man behind the front desk seemed to be drugged out and we decided that would not be a good place to sleep, the next place looked equally as run down but we were tired, it seemed slightly more safe, and the price was right at 4 dollars a night. We settled in and tried to sleep, but were all a little worried about safety. We all sleep with our money on us and our cameras well hidden as well. Nicole, Alex, and I we ready to sleep, but Carl could not stop pacing and thinking of all the worst things that could happen to us. Finally it was the morning and we had made it through a night at the sketchiest hostel we ever hope to stay at. Unfortunately we got a call from Jane saying she was vomiting all night and wasn’t going to come with us. We caught the 8am bus, sadly without Jane, and 10 hours and 3 buses later we were in Canoa. Canoa is a small surf town that during high season gets very busy but since we were there during the week and low season it was very chill. We found a hostel across the street from the beach for 7 dollars a night unloaded our luggage and headed to the beach for a drink and some food before bed. The next morning we went to Main Street to buy some groceries. The streets do not have names in Canoa, but you can tell which on is Main Street because it is one of the only of 2 paved roads. After breakfast we headed to the beach, it was cloudy but we were not going to let clouds stop us from bumming on the beach. Nicole and Alex both played volleyball in high school and were eager to play on the beach. For some reason volleyball nets in Ecuador are very high, even though on average Ecuadorians are much shorter. But we found the shortest net on the opposite side of the beach as our hostel and started a 2 on 2 game. Soon some locals asked to join then some gringos and we got a pretty good game going on. After awhile we were hot and tired and went for a swim in the ocean. The sun had came out a little and Nicole, Alex, Carl, and some of the other Americans we met went to a cave with some locals, but I was tired and decided to take a nap. When I woke up all the local surfers had come out and were enjoying the waves. I was too shy to talk to anyone, but it was fun just watching them. That night Nicole and Alex had plans to meet up with their new Canoan friends and go to a local bar. We played pool and had some drinks before going to a discoteca to dance then were invited to a bon fire on the beach where the locals played guitar and sang till the wee hours. After this first day we were completely in love with Canoa. The next day I realized I was badly burnt on my back stomach and legs, ouch, so we all made sure to load up on sunscreen because obviously clouds do not help enough with the equatorial sun. During the morning the waves are fairly small so Carl and I rented surf boards. I have been surfing in Hawaii so I could just rent a board, but Carl had never surfed before and had to get a short lesson before getting his own board. We caught some nice waves before the tide started to come in and the waves got a little too big for us. At this point we went over the other side of the beach by the locals and found our friends from the night before. We played volleyball till sunset then headed back to our hostel for some food. So, at this point it was pretty clear that the local boys were rather good at picking up gringa girls and did this quite often, but it was part of the experience of Canoa and we were having fun. We went out dancing again then to another bon fire. The next morning our boys were supposed to give us surf lessons but there were no clouds and I did not want to go out into the sun for that long. This was our last night in Canoa and there was a huge party at the Discoteca for one of the local’s birthdays. It is such a small town that everyone knows each other and by the end of the night we felt like we also knew all the locals. It should be noted that it was mainly local boys, and Carl was a little miserable because of the lack of chicas but our friends helped him find some local girls to dance with. The next morning we packed up our stuff and out it in the kitchen so we could check out and head to the beach. I spent practically all day in the shade because my sunburn had turned into blisters and it was very painful to go in the salt water. Some new gringas had arrived and we enjoyed watching the Canoan boys flock. At one point our friends called their friend over who was talking to the new gringas and his friend made a joke about “la arta de Canoa” (the art of Canoa) referring to picking up the tourists. We all had a little laugh. As we were talking my friend motioned to his surf board and said “mi tabla es mi novia” (my board is my girlfriend) and I think that pretty accurately describes the Canoan lifestyle: surf all day and hit on gringas all night. Nicole, Alex, and I were wondering what happened to these boys as they got older because we only saw the younger generation of surfers. Where were all the old surfers? Is this a new phenomenon or do they completely give up surfing once they get to a certain age? We may never know, but hopefully went I make I back to Canoa in 10 years it will be the same chill town that I grew to love. (Also, I hope to go back to Canoa for a week after my program is done if I have enough money left.) Finally it was time to leave so we headed back to the hostel got our bags and went to the bus stop, where our boys were waiting on the curb to say goodbye. Something they have obviously done before. We said our goodbyes and reluctantly headed back to Quito. Canoa is one of those places that is really difficult to describe with words but when you are there you know you never want to leave.
TBS 3
2-25-09
Today we did a morning float to a salt lick by the water where hundreds of parrots hang out. It was pretty incredible and I got some nice pictures. After some more bird watching we went in the water and inevitably started our chain game. We finally got everyone attached (about 15 people.) We went back for lunch and then Nicole and I heading into the field for our last day of data collection. We had gone to all of the closest stream already so we knew we were in for a bit of a hike. Nicole though there was a good stream a little bit down that Mata Mata trail, so we started walking. We crossed the stream that she thought would be good, but the water had gone down too much and it was no long a continuous stream. So we kept walking, in hopes of finding a better stream. As we were walking I saw something move in the woods. It was fairly large and my first thought (for some unknown reason) was that it was a human. I told Nicole and then she saw it, we are pretty sure it was a deer. There are a lot of deer in the forest, but they are very hard to see so we were pretty lucky. Finally we found a stream that we could work on. We did your first site and caught a crawdad! We had seen them the night before on our night hike, but didn’t think they were in the small stream. We continued to collect data, and our last part of the stream was covered in a vine tangle and Nicole made the joke that she would have to “ungulate through the water” instead of the running/kick thing that we do. By the time we were done with our transect it we had 15 minutes until lecture and we were at almost 2 km from camp. So we packed up all of our gear and realized we were missing a ruler, but because of us disturbing the stream so much we couldn’t see the bottom and quickly gave up and decided to come back tomorrow. We booked it back to camp and we still 30 minutes late, whoops. We came into lecture smelly, dirty, wet, and still sweating from the hike back. After dinner we watched a pirated version of Slumdog Millionaire.
2-26-09
I worked on data analysis all day today with Nicole… inside the library.. not how I would chose to spend a day in the rainforest. However, before dinner I went down to the river to watch the sunset. The river has gone down about 10 meters since we came to Tiputini so the banks are finally exposed and you can see more wildlife. We did see a pink river dolphin today which was awesome, especially since I thought I was the subject of some large prank (like snipe hunting,) but it turns out that river dolphins really exist. After dinner Carl, Nicole, Jane, Eric and I went on a fairly uneventful night hike.
2-27-09
Today was a study day for our final tomorrow. I was in the library all day, again, not cool. We had a review before dinner and got a short presentation from a jaguar researcher before bed.
2-28-09
Day of the final. We had an hour field exam and a 3 hour written exam. After the exam Nicole, Sam, and I relaxed by the river and ate peanut butter and Oreos (a common and delicious snack at TBS.) after dinner we went on a night float. We saw a large caiman, a deer, and some night birds.
3-1-09
Today was a completely free day. Nicole and I have been wanting to take out the small canoe since we got here and finally had the opportunity to do so. So, we woke up at 5:20 am to get a ride to tower 2 so we could paddle back downstream (it is not possible to paddle upstream.) We went to the lagoon next to tower 2 to see the Houatsins for a final time. The water had gone down in the lagoon as well, and apparently no one had used the canoe since then because it was on a hill now. It had some water in the bottom so we tipped it out and pushed it down the hill. However, the hill ended in a small drop and the canoe did a small nose dive. Once the canoe was in the water there was no way we could get it back out to get the water out (note: dugout canoes are deceivingly heavy) so we had a nice ride around with about 2 inches of water in the canoe. After we had gotten our fill of bird watching we headed back to the river to canoe back, but went we got to the bank we couldn’t find our canoe. A lot of people in our group have been playing pranks so we assumed someone that had gone up into the tower knew something we didn’t. We hike back to the tower, anger building the whole way. We had been looking forward to this canoe ride back for so long, and now it had been taken away and it was our last day. We got to the tower and yelled up asking where our canoe was, they said they didn’t know but it took some convincing before we walked back and realized we had made a wrong turn the first time. The ride back was very pleasant despite to light rain. We got home and wanted to take a nap until 10am before going on the Mata Mata trail to find our lost ruler. At 11:50 we woke up very surprised at our 4 hour nap, we didn’t realize we were so tired. The afternoon float/fishing trip left at 2pm so after lunch we had to go on a speed hike to find our ruler. Surprisingly we found the ruler and made it back in time. After the float we went down the Lago trail to try to find pigmy marmoset. Pigmies are adorable little monkeys (the smallest primate in the world) that eat sap from trees, and there is a tree on Lago that they are known to like. We got there and after waiting for about 15 minute one came out. He was ridiculously cute. On the walk back I heard a woodpecker; I have heard a lot of woodpeckers but have not been able to find them. This time it sounded very close and I was determined to find him. After walking about 10 m off the trail I finally found the tree he was on and got a decent view. I love woodpeckers. We leave tomorrow after breakfast and although I was skeptical if I would like it here, I am not ready to leave. But, all good things must come to an end and I guess I am ready to go back to civilization.
P.S.
Shout out to my dad! It is his birthday today! Also notable: my mom comes in 2 days and I turn 21 in 5 days. Whoop whoop.
3-2-09
Today we got on the boat after dinner and left Tiputini. We did the trip again Boat up the Tipuntini river, Chiva bus through the oil camp, boat up the Napo river, then fly back to Quito. The water on the Tipuntini has gone down so much it looks like a different river and I like to think I came out of TBS a little different as well.
Today we did a morning float to a salt lick by the water where hundreds of parrots hang out. It was pretty incredible and I got some nice pictures. After some more bird watching we went in the water and inevitably started our chain game. We finally got everyone attached (about 15 people.) We went back for lunch and then Nicole and I heading into the field for our last day of data collection. We had gone to all of the closest stream already so we knew we were in for a bit of a hike. Nicole though there was a good stream a little bit down that Mata Mata trail, so we started walking. We crossed the stream that she thought would be good, but the water had gone down too much and it was no long a continuous stream. So we kept walking, in hopes of finding a better stream. As we were walking I saw something move in the woods. It was fairly large and my first thought (for some unknown reason) was that it was a human. I told Nicole and then she saw it, we are pretty sure it was a deer. There are a lot of deer in the forest, but they are very hard to see so we were pretty lucky. Finally we found a stream that we could work on. We did your first site and caught a crawdad! We had seen them the night before on our night hike, but didn’t think they were in the small stream. We continued to collect data, and our last part of the stream was covered in a vine tangle and Nicole made the joke that she would have to “ungulate through the water” instead of the running/kick thing that we do. By the time we were done with our transect it we had 15 minutes until lecture and we were at almost 2 km from camp. So we packed up all of our gear and realized we were missing a ruler, but because of us disturbing the stream so much we couldn’t see the bottom and quickly gave up and decided to come back tomorrow. We booked it back to camp and we still 30 minutes late, whoops. We came into lecture smelly, dirty, wet, and still sweating from the hike back. After dinner we watched a pirated version of Slumdog Millionaire.
2-26-09
I worked on data analysis all day today with Nicole… inside the library.. not how I would chose to spend a day in the rainforest. However, before dinner I went down to the river to watch the sunset. The river has gone down about 10 meters since we came to Tiputini so the banks are finally exposed and you can see more wildlife. We did see a pink river dolphin today which was awesome, especially since I thought I was the subject of some large prank (like snipe hunting,) but it turns out that river dolphins really exist. After dinner Carl, Nicole, Jane, Eric and I went on a fairly uneventful night hike.
2-27-09
Today was a study day for our final tomorrow. I was in the library all day, again, not cool. We had a review before dinner and got a short presentation from a jaguar researcher before bed.
2-28-09
Day of the final. We had an hour field exam and a 3 hour written exam. After the exam Nicole, Sam, and I relaxed by the river and ate peanut butter and Oreos (a common and delicious snack at TBS.) after dinner we went on a night float. We saw a large caiman, a deer, and some night birds.
3-1-09
Today was a completely free day. Nicole and I have been wanting to take out the small canoe since we got here and finally had the opportunity to do so. So, we woke up at 5:20 am to get a ride to tower 2 so we could paddle back downstream (it is not possible to paddle upstream.) We went to the lagoon next to tower 2 to see the Houatsins for a final time. The water had gone down in the lagoon as well, and apparently no one had used the canoe since then because it was on a hill now. It had some water in the bottom so we tipped it out and pushed it down the hill. However, the hill ended in a small drop and the canoe did a small nose dive. Once the canoe was in the water there was no way we could get it back out to get the water out (note: dugout canoes are deceivingly heavy) so we had a nice ride around with about 2 inches of water in the canoe. After we had gotten our fill of bird watching we headed back to the river to canoe back, but went we got to the bank we couldn’t find our canoe. A lot of people in our group have been playing pranks so we assumed someone that had gone up into the tower knew something we didn’t. We hike back to the tower, anger building the whole way. We had been looking forward to this canoe ride back for so long, and now it had been taken away and it was our last day. We got to the tower and yelled up asking where our canoe was, they said they didn’t know but it took some convincing before we walked back and realized we had made a wrong turn the first time. The ride back was very pleasant despite to light rain. We got home and wanted to take a nap until 10am before going on the Mata Mata trail to find our lost ruler. At 11:50 we woke up very surprised at our 4 hour nap, we didn’t realize we were so tired. The afternoon float/fishing trip left at 2pm so after lunch we had to go on a speed hike to find our ruler. Surprisingly we found the ruler and made it back in time. After the float we went down the Lago trail to try to find pigmy marmoset. Pigmies are adorable little monkeys (the smallest primate in the world) that eat sap from trees, and there is a tree on Lago that they are known to like. We got there and after waiting for about 15 minute one came out. He was ridiculously cute. On the walk back I heard a woodpecker; I have heard a lot of woodpeckers but have not been able to find them. This time it sounded very close and I was determined to find him. After walking about 10 m off the trail I finally found the tree he was on and got a decent view. I love woodpeckers. We leave tomorrow after breakfast and although I was skeptical if I would like it here, I am not ready to leave. But, all good things must come to an end and I guess I am ready to go back to civilization.
P.S.
Shout out to my dad! It is his birthday today! Also notable: my mom comes in 2 days and I turn 21 in 5 days. Whoop whoop.
3-2-09
Today we got on the boat after dinner and left Tiputini. We did the trip again Boat up the Tipuntini river, Chiva bus through the oil camp, boat up the Napo river, then fly back to Quito. The water on the Tipuntini has gone down so much it looks like a different river and I like to think I came out of TBS a little different as well.
TBS 2
2-16-09
Today was our turn to do the “Jaguar Hike” we soon caught on that the merely put the word “jaguar” in front to make to hike seem more interesting. Although we didn’t see a jaguar it was a nice leisurely hike through the jungle, until it was 11:30 and we were farther away from camp that we should have been to get back on time for lunch. So we picked up our pace and took the shortest was back on a research trail, which are not as heavily used so more overgrown. I walk walking in the middle of the group with the 2 guides and a couple students in front of me when I saw a snake in the corner of my snake. I immediately turned around saying “snake snake snake…” It was a little snake but it startled me since it was almost on the trail. I was also surprised half the group walked past it without realizing. I guess it was a harmless garden snake but I obviously didn’t know that when I first saw it. Snakes are the animal that scares me the most in the rainforest, because they are the only animal that could quickly and easily kill you. We continued our light jog back to camp when we crossed a small stream. I looked down it as I was crossing and say a tortoise, this did not scare me as much as the snake but I was once again surprised no one saw it in front of me. We ended up getting to lunch about 30 minutes late, but there was still food so it was fine. After lunch we went for a dip in the Tiputini River, it was very refreshing after our long hike. After that we went out to start a mark and recapture experiment with bullet ants. This consisted of kicking a tree that bullet ants lived at the base of then marking all the ones that came out with bright nail polish, all the while trying not to get bit. Next we headed back to our pitfall traps to collect our bugs, this time I managed to not fall down at all. After dinner I went on a night hike with Carl, Jane, Eric, and Mark. We saw a tarantula as well as lots of frogs. Then Eric found a snake which he immediately picked up… I was not OK with this and kept my distance. He insisted he knew it wasn’t poisonous, but I told him “we are in the most biodiverse place in the world, if you can’t tell me the species I am not going near it.” He told me I was overreacting and continued to toy with the unidentified snake.
2-17-09
I woke up at 5:27 this morning to the horrible realization that my alarm had not gone off and I was supposed to be at the boat dock in 3 minutes to go to Tower 2. Luckily I had set out everything the night before in case this happened and was able to make it to the boat before it left. We got to tower and did some bird watching as the sun rose. The tower is about 45 m high and has an excellent view of the canopy. But after almost 3 hours of birding, which is very near my limit, I went down and took out a small canoe with Teal and Cath. The lagoon had lots of Hautsons, a prehistoric looking bird that is supposedly very sensitive to human disturbance and therefore their presence is a sign of a healthy forest. Before we docked to head back to camp, Cath showed us a tree that we could pull a prank with. The tree’s fruit had a black die in it that was invisible at first so you tell people that if they put it on their forehead they will “see spots” and they put it on in hopes of trying a hallucinogen, but then about 30 minutes later only see spots on the other victims’ foreheads. After lunch we went for a float down the river and a butterfly sat on my head almost the entire time. Then we went back to out bullet ant trees to finish our mark and recapture experiment. This time we just aggravated the nest and counted how many marked and unmarked ants came out, and with this information we were able to estimate the population on the nest.
2-18-09
Today was our first completely free day and our first day of rain. Every night since we have been here there is a tree frog that is very loud (his call sounds like “mot mot” so that has become what my roommates and I say to each other in passing – very comical.) He is a tiny tree frog that sits in bromeliads and uses them as a projection device. Last night was the first night he really kept me up because after a large crack of thunder we would get twice as loud, as if completing with it. I do enjoy thunderstorms, and this was by far the noisiest I have ever head, between the torrential down pour, the enormous cracks of thunder, and the tree frog it was quite a spectacle. During the morning I took a nap then woke and woke up when the rain started to pick up again so I sat on our porch to watch the downpour. The day before my roommates and I were talking about how much we like to dance in the rain and I thought there was no time like the present so I found them and we had a glorious dance party in the middle of the jungle (no need to shower today.) After lunch Nicole and I started to plan our research project. We were thinking about doing something with macro-organisms in streams. We are hoping to come up with something that involves fishing, but so far all we can come up with is a blind taste test to see it fish from black-water or white-water streams taste better, which is sadly not very scientific. Lecture today was about freshwater systems which was ironically very relevant to my and Nicole project. After lecture and dinner I continued my lazy day reading in our cabin listening to the rain drizzle on the roof and the thunder rumble in the distance.
2-19-09
I woke up today and it was still raining, went to breakfast – still raining. My group was supposed to go on a float down the black-water river in the morning but because of the rain it was postponed till the afternoon. In the morning Nicole and I worked on our research project again. We have giving up on the fishing idea and are just going to compare small clear-water streams. After lunch it was still drizzling, but we went on the float anyways. The boat ride was about 3 hours long, and for about 10 minutes of that there was no rain. I made the decision not to bring my rain gear on the boat because it was already wet, but I was cold and miserable for most of the time because of my choice. Finally we saw some Red Howler monkeys and I started to get in a better mood. Black-water Rivers are regularly flooded and right now the Tiputini River is exceptionally high, so we were navigating through submerged trees getting stuck multiple times and having to machete our way out. We eventually got to a somewhat open area so that we could start fishing. The poles consisted of a piece of wood with line wrapped around it and the bait was a chuck of chicken, mainly for catching piranhas. Yesterday, Joe said that if we caught enough fish we may be able to do our fishing experiment. We didn’t catch any… On the way back we saw a 3-toed sloth and a laughing falcon.
2-20-09
This morning we wrote our proposal for our research project and decided to do morpho-species in small clear-water streams. To collect data we made a kick-net. We had to make do with the limited resources at the station and made the net out of a stiff net, not the best for catching fish, and a wire frame. The hardest part was trying to talk tot the Ecuadorian construction workers so they would cut our wire. After lunch we finished the net and wet to go try it out on a nearby stream. We were fairly worried about not catching anything and therefore having no data, but not only did we catch insects we catch FISH! When I say fish I mean a small minnow, but still we were pretty excited. Today a group of about 20 USFQ exchange students from Boston University came. They are not studying science or very interesting in it at all, so we were fairly territorial of the station and fairly angry when we found out they saw an anaconda on their first boat ride. Tonight at 3am we are planning on going on a nioght hike in hopes of seeing a Tapir, but we will see if that actually happens.
2-21-09
Last night we didn’t wake up for our night hike because it was raining. Also, at 5:30 we were supposed to go mist netting, but it was raining. Instead we spent most of the morning sleeping and then having meetings with Joe and Cath about our research project. They obviously had some doubts about our project so after lunch we went out again and did a full test run, taking turbidity, temperature, depth, width, flow rate, and using our kick net to identify morpho-species. We caught water striders, minnows, and nymphs, so it was definitely a success and we would most likely be able to collect enough data in 4 days to analyze. We came back for lecture and dinner, and went to bed in hopes of no rain in the morning so we could go mist netting.
2-22-09
This morning at 5:27 we woke up to NO RAIN! Then rushed to met everyone at 5:30 to leave. Mist netting is a way to catch small understory birds that are usually very hard to see and study by setting up thin net that birds fly into and get caught. Once caught you can remove them take the data needed and release them again. We caught some pretty tanagers, a ant bird (which doesn’t actually eat ants, but fallows army ants and eats the insects running away from them.) We also caught a humming bird, which is very fragile so we let it go right away. After we got back Nicole and I started our first full day of data collection. We ended up getting some good data and getting very wet. Some of the pools were above our knees, and as we were kicking downstream the water would splash everywhere. Eventhough the water was about 24˚C (75˚F) it seemed cold because the air is so warm. After we were done we emptied our boots of water and headed back for lunch. after lunch we went into the field again. This stream was a lot wider, shallower, and clearer, so we could see wildlife a lot better and saw some fair good sized fish, which only mean about 2 inches long. Nicole got really excited about the larger fish and after collecting data she insisted we try and catch one, but they were too fast for us.
2-23-09
Today was another day routine day. Breakfast at 6:30 fallowed by going into the field. We came back for lunch at noon then went back into the field to another stream, came back to read/study before dinner then bed.
2-24-09
This morning we went out into the field. When we got to our stream there was a hummingbird sitting on one of the branches over the water. Soon it left the branch and started hovering over the water dipping down periodically to bath itself. It was definitely the favorite thing I have seen here so far. After lunch we were able to do a float down river. Usually the boat stays fairly close while we are in the water, but today they went out of view, which had us a little worried but then we started playing out chain game so we forgot about our boat leaving us in the Tiputini. (Note: Peru is about 4 hours downstream so we always joke about just floating to Peru.) Our chain game consist of finding a tree that is partially submerged so someone can hold onto it while everyone else grabs on to the persons’ feet in front of them creating a long chain. The challenge is trying to get everyone attached before someone breaks the link. The most we got today was about 10 people. When we got back we had a short hike to review plant families, and we pleasantly interrupted but a capuchin monkey and later some squirrel monkeys. After dinner we went on a night hike to a large stream and some some huge toads and crawdads.
Today was our turn to do the “Jaguar Hike” we soon caught on that the merely put the word “jaguar” in front to make to hike seem more interesting. Although we didn’t see a jaguar it was a nice leisurely hike through the jungle, until it was 11:30 and we were farther away from camp that we should have been to get back on time for lunch. So we picked up our pace and took the shortest was back on a research trail, which are not as heavily used so more overgrown. I walk walking in the middle of the group with the 2 guides and a couple students in front of me when I saw a snake in the corner of my snake. I immediately turned around saying “snake snake snake…” It was a little snake but it startled me since it was almost on the trail. I was also surprised half the group walked past it without realizing. I guess it was a harmless garden snake but I obviously didn’t know that when I first saw it. Snakes are the animal that scares me the most in the rainforest, because they are the only animal that could quickly and easily kill you. We continued our light jog back to camp when we crossed a small stream. I looked down it as I was crossing and say a tortoise, this did not scare me as much as the snake but I was once again surprised no one saw it in front of me. We ended up getting to lunch about 30 minutes late, but there was still food so it was fine. After lunch we went for a dip in the Tiputini River, it was very refreshing after our long hike. After that we went out to start a mark and recapture experiment with bullet ants. This consisted of kicking a tree that bullet ants lived at the base of then marking all the ones that came out with bright nail polish, all the while trying not to get bit. Next we headed back to our pitfall traps to collect our bugs, this time I managed to not fall down at all. After dinner I went on a night hike with Carl, Jane, Eric, and Mark. We saw a tarantula as well as lots of frogs. Then Eric found a snake which he immediately picked up… I was not OK with this and kept my distance. He insisted he knew it wasn’t poisonous, but I told him “we are in the most biodiverse place in the world, if you can’t tell me the species I am not going near it.” He told me I was overreacting and continued to toy with the unidentified snake.
2-17-09
I woke up at 5:27 this morning to the horrible realization that my alarm had not gone off and I was supposed to be at the boat dock in 3 minutes to go to Tower 2. Luckily I had set out everything the night before in case this happened and was able to make it to the boat before it left. We got to tower and did some bird watching as the sun rose. The tower is about 45 m high and has an excellent view of the canopy. But after almost 3 hours of birding, which is very near my limit, I went down and took out a small canoe with Teal and Cath. The lagoon had lots of Hautsons, a prehistoric looking bird that is supposedly very sensitive to human disturbance and therefore their presence is a sign of a healthy forest. Before we docked to head back to camp, Cath showed us a tree that we could pull a prank with. The tree’s fruit had a black die in it that was invisible at first so you tell people that if they put it on their forehead they will “see spots” and they put it on in hopes of trying a hallucinogen, but then about 30 minutes later only see spots on the other victims’ foreheads. After lunch we went for a float down the river and a butterfly sat on my head almost the entire time. Then we went back to out bullet ant trees to finish our mark and recapture experiment. This time we just aggravated the nest and counted how many marked and unmarked ants came out, and with this information we were able to estimate the population on the nest.
2-18-09
Today was our first completely free day and our first day of rain. Every night since we have been here there is a tree frog that is very loud (his call sounds like “mot mot” so that has become what my roommates and I say to each other in passing – very comical.) He is a tiny tree frog that sits in bromeliads and uses them as a projection device. Last night was the first night he really kept me up because after a large crack of thunder we would get twice as loud, as if completing with it. I do enjoy thunderstorms, and this was by far the noisiest I have ever head, between the torrential down pour, the enormous cracks of thunder, and the tree frog it was quite a spectacle. During the morning I took a nap then woke and woke up when the rain started to pick up again so I sat on our porch to watch the downpour. The day before my roommates and I were talking about how much we like to dance in the rain and I thought there was no time like the present so I found them and we had a glorious dance party in the middle of the jungle (no need to shower today.) After lunch Nicole and I started to plan our research project. We were thinking about doing something with macro-organisms in streams. We are hoping to come up with something that involves fishing, but so far all we can come up with is a blind taste test to see it fish from black-water or white-water streams taste better, which is sadly not very scientific. Lecture today was about freshwater systems which was ironically very relevant to my and Nicole project. After lecture and dinner I continued my lazy day reading in our cabin listening to the rain drizzle on the roof and the thunder rumble in the distance.
2-19-09
I woke up today and it was still raining, went to breakfast – still raining. My group was supposed to go on a float down the black-water river in the morning but because of the rain it was postponed till the afternoon. In the morning Nicole and I worked on our research project again. We have giving up on the fishing idea and are just going to compare small clear-water streams. After lunch it was still drizzling, but we went on the float anyways. The boat ride was about 3 hours long, and for about 10 minutes of that there was no rain. I made the decision not to bring my rain gear on the boat because it was already wet, but I was cold and miserable for most of the time because of my choice. Finally we saw some Red Howler monkeys and I started to get in a better mood. Black-water Rivers are regularly flooded and right now the Tiputini River is exceptionally high, so we were navigating through submerged trees getting stuck multiple times and having to machete our way out. We eventually got to a somewhat open area so that we could start fishing. The poles consisted of a piece of wood with line wrapped around it and the bait was a chuck of chicken, mainly for catching piranhas. Yesterday, Joe said that if we caught enough fish we may be able to do our fishing experiment. We didn’t catch any… On the way back we saw a 3-toed sloth and a laughing falcon.
2-20-09
This morning we wrote our proposal for our research project and decided to do morpho-species in small clear-water streams. To collect data we made a kick-net. We had to make do with the limited resources at the station and made the net out of a stiff net, not the best for catching fish, and a wire frame. The hardest part was trying to talk tot the Ecuadorian construction workers so they would cut our wire. After lunch we finished the net and wet to go try it out on a nearby stream. We were fairly worried about not catching anything and therefore having no data, but not only did we catch insects we catch FISH! When I say fish I mean a small minnow, but still we were pretty excited. Today a group of about 20 USFQ exchange students from Boston University came. They are not studying science or very interesting in it at all, so we were fairly territorial of the station and fairly angry when we found out they saw an anaconda on their first boat ride. Tonight at 3am we are planning on going on a nioght hike in hopes of seeing a Tapir, but we will see if that actually happens.
2-21-09
Last night we didn’t wake up for our night hike because it was raining. Also, at 5:30 we were supposed to go mist netting, but it was raining. Instead we spent most of the morning sleeping and then having meetings with Joe and Cath about our research project. They obviously had some doubts about our project so after lunch we went out again and did a full test run, taking turbidity, temperature, depth, width, flow rate, and using our kick net to identify morpho-species. We caught water striders, minnows, and nymphs, so it was definitely a success and we would most likely be able to collect enough data in 4 days to analyze. We came back for lecture and dinner, and went to bed in hopes of no rain in the morning so we could go mist netting.
2-22-09
This morning at 5:27 we woke up to NO RAIN! Then rushed to met everyone at 5:30 to leave. Mist netting is a way to catch small understory birds that are usually very hard to see and study by setting up thin net that birds fly into and get caught. Once caught you can remove them take the data needed and release them again. We caught some pretty tanagers, a ant bird (which doesn’t actually eat ants, but fallows army ants and eats the insects running away from them.) We also caught a humming bird, which is very fragile so we let it go right away. After we got back Nicole and I started our first full day of data collection. We ended up getting some good data and getting very wet. Some of the pools were above our knees, and as we were kicking downstream the water would splash everywhere. Eventhough the water was about 24˚C (75˚F) it seemed cold because the air is so warm. After we were done we emptied our boots of water and headed back for lunch. after lunch we went into the field again. This stream was a lot wider, shallower, and clearer, so we could see wildlife a lot better and saw some fair good sized fish, which only mean about 2 inches long. Nicole got really excited about the larger fish and after collecting data she insisted we try and catch one, but they were too fast for us.
2-23-09
Today was another day routine day. Breakfast at 6:30 fallowed by going into the field. We came back for lunch at noon then went back into the field to another stream, came back to read/study before dinner then bed.
2-24-09
This morning we went out into the field. When we got to our stream there was a hummingbird sitting on one of the branches over the water. Soon it left the branch and started hovering over the water dipping down periodically to bath itself. It was definitely the favorite thing I have seen here so far. After lunch we were able to do a float down river. Usually the boat stays fairly close while we are in the water, but today they went out of view, which had us a little worried but then we started playing out chain game so we forgot about our boat leaving us in the Tiputini. (Note: Peru is about 4 hours downstream so we always joke about just floating to Peru.) Our chain game consist of finding a tree that is partially submerged so someone can hold onto it while everyone else grabs on to the persons’ feet in front of them creating a long chain. The challenge is trying to get everyone attached before someone breaks the link. The most we got today was about 10 people. When we got back we had a short hike to review plant families, and we pleasantly interrupted but a capuchin monkey and later some squirrel monkeys. After dinner we went on a night hike to a large stream and some some huge toads and crawdads.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
TBS 1
2-13-09
Today we traveled from Quito to Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS.) This involved a taxi ride to the airport to catch our 6:30am flight to Coca. The flight was only 30 minutes, but if we would have taken a bus it would have been over 10 hours because it is through the Andes. Once we arrived in Coca we took a bus to the Napo River to catch our boat. The Napo is the main river in Ecuador and it also a main tributary to the Amazon River. Coca is an old oil town and the boat dock is at an old missionary hotel. The boat was about 2 hours late so we enjoyed a cold beer, the last we will have for the next 3 weeks because the oil company does not allow any alcohol. Finally the boat came and we took a 2 hour ride down the Napo to the oil company’s dock. Here we had to go through the oil company’s security (where they checked for alcohol) this is because the land that the oil company owns is not under Ecuadorian law, so they can pretty much demand whatever they want. Ecuador makes a large majority of its money from drilling and has some very odd policies. After we got though their check point we took a 2 hour bus ride to the Tiputini River where we took a 2 hour boat ride to TBS. Once we got there we ate dinner, unpacked and went to bed.
2-14-09
Today I took my first Amazonian nature hike. It was very humid, but still pretty cool. I saw birds, insects, monkeys, and fungi that I have never seen before or even imagined. Tipuntini and the surrounding Yasuní National Park is considered the most bio-diverse place in the world, and it is absolutely an amazing opportunity to learn about the environment. On our hike today we walked past a Ceiba tree that was over 500 years old. WOW! We were almost back to the station and we came to a bridge, well it was supposed to be a bridge, but it was completely submerged in water. The Tiputini River is very high and therefor a lot of the tributaries are also flooded. We found some trees to walk on but it was still very scary because Cath said the bridge is usually 20 feet above the river, so the bottom is a long ways away. Also, the tree had bullet ants on it. Bullet ants are very large and when they bite you it supposedly feel like a bullet, not something I especially want to experience. But, we made it across safe and got back in time for lunch soaking wet. After lunch we wondered around camp and collected plant specimen and took pictures of animals in order to help get used to identifying things without constantly asking our teachers (Joe and Cath were obviously getting sick of answering our numerous questions.)
2-15-09
We started a 3-day rotation today. Today my group went up to the canopy walk and tower 1, tomorrow we take a nature hike, then finally we go up to tower 2 to see the sunrise at 5:30am. During breakfast a group of about 20 golden mantled tamarins went through camp, I did not have my camera so I quickly walked back to the library to get it. The walk is not that long but the stairs are very slippery and on the way back I slipped on a stair and face planted… a wonderful way to start a day, the monkeys did make me feel a little better. After eating we went to the canopy walk, which consists of a string of 4 brigdes 45 m in the air connected by platforms in large trees. The view was spectacular even though we didn’t see much wildlife. After that we went over to tower 1 it is a little shorter and mainly for bird watching, but by this time is was about 10:30, not good bird watching time and unfortunately prime time for sweat bees and we quickly became very annoyed. We went back for lunch and after lunch we into the forest to set pitfall traps. Pitfall traps are cups that you burry in the ground so unsuspecting insects fall in them as they are walking around. We set 5 at the river and 5 at the top of a hill. As I was trying to climb up the hill after setting everything up I lost my footing and slid down on my rump. My friend Jane was the only one to witness it and got a very good laugh out of it before helping me up. On the way back for lecture we ran into a group of woolly monkeys. It was a group of about 10-15 and they went right over our heads. For awhile one was directly over me starring at me and shaking branches, aparently a sign of hostility. Eventually they all passed and we continued back to camp. Nicole and Jane wanted to wait and try to find a peccary they thought they herd, but I was not very interested. Yesterday my Ecuadorian guide told my group a 20 minute story about being surrounded by a herd of peccaries. Some of them travel in groups of ever 100, and will easily trample you. When you see them you are supposed to climb a tree (which hopefully doesn’t have spikes or biting ants) and wait for them to pass, which can be hours, it does not sound like very much fun. We got back to camp and went to the library for lecture. During lecture I dropped my brand new bottle of ají and it spilled all over (if anyone is keeping track so far today I have fallen twice and broken 1 thing.) The rest of lecture smelled like guayaba ají, which was actually kind of pleasant. They rest of the night I managed not to fall or break anything and went to bed.
Today we traveled from Quito to Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS.) This involved a taxi ride to the airport to catch our 6:30am flight to Coca. The flight was only 30 minutes, but if we would have taken a bus it would have been over 10 hours because it is through the Andes. Once we arrived in Coca we took a bus to the Napo River to catch our boat. The Napo is the main river in Ecuador and it also a main tributary to the Amazon River. Coca is an old oil town and the boat dock is at an old missionary hotel. The boat was about 2 hours late so we enjoyed a cold beer, the last we will have for the next 3 weeks because the oil company does not allow any alcohol. Finally the boat came and we took a 2 hour ride down the Napo to the oil company’s dock. Here we had to go through the oil company’s security (where they checked for alcohol) this is because the land that the oil company owns is not under Ecuadorian law, so they can pretty much demand whatever they want. Ecuador makes a large majority of its money from drilling and has some very odd policies. After we got though their check point we took a 2 hour bus ride to the Tiputini River where we took a 2 hour boat ride to TBS. Once we got there we ate dinner, unpacked and went to bed.
2-14-09
Today I took my first Amazonian nature hike. It was very humid, but still pretty cool. I saw birds, insects, monkeys, and fungi that I have never seen before or even imagined. Tipuntini and the surrounding Yasuní National Park is considered the most bio-diverse place in the world, and it is absolutely an amazing opportunity to learn about the environment. On our hike today we walked past a Ceiba tree that was over 500 years old. WOW! We were almost back to the station and we came to a bridge, well it was supposed to be a bridge, but it was completely submerged in water. The Tiputini River is very high and therefor a lot of the tributaries are also flooded. We found some trees to walk on but it was still very scary because Cath said the bridge is usually 20 feet above the river, so the bottom is a long ways away. Also, the tree had bullet ants on it. Bullet ants are very large and when they bite you it supposedly feel like a bullet, not something I especially want to experience. But, we made it across safe and got back in time for lunch soaking wet. After lunch we wondered around camp and collected plant specimen and took pictures of animals in order to help get used to identifying things without constantly asking our teachers (Joe and Cath were obviously getting sick of answering our numerous questions.)
2-15-09
We started a 3-day rotation today. Today my group went up to the canopy walk and tower 1, tomorrow we take a nature hike, then finally we go up to tower 2 to see the sunrise at 5:30am. During breakfast a group of about 20 golden mantled tamarins went through camp, I did not have my camera so I quickly walked back to the library to get it. The walk is not that long but the stairs are very slippery and on the way back I slipped on a stair and face planted… a wonderful way to start a day, the monkeys did make me feel a little better. After eating we went to the canopy walk, which consists of a string of 4 brigdes 45 m in the air connected by platforms in large trees. The view was spectacular even though we didn’t see much wildlife. After that we went over to tower 1 it is a little shorter and mainly for bird watching, but by this time is was about 10:30, not good bird watching time and unfortunately prime time for sweat bees and we quickly became very annoyed. We went back for lunch and after lunch we into the forest to set pitfall traps. Pitfall traps are cups that you burry in the ground so unsuspecting insects fall in them as they are walking around. We set 5 at the river and 5 at the top of a hill. As I was trying to climb up the hill after setting everything up I lost my footing and slid down on my rump. My friend Jane was the only one to witness it and got a very good laugh out of it before helping me up. On the way back for lecture we ran into a group of woolly monkeys. It was a group of about 10-15 and they went right over our heads. For awhile one was directly over me starring at me and shaking branches, aparently a sign of hostility. Eventually they all passed and we continued back to camp. Nicole and Jane wanted to wait and try to find a peccary they thought they herd, but I was not very interested. Yesterday my Ecuadorian guide told my group a 20 minute story about being surrounded by a herd of peccaries. Some of them travel in groups of ever 100, and will easily trample you. When you see them you are supposed to climb a tree (which hopefully doesn’t have spikes or biting ants) and wait for them to pass, which can be hours, it does not sound like very much fun. We got back to camp and went to the library for lecture. During lecture I dropped my brand new bottle of ají and it spilled all over (if anyone is keeping track so far today I have fallen twice and broken 1 thing.) The rest of lecture smelled like guayaba ají, which was actually kind of pleasant. They rest of the night I managed not to fall or break anything and went to bed.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Lalo and the coast
2-8-09
February 4th and 5th we had the routine of: breakfast, collecting data, lunch, lecture, dinner, and relax. The first day we took data about tree and vine density in near the river bed verse the hilltop and compared data. The second day we collected insects from the primary forest, secondary forest, and pasture and compared the abundance each order of insect. Along with this routine, every morning and night cicadas started to rub their legs together and make an almost defining sound. Also, during the insect collection we came to find that they were also very stupid. They seem to fly around completely aimlessly until running into something they could sit on, sitting for a short time then starting to fly aimlessly again, very odd. Another sound that we were always awaken to was howler monkeys, these are much cuter than cicadas and definitely more coordinated, mainly since they have thumbs and awesome tails that act like a fifth hand most of the time. During one lecture we were startled by the loudest howler we had heard yet, soon we were able to see it out of the window of our house, at which time lecture was forced to take a break while we went to go watch the monkeys. Another run in with monkeys happened when Dave and John went to stay in a recently built tree house for the night. When they arrived they were greeted by a capuchin monkey. These monkeys are much more rare to see because they are heavily hunted for the pet trade and therefore very afraid of humans. Along with lots of monkey and cicadas, we were also bombarded with bananas. I never realized how many ways you can eat a banana and that is it appropriate to eat at every meal. Granted they have a much larger variety of bananas in Ecuador than Wisconsin, but still after this trip I with I will be set on potassium for a very long time. Another thing we ate a lot of was yogurt, but not just any yogurt, Yogur Don Lalo. Lalo Loor is the owner of the reserve and makes most of his money from dairy farming and making dairy related products, and let me tell you this is seriously the best yogurt I have ever had. Between the animals and the food my stay at Lalo Loor was definitely interesting and exciting.
On Friday the 6th, our last day at Lalo Loor, we switched it up did volunteer work around the reserve. This consisted of everything from gardening to trail maintenance to cleaning to house. Finally after working hard all morning we headed off to the beach for our free weekend. The beach was about a 30 minute bus ride away and was called Punta Pierta, or black point. We got there set up or tents and went for a swim. We were told the riptide would go south so most of us entered in the northern side of the beach expected to get pushed southward. Unfortunately the riptide was going north and there was a large cliff with jagged rocks underneath it to the north. I was trying to catch some waves and body surf but found myself spending all my energy trying to swim away from the rock. At one point I was stuck in same spot for quite awhile because I wold swim away from the rocks then a wave would come and push me toward them then I would swim away and another wave would come, etc. Finally I got back to shore; not very satisfied with my first swim since it was mainly spent trying to avoid rocks. soon about 5 students came onto the beach all scratched up, I soon found out that they had gotten stuck on the rocks and had no choice but to go around the point and walked back on the street to our side of the beach. Jane and Nicole, who I have become closest with on the trip so far, were 2 of the students that got stuck on the rocks. Upon there return they were kind of shaken up and we went p to the restraint to have a beer and decompress. After dinner out professors, Joe and Cath, invited some of their friends to a party on the beach. The party consisted of a camp fire some volunteers from neighboring towns and some local boys. There was meringue music but no dancing and I was brought back to middle school when the girls and the boys were separated at dances. However, this time is was the boys who wanted to dance and the girls who were too shy. Eventually we started to mingle and it ended up being a pretty fun night.
The next day we had off to do anything we wanted. A couple people went off on a horse ride while most of us stayed at the beach to relax. My day consisted of swimming and playing testy ball on the beach. Testy ball is a very hard game to explain, but it involves throwing a string with a ball attached to each side into a ladder like structure to gain points. Nicole and I won, obviously. After a lazy day on the beach we all slowly started to realize that despite reapplying sunscreen throughout the day, most of us were very badly burnt, myself included. At dinner we passed around a aloe plant and tried not to think about the horrible pain we were in. After dinner we gathered on the beach where those with musical talent entertained the rest of us until we all scattered off to our respected tents.
The next morning at about 5am it started pouring rain, the last thing you want went you have to pack up your tent in less than 3 hours. A half hour before we had to be all packed up the rain stopped and we folded up our soaked tents went to breakfast. After eating we got into the bus and started to drive up the hill to the main road. Soon we realized this was not going to be as easy as it sounded. The rain had made the dirt road to muddy to drive up without getting stuck. So, we all got out and started to rebuild the road with gravel and dead palm leaves. Then about 5 people pushed the back off the bus and eventually we got up the driveway. We got back on the bus and realized on of the students, Carl, was “asleep” on the bus the whole time and avoided all the hard labor. On the ride back I looked at the date on my watch and realized it was February 8th, and that the 1 month count down to my 21st birthday was well underway. In the states I am sure that February 6th, the one month mark to me being able to legally drink, would have been a pretty important day but here I didn’t even realize. Finally, after 7 uncomfortable hours on the bus we back in cold Quito.
We have the next 2 days off then we go to school at USFQ for 2 days before heading to Tiputini in the Amazon. We will be in the Amazon from February 13 to March 1, and internet will not be available, so please don’t worry that there are no blog posts for the next couple weeks. If anything horrible happens to me I am sure my parents will be notified ASAP, so if you do here any news before I get back it is probably not a good sign. Also, new pictures have been added to http://brittinecuador.shutterfly.com/
February 4th and 5th we had the routine of: breakfast, collecting data, lunch, lecture, dinner, and relax. The first day we took data about tree and vine density in near the river bed verse the hilltop and compared data. The second day we collected insects from the primary forest, secondary forest, and pasture and compared the abundance each order of insect. Along with this routine, every morning and night cicadas started to rub their legs together and make an almost defining sound. Also, during the insect collection we came to find that they were also very stupid. They seem to fly around completely aimlessly until running into something they could sit on, sitting for a short time then starting to fly aimlessly again, very odd. Another sound that we were always awaken to was howler monkeys, these are much cuter than cicadas and definitely more coordinated, mainly since they have thumbs and awesome tails that act like a fifth hand most of the time. During one lecture we were startled by the loudest howler we had heard yet, soon we were able to see it out of the window of our house, at which time lecture was forced to take a break while we went to go watch the monkeys. Another run in with monkeys happened when Dave and John went to stay in a recently built tree house for the night. When they arrived they were greeted by a capuchin monkey. These monkeys are much more rare to see because they are heavily hunted for the pet trade and therefore very afraid of humans. Along with lots of monkey and cicadas, we were also bombarded with bananas. I never realized how many ways you can eat a banana and that is it appropriate to eat at every meal. Granted they have a much larger variety of bananas in Ecuador than Wisconsin, but still after this trip I with I will be set on potassium for a very long time. Another thing we ate a lot of was yogurt, but not just any yogurt, Yogur Don Lalo. Lalo Loor is the owner of the reserve and makes most of his money from dairy farming and making dairy related products, and let me tell you this is seriously the best yogurt I have ever had. Between the animals and the food my stay at Lalo Loor was definitely interesting and exciting.
On Friday the 6th, our last day at Lalo Loor, we switched it up did volunteer work around the reserve. This consisted of everything from gardening to trail maintenance to cleaning to house. Finally after working hard all morning we headed off to the beach for our free weekend. The beach was about a 30 minute bus ride away and was called Punta Pierta, or black point. We got there set up or tents and went for a swim. We were told the riptide would go south so most of us entered in the northern side of the beach expected to get pushed southward. Unfortunately the riptide was going north and there was a large cliff with jagged rocks underneath it to the north. I was trying to catch some waves and body surf but found myself spending all my energy trying to swim away from the rock. At one point I was stuck in same spot for quite awhile because I wold swim away from the rocks then a wave would come and push me toward them then I would swim away and another wave would come, etc. Finally I got back to shore; not very satisfied with my first swim since it was mainly spent trying to avoid rocks. soon about 5 students came onto the beach all scratched up, I soon found out that they had gotten stuck on the rocks and had no choice but to go around the point and walked back on the street to our side of the beach. Jane and Nicole, who I have become closest with on the trip so far, were 2 of the students that got stuck on the rocks. Upon there return they were kind of shaken up and we went p to the restraint to have a beer and decompress. After dinner out professors, Joe and Cath, invited some of their friends to a party on the beach. The party consisted of a camp fire some volunteers from neighboring towns and some local boys. There was meringue music but no dancing and I was brought back to middle school when the girls and the boys were separated at dances. However, this time is was the boys who wanted to dance and the girls who were too shy. Eventually we started to mingle and it ended up being a pretty fun night.
The next day we had off to do anything we wanted. A couple people went off on a horse ride while most of us stayed at the beach to relax. My day consisted of swimming and playing testy ball on the beach. Testy ball is a very hard game to explain, but it involves throwing a string with a ball attached to each side into a ladder like structure to gain points. Nicole and I won, obviously. After a lazy day on the beach we all slowly started to realize that despite reapplying sunscreen throughout the day, most of us were very badly burnt, myself included. At dinner we passed around a aloe plant and tried not to think about the horrible pain we were in. After dinner we gathered on the beach where those with musical talent entertained the rest of us until we all scattered off to our respected tents.
The next morning at about 5am it started pouring rain, the last thing you want went you have to pack up your tent in less than 3 hours. A half hour before we had to be all packed up the rain stopped and we folded up our soaked tents went to breakfast. After eating we got into the bus and started to drive up the hill to the main road. Soon we realized this was not going to be as easy as it sounded. The rain had made the dirt road to muddy to drive up without getting stuck. So, we all got out and started to rebuild the road with gravel and dead palm leaves. Then about 5 people pushed the back off the bus and eventually we got up the driveway. We got back on the bus and realized on of the students, Carl, was “asleep” on the bus the whole time and avoided all the hard labor. On the ride back I looked at the date on my watch and realized it was February 8th, and that the 1 month count down to my 21st birthday was well underway. In the states I am sure that February 6th, the one month mark to me being able to legally drink, would have been a pretty important day but here I didn’t even realize. Finally, after 7 uncomfortable hours on the bus we back in cold Quito.
We have the next 2 days off then we go to school at USFQ for 2 days before heading to Tiputini in the Amazon. We will be in the Amazon from February 13 to March 1, and internet will not be available, so please don’t worry that there are no blog posts for the next couple weeks. If anything horrible happens to me I am sure my parents will be notified ASAP, so if you do here any news before I get back it is probably not a good sign. Also, new pictures have been added to http://brittinecuador.shutterfly.com/
Lalo Loor Biological Station
2-3-09
Today is the official one month mark in my trip. We got into the dry forest near the coast of Ecuador yesterday and are staying in a reserve that Ceiba helped form called Lalo Loor. The dry forest is a lot like the temperate forest in that most trees seasonally lose their leaves and in many ways it resembles a temperate forest. The first day we got in late afternoon and settled in. Once it got dark most people went on a night hike, but I like to know my surroundings a little better before venturing into the darkness, so I stayed back with a few others. Unfortunately, our house was soon invaded by very large ants. The first one was spotted by Rita, who is currently trying to get over her fear of insects. She came running out of her room proclaiming there was an ant the size of a shoe near her clothes. I went in to investigate, and while the ant was larger than any I had ever seen before, about 1 inch in length, and had biting mouth parts that did not look friendly, it was definitely not the size of any adult’s shoe. We showed the ant to our professor who had come back from the hike to get a flashlight and binoculars to get a better look at a snake in a tree. She did not know what kind it was, which did not make us feel any better. More and more ants began to appear and soon we felt surrounded. Then one of the local employs came in and picked one up without hesitation and asked for our hand to put it in, we were still ot convinced they were safe. We asked him if they were poisonous and he said no, but would not tell us if the bit or not. Finally we got used to them and tried to go on with our business without too much worry. Eventually the rest of the group came back and also noticed the ants. By this time we were not impressed by them anymore and the night slowly wound down. Today I was woke up at 5:30 to the sounds of exotic birds and howler monkeys. At about 6 some of us went to find the monkeys that sounded very close. We found them in a tree about 100 meters from out house. They were just shilling in the tree having their daily breakfast of leaves. After watching them for about 30 minutes we headed back for breakfast. At 7:30 we left for our day hike, which was scheduled to return around 2:30. These hikes are usually fairly easy because we stop a lot to take notes about flora and fauna, but the day was hot and we were all wearing long pants and rubber boots. This is typically attire in order to avoid scratches as well as ants and snakes from climbing up your legs. Other than this being very hot, mosquitoes know no boundaries and apparently have a special taste for my hinny. Needless to say I was kind of miserable on the hike. I do not especially like hot weather, I would much rather be in the mountains. But, one thing that the mountains do not have that I do enjoy is monkeys, and we saw about 3 groups on our hike, which made up for being physically uncomfortable. We arrived back at camp around 1m, much earlier than expected, and being the other groups. We were all very hot and dirty and we aching to go to the beach. Jamie Rose asked our teacher if we could, to which we were all expected to be denied, but amazingly she said yes. She told us which beach to go to and said it was about a 45 minute walk. So we changed and started on our way. Once we got to the main road the sun got really intense and we decided walking way much less efficient than hitch hiking. Luckily the next vehicle to drive by was a bus full of people. All the seats were taken but the lets s stand in the back with the food for free. We didn’t know exactly where our destination was, so we got let off a little past it, but we still definitely saved lots of time and energy. We got to the beach and immediately went in the water. it was perfectly refreshing and warm. We stayed there for about an hour and enjoyed every moment. I think I enjoyed it a little too much though… I got caught up in the freeness of the beach and did a celebratory cartwheel. Unfortunately forgetting that I had just taken of my cast one week before and my wrist was definitely not ready for that kind of action, lesson learned. We hitched a ride back to Lalo Loor in what smelled like an empty fish truck. When we got back to the rest the group greeted us with scorns and snide remarks. They were not very excited that they were not able to go to the beach as well, and very bitter. After a short lecture we ate dinner and spent the rest of the night playing some camp fire games, although we didn’t actually have a camp fire.
So far this trip has been pretty amazing and I cannot wait for the next 3 and a half months! My next trips are: 2.5 weeks in Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the middle of the Amazon, then I have a week for spring break which my mom is visiting for, then we go to the coast for a week, followed by 2 weeks in the Galapagos , then finally I have a month internship in the Amazonian town of Tena (more information to come.)
Pienso que Ecuador es superchevere! (Translation: I think Ecuador is super cool.)
Today is the official one month mark in my trip. We got into the dry forest near the coast of Ecuador yesterday and are staying in a reserve that Ceiba helped form called Lalo Loor. The dry forest is a lot like the temperate forest in that most trees seasonally lose their leaves and in many ways it resembles a temperate forest. The first day we got in late afternoon and settled in. Once it got dark most people went on a night hike, but I like to know my surroundings a little better before venturing into the darkness, so I stayed back with a few others. Unfortunately, our house was soon invaded by very large ants. The first one was spotted by Rita, who is currently trying to get over her fear of insects. She came running out of her room proclaiming there was an ant the size of a shoe near her clothes. I went in to investigate, and while the ant was larger than any I had ever seen before, about 1 inch in length, and had biting mouth parts that did not look friendly, it was definitely not the size of any adult’s shoe. We showed the ant to our professor who had come back from the hike to get a flashlight and binoculars to get a better look at a snake in a tree. She did not know what kind it was, which did not make us feel any better. More and more ants began to appear and soon we felt surrounded. Then one of the local employs came in and picked one up without hesitation and asked for our hand to put it in, we were still ot convinced they were safe. We asked him if they were poisonous and he said no, but would not tell us if the bit or not. Finally we got used to them and tried to go on with our business without too much worry. Eventually the rest of the group came back and also noticed the ants. By this time we were not impressed by them anymore and the night slowly wound down. Today I was woke up at 5:30 to the sounds of exotic birds and howler monkeys. At about 6 some of us went to find the monkeys that sounded very close. We found them in a tree about 100 meters from out house. They were just shilling in the tree having their daily breakfast of leaves. After watching them for about 30 minutes we headed back for breakfast. At 7:30 we left for our day hike, which was scheduled to return around 2:30. These hikes are usually fairly easy because we stop a lot to take notes about flora and fauna, but the day was hot and we were all wearing long pants and rubber boots. This is typically attire in order to avoid scratches as well as ants and snakes from climbing up your legs. Other than this being very hot, mosquitoes know no boundaries and apparently have a special taste for my hinny. Needless to say I was kind of miserable on the hike. I do not especially like hot weather, I would much rather be in the mountains. But, one thing that the mountains do not have that I do enjoy is monkeys, and we saw about 3 groups on our hike, which made up for being physically uncomfortable. We arrived back at camp around 1m, much earlier than expected, and being the other groups. We were all very hot and dirty and we aching to go to the beach. Jamie Rose asked our teacher if we could, to which we were all expected to be denied, but amazingly she said yes. She told us which beach to go to and said it was about a 45 minute walk. So we changed and started on our way. Once we got to the main road the sun got really intense and we decided walking way much less efficient than hitch hiking. Luckily the next vehicle to drive by was a bus full of people. All the seats were taken but the lets s stand in the back with the food for free. We didn’t know exactly where our destination was, so we got let off a little past it, but we still definitely saved lots of time and energy. We got to the beach and immediately went in the water. it was perfectly refreshing and warm. We stayed there for about an hour and enjoyed every moment. I think I enjoyed it a little too much though… I got caught up in the freeness of the beach and did a celebratory cartwheel. Unfortunately forgetting that I had just taken of my cast one week before and my wrist was definitely not ready for that kind of action, lesson learned. We hitched a ride back to Lalo Loor in what smelled like an empty fish truck. When we got back to the rest the group greeted us with scorns and snide remarks. They were not very excited that they were not able to go to the beach as well, and very bitter. After a short lecture we ate dinner and spent the rest of the night playing some camp fire games, although we didn’t actually have a camp fire.
So far this trip has been pretty amazing and I cannot wait for the next 3 and a half months! My next trips are: 2.5 weeks in Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the middle of the Amazon, then I have a week for spring break which my mom is visiting for, then we go to the coast for a week, followed by 2 weeks in the Galapagos , then finally I have a month internship in the Amazonian town of Tena (more information to come.)
Pienso que Ecuador es superchevere! (Translation: I think Ecuador is super cool.)
Monday, February 9, 2009
paramo
2-1-09
This weekend we ventured to 15,000 feet to learn about the páramo, or tropical tundra. Tundra is one of my favorite landscapes mainly because I love mountains and glaciers. On our way up the mountain we stopped at a polylepis forest. Polylepis is the only tree that can survive above the tree line in the elfin forest. The trees are short and the branches are mangled creating very nice protection from the wind and keeping the interior of the forest a few degrees warmer. These forests are thousands of years old and absolutely beautiful, it is an ecosystem that is so specifically modified to its environment and is unfortunately decreasing rapidly as people move above the tree line to raise cattle and sheep and cut it down because it is the only tree up there to use as firewood and building material. By the time we reached 15,000 feet it was very cold and foggy. Luckily we were all mostly prepared for such weather even though we were hoping for a nice sunny day. We started out by following our teachers around as they told us the names of plants and pointed out key adaptive features for surviving in such a harsh environment. After that they sent us off to collect some data then we heading down to eat lunch. After lunch it started to clear up a little but remained cold and windy. Then we all dispersed in different directions to collect data about the diversity of species on the mountain. At the end of the day we headed to a natural hot spring, something we were all especially looking forward to after the cold day in the field. The hot spring was a perfect end to the cold day. It was right next to a stream and one of the pools conveniently had easy access to a calm part of the stream. The challenge was to stay in the cold stream for 7 seconds submerged to your neck before jumping back in the hot spring. About 10 of us did it while the others watched in pain. It was pretty much like jumping in the Wisconsin snow out of a hot tub; you know that the warm water is so close and that the pain of the cold water will be short lived. We headed back to Quito all warm and sleepy. On Saturday we heading up another mountain to compare and contrast the plant life. This mountain has converted into mainly pasture, while yesterday we were in a preserved area. We did get very luck and see an Andean Condor, an endangered species, along with some other pretty cool birds. We took our data of diversity and had lunch at a lagoon nearby. The lagoon is one of the major sources for Quito’s drinking water and has a wonderful view of the adjacent Antisana Mountain. Antisana peaks at about 21,000 feet and covered by a large glacier. Luckily right around lunch the clouds cleared enough to get a spectacular view. Soon we headed back down and made plans to go the mariscal to celebrate John’s 21st birthday. A lot of us have our 21st are here and it is a little anticlimactic since the drinking age is 18 and loosely enforced. But we celebrated at a Tapas bar and I ended up meeting some people from Argentina and spent the rest of the night trying my best to understand Spanish, thankfully the Argentinean accent is fairly easy and I had 2 Spanish teachers with the same accent. Spending time with them just made me want to go to Argentina even more. Ever since I found out I got into this program I have said if I have any money by the end I am going to Argentina, unfortunately without a cell phone here I will probably never see my new Argentinean friends again even if I do go down there. The next morning I woke up with the horrible realization that I had slept in my contacts, and as I was taking them out I think I scratched my eye. So I have hspent the whole day with my eye swollen and watering profusely. And instead of going out to watch the Superbowl I am stuck at home writing this blog and making a lot of typos due to my right eye being completely blurry (thank god for spell check.)
Update: I woke up the next morning and my eye felt 100 percent better and I edited this blog, there were some kind of funny mistsakes. Also, i posted pictures on shutterfly from the paramo. (see link below)
This weekend we ventured to 15,000 feet to learn about the páramo, or tropical tundra. Tundra is one of my favorite landscapes mainly because I love mountains and glaciers. On our way up the mountain we stopped at a polylepis forest. Polylepis is the only tree that can survive above the tree line in the elfin forest. The trees are short and the branches are mangled creating very nice protection from the wind and keeping the interior of the forest a few degrees warmer. These forests are thousands of years old and absolutely beautiful, it is an ecosystem that is so specifically modified to its environment and is unfortunately decreasing rapidly as people move above the tree line to raise cattle and sheep and cut it down because it is the only tree up there to use as firewood and building material. By the time we reached 15,000 feet it was very cold and foggy. Luckily we were all mostly prepared for such weather even though we were hoping for a nice sunny day. We started out by following our teachers around as they told us the names of plants and pointed out key adaptive features for surviving in such a harsh environment. After that they sent us off to collect some data then we heading down to eat lunch. After lunch it started to clear up a little but remained cold and windy. Then we all dispersed in different directions to collect data about the diversity of species on the mountain. At the end of the day we headed to a natural hot spring, something we were all especially looking forward to after the cold day in the field. The hot spring was a perfect end to the cold day. It was right next to a stream and one of the pools conveniently had easy access to a calm part of the stream. The challenge was to stay in the cold stream for 7 seconds submerged to your neck before jumping back in the hot spring. About 10 of us did it while the others watched in pain. It was pretty much like jumping in the Wisconsin snow out of a hot tub; you know that the warm water is so close and that the pain of the cold water will be short lived. We headed back to Quito all warm and sleepy. On Saturday we heading up another mountain to compare and contrast the plant life. This mountain has converted into mainly pasture, while yesterday we were in a preserved area. We did get very luck and see an Andean Condor, an endangered species, along with some other pretty cool birds. We took our data of diversity and had lunch at a lagoon nearby. The lagoon is one of the major sources for Quito’s drinking water and has a wonderful view of the adjacent Antisana Mountain. Antisana peaks at about 21,000 feet and covered by a large glacier. Luckily right around lunch the clouds cleared enough to get a spectacular view. Soon we headed back down and made plans to go the mariscal to celebrate John’s 21st birthday. A lot of us have our 21st are here and it is a little anticlimactic since the drinking age is 18 and loosely enforced. But we celebrated at a Tapas bar and I ended up meeting some people from Argentina and spent the rest of the night trying my best to understand Spanish, thankfully the Argentinean accent is fairly easy and I had 2 Spanish teachers with the same accent. Spending time with them just made me want to go to Argentina even more. Ever since I found out I got into this program I have said if I have any money by the end I am going to Argentina, unfortunately without a cell phone here I will probably never see my new Argentinean friends again even if I do go down there. The next morning I woke up with the horrible realization that I had slept in my contacts, and as I was taking them out I think I scratched my eye. So I have hspent the whole day with my eye swollen and watering profusely. And instead of going out to watch the Superbowl I am stuck at home writing this blog and making a lot of typos due to my right eye being completely blurry (thank god for spell check.)
Update: I woke up the next morning and my eye felt 100 percent better and I edited this blog, there were some kind of funny mistsakes. Also, i posted pictures on shutterfly from the paramo. (see link below)
otavalo
1-25-09
This weekend we did not have a scheduled trip so a majority of my group went to Otavalo, a small town known for its huge artisan market every Saturday (supposedly the largest market in South America.) We left Quito on Friday after school. I heard the bus ride was supposed to take anywhere from 1 to 2.5 hours, but was not surprised when it took almost 3 hours since nothing seems to run according to schedule here. We arrived in Otavalo found our hostel then went to a restaurant we read about in the travel book Lonely Planet for dinner. The main reason for going to this restaurant was we read it had hummus and we were all craving some Middle Eastern food. Unfortunately, when we tried to order our hummus platter… they were out. This seems to be a very common occurrence in Ecuador, but it is still sad when you were looking forward to something as much as we were looking forward to some hummus. But we were all starving so we found other things to order and the food was pretty good for about 2-3 dollars a plate. After dinner we meet up with some other people in our group and found out about some dicotecas nearby. By this time, 9 pm, it was rainy pretty hard but we ventured out in hopes of finding something entertaining. After getting many vague and faulty directions, another common occurrence here, we found the first bar. There was no one there. We went to the next bar, no one. We were all soaking wet so we gave up and headed home. When I got back to my hostel I realized my roommates were not home yet, and they had the key. I was with the 3 girls from the room next and they were nice enough to sit on the porch with me to wait for my key to arrive. By the time it reached about 11 we were thoroughly tired and my friend offered to share her bed with me for the night. I would have accepted, but I remember the windows to our room looked pretty sketchy and easy to break into, and as I predicted I pretty effortlessly broke into my room. My roommate ended up coming home around 1, and apologized profusely.
The next morning my friend Nicole and I woke up at 5:30am in order to go to the animal market at 6. The animal market pretty much like a farmer’s market, but with live animals. We were the only gringos (white/foreign people) there. We walked around for awhile, trying to avoid large bulls that looked like they were about to charge. Soon we got hungry and found a stand making fresh empanadas. They were 15 cents each and they were amazing. After taking lots of pictures we went back to the hostel to meet the rest of our group and head to the artisan market. The hostel owner made sure we all paid for our rooms before going to the market, a very good idea because many of s were left without money after the market. By the way, the hostel was 8 dollars a night and included a very satisfying breakfast. At the market we all had a good time bartering for the best deal and finding the coolest alpaca attire. For lunch some of us decided to try our first taste of street food and eat a wonderful meal of tilapia, potatoes, and aji. Aji is an Ecuadorian staple, it is pretty such like hot sauce and is slightly different at each restaurant or house. So far the Otavalan aji is definitely my favorite with just the right proportion of spice and onions. After our meal we went back to our hostel and sat in the courtyard enjoying the hammocks and beautiful weather. That night we planned to go to a cock fight, another thing we read about in Lonely Planet. The book said it started at 7 so we showed up about 10 minutes early to get good seats, but we couldn’t even get in. So, we wandered around the neighborhood for awhile and made friends with a stray dog to kill some time. Then at about 10 after we headed back. This time the doors were open, but we were the only ones there except for 2 other gringos. The arena was pretty gross with mushrooms growing out of the wall in the bathroom and bright green mold scattered everywhere. At about 8 the first cock and his owner arrived and we were hopeful that the show would start soon. Another hour passed and some more people came but it did not look like they had the slightest intention of starting anytime soon. At about 9:30 the chickens were all there, I don’t know exactly what was happening but outside of the arena the owners had their birds on a table in what looked like some sort of way to size then up and decided which were going to fight and who was betting on who’s cock. Finally at about 10pm, 3 hours after we arrived, the first fight started. It lasted for about 5 minutes and was a lot like boxing seeming to have multiple rounds and points given when one cock pinned another. It ended when one of the chickens was no longer able to get up. It took about 30 minutes for the next fight to start and this one was much shorter because the winning birds broke the others wing very quickly. After this fight I noticed some people we had seen earlier that day at the Animal Market. They had a large camera and were interviewing people at the market. Soon they came up to some of the kids in my group and asked them to answer some questions on camera about their experience. They agreed and after we inquired as to what it was for. It turns out they are from Spanish and are doing a documentary on Ecuador in hopes of getting it on Lonely Planet TV. Ironically the same guide book we had used to plan our trip, but also made sense that we saw them at 2 places which we read about in the book. The next fight was the worst, lasting a long time and a very uneven match. The losing chicken was bleeding a lot, at which time the owner licks the blood off and spits it out (ew). Near the end of the match the one chicken was actually running away from the other trying to escape the ring. Finally, the match was over and I had witnessed enough cock fighting to last me a very long time. I am glad I went it was an interesting cultural experience but I definitely never need to see that again.
The next day we slept in a little and ate breakfast at the hostel. During breakfast we there were some people sitting at the table next to us speaking English they overhead s talking about the cock fight and wanted to hear about it. Turns out one of them was originally from Wisconsin, and they all now live in Alaska, small world. After some wonderful Sarah Palin jokes we headed off to explore a lake about a 30 minutes bus ride from Otavalo. We got there and rode in the back of a pick-up truck up to the lake. This was the cheapest and obviously most fun option to get to the lake. We had about 10 people in the back of a small truck bed, clearly something that would not fly in the states. We got up to the lake and started to walk around. Me and 3 others decided to start walking around the lake, we knew that we couldn’t make it all the way around because it takes about 5 hours and we wanted to get back to Quito before dark, but we wanted to at least go as far as we cold. We got about a quarter of the way around before we had to turn back for time’s sake. The lake is in an old volcanic crater and the trail is along the mountain ridge around the lake. The view was spectacular despite some cloud obstructing our view of the Andes. Soon we headed back to Quito to get a good night sleep before class Monday.
This weekend we did not have a scheduled trip so a majority of my group went to Otavalo, a small town known for its huge artisan market every Saturday (supposedly the largest market in South America.) We left Quito on Friday after school. I heard the bus ride was supposed to take anywhere from 1 to 2.5 hours, but was not surprised when it took almost 3 hours since nothing seems to run according to schedule here. We arrived in Otavalo found our hostel then went to a restaurant we read about in the travel book Lonely Planet for dinner. The main reason for going to this restaurant was we read it had hummus and we were all craving some Middle Eastern food. Unfortunately, when we tried to order our hummus platter… they were out. This seems to be a very common occurrence in Ecuador, but it is still sad when you were looking forward to something as much as we were looking forward to some hummus. But we were all starving so we found other things to order and the food was pretty good for about 2-3 dollars a plate. After dinner we meet up with some other people in our group and found out about some dicotecas nearby. By this time, 9 pm, it was rainy pretty hard but we ventured out in hopes of finding something entertaining. After getting many vague and faulty directions, another common occurrence here, we found the first bar. There was no one there. We went to the next bar, no one. We were all soaking wet so we gave up and headed home. When I got back to my hostel I realized my roommates were not home yet, and they had the key. I was with the 3 girls from the room next and they were nice enough to sit on the porch with me to wait for my key to arrive. By the time it reached about 11 we were thoroughly tired and my friend offered to share her bed with me for the night. I would have accepted, but I remember the windows to our room looked pretty sketchy and easy to break into, and as I predicted I pretty effortlessly broke into my room. My roommate ended up coming home around 1, and apologized profusely.
The next morning my friend Nicole and I woke up at 5:30am in order to go to the animal market at 6. The animal market pretty much like a farmer’s market, but with live animals. We were the only gringos (white/foreign people) there. We walked around for awhile, trying to avoid large bulls that looked like they were about to charge. Soon we got hungry and found a stand making fresh empanadas. They were 15 cents each and they were amazing. After taking lots of pictures we went back to the hostel to meet the rest of our group and head to the artisan market. The hostel owner made sure we all paid for our rooms before going to the market, a very good idea because many of s were left without money after the market. By the way, the hostel was 8 dollars a night and included a very satisfying breakfast. At the market we all had a good time bartering for the best deal and finding the coolest alpaca attire. For lunch some of us decided to try our first taste of street food and eat a wonderful meal of tilapia, potatoes, and aji. Aji is an Ecuadorian staple, it is pretty such like hot sauce and is slightly different at each restaurant or house. So far the Otavalan aji is definitely my favorite with just the right proportion of spice and onions. After our meal we went back to our hostel and sat in the courtyard enjoying the hammocks and beautiful weather. That night we planned to go to a cock fight, another thing we read about in Lonely Planet. The book said it started at 7 so we showed up about 10 minutes early to get good seats, but we couldn’t even get in. So, we wandered around the neighborhood for awhile and made friends with a stray dog to kill some time. Then at about 10 after we headed back. This time the doors were open, but we were the only ones there except for 2 other gringos. The arena was pretty gross with mushrooms growing out of the wall in the bathroom and bright green mold scattered everywhere. At about 8 the first cock and his owner arrived and we were hopeful that the show would start soon. Another hour passed and some more people came but it did not look like they had the slightest intention of starting anytime soon. At about 9:30 the chickens were all there, I don’t know exactly what was happening but outside of the arena the owners had their birds on a table in what looked like some sort of way to size then up and decided which were going to fight and who was betting on who’s cock. Finally at about 10pm, 3 hours after we arrived, the first fight started. It lasted for about 5 minutes and was a lot like boxing seeming to have multiple rounds and points given when one cock pinned another. It ended when one of the chickens was no longer able to get up. It took about 30 minutes for the next fight to start and this one was much shorter because the winning birds broke the others wing very quickly. After this fight I noticed some people we had seen earlier that day at the Animal Market. They had a large camera and were interviewing people at the market. Soon they came up to some of the kids in my group and asked them to answer some questions on camera about their experience. They agreed and after we inquired as to what it was for. It turns out they are from Spanish and are doing a documentary on Ecuador in hopes of getting it on Lonely Planet TV. Ironically the same guide book we had used to plan our trip, but also made sense that we saw them at 2 places which we read about in the book. The next fight was the worst, lasting a long time and a very uneven match. The losing chicken was bleeding a lot, at which time the owner licks the blood off and spits it out (ew). Near the end of the match the one chicken was actually running away from the other trying to escape the ring. Finally, the match was over and I had witnessed enough cock fighting to last me a very long time. I am glad I went it was an interesting cultural experience but I definitely never need to see that again.
The next day we slept in a little and ate breakfast at the hostel. During breakfast we there were some people sitting at the table next to us speaking English they overhead s talking about the cock fight and wanted to hear about it. Turns out one of them was originally from Wisconsin, and they all now live in Alaska, small world. After some wonderful Sarah Palin jokes we headed off to explore a lake about a 30 minutes bus ride from Otavalo. We got there and rode in the back of a pick-up truck up to the lake. This was the cheapest and obviously most fun option to get to the lake. We had about 10 people in the back of a small truck bed, clearly something that would not fly in the states. We got up to the lake and started to walk around. Me and 3 others decided to start walking around the lake, we knew that we couldn’t make it all the way around because it takes about 5 hours and we wanted to get back to Quito before dark, but we wanted to at least go as far as we cold. We got about a quarter of the way around before we had to turn back for time’s sake. The lake is in an old volcanic crater and the trail is along the mountain ridge around the lake. The view was spectacular despite some cloud obstructing our view of the Andes. Soon we headed back to Quito to get a good night sleep before class Monday.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Obama Day
1/20/09
Today was the first day of a new president, a president who talks of hope and progress. We started lecture by watching MLK Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, which was extra moving given the day. The lecture was the ‘doom day’ lecture that is in every environmental class and it is always pretty depressing and can be hard to bounce back form. Finally it was 11 and our professors let us out of class so we could watch the inauguration. USFQ had set up a large projection in one of the auditoriums on campus so we all flocked there. This is one of the biggest things to happen to America in my life time, and it was very serial to be in South America during it. I think it gave me more of a pride in my country since I could see the international support for Obama. By the time he started his speech, it was pretty safe to assume that everyone in the auditorium was in deep thought and fairly emotional. Listening to him acknowledge our problems and differences, made me make some connections between the environment and the state of the USA. The US, much like the environment, is in a recession and a solution is not straightforward. To fix the things that the last administration has let happen and to undo the destruction that the recent generations of humans have done, and continue to do to the environment seems like 2 almost impossible tasks. These tasks will need the participation of everyone, and if completed they have the potential to be exponentially rewarding. The value of biodiversity is much harder to quantify that the value of a stable economy and the end of war. However, I believe that caution and preservation now is the only option we have. Some have the “too little too late” mentality and that may be the worst thing I have ever heard in the context of conservation. What if everyone thought that? We wouldn’t have Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, El Pahuma, and countless other reserves that many of us take for granted. I think in both America and the environment we must look to the past to better understand where we went wrong. After this emotional day I started to think about how I fit into this all, which lead to a mini existential crisis. Last semester I decided I wanted to go into water resources as a more specific branch of environmental science. I took physical hydrogeology, which is pretty much only about aquifers, and although it was a very tough class I got really excited about water. Today, this excitement started to falter. I want to help the most living and non-living things possible, and I started to think of water and aquifers as just a human necessity. Do animals use wells? No. Also, I hate to think that my work will just allow the human population to continue its exponential growth and exploitation of the earth. These thoughts are what make me crazy, one of my biggest fears is getting through law school and not helping the environment but getting caught up in the human aspect of environmental resources. For example wanting to save Pandas even though they do not have a very big impact in the balance of nature, or going into something like aquifers which seems to mainly benefits humans. These are the things that keep me up at night. Finally, I let go of my inner struggle and decided it was way too good of a day to be sad. So, I got some champaign and celebrated Obama’s first day in the white house. Later that night a lot of the students meet at a bar and we all had a great night. The next day I was still a little worried about what I wanted to do with my life, which was amplified by the approaching deadline of me choosing an internship for my last month in Ecuador. I had wanted to do a water quality internship with a USFQ professor, but this was starting to look less appealing. I decided to go talk to her anyways in hopes of re-igniting my interest in water. She was not in her office, but she had a poster of one of the projects she had assisted with. It was exactly what I needed; it was a study about the how litter and contamination in streams effects the surrounding environment. So, finally, I remembered that water is what every organism needs to survive (duh) and I will be able to help more than the growth of the human population by studying water, existential meltdown avoided.
Today was the first day of a new president, a president who talks of hope and progress. We started lecture by watching MLK Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, which was extra moving given the day. The lecture was the ‘doom day’ lecture that is in every environmental class and it is always pretty depressing and can be hard to bounce back form. Finally it was 11 and our professors let us out of class so we could watch the inauguration. USFQ had set up a large projection in one of the auditoriums on campus so we all flocked there. This is one of the biggest things to happen to America in my life time, and it was very serial to be in South America during it. I think it gave me more of a pride in my country since I could see the international support for Obama. By the time he started his speech, it was pretty safe to assume that everyone in the auditorium was in deep thought and fairly emotional. Listening to him acknowledge our problems and differences, made me make some connections between the environment and the state of the USA. The US, much like the environment, is in a recession and a solution is not straightforward. To fix the things that the last administration has let happen and to undo the destruction that the recent generations of humans have done, and continue to do to the environment seems like 2 almost impossible tasks. These tasks will need the participation of everyone, and if completed they have the potential to be exponentially rewarding. The value of biodiversity is much harder to quantify that the value of a stable economy and the end of war. However, I believe that caution and preservation now is the only option we have. Some have the “too little too late” mentality and that may be the worst thing I have ever heard in the context of conservation. What if everyone thought that? We wouldn’t have Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, El Pahuma, and countless other reserves that many of us take for granted. I think in both America and the environment we must look to the past to better understand where we went wrong. After this emotional day I started to think about how I fit into this all, which lead to a mini existential crisis. Last semester I decided I wanted to go into water resources as a more specific branch of environmental science. I took physical hydrogeology, which is pretty much only about aquifers, and although it was a very tough class I got really excited about water. Today, this excitement started to falter. I want to help the most living and non-living things possible, and I started to think of water and aquifers as just a human necessity. Do animals use wells? No. Also, I hate to think that my work will just allow the human population to continue its exponential growth and exploitation of the earth. These thoughts are what make me crazy, one of my biggest fears is getting through law school and not helping the environment but getting caught up in the human aspect of environmental resources. For example wanting to save Pandas even though they do not have a very big impact in the balance of nature, or going into something like aquifers which seems to mainly benefits humans. These are the things that keep me up at night. Finally, I let go of my inner struggle and decided it was way too good of a day to be sad. So, I got some champaign and celebrated Obama’s first day in the white house. Later that night a lot of the students meet at a bar and we all had a great night. The next day I was still a little worried about what I wanted to do with my life, which was amplified by the approaching deadline of me choosing an internship for my last month in Ecuador. I had wanted to do a water quality internship with a USFQ professor, but this was starting to look less appealing. I decided to go talk to her anyways in hopes of re-igniting my interest in water. She was not in her office, but she had a poster of one of the projects she had assisted with. It was exactly what I needed; it was a study about the how litter and contamination in streams effects the surrounding environment. So, finally, I remembered that water is what every organism needs to survive (duh) and I will be able to help more than the growth of the human population by studying water, existential meltdown avoided.
Friday, January 23, 2009
El Pahuma
1/16/09 to 1/18/09
This weekend we went to El Pahuma Orchid Reserve about 1 hour north of Quito. Everyone in my group was itching to get out of the city and very excited for the trip. it is a 600 hectare reserve that has a nice visitor center for eco-tourism. They have a restaurant across the highway with some pretty amazing food. The first day we just took some short hikes, one around the botanical garden and another to a small waterfall. Then we headed up the mountain to get to the elevation of cloud forests. The hike up was pretty much vertical and very muddy since they have had much more rain than usual for mid-January. Because of the mud we all wore super stylish rubber boots for the hike. They worked very well in keeping our feet dry, but are kind of hard to hike up a mountain in, since ankle support is nonexistent. It took a little over an hour to get up to the top, all of which was in the rain. We got to camp, which consisted of a ìcabinî with bunk beds, a cooking area, and a campfire area. We all got out of our wet clothes and started a fire. Soon the chef had made some pasta and we all helped ourselves to multiple servings. The pasta was very good, especially for being cooked in the middle of the rainforest. It continued to rain all night, some people went out on a night hike to look for frogs, while a few of us stayed by the warm fire and played camp fire games. Once we went to bed it took me awhile to fall asleep because I had so many things going through my head. I was just thinking about how amazing of a place I was in and how many amazing and possibly poisonous bugs were around me. I also woke up a lot during the night, I was hoping it would stop raining and I could go outside to look at the stars, but each time I awoke I heard the rain still pattering away on the roof. The next morning I woke up around 6:30 to the sunrise and went on a short hike with 2 other students while we waited for the others to wake up and breakfast to be served. On our hike we saw a guan, which is a lot like a small turkey. After breakfast we started or long hike. Keep in mind is has not stopped raining since we left the lower camp. On the hike our teacher Joe would stop and lecture for a bit about the plants. We are going to be tested on the plant family names later in the semester so our hikes always have a purpose and we are constantly taking notes. The cloud forest is a rather gloomy place when it is raining, because you are literally in a cloud and visibility is very poor. At the top of the mountain we had a little lunch and started on the Yuma trail. This trail is over 1,000 years old since it has been used for so long the weight of humans has compacted the soft soil to a point where some places there are 10 foot ìwallsî on the side of the trails showing where the surfaced used to be. It is pretty cool to walk on something that you know has been used by humans for a century. Eventually we turned around and headed back to camp. This is where is started to get really fun. The whole way down was pretty much a controlled fall down a mud slide. Most of us fell multiple times, however one of the girls had promised to buy a beer for everyone who made it down the whole mountain without falling. Once we got back to the camp we ate a little packed up and heading down the rest of the way. I can say I definitely fell more than a couple times, but a few people did make it down without a muddy back end. When we all arrived at the bottom, we were all very dirty and wet, so most of the students went to the waterfall near the visitor center to wash off. I declined since my broken arm was hurting from falling so many times, bt I did tag along to take some pictures. After dinner beers were bought for those who earned them, and the owners of El Pahuma made us candalaso (I will have to check the spelling,) which is a traditional drink made of sugar cane liquor and cinnamon and served warm. After some drinks we started to warm up and took a little night hike. We only saw one frog, but we did find a snake. I think some people were a lot happier than others about itÖ
The next morning we took a 25 minute hike to a 45 meter waterfall. This waterfall was irresistible. I had to go swimming, broken arm or not. The water was pretty cold but you get the best view of waterfalls from in the water, so it was well worth it. We finished up the day with some lectures and the history of El Pahuma. It turns out my teachers, Joe and Cath, pretty much stumbled upon this piece of land started talking to the owners and eventually signed a conservation easement to protect the land. It was a very inspirational and amazing story, one that makes you want to go out and find a beautiful piece of land to protect. We all went back to Quito wanting more nature but knowing there is much more to come.
This weekend we went to El Pahuma Orchid Reserve about 1 hour north of Quito. Everyone in my group was itching to get out of the city and very excited for the trip. it is a 600 hectare reserve that has a nice visitor center for eco-tourism. They have a restaurant across the highway with some pretty amazing food. The first day we just took some short hikes, one around the botanical garden and another to a small waterfall. Then we headed up the mountain to get to the elevation of cloud forests. The hike up was pretty much vertical and very muddy since they have had much more rain than usual for mid-January. Because of the mud we all wore super stylish rubber boots for the hike. They worked very well in keeping our feet dry, but are kind of hard to hike up a mountain in, since ankle support is nonexistent. It took a little over an hour to get up to the top, all of which was in the rain. We got to camp, which consisted of a ìcabinî with bunk beds, a cooking area, and a campfire area. We all got out of our wet clothes and started a fire. Soon the chef had made some pasta and we all helped ourselves to multiple servings. The pasta was very good, especially for being cooked in the middle of the rainforest. It continued to rain all night, some people went out on a night hike to look for frogs, while a few of us stayed by the warm fire and played camp fire games. Once we went to bed it took me awhile to fall asleep because I had so many things going through my head. I was just thinking about how amazing of a place I was in and how many amazing and possibly poisonous bugs were around me. I also woke up a lot during the night, I was hoping it would stop raining and I could go outside to look at the stars, but each time I awoke I heard the rain still pattering away on the roof. The next morning I woke up around 6:30 to the sunrise and went on a short hike with 2 other students while we waited for the others to wake up and breakfast to be served. On our hike we saw a guan, which is a lot like a small turkey. After breakfast we started or long hike. Keep in mind is has not stopped raining since we left the lower camp. On the hike our teacher Joe would stop and lecture for a bit about the plants. We are going to be tested on the plant family names later in the semester so our hikes always have a purpose and we are constantly taking notes. The cloud forest is a rather gloomy place when it is raining, because you are literally in a cloud and visibility is very poor. At the top of the mountain we had a little lunch and started on the Yuma trail. This trail is over 1,000 years old since it has been used for so long the weight of humans has compacted the soft soil to a point where some places there are 10 foot ìwallsî on the side of the trails showing where the surfaced used to be. It is pretty cool to walk on something that you know has been used by humans for a century. Eventually we turned around and headed back to camp. This is where is started to get really fun. The whole way down was pretty much a controlled fall down a mud slide. Most of us fell multiple times, however one of the girls had promised to buy a beer for everyone who made it down the whole mountain without falling. Once we got back to the camp we ate a little packed up and heading down the rest of the way. I can say I definitely fell more than a couple times, but a few people did make it down without a muddy back end. When we all arrived at the bottom, we were all very dirty and wet, so most of the students went to the waterfall near the visitor center to wash off. I declined since my broken arm was hurting from falling so many times, bt I did tag along to take some pictures. After dinner beers were bought for those who earned them, and the owners of El Pahuma made us candalaso (I will have to check the spelling,) which is a traditional drink made of sugar cane liquor and cinnamon and served warm. After some drinks we started to warm up and took a little night hike. We only saw one frog, but we did find a snake. I think some people were a lot happier than others about itÖ
The next morning we took a 25 minute hike to a 45 meter waterfall. This waterfall was irresistible. I had to go swimming, broken arm or not. The water was pretty cold but you get the best view of waterfalls from in the water, so it was well worth it. We finished up the day with some lectures and the history of El Pahuma. It turns out my teachers, Joe and Cath, pretty much stumbled upon this piece of land started talking to the owners and eventually signed a conservation easement to protect the land. It was a very inspirational and amazing story, one that makes you want to go out and find a beautiful piece of land to protect. We all went back to Quito wanting more nature but knowing there is much more to come.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
1-15-09
1/15/09
This morning was pretty much like every other. Took the bus to school, went to class, learned some things, the usual. However, after school the day started to get a little more interesting. First of all it was the first time I had ridden home from school without the boy who lives below me (Dave/David), which I wasn’t too worried about it was just different. As I got to the stop near where I switch buses the traffic started to get really horrible, as in we were barley moving. The traffic in Quito can get pretty bad, but this seemed extra awful so another girl and I decided to get off and walk to the extra 2 blocks. We ended up beating to bus to the stop, and there we split to go in our respected directions. This split happened at a large intersection where cops were directing traffic, something that I have seen before during rush hour. Just as I was about to start crossing the intersection because the cop had motioned for the cars to stop in the street perpendicular to my path and the other cop motioned for the cars parallel to me to start going, 2 motorcycles slipped by and started to cross the intersection. Right away I kind of smiled because motorcycles are pretty crazy around here, they will hop up on the sidewalk and weave around cars to get though traffic faster and it is usually amusing to watch them dominate the street. But, before I knew it a taxi hit the second cycle and the cyclist was sliding on the pavement. I am pretty sure this is the first serious accident I have even witnessed, and I was accordingly shaken up. I crossed the street, extra cautiously and sat down at my bus stop to breathe and reflect. Before I was able to reflect a young Ecuadorian boy came running from the busy street and face planted on the sidewalk in front of me, an older woman helped him up and told him to be more careful. Once again in shock I try to take a breath, but then I saw my bus. Bus stops are not very organized and sometimes they get jammed, which, because of the traffic ours was. Some women were flagging the bus down so I assumed it was going to stop near them, but I was mistaken. The bus went far beyond the stop and I had to run to catch up. By the time I reached the back of the bus it had already started moving so I attempted, and luckily completed, my first moving entrance onto a bus. Finally I was able to sit down and reflect on the semi-crazy events. Soon I saw the ambulance going towards the direction of the accidence I just witnessed, hopefully to help the cyclist. At this point I once again started to notice the usually slow traffic. Since I have only been riding to Quito buses for 2 weeks I thought maybe it was just a really bad day for some reason, like what happens when the brewers have a home night game. But then I noticed the Ecuadorians looking around worried and angry. At this point I started to realize something was not normal about this day. Finally we reached a last intersection in my root, but the lights were not on and there were no cops controlling it. In the states when something like this happens, usually everyone just treats it as a 4-way stop and it is fairly organized and safe. This was definitely not the case here… every car was just trying to squeeze its way through the complete mess of an intersection and as a result it was taking forever. Eventually I reached my stop and got off (thankfully the bus driver came to a complete stop this time.) As I was walking back to my house I started to realize that there was not light on in any of the buildings and finally realized that the power was out. I got to my house and immediately wanted to share my adventure of a bus ride with David so I knocked on the downstairs door and a young girl, whom I had never seen before, answer I asked her where David was and she obviously did not know who I was talking about. I walked into the living room and saw more dark figures that I didn’t recognize. I eventually found David’s dad and he told me David was in his room. So I went to share my stories, Dave had just woken up from a nap so he was a little disoriented. Soon the lights came on and David’s mom came over and told us there was some special catholic ceremony happening and that is why their family was there. Dave and I were not completely sure what was happening but we went upstairs as instructed and were greeted by a priest and a large statue of the Virgin Mary. We were then herded into the living room to sit down. Dave and I were both pretty confused since neither of us knows Spanish very well nor know very much about Catholicism, and he had also just woken up. We sat though what was probably about 20-30 minutes of the priest talking about who knows what, I’m assuming religion. All I really got was the Virgin Mary is pretty important, other than that I was not paying close attention. After the ceremony we had a special queesh that was very tasty and some black tea. Eventually the Virgin left our living room (at which time the lights went off again) and my parents explained that the Virgin was going to other houses in the family. I still don’t understand exactly what happened but it was a good cultural experience, I think… and it was a very fitting end to a very odd day. The next morning I learned that half the country and about 70% of the Ecuadorian population lost power that night. Pretty crazy.
This morning was pretty much like every other. Took the bus to school, went to class, learned some things, the usual. However, after school the day started to get a little more interesting. First of all it was the first time I had ridden home from school without the boy who lives below me (Dave/David), which I wasn’t too worried about it was just different. As I got to the stop near where I switch buses the traffic started to get really horrible, as in we were barley moving. The traffic in Quito can get pretty bad, but this seemed extra awful so another girl and I decided to get off and walk to the extra 2 blocks. We ended up beating to bus to the stop, and there we split to go in our respected directions. This split happened at a large intersection where cops were directing traffic, something that I have seen before during rush hour. Just as I was about to start crossing the intersection because the cop had motioned for the cars to stop in the street perpendicular to my path and the other cop motioned for the cars parallel to me to start going, 2 motorcycles slipped by and started to cross the intersection. Right away I kind of smiled because motorcycles are pretty crazy around here, they will hop up on the sidewalk and weave around cars to get though traffic faster and it is usually amusing to watch them dominate the street. But, before I knew it a taxi hit the second cycle and the cyclist was sliding on the pavement. I am pretty sure this is the first serious accident I have even witnessed, and I was accordingly shaken up. I crossed the street, extra cautiously and sat down at my bus stop to breathe and reflect. Before I was able to reflect a young Ecuadorian boy came running from the busy street and face planted on the sidewalk in front of me, an older woman helped him up and told him to be more careful. Once again in shock I try to take a breath, but then I saw my bus. Bus stops are not very organized and sometimes they get jammed, which, because of the traffic ours was. Some women were flagging the bus down so I assumed it was going to stop near them, but I was mistaken. The bus went far beyond the stop and I had to run to catch up. By the time I reached the back of the bus it had already started moving so I attempted, and luckily completed, my first moving entrance onto a bus. Finally I was able to sit down and reflect on the semi-crazy events. Soon I saw the ambulance going towards the direction of the accidence I just witnessed, hopefully to help the cyclist. At this point I once again started to notice the usually slow traffic. Since I have only been riding to Quito buses for 2 weeks I thought maybe it was just a really bad day for some reason, like what happens when the brewers have a home night game. But then I noticed the Ecuadorians looking around worried and angry. At this point I started to realize something was not normal about this day. Finally we reached a last intersection in my root, but the lights were not on and there were no cops controlling it. In the states when something like this happens, usually everyone just treats it as a 4-way stop and it is fairly organized and safe. This was definitely not the case here… every car was just trying to squeeze its way through the complete mess of an intersection and as a result it was taking forever. Eventually I reached my stop and got off (thankfully the bus driver came to a complete stop this time.) As I was walking back to my house I started to realize that there was not light on in any of the buildings and finally realized that the power was out. I got to my house and immediately wanted to share my adventure of a bus ride with David so I knocked on the downstairs door and a young girl, whom I had never seen before, answer I asked her where David was and she obviously did not know who I was talking about. I walked into the living room and saw more dark figures that I didn’t recognize. I eventually found David’s dad and he told me David was in his room. So I went to share my stories, Dave had just woken up from a nap so he was a little disoriented. Soon the lights came on and David’s mom came over and told us there was some special catholic ceremony happening and that is why their family was there. Dave and I were not completely sure what was happening but we went upstairs as instructed and were greeted by a priest and a large statue of the Virgin Mary. We were then herded into the living room to sit down. Dave and I were both pretty confused since neither of us knows Spanish very well nor know very much about Catholicism, and he had also just woken up. We sat though what was probably about 20-30 minutes of the priest talking about who knows what, I’m assuming religion. All I really got was the Virgin Mary is pretty important, other than that I was not paying close attention. After the ceremony we had a special queesh that was very tasty and some black tea. Eventually the Virgin left our living room (at which time the lights went off again) and my parents explained that the Virgin was going to other houses in the family. I still don’t understand exactly what happened but it was a good cultural experience, I think… and it was a very fitting end to a very odd day. The next morning I learned that half the country and about 70% of the Ecuadorian population lost power that night. Pretty crazy.
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