QueenPuya

Hola todos,
I can now officially say I´ve been to the equator, though I´ve already crossed it twice. We took several buses north of Quito to La Mitad del Mundo (middle of the earth). It is actually a pretty crappy, trash filled town, but they have this giant gated complex with museums and a big round earth on a pedestal statue. I didn´t feel like paying four bucks for us to go in to see it, so we took a picture of me from the parking lot. It isn´t even at the real equator (GPS tells us it is several hundred meters further north), but you can act impressed for me. The real exciting thing about Mitad del Mundo is...Puya, of course! The hillsides are covered in Puya aequatorialis, which has two color varieties...reddish purple, and whitish green. Also in the same area is Puya sodiroana, with a branching inflorescence and deep purple flowers. The two come into flower at the same time (after the first major rains in February...now they are just dried out and full of seeds) and are all pollinated by the same hummingbirds. So they hybridize, with any number of color and branching varieties. I think I might want to come back in February (before or after I´m in Bolivia again) when they flower and try to study this phenomenon. Its a nice sized project, I know where it is, and I´d get to hang out with hummingbirds....I´ll have to talk to Ken and other people who know about such things (Ms. Koopman! Make me a list of papers to read!!) first, though. It made me excited, though. The locals had burned them as best they could, to bring the rain, but they will come bouncing back!

Mitad del Mundo has a lot of ¨motels¨. I said ¨great, now I´ll have somewhere to stay if I come do studies here¨. Edwin laughed and laughed and explained that motels are places where couples can discretely rent a room for a couple of hours, away from the prying eyes of mainstreet Quito. Good to know! I know my dear sister in law Cole found that out the hard way in Lima... We had another autentico lunch in town, and I opted for my favorite fried pork chunks (at least I know what that is). Good think I didn´t say Ï´ll have the same when Edwin ordered, or I would have been eating coagulated sheeps blood in soup with tomatoes and avocado. Woah, that takes the cake for grossest food so far. He loves it, especially since his girlfriend won´t let him have it when she is around. I don´t know if she´d approve of him getting pretty wasted off chicha (corn liquor) at noon, either, but he had to drink my share as, again, it was about the nastiest booze I´ve ever had. It tastes like the fermenting yeast water you use to bake bread. I stuck to eating corn prepared three ways...toasted, boiled and on the cob (NOTHING like sweet corn and I´ll be picking it out of my teeth for a year).

I´m feeling a bit crappy, as my stomach revolted over something last night and then my cold kicked in hard core first thing in the morning, so we loaded up on drugs at the pharmacy and I´m going to rest the rest of today and tomorrow and drink healthful tonics. Nothing too bad, don´t worry. We are going to go to THE biggest soccer match of the year tomorrow afternoon, which should be lots of fun. Friday, Edwin, his brother and I will rent a car and go to Papallacta and Chiriboga, south of town, for more Puya fun. Then begins the ten day haul through the south.

I´m glad to hear the Birge Hall key theft was resolved! I was a bit stressed about it, even from here. I hope Matt, Maggie and Berger had a lovely dinner. Someone should tell Ken about this blog...maybe he´d think it is funny. Anyhow, back to my room to read about paramos and eat vitamin C tablets.

Love,

Rachel

Hello everyone,

I´m back at my friendly neighborhood internet cafe in Quito after a quite successful first round of collecting...5 out of 30 species attained. Yesterday was quite adventurous. We took a bus to a random checkpoint and got off, using our GPS to tell us that a Puya was nearby. We went into the little restaurant that was there and I showed my Puya book to a bunch of friendly Afro-Ecuadorians (yes, they had slaves here too...for sugarcane back in the day). They knew exactly where it was and so we jumped in a car with them and headed up sort of a road for aways and then we spied the plant high up over this ravine. Puya just love the edges of cliffs (and I don´t). So then Edwin, Jose our guide and me climped straight up...scrambled, rather...through this crazy grassy mountainside. Thank God for the strength of dried out grasses...I used them like a ladder to pull myself and all my field supplies up the cliffside. We found the beautiful Puya hirtzii in full bloom, with big green flowers, admired and photographed it, then hacked it down (this plant is one that clumps, so we didn´t kill it). I enjoyed seeing three sympatric species of Lantana, a nice patch of Croton, and a little patch of banana trees on our walk back to the restaurant. True to their word, the people there had not stolen my backpack and so we chilled for awhile, eating more chicken part soup and drinking that great Latin American Coca-Cola in glass bottles before another bus came. We spent the night in Cotacachi, which is kind of touristy and famous for leather. I can´t really fathom my filthy self in a nice tailored leather jacket or with a cute purse, so I really wasn´t tempted. I would have settled for a hot shower, but none was to be found for eight dollars a night. After eating more chicken, we retired and I got to watch Independence Day and part of Lost in Translation (or Perdidos en Tokyo) in Spanish. I slept pretty soundly (as I do most nights down here), but I was awoken several times by the stinky smell of South American toilet water. I can´t really describe it, but it is so distinctive and is definitly one of my least favorite things. In the morning we wandered around in search of food, but I was actually glad that no real restaurants were open so we had to settle for bread, yogurt and Tampico instead of more chicken. Jumped in another random truck and headed to Cotacachi reserve. It was so beautiful...there was a big lake surrounded by forest, but we couldn´t really get a proper view because it was so misty. I could have enjoyed the silence and intermittent bird calls, but our driver was listening to this irritation morning show on the radio at full blast as we hiked around above the lake. Found another beautiful plant in full bloom, Puya asplundii, with green blue flowers and lots of fuzzy white hair. We hiked to this crazy place to get one plant with just a single flower left, but of course as we were leaving we saw one right by the road with hundreds of flowers an arm´s length away. Ah well....we collected it too! Took several buses back to Quito, and I got to watch John Q in Spanish. I swear, I´ve seen more movies here in the past week than in a year in the US. The people they hire to voice-over in Spanish have the corniest sounding voices...especially the kids. I treated Edwin to a very expensive (ie, almost the same cost as a night at the Med in Madison) dinner at an Italian place, run by a real life, rude Italian. He can insult my country, but you´d think he´d at least know how to make a proper pesto! Oh well, beats chicken and they were playing calming classical music. Tomorrow we are going to collect by the equator monument. Cheesy pictures to follow, I promise!

Love to everyone,

Rachel

Hello everyone,

I´m quite glad to be out of Quito and out into the wide, wide, Puya filled world. So, yesterday we took a bus to El Angel. We took a cab first to the bus station and had to navigate past tons of ticket vendors, looking for the one that goes to El Angel. I stand out, obviously, and everyone was yelling at me to go to Otavalo, which is the big indigenous craft town (I think we are going tomorrow). Got on our bus, which is actually pretty nice and headed north. I was entertained by Jean Claude Van Damm movies dubbed into Spanish...yuck. At least it wasn´t Ecaudorian pop music. Sorry to say, but their music here goes pretty low on my list of things that I like (Id give anything to hear El Condor Pasa played by panpipes). North of Quito is quite dry and desert like, but then we headed a bit higher, where there are massive rose farms (all under greenhouses) and sugar cane plantations. This is the one of two areas in Ecuador in which many people are of African ancestry. Five hours later we were in El Angel, and it was cute, cute, cute. We ran into someone who ran a hosteria for eight bucks a night, and so we were checked in and I was able to rid of my ridiculous backpack quite quickly. We made our way to the plaza, where all the local high schoolers were having a dance festival...each class was assigned the dance of a region of Ecuador (or a few other random parts of the world, including part of Bolivia, Mexico and Middle East!). It was quite cute and I got lots of good pictures. Had a great dinner of the locally famous fried pork chunks, potatoes, and popcorn (think like big, crunchy Cornnuts). You put this mild chili sauce on it and it is quite good! Everyone stared at me pretty much everywhere I go...I´m quite a bit taller and poorer dressed and I´m about the only gringo around most times. We found an old friend of Edwin´s in El Angel and had a nice evening in his house. He has two sons and the baby, Kenneth (!), was terrified of me. I felt kind of bad, but its hard not to be large and white. We shared some Ecuadorian wine, which is without a doubt the nastiest drink I´ve ever had. Its made of strawberries, but kind of tastes like plastic and medicine. (Once again, the Lonely Planet was dead on). But the family was very pleasant and I am now to the point where I register pretty much every phrase of Spanish, if it isn´t too fast, so I was able to sort of keep up. I have to explain to Edwin that sometimes I don´t even try and just let my mind wander in English, so he shouldn´t feel bad trying to keep me abreast of every conversation.

Woke up and had a giant breakfast of chicken with this cilantro salsa and eggs and the best juice ever. We hired a cab driver, Mario, to drive us the several kilometers up, up, up to El Angel paramo reserve. It was tremendous! Alll the heavy agriculture and deforestation gave way to meados of giant silver sunflower Espeletias and Puya hamata, in full bloom! This is the biggest Puya in Ecuador and I was quite dwarfed beneath it. I truly feel terribile for cutting one down, but that is what botanists do :( It was much more sad to see the areas of the paramo that had been burned by the local people, who think it brings the rain (Have they been talking to Malagasy people, Maggie?). Even though it is protected, they don´t seem to care. It kills all the Puyas, too :( I just loved the views from 12,000 plus feet elevation, and this lovely mist came in and made things just a bit on the cool side, which was quite a relief for me. Ecuador is way hotter than I had anticipated. i feel kind of stupid for hauling about my giant coat, but maybe it will come in handy. We hiked all around , looking for this supposed other species, and at one point I fell into a hole up to my armpits...don´t worry, we have a picture and I´m fine. I took tons of pictures of lovely plants and made an Onagraceae specimen for Ken. Came back down and found a second species in this ridiculous canyon right by town. I climbed pretty much on all fours up and up and up to get to this plant (which didn´´t even have nice flowers to reward me), but en route found another nice bromeliad in bloom. It was a very successful first day in the field and I feel very good about things. And there were no sketchy Colombians to spirit me away. There were very cute street dogs, though. I found cous cous...

We bussed back to Ibarra, the biggest town north of Quito, and it is kind of crappy and its famous ice cream parlour is closed for the night, so I don´t really know what to do. ´We had a nice chicken foot stew for lunch (just close your eyes and keep on eating...at least itkind of had vegetables in it!), so I´m kind of full but really would like some ice cream....ah, calcium and fruit. Honestly, everyone says Americans have such a bad diet, but in all of my travels around the world, i´ve found ample cheap sugary snacks, fried everything, and meat three times a day. Here, its fried bananas and pork, coca cola or fanta and pretty soon I´ll get to try the elusive cuye, or guinea pig on a stick.

Tomorrow we are going with another random guy with a truck to Buenos Aires...no, not Argentina yet! A small town that doesn´t even exist on one map, and doesn´t have a road to it on another...on the search for Puya hirtzii. Then back to Quito...I´m totally going to wash my clothes. We are staying in a pretty nice hotel tonight, and I look so gross, with my dirty zippy pants, layers of fleece and giant camera strapped about me. I´m pretty tired of people trying out their one phrase of English on me or laughing at me. Edwin and this lady at a restaurant said it is because I´m so pretty, like Britney Spears, but I´m hardly convinced. No worried, though! Things are great and it is quite the country. I can´t wait to see more of it (and get out of boring Ibarra). Off to find anything with the ¨tomato tree¨flavor...its just like heaven.

Love to you all,

Rachel

Hello everyone,

Well, today is my last day to acclimate, because tomorrow morning we are busing North to El Angel. But lets back the train up to yesterday. I spent most of the morning working in the herbarium, photographing dead Puya. Its not the most fun, but sometimes such things come in handy. Thank goodness I´m a ëspecialista, or I´d have to pay two dollars an hour to use the herbarium! This country is really into nickle and diming you, (really). I felt kind of crappy...sort of like a bad cold but might be the altitude, so I took a little nap and then someone gave me some sort of message supposedly from Edwin, and I interpretted it that I should go to the garden. But he wasn´t there and so I had to call him on his cell phone, which is like 5 times as expensive as a normal call. He told me to meet him at the mall and then we´d go down to meet the students. So luckily I had about an hour to chill in the garden some more. They really have done a very nice job with it. Found lots of Iochroma, and I can see why Stacey was drawn to them. Took lots of pictures of butterflies, though I can´t catch any of the giant hummingbirds I see yet...I´ll keep working on it.

So, I made my way to this mall, which is right in front of the Ecuadorian United Nations. Drank some nasty mango flavored water and waited for Edwin. Ecuadorians aren´t always the most puctual....just one more of my uptight American ways to let go of. He showed up, unmarried, and then we proceeded to take the Trole down way south, through the old town to Edwin´s girlfriend Monica´s house. I made the mistake of asking him, before we arrived, in perfect Spanish if he lived with his girlfriend. This was quite funny to other people in the vicinity. These people really are Catholic...they are not just faking it for old times sake. Anyhow, I was ushered in to the house of Monica and many of her relatives and fed tea, bread and cheese and had the undivided attention of several adorable 13 year old boys. I spoke very slowly to them in English, but i don´t think they understood any of it. I got them to tell me what was their favorite subject in English, which was a start. So, I spoke in S`panish and answered their questions, which were too cute as well. ¨Who is your role model as a female botanist?...I listed deceased Ecuadorian bromeliad hunter Amy Gilmartin and my dear Maggie Mae. I told them how adventurous you were in Africa, where things are harder than in Ecaudor. They wanted to know about my family, if I liked Ecuador, what are people like in the US, is the technology more advanced in the US, do we have volcanos in the US? The women in the family were very intererested in how young I was and how hard it must be for me to be away from my husband (and it is). Monica´s mother gave me this beautiful hand'made bread warming cloth, embroidered in red and green, which was just too sweet. So Monica, Edwin and Eric (maybe Monica´s son?) all headed in to the old town to see the cathedrals all lit up. I was just blown away...the old center of town is so ornate and beautiful, block after block of giant churches, colonial'style government buildings (including the presidental palace, where in the plaza two presidents were assassinated) and cute little apartments. Much better than la Paz, sorry to say. I can´t wait to come back during the day to take pictures (Edwin recommended that I leave my camera at his house, as it would get stolen at night. Never argue with a local). Had sort of a weird dinner at a pizza joint...I don´t know if they thought that is what I´d like being an American, but it was pretty tasty. I had mango, pineapple and peach on my pizza. The first and so far onlyr eally tasty thing I´ve had to eat here. I look forward to getting out of Quito and tuckiing in to small rural restaurants for guinea pig, pork and popcorn (Ecuadorian specialties). Came back to the herbarium adn had to show the guard how the shower´s hot water doesn´t work. He came promptly at 8 this morning to fix it, but couldn´t and thus I had to take another super fast ice cold shower. I am covered in gross fumes from all the diesel, so it is a must.

I´m pretty excited for things to begin tomorrow. We are bussing north, then renting a car and tooling around El Angel and a few of the drier valleys north of town. We´ll return to Quito perhaps Monday and go to the equator monument and local volcanos to collect. Then, I we head south, to Cuenca, Ambato, and Loja for about 10 days, again a combination of bussing and car rentals. Ill have several days in Quito before I return to the US. We are asked by Mr. Ecaudor Bromeliad Expert to collect any and all bromeliads, so I think it will be kind of crazy and my plant press will fill fast. I really don´t know if it will be at all possible to collect for Brian, though (please tell him). They are really nuts about permitting here and I´m not sure I want to risk it, as I didn´t write for Lamiaceae. I´ll try, though, and photograph localities.

Tonight, I am going to pack only what I need, because literally, we will have everything we have on our backs in the paramo with us. God willing the Puya are plentiful, close to the road and in bloom (though I doubt it). It sure is expensive...I´ll be lucky to get 3 species a day, but maybe if I collect well enough I could focus on population level stuff here?? Who knows...I can´t think about >DNA now. Edwin is an Espeletia specialist and will be able to tell me all about the weird, giant sunflowers we will see.

Hope to write again soon! Thanks for all the emails...they sure make me happy. I miss you all

Im here at the Quito herbarium and am trying to support them in any way I can, including paying sixty cents for their very crappy internet. I might go back to fraternizing the cafes soon. So I think we can call yesterday a success. I took a cab uptown to the Botanical Garden where I got to meet Edwin. He is, as expected, a very nice man. Knows lots about plants, is excited to go into the field, is excited to practice his English he doesn{t know much right now, and tells me my spanish is very good. The garden was quite nice...full of Puya and a few were in bloom! Unfortnatly, they are not curated at all and no one really knows where they came from. Lots of nice orchids too, and cheap coconut cake. so, just outside my window here is a tree and a giant black hummingbird with the longest tail periodically comes to sit on it. Amazing"! Edwin and I looked over maps and talked about our plan. I think it is as I thought...we{ll head north to El Angel and Ibarra, then do trips around Quito, then head south, basing ourselves in Cuenca and Loja. we are trying to find poeple with cars...orchid specialists, mainly. I[m hoping to meet with mr. PUya later too. I am staying now and I think for as long as I am in WQUito at the herbarium....it has a nice apartment in the back with kitchen and bathroom and i{m the onlyone in it. There is a guard in the herbarium all night, so i feel very safe. OUTside the apartment there is a cute little garden that reminds me of wisconsin...salvia for jay, fuschsia for Paul Berry, solanaceae for stacy. we are right near the airport , so i get to see and hear airplanes landing...not too bad, though. Today I am going to photograph the herbarium collection and work with the specimens so i{ll know them in the field. Strangely, Edwin might be getting married this morning and thus i couldn{t go hang out with him at the garden. I asked a coworker about this, and she said he is always getting married, so we{ll see if it happens. Anyhow, in the afternoon, after his [wedding[ I guess Edwin has a group of college studentsthat want to practice english with a native speaker, so we{ll have an English lesson at Edwin{s house. It should be lots of fun. I{m hoping to find somewhere tasty to eat today, as I{ve kind of tired of granola bars and trailmix. I{m in the new part of town, so it is not historic or very cute and not very touristy. If i can find my way to the supermercado, i could buy food to cook in the kitchen. untill then, i{ll eat oranges i buy off the street...they are safe, you can peel them, bad croussantes...Maggie knows all about that!..., and drinkable yogurt. i do hope to get down to the old town at some point...it is supposed to be tremendous. maybe tomorrow. the altitude is affecting me just a bit...it shard to walk up and down hills...and the sun is extremely intense in the morning, but in the afternoon the clouds roll int, it rains and the evenings are quite cool and lovely. i should be good to go in a few days. Edwin is totally game for all my touristy desires...yes, we{ll go to the equator, yes, we{ll eat guinea pig, yes we{ll go to the markets. I{m really excited to be here for Dia de los Muertos on Nov 2. Everyone has picnics in the cemetaries with their deceased relatives and I do hope they have creepy parades like in Mexico.
well, that is all for now. I{m having a great time and it is easier than I thought. I recant all my whining and worrying before i left

Love,

Rachel

Buenos dias! Well, I´m here in Quito and all is very well. The flight was quite uneventful,though I did get to watch Akeelah and the Bee, which gave me great strength. The airport was full of roses, as they are very proud of their rose business here in Ecuador. I´m going to get to meet with Mr. Rose and Mr. Puya himself later... Jose Manzanares. I got to my very cute hotel Folklore (thanks Matt) and the two ladies who run it are just so nice...it has parakeets,lots of plants and is very quiet. Can´t quite figure out the hot water, but did get a great night´s sleep. Awoke to a symphony of strange birds. I´m going to make my way over to the garden eventually to meet with Edwin, my guide. Might head to the herbarium, or do one more night here because it is so nice and homey feeling. The city is quite large (I think much bigger than La Paz), but very beautiful...there is a giant mountain right in front of me. I´m glad I´ve done South America before, so many things are not a shock or hard to figure out. My spanish seems much better than when I was in Bolivia...and I can more or less understand people! Funny how that happens...I certainly didn´t practice much. I´ll try to add to it when I get something more interesting to say. Best wishes and I´ll write more soon!çç All is good... Nos vemos,Rachel

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. Hopefully this will be more inclusive than myspace or facebook, more fun for me than writing email, and will keep me from mooching off my husband's blog! I'd like to thank my pioneering relatives Phil and Sue for introducing me to this site- I've greatly enjoyed living vicariously their trips in Europe. Anyhow, I'm leaving for a month in Ecuador starting tomorrow. This is part II of my "Puyas of the Andes" travel plans. (Part Ia was last march when I was in Bolivia...I'll return in February to finish it off...). I'm flying in to Quito and am going to be based at the National Herbarium (or dead plant library) for a few days before hopefully heading off for various paramos, or high alpine meadows, with my "guide" Edwin Narvaez where we will see, document and collect big, beautiful Puya. I'm a bit nervous, because I can't say exactly what I'll be doing or where I'll be going, but when you travel in South America you just have to learn to role with it and realize it will all work out. At worst, I'll just bum around the country for a month, unhindered by Puya. At best, I'll have DNA accessions of 35 species, maybe several populations of each. I'm heading back to Baltimore for Thanksgiving with the Jabaily family on November 19th. November 25th, Matthew and I fly to Buenos Aires to see some dear professors of mine and then we are off to the northwest with one of their graduate students for more of the same. There will be lots of adventures in car-rentals, map skills, and cramming of plants into small cars and buses, but hopefully everyone will stay in good health and spirits. We'll fly to Chile to collect around Santiago (and hopefully visit the beach!) and then its back to Buenos Aires for a true Puya-free honeymoon before coming home for Christmas. I'm trying to savor my last hours here in my snowy Madison home, because I won't really be here again until after the New Year. Anyhow, stay tuned for all the latest in Puya and South American news. Internet cafes are everywhere and cheap down there, and I tend to get a bit lonely and want to write in English, so hopefully I'll post a lot!