QueenPuya

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!