Wednesday, November 29, 2006
From Rainforest to Desert
Puya research is full of ups and downs,similar to any trip through the Andes. On the upside, Matt and I truly love Argentina and are having a great time. Driving stick is getting much better, and I even put in my time behind the wheel, through a particulartly beautiful and empty patch of desert. We left Tucuman and headed through the Yungas, a real rainforest with giant trees covered in giant bromeliads, ferns and long petaled Begonias. It was such a treat to stand in the mist, listening to birds and photographing plants. We pressed on and up, heading for more fruitful Puya hunting grounds. At the top of the mountain, it turned almost instantly to desert, reminding us strikingly of Wyoming or Utah. Beautiful, with huge columnar cacti and unbelievable hummingbirds. We photographed an emerald green one with a ridiculous long red tail. Who knew Argentina had all of this to offer? We found the only Puya of the day high on a ridiculous cliff, past flowering, but gave us all a sense of accomplishment. Matt seems to really enjoy pouring over maps and climbing around looking for plants, but I will leave it up to him ad his blog to chronical his feelings. I certainly love having him here...and Diego, too. Spent the rest of the day driving through dry valleys and hiking around, in a futile search for the other species. No luck, not a bit. Too bad many collection records are from about 1920, but I´m hopeful for tomorrow. It really was a great day by all accounts, but I do hope we can get some collecting done eventually.
I am quite a bit nervous....Diego heard from Chilean contacts that there is a woman here doing a doctoral thesis on Argentine Puya (I fully support her, as these are her plants, though I secretly hope she isn´t doing phylogenetics. We are trying to track her down to meet her). And even weirder, this big deal German professor and arch nemesis of some of my colleagues will just so happen to be in Chile collecting Puya (for what, I fear to ask) at the EXACT same day as us! So, catching my flies with honey, I have asked to meet him and perhaps go into the field together. I´m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, too, but how can I compete with German botany machine, especially that of a professor? I think he is the professor of my sketchy ¨colleagues¨ Nicole and Julie who also study bromeliads, but won´t talk to me and stole my guide in Bolivia. No good...I´m trying to hope for the best. I am Queen Puya, after all.
Ok, enough bad internet. Time to pass this off to Matt. And then to drink more Malbec and call it a night!!!
I am quite a bit nervous....Diego heard from Chilean contacts that there is a woman here doing a doctoral thesis on Argentine Puya (I fully support her, as these are her plants, though I secretly hope she isn´t doing phylogenetics. We are trying to track her down to meet her). And even weirder, this big deal German professor and arch nemesis of some of my colleagues will just so happen to be in Chile collecting Puya (for what, I fear to ask) at the EXACT same day as us! So, catching my flies with honey, I have asked to meet him and perhaps go into the field together. I´m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, too, but how can I compete with German botany machine, especially that of a professor? I think he is the professor of my sketchy ¨colleagues¨ Nicole and Julie who also study bromeliads, but won´t talk to me and stole my guide in Bolivia. No good...I´m trying to hope for the best. I am Queen Puya, after all.
Ok, enough bad internet. Time to pass this off to Matt. And then to drink more Malbec and call it a night!!!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Wearing Chacos in the Chaco
Hola todos,
Wow, where to begin. The end of Ecuador was insane, and so I had really no time to write to summarize. First, it really was a wonderful country and was able to do exactly what I came to do...I collected all but a few of the species of Puya, made friends, saw the country, got to think a lot, etc. Well, at the end I gave all my clothes to a laundry lady the weekend before I left, so wouldn´t stink on the plane or when I met my husband, and she closed before I could get back from the markets (a monster hail storm impeded my taxi). So, sin ropa, I had to return to the US. The worst, though, was at the airport when they confiscated my DNA samples...ie, the only thing I really care about. I didn´t have permits, as I have discussed bfore, and I got busted . But nothing bad happened, they were so gracious and Edwin was able to get them for me. So they are in Quito, waiting perhaps to return with my fern cohort in due time. I had a truly wonderful time hangin out with Michael and Hilary and wish them all the best in Ecuador, thank them for all their help. I love having colleagues!!
After the drama (several hours of it, all in Spanish), at the Quito airport, I was all too happy to make it back to Baltimore, husband, family and fun. I was overjoyed to see Matt, and it was great to see siblings in law Buck and Lisa, with Giti and Simon, in their element. Oh, and it was great to see Leslie too...and Padfoot. All that was missing was Cole. Baltimore is a great city and I was more and more impressed with every block we walked. I am so glad that Matt and I ¨invested´so much time in watching Homicide-Life on the Streets...we had SO much fun seeing places where they filmed the show. Thanksgiving was great....amazing food (with lamb as the centerpiece), wine, board games and bonding. Oh and ENglish! It was too soon to return to the southern hemisphere, but I know we´lll be back.
Matt and I had a little drama in Miami when I lost our boarding passes for awhile, but luckily all worked out and we were plugged into our individual TV screens for the 9 hour journey to BA. I slept a lot, but Matt didn´t. We went to La Plata, home of dear friends Jorge and Liliana, and their extra beloved daughter Victoria. Seriously, people here are nuts about their kids, and these two people really take it to the next level. We had two lovely days in tree lined La Plata..they fed us way too much and gave us way too much Malbec, and we spent our days touring the very cool and historic La Plata natural history museum. They had a very impressive collection of Pleistocene giant mammals..huge armadillos and sloths, the likes of which I had never seen. Thanks to Jurassic Parsk and the like, we forget about the equally scary and crazy giant mammal and bird age. Indeed the alrgest bird ever, the Thunder Bird, floated on the updrafts brought by storms above the Pampas at the same period..before going extinct. Cool.....
Matt, Diego and I flew to Cordoba early this morning. Diego is a great companion for us, a bit on the quiet side, but has great English and fun sense of humor. I would now like to offer all praise and love possible to Matt, the hero of the day. So at the last minute it was revealed both that Diego doesn´t drive and Argentina doesn´t rent automatics....leading Matt to take the wheel of our midsize Chevy car in the middle of midday traffic in the second largest city in Argentina, praying that he remembered how to drive manual. He did, enough to get us out of Cordoba with minimal cursing. OUt in the country, as Lonely Planet promised, driving was a dream and we flew through over 400 miles of Chaco....dry, short forest, with giant cacti and many exotic birds. Green parrots make cylindrical nests out of sticks and big, stripy hawks hunt the random goat or small rodent. Truly a big, beautful land....it was great to be away from the hordes of people in Ecuador and to be out in the giant countryside. I can´t wait to head up the slopes tomorrow.
I am quite happy here....it is great to have Matt here, in fact, I think it would have been quite hard without him for many reasons. The people are extraordinary, too (though I refuse to compare too much with Ecuador or Bolivia). I must admit, it is nice to be int eh midst of Europeans again....we certainly get stared at less...though we certainly dón´t know how to dress properly. More later, but more now we should get to bed!!! All this wine makes me tired and happy! North, north, north....back to the Tropic o Capricorn.
Love,
Rachel
Friday, November 17, 2006
Orchid Jealousy
What do you get when you have a dry Dutchman, a jolly Australian and a wide eyed American? The beginning of a very bad joke? No, a very long day at the Botanical Garden! A group of weary travelers (speaking of which, I sure could use a trip to the Weary Traveler in Madison right about now...) arrived at my apartment at the garden bright and early yesterday morning. They had been in El Condor by the Peruvian border before the takeover (which I will explain shortly) had just taken the awful overnight bus up from Loja. Henk is a Dutchman working at the Missouri Botanical Garden on the avocado family, Bruce is an Australian hopelessly in love with orchids, and Mercedes is the Ecuadorian wife of David, the American affiliate who has helped me down here. They had been in the real rainforest to the east of Loja and had been operating out of a Canadian owned mining camp, which apparently was quite comfortable. Well, the locals were upset with the company about some sort of dam they were building to get more power, and our group of botanists received word in the middle of the night to pack their things and leave. Which of course you do when you are in the middle of such a situation. They heard all sorts of reports that nothing happened and again that many people got shot, but in any case they couldn´t go back.
It is nice having people around who speak English and can talk botany with me, though I certainly liked having the place to myself more. I got the lowdown on Colombia....that I shouldn´t try to go there, and Missouri has pretty much given a moritorium to its staff on collecting down there. (ok, so now what?) And Peru is great, but the infrastructure is terrible. All of this I kind of knew, but it is good to hear it again from people in the know. Henk is of the kind of botanist that hates molecular systematics (or rather thinks it is useless) and thinks it is an atrocity that so many young students have to study it, with their field skills suffering as consequence. I can certainly see his point, as I was explaining how we have to be good at so many things anymore, and it is quite taxing (to the taxonomist). But I do think it is a completely valid addition to systematics and can help us tell a lot of compelling stories, and is very interesting in its own right. But I know when to keep quiet. He also laments the lack of interest in tropical botany, as he says so many Americans waste their time re studying the flora of the States. (I was proud to say that is certainly not the case at Wisconsin!)
Today we went to the garden with them, as they had an orchid to drop off, fresh from the jungle. I was so proud to see two Puyas we collected in their new homes in the paramo display!! The garden was packed with troups of kids in bright school uniforms. They were having some sort of environmental field day, and lots of school groups had made displays about keeping the air and water clean. It was wonderful to see so many kids hearing good environmental messages and enjoying the plants. In general, I think they were much better behaved than American kids would have been on such an excursion. They would look up at me and say Buenos Dias in chorus, without being prompted by a teacher. I used my camera to take pictures of the event for the garden and they were all too happy to pose.
We spent hours there, looking through every greenhouse at every orchid, of which they have over 1000. Orchids really are too much....despite being fellow Monocots, I don´t really know where to begin. The biodiversity is astounding, but I can´t help but feel a bit jealous. Bromeliads, too, are beautiful epiphytes and have a strong horticultural following, but once you throw orchids in the mix, there really is no competition. I was quite proud of myself, though. I have learned two genera of orchids....Epidendrum and Mandervillia....which I can usually tell apart from the others, even in the field. I have learned quite a few plants, besides Puya, on my time down here. I´m going to write some of them down now just so I don´t forget and so I can show off....Tournefortia, Chusquiraga, Brachyotum, Minnonia, Blegnum, Calamagrostis, Espeletia, Valeriana, ...ok, enough for now.
Speaking of speaking English, tonight I am going to meet Michael and his girlfriend when they get off the plane from New York to start looking for ferns. It will be nice to sound wise and give advice on Ecuador. I´ll try not to let the fact that I am all too ready to get out of here impact what I say. Tomorrow night I am going to meet with Mr. Puya himself, which should be quite the time. Shaping of my future thinking about Puya, I hope. I will try to haul myself out and buy some souvenirs (something I haven´t done really yet, sorry) and begin the great sorting of dried Puya and the packing.
I hope I´ll have one more time to write and reflect back on the whole experience. But for now, Ramen is calling, and then beer with Americans.
Love,
It is nice having people around who speak English and can talk botany with me, though I certainly liked having the place to myself more. I got the lowdown on Colombia....that I shouldn´t try to go there, and Missouri has pretty much given a moritorium to its staff on collecting down there. (ok, so now what?) And Peru is great, but the infrastructure is terrible. All of this I kind of knew, but it is good to hear it again from people in the know. Henk is of the kind of botanist that hates molecular systematics (or rather thinks it is useless) and thinks it is an atrocity that so many young students have to study it, with their field skills suffering as consequence. I can certainly see his point, as I was explaining how we have to be good at so many things anymore, and it is quite taxing (to the taxonomist). But I do think it is a completely valid addition to systematics and can help us tell a lot of compelling stories, and is very interesting in its own right. But I know when to keep quiet. He also laments the lack of interest in tropical botany, as he says so many Americans waste their time re studying the flora of the States. (I was proud to say that is certainly not the case at Wisconsin!)
Today we went to the garden with them, as they had an orchid to drop off, fresh from the jungle. I was so proud to see two Puyas we collected in their new homes in the paramo display!! The garden was packed with troups of kids in bright school uniforms. They were having some sort of environmental field day, and lots of school groups had made displays about keeping the air and water clean. It was wonderful to see so many kids hearing good environmental messages and enjoying the plants. In general, I think they were much better behaved than American kids would have been on such an excursion. They would look up at me and say Buenos Dias in chorus, without being prompted by a teacher. I used my camera to take pictures of the event for the garden and they were all too happy to pose.
We spent hours there, looking through every greenhouse at every orchid, of which they have over 1000. Orchids really are too much....despite being fellow Monocots, I don´t really know where to begin. The biodiversity is astounding, but I can´t help but feel a bit jealous. Bromeliads, too, are beautiful epiphytes and have a strong horticultural following, but once you throw orchids in the mix, there really is no competition. I was quite proud of myself, though. I have learned two genera of orchids....Epidendrum and Mandervillia....which I can usually tell apart from the others, even in the field. I have learned quite a few plants, besides Puya, on my time down here. I´m going to write some of them down now just so I don´t forget and so I can show off....Tournefortia, Chusquiraga, Brachyotum, Minnonia, Blegnum, Calamagrostis, Espeletia, Valeriana, ...ok, enough for now.
Speaking of speaking English, tonight I am going to meet Michael and his girlfriend when they get off the plane from New York to start looking for ferns. It will be nice to sound wise and give advice on Ecuador. I´ll try not to let the fact that I am all too ready to get out of here impact what I say. Tomorrow night I am going to meet with Mr. Puya himself, which should be quite the time. Shaping of my future thinking about Puya, I hope. I will try to haul myself out and buy some souvenirs (something I haven´t done really yet, sorry) and begin the great sorting of dried Puya and the packing.
I hope I´ll have one more time to write and reflect back on the whole experience. But for now, Ramen is calling, and then beer with Americans.
Love,
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
My First Volcano
Greetings,
Yesterday was quite a big day, but ultimately a lot of fun. Juan and Edwin arrived at the herbarium and we drove the rental car through the entire breadth of insane market day Quito. It took about an hour to rid ourselves of the city, and then we were in the countryside, barreling towards Cotapaxi National Park. Too bad that it was overcast and cloudy, so I never got the startling view of the volcano in all its snowcapped glory. I really only saw one volcano without clouds covering it, but I´ve forgotten its name momentarily. At the entrance to the park, we saw Puya retrorsa, with big, billowy green flowers. I was quite smitten and it was a good way to start the day. We entered the park with little fanfare (they readily accepted my sort of permits, and the fact that Edwin is writing a book about the park smoothed things over as well) and headed up to the museum. Got to seem some creepily bad taxadermy of the various short deer and little weasel things that live on the paramo here, and an Andean condor in desperate need of more wing feathers. A peace corp volunteer had identified the plants of the park as best she could, and had even planted a little botanical garden at the entrance, but Edwin right off the bat found about 5 things wrong with it. He´ll have lots of work to do when he is here for a month writing the book! Great plants, though.
We found the fuzziest Puya of all....Puya clava herculis (Hercules´club) in the grassy paramos before the volcano. Even the spines of its leaves were fuzzy! I just had to give it a kiss.... Not too long, because its flowers were swarming with mites! I´ve seen this before...I wonder if they are involved in pollination at all? We headed up the volcano, because Edwin told me there was a glacier there. I think he was mistaken and mistranslated, but at around 4600m, we did find snow. All vegetation was gone and we were driving on dusty, red volcanic soil. It was the first time Edwin and Juan had seen snow, which I think is kind of special and well worth the extra hour. We saw several Jeeps full of European mountaineers at the top, bravely donning their ice picks and cramp ons for the miserable assent to the top in blinding, freezing snow. I´m hard core, but not like that and was glad to descend back to the paramo. I think that is the first active volcano I have stood on...parents, please correct me if there is some childhood memory I have forgotten.
It was starting to rain (it has been doing that an aweful lot lately and I´m constantly cold), but we had one more species to collect. We descended down the western side of the cordillera, towards the beach (though six hours away...), and it was instantly much more tropical. We spied the plant through the driving rain again on the steep slope of a roadcut, and had to clamber up, using bamboo and a random Lamiaceae (may have been Lepechinia, but no flowers!) as a ladder, in the freezing cold. Luckily it was in full flower and for the first time they were pink, not blue or green! Puya tillii is pollinated by bats, and the flowers emitted a nice perfume on the car ride home.
Let me take a moment to applaud the drivers of Ecuador. Down here, there really are very few cops on the roads and people take matters in to their own hands. Passing on blind curves, going as fast as possible, stopping in mid traffic, braking at the last minute....my first time in South America I was absolutely terrified all the time in cars and buses, but now I´m pretty used to it and just marvel at the fluidity of transportation. It is tight, efficient, and under control. There seems to be minimal road rage, and it seems that most of the people on the road are real professionals and know what they are doing. (Incidentally, way fewer people have vehicles, and if they do there is a good change it is their livelihood...Oh, and I´ve barely seen any woman drivers. Not that that means anything). Thank you all for getting me about. I would NEVER drive down here!
Today I went with Edwin to this little town north of Quito that specializes in making decorations out of bread dough. I bought a ton, as they were just so cute and economical. Now for a moment, let me be sentimental. Eight years ago, when we were my brother´s age (weird), my husband went on a school trip to Ecuador. He went to many of the places I did, including Cotapaxi and the bread dough town, and many places I didn´t, including (very regrettably, but wasn´t remotely feasible...the Galapagos Islands). Granted, he bought his girlfriend at the time a nice sweater (but lets not even go there...she was pretty crazy), and he brought me back several dough ornaments....a little boy in a poncho that broke at some point in college, and a spotted donkey with a wreath around its neck that I think is somewhere in Madison now. Those were back in the ¨courting years¨when we first were falling in love and I am thinking back now to a much younger Matt here in Ecuador, shopping for something special for me, and to a much younger me, so delighted to receive festive dough. I miss you, baby.
Ok, on that note, some pictures! Tomorrow is the last Puya hunt....beneath TeleferiQo (see way previous entry) I saw a flowering Puya, which I think is the last on our list....and hasn´t been recorded there since 1888! We have to take the tram to the top and hike ALL the way down! Going out with a bang....
A special shout out to Michael Sundue of New York Botanical Garden, who is beginning his own Ecuadorian collecting adventure, searching for the elusive and beautiful Fern. See you Friday!
Peace out,
Rachel
Yesterday was quite a big day, but ultimately a lot of fun. Juan and Edwin arrived at the herbarium and we drove the rental car through the entire breadth of insane market day Quito. It took about an hour to rid ourselves of the city, and then we were in the countryside, barreling towards Cotapaxi National Park. Too bad that it was overcast and cloudy, so I never got the startling view of the volcano in all its snowcapped glory. I really only saw one volcano without clouds covering it, but I´ve forgotten its name momentarily. At the entrance to the park, we saw Puya retrorsa, with big, billowy green flowers. I was quite smitten and it was a good way to start the day. We entered the park with little fanfare (they readily accepted my sort of permits, and the fact that Edwin is writing a book about the park smoothed things over as well) and headed up to the museum. Got to seem some creepily bad taxadermy of the various short deer and little weasel things that live on the paramo here, and an Andean condor in desperate need of more wing feathers. A peace corp volunteer had identified the plants of the park as best she could, and had even planted a little botanical garden at the entrance, but Edwin right off the bat found about 5 things wrong with it. He´ll have lots of work to do when he is here for a month writing the book! Great plants, though.
We found the fuzziest Puya of all....Puya clava herculis (Hercules´club) in the grassy paramos before the volcano. Even the spines of its leaves were fuzzy! I just had to give it a kiss.... Not too long, because its flowers were swarming with mites! I´ve seen this before...I wonder if they are involved in pollination at all? We headed up the volcano, because Edwin told me there was a glacier there. I think he was mistaken and mistranslated, but at around 4600m, we did find snow. All vegetation was gone and we were driving on dusty, red volcanic soil. It was the first time Edwin and Juan had seen snow, which I think is kind of special and well worth the extra hour. We saw several Jeeps full of European mountaineers at the top, bravely donning their ice picks and cramp ons for the miserable assent to the top in blinding, freezing snow. I´m hard core, but not like that and was glad to descend back to the paramo. I think that is the first active volcano I have stood on...parents, please correct me if there is some childhood memory I have forgotten.
It was starting to rain (it has been doing that an aweful lot lately and I´m constantly cold), but we had one more species to collect. We descended down the western side of the cordillera, towards the beach (though six hours away...), and it was instantly much more tropical. We spied the plant through the driving rain again on the steep slope of a roadcut, and had to clamber up, using bamboo and a random Lamiaceae (may have been Lepechinia, but no flowers!) as a ladder, in the freezing cold. Luckily it was in full flower and for the first time they were pink, not blue or green! Puya tillii is pollinated by bats, and the flowers emitted a nice perfume on the car ride home.
Let me take a moment to applaud the drivers of Ecuador. Down here, there really are very few cops on the roads and people take matters in to their own hands. Passing on blind curves, going as fast as possible, stopping in mid traffic, braking at the last minute....my first time in South America I was absolutely terrified all the time in cars and buses, but now I´m pretty used to it and just marvel at the fluidity of transportation. It is tight, efficient, and under control. There seems to be minimal road rage, and it seems that most of the people on the road are real professionals and know what they are doing. (Incidentally, way fewer people have vehicles, and if they do there is a good change it is their livelihood...Oh, and I´ve barely seen any woman drivers. Not that that means anything). Thank you all for getting me about. I would NEVER drive down here!Today I went with Edwin to this little town north of Quito that specializes in making decorations out of bread dough. I bought a ton, as they were just so cute and economical. Now for a moment, let me be sentimental. Eight years ago, when we were my brother´s age (weird), my husband went on a school trip to Ecuador. He went to many of the places I did, including Cotapaxi and the bread dough town, and many places I didn´t, including (very regrettably, but wasn´t remotely feasible...the Galapagos Islands). Granted, he bought his girlfriend at the time a nice sweater (but lets not even go there...she was pretty crazy), and he brought me back several dough ornaments....a little boy in a poncho that broke at some point in college, and a spotted donkey with a wreath around its neck that I think is somewhere in Madison now. Those were back in the ¨courting years¨when we first were falling in love and I am thinking back now to a much younger Matt here in Ecuador, shopping for something special for me, and to a much younger me, so delighted to receive festive dough. I miss you, baby.
Ok, on that note, some pictures! Tomorrow is the last Puya hunt....beneath TeleferiQo (see way previous entry) I saw a flowering Puya, which I think is the last on our list....and hasn´t been recorded there since 1888! We have to take the tram to the top and hike ALL the way down! Going out with a bang....
A special shout out to Michael Sundue of New York Botanical Garden, who is beginning his own Ecuadorian collecting adventure, searching for the elusive and beautiful Fern. See you Friday!
Peace out,
Rachel
Monday, November 13, 2006
Nickled and Dimed
Hola todos,
Sorry to freak anyone out with news of my illness. I´m quite better today, after quite a bit of sleep last night. I returned to eating meat again and made a big run to the grocery store for my time here in Quito. Loaded up on Ramen, cheap fruit (got a pineapple for a quarter), gringo extravagancies like cream cheese and Oreos, big purple yams, toothpaste, eggs and fruit juice....I will expound upon juice in a moment. I think I´m good to go for awhile. After some drama and shopping about in the pouring rain out by the airport, we have rented a car to drive to Cotapaxi national park tomorrow for collecting...perhaps my last day of it. Best to go out with a big, expensive bang. Edwin´s brother Juan is going to drive us, as Edwin doesn´t drive and I won´t drive. It should be quite the time. Spent the day today getting all the plants from the trip through the south into presses and into the flat drier beds. The ceiling of the drier room is caked in mold, from all the humidity and warmth, and it set my allergies off something fierce. I wonder if that is part of root of my health problems here. That or I´m allergic to Puya (which could very well be true...) We´ll hope for the former. I also received the annoying news that I had conveniently forgetten that the herbarium here charges you thirty cents for every specimen you dry. Specimen meaning anything folded between newspaper. Keep in mind that Puya are gigantic and I go through about ten sheets for every species, and I´m collecting quadruplicates (two of which I don´t really care about....one for the herbarium here which is mandatory, one for the private collection of Mr. Puya, and then the two I do care about...one for Selby gardens in Florida and the BEST for Wisconsin). Of course I have to pay them to dry specimens for them! Our two day trip to Carchi in the north cost me thirty bucks, and God knows what the giant trip through the south will cost. Somehow I got out of Bolivia without spending a dime at the herbarium! I think it is good that they are trying to make this whole plant business ¨profitable¨, and I guess that means milking gringos, but it seems a bit ridiculous to me. I am a student, after all. Thank God for the National Science Foundation, or I swear I never would be doing this. I suppose I should be happy, though. I talked to American ex pat and great botanist Lou Jost today, who lives near Quito, and he said you used to have to pay 1000 dollars to secure permitting in this country, until just a few years ago. Now its 20. Weird.... I don't even know if I have permitting, but I'm sure someone will remind me to pay...
Times like this I get sort of depressed about the whole business. I figure, not counting airfare, I will have dropped about two grand on this trip, and a month of my life. A great month, dont get me wrong, but a month nonetheless, away from husband, friends and home ...oh, and from lots of stress. God knows what the trip in Argentina will cost, as Jorge insists we rent a car for it, and if cars are anything there like they are here, there goes another grand. Not to mention airfare, expensive Chilean wining and dining and paying of colleagues. And then the two greatest mountains yet to climb...Peru and Colombia. Both have terrible permitting rules, both are physically gigantic, Peru doesn't have the best infrastructure through the mountains and I think we all know a bit about the boonies of Colombia. Oh, and I dont have contacts really there yet...at least the kind that write back. But of course, at least fifty different, glorious species live in each country, and I cannot do this without at least a good chunk of them. I suppose I should get cracking on finding friends in those places, but it is a bit exhausting thinking about going anywhere else, right about now. I barely can fathom flying back to Bolivia in February, even though it is super easy, as I have an independently wealthy friend who drives me around and knows the plants like the back of his hand. Sometimes I just want to buy a big house in the suburbs, have a bunch of kids, get my hair and nails done, quilt, garden, do yoga, watch Oprah and cook nice dinners. No, not really....soon enough, I guess....
Have no fear, though. I have a list of power ballads on my iPod that get me through the tough spots...Içm going to make a playlist for Maggie Mae for her even more intense trip to Madagascar. Today was a special treat because I got my clothes professional laundered. Before, it was pretty ghetto, involving me heating up a pot of water, adding my concentrated REI soap and scrubbing away, before setting it up to dry in the intense Quito morning sun. I bought a new toothbrush and if I can bear to take a cold shower in the morning ...only if it a sunny morning and I can dry myself outside...I will feel like a new woman.
OK, now I will begin a section of the blog where I expound on some random things I love about Ecuador, in case you wondered if I was happy here. One thing...the juice. You order a juice here and they mean business. They hand peel a giant pile of whatever lovely fruit you order, whether pineapple, mango, papaya, coconut, guanabana ...no, I doçt know what it is, tomato tree...the best, Andean blackberry, peach....and blend it. They add no water or sugar and serve it in a fancy sundae glass with a straw. That is standard fare with any meal and dirt cheap. Amazing....how will I ever be able to drink concentrate again ¿sorry, this crazy keyboard is all wrong and I cançt figure out the symbols.
Ok, and now a weird thing about Ecuador. They love KFC. It is really the only truly American enterprise, oh besides Coca Cola, that I see everywhere. I mean, honestly, KFC. That is pretty ghetto by US standards, but they go nuts for it. They do love the chicken, I suppose. I did see a commercial for McDonalds here, and it was SUPER expensive....almost five dollars for a BigMac, which I figure is about 15 dollars by US standards. Crazy.
Alright. I swore I would get some business done on the internet tonight, but it is just too much fun to write this blog. I hope you think it is fun to read and not too long winded. Carry on.
Love,
Rachel
Sorry to freak anyone out with news of my illness. I´m quite better today, after quite a bit of sleep last night. I returned to eating meat again and made a big run to the grocery store for my time here in Quito. Loaded up on Ramen, cheap fruit (got a pineapple for a quarter), gringo extravagancies like cream cheese and Oreos, big purple yams, toothpaste, eggs and fruit juice....I will expound upon juice in a moment. I think I´m good to go for awhile. After some drama and shopping about in the pouring rain out by the airport, we have rented a car to drive to Cotapaxi national park tomorrow for collecting...perhaps my last day of it. Best to go out with a big, expensive bang. Edwin´s brother Juan is going to drive us, as Edwin doesn´t drive and I won´t drive. It should be quite the time. Spent the day today getting all the plants from the trip through the south into presses and into the flat drier beds. The ceiling of the drier room is caked in mold, from all the humidity and warmth, and it set my allergies off something fierce. I wonder if that is part of root of my health problems here. That or I´m allergic to Puya (which could very well be true...) We´ll hope for the former. I also received the annoying news that I had conveniently forgetten that the herbarium here charges you thirty cents for every specimen you dry. Specimen meaning anything folded between newspaper. Keep in mind that Puya are gigantic and I go through about ten sheets for every species, and I´m collecting quadruplicates (two of which I don´t really care about....one for the herbarium here which is mandatory, one for the private collection of Mr. Puya, and then the two I do care about...one for Selby gardens in Florida and the BEST for Wisconsin). Of course I have to pay them to dry specimens for them! Our two day trip to Carchi in the north cost me thirty bucks, and God knows what the giant trip through the south will cost. Somehow I got out of Bolivia without spending a dime at the herbarium! I think it is good that they are trying to make this whole plant business ¨profitable¨, and I guess that means milking gringos, but it seems a bit ridiculous to me. I am a student, after all. Thank God for the National Science Foundation, or I swear I never would be doing this. I suppose I should be happy, though. I talked to American ex pat and great botanist Lou Jost today, who lives near Quito, and he said you used to have to pay 1000 dollars to secure permitting in this country, until just a few years ago. Now its 20. Weird.... I don't even know if I have permitting, but I'm sure someone will remind me to pay...
Times like this I get sort of depressed about the whole business. I figure, not counting airfare, I will have dropped about two grand on this trip, and a month of my life. A great month, dont get me wrong, but a month nonetheless, away from husband, friends and home ...oh, and from lots of stress. God knows what the trip in Argentina will cost, as Jorge insists we rent a car for it, and if cars are anything there like they are here, there goes another grand. Not to mention airfare, expensive Chilean wining and dining and paying of colleagues. And then the two greatest mountains yet to climb...Peru and Colombia. Both have terrible permitting rules, both are physically gigantic, Peru doesn't have the best infrastructure through the mountains and I think we all know a bit about the boonies of Colombia. Oh, and I dont have contacts really there yet...at least the kind that write back. But of course, at least fifty different, glorious species live in each country, and I cannot do this without at least a good chunk of them. I suppose I should get cracking on finding friends in those places, but it is a bit exhausting thinking about going anywhere else, right about now. I barely can fathom flying back to Bolivia in February, even though it is super easy, as I have an independently wealthy friend who drives me around and knows the plants like the back of his hand. Sometimes I just want to buy a big house in the suburbs, have a bunch of kids, get my hair and nails done, quilt, garden, do yoga, watch Oprah and cook nice dinners. No, not really....soon enough, I guess....
Have no fear, though. I have a list of power ballads on my iPod that get me through the tough spots...Içm going to make a playlist for Maggie Mae for her even more intense trip to Madagascar. Today was a special treat because I got my clothes professional laundered. Before, it was pretty ghetto, involving me heating up a pot of water, adding my concentrated REI soap and scrubbing away, before setting it up to dry in the intense Quito morning sun. I bought a new toothbrush and if I can bear to take a cold shower in the morning ...only if it a sunny morning and I can dry myself outside...I will feel like a new woman.
OK, now I will begin a section of the blog where I expound on some random things I love about Ecuador, in case you wondered if I was happy here. One thing...the juice. You order a juice here and they mean business. They hand peel a giant pile of whatever lovely fruit you order, whether pineapple, mango, papaya, coconut, guanabana ...no, I doçt know what it is, tomato tree...the best, Andean blackberry, peach....and blend it. They add no water or sugar and serve it in a fancy sundae glass with a straw. That is standard fare with any meal and dirt cheap. Amazing....how will I ever be able to drink concentrate again ¿sorry, this crazy keyboard is all wrong and I cançt figure out the symbols.
Ok, and now a weird thing about Ecuador. They love KFC. It is really the only truly American enterprise, oh besides Coca Cola, that I see everywhere. I mean, honestly, KFC. That is pretty ghetto by US standards, but they go nuts for it. They do love the chicken, I suppose. I did see a commercial for McDonalds here, and it was SUPER expensive....almost five dollars for a BigMac, which I figure is about 15 dollars by US standards. Crazy.
Alright. I swore I would get some business done on the internet tonight, but it is just too much fun to write this blog. I hope you think it is fun to read and not too long winded. Carry on.
Love,
Rachel
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Vicuña saves the day!
Greetings,
I´m back now at my homebase in Quito, and am quite happy about it. Things took a bit of turn for the worst, but let us recap some of the positive first, shall we? When I wrote my entry from Cuenca I wasn´t quite in the mood to appreciate how fun a place it was. The collecting was great, first of all. We hired a taxi, which was a big mistake for him as a truck was really what was necessary to make it up to Paramo Matanga, but it really wasn´t my problem as long as the thing kept moving. Our first stop was kind of exciting, though it did involve hiking on a cliffside, which is brutal on the ankles and not the most fun. Why it was exciting, though, is I think I found my first sort of big discovery of the trip. A species that is only recorded in the north (Puya aequatorialis) I think was all over the hillside and actively hybridiznig with this other species. I was able to collect both species and the hybrid and will take them to Mr. Puya to verify. Cool! Headed further up, up, and up hitting major rocks all the way and having to wait for large earthmovers fixing the road to move for us (again, I will never go collecting in the rainy season...the roads are dirt and the hills are dirt and they burned down everything holding it together) Ironically, the people in the next town over the mountain had closed the road in protest because of the road´s condition....they were working on it, just starting on the other side! People have a funny way of getting things done around here. Up on the paramo I got to see the tiniest Puya of all...Puya exigua...in full bloom! It has rosy, round bracts and black flowers just peaking out of the top layer of bracks. It clumps a lot and lives right with another tiny Puya, P. pygmaea, which doesn´t clump. Edwin collected one to put in his paramo collecting at the Quito Garden.
We also saw the giant Puya ¨brackeana¨, which I´m pretty convinced is the same as Puya hamata. Mr. Puya just looked for a few minute differences in this population, so he could name a new species after his wife. I can´t blame him, but I wasn´t prepared to kill an entire plant just to prove this point. To take a specimen of this species, I´d have to cut the whole thing down, and it doesn´t clump, so that is thirty years or more of growth for naught. I just couldn´t do it....maybe that makes me a bad Botanist, but I think it means I am a good person. The plant was past flowering and had brown shiny seed capsules a few weeks away from opening. It would be like killing a pregnant woman! NO thanks....I vouchered it with a photo instead.
Back in Cuenca and had to face the arduous task of pressing the plants again. The lady who ran our inn was very intrigued, though her bustling about trying to clean up after me was a bit annoying and she mixed up some of my leaves. She just loved the plants, though, and asked that the extra inflorescence chunks of Puya navarroana be strewn about the inn for her grandson´s birthday party (aged 4) the next day! So there was a little kids party with spiny Puya chunks next to the candy bowl. Whatever works, I guess. She´ll email us a picture. Then we had one last meal of hamburgers, which were decent, before heading north. OUtside the hamburger shop there was a little boy, maybe two years old, sitting by himself with a little cup, begging for money. He wasn´t very insistent, just sleepy. He kept almost falling over with tiredness. Now, I´ve seen a lot of street kids here, but this one really broke my heart. I know his mother (in a very ragged band of campesinos the next block over) was nearby and had set him here just to prey on my emotions, but damned if it didn´t work. I nearly broke down. I opted instead to give him some money and found him later eating a mango. At least it as nutritious. Maybe someday we´ll adopt a South American kid.
The busride north to Ambato was really annoying, because it was a bus with stops and people would jump on, ride half a mile and then demand to get off. It took about 7 hours and they didn´t even show movies. Thank God for the iPod again. There is a lot of time to be killed down here and the three things that get me by are said iPod, Suduko (Thanks Matt!) and Moby Dick (again, Thanks Matt! My husband is a substitute teacher, and an expert on knowing how to kill time during long boring days). In Ambato, we opted for Chinese food, which was pretty tasty and a much needed change. I couldn´t eat much, I think, because I was getting sick.
I woke up the next morning and couldn´t really eat breakfast and said I was feeling debil/weak. Found our taxi for the day in the driving rain and headed up, up, up over the mountain to Guaranda. I broke into a full fever, which was pretty miserable, but also kind of trippy at 4200m. I got to see (at least I´m pretty sure I saw...) a herd of about 10 wild vicuñas (the ancestor of the llama and alpaca) majestically running through Chimborazo Fauna reserve. They have long skinny necks and reddish fur and white bellies. In my state, I thought they were like Puya and didn´t move, so I though I could just take a picture of them when we returned. Oh well. Cody, I couldn´t convince any to fit into a pocket. This is really the only interesting animal I´ve seen on the trip, except for a few stunning hummingbirds and other birds and this rabbit in El Cajas. No monkeys...
We found Puya vestita growing in rows marking off a cow pasture. It is not the most interesting of plants, but this was the first time I´d seen this people actually use the plants, so that was kind of cool. We made it down to Guaranda, where again, it was a festival day (this towns Independence Day). This means that everyone puts their piglet, goat, chicken, calf on a leash and takes it to town to try to sell it. In the driving rain and in my condition I wasn´t in much of amood to join in the festivities. Found some aspirin, though, and this calmed the chills considerable. I was determined to find the last plant for the day, though...Puya ferruginea, one of my favorites. It grows in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and this was supposedly the northernmost population. We looked EVERYWHERE and asked everyone if they´d seen it, but to no avail. It is gone....I don´t know what happened, as it is a great clumper and I don´t think burning would do it in. Exhausted, fivety dollars poorer and only one species richer, we returned to Ambato. I slept the whole way, a feat in a cab packed with gear. I was way too tired to take the bus to Quito, so I opted to spend one more day in Ambato. I gave Edwin some money (somethign I do a lot, gladly, but I´m rapidly tiring of) and spent the rest of the day in bed. Edwin tried to convince Monica to come down and spend the day with him shoe shopping (about one of the only things she likes to do...but it didn´t work out. Nothing really seems to work out between them. I hope Edwin knows what he is doing!) Napped some, watched some cable, including seeing the Village in English. I thought it was pretty good, actually. Slept through the night, except was awoken by a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I killed it, but I became terribly paranoid I had malaria...which is ridiculous at this altitude, but I wasn´t in my right mind.
This morning the fever was gone and I was able to make it back to Quito. Poor Edwin, I think he was really scared for me. Trust me, I´ve had way worse in both Bolivia and Brazil....no stomach problems this time around! Today I napped some more and am loaded up on tea and juice. I think I´ll be healthy enough for Cotapaxi on Tuesday and then Papallacta. Two more days in the field should about do it for me! I can´t wait to come home, really. I feel like I´ve seen it. I will enjoy the next week, and I do have stuff to do, but the US will be a welcome site indeed. If you have any souvenir requests, get them in now!!
Love,
Rachel
I´m back now at my homebase in Quito, and am quite happy about it. Things took a bit of turn for the worst, but let us recap some of the positive first, shall we? When I wrote my entry from Cuenca I wasn´t quite in the mood to appreciate how fun a place it was. The collecting was great, first of all. We hired a taxi, which was a big mistake for him as a truck was really what was necessary to make it up to Paramo Matanga, but it really wasn´t my problem as long as the thing kept moving. Our first stop was kind of exciting, though it did involve hiking on a cliffside, which is brutal on the ankles and not the most fun. Why it was exciting, though, is I think I found my first sort of big discovery of the trip. A species that is only recorded in the north (Puya aequatorialis) I think was all over the hillside and actively hybridiznig with this other species. I was able to collect both species and the hybrid and will take them to Mr. Puya to verify. Cool! Headed further up, up, and up hitting major rocks all the way and having to wait for large earthmovers fixing the road to move for us (again, I will never go collecting in the rainy season...the roads are dirt and the hills are dirt and they burned down everything holding it together) Ironically, the people in the next town over the mountain had closed the road in protest because of the road´s condition....they were working on it, just starting on the other side! People have a funny way of getting things done around here. Up on the paramo I got to see the tiniest Puya of all...Puya exigua...in full bloom! It has rosy, round bracts and black flowers just peaking out of the top layer of bracks. It clumps a lot and lives right with another tiny Puya, P. pygmaea, which doesn´t clump. Edwin collected one to put in his paramo collecting at the Quito Garden.
We also saw the giant Puya ¨brackeana¨, which I´m pretty convinced is the same as Puya hamata. Mr. Puya just looked for a few minute differences in this population, so he could name a new species after his wife. I can´t blame him, but I wasn´t prepared to kill an entire plant just to prove this point. To take a specimen of this species, I´d have to cut the whole thing down, and it doesn´t clump, so that is thirty years or more of growth for naught. I just couldn´t do it....maybe that makes me a bad Botanist, but I think it means I am a good person. The plant was past flowering and had brown shiny seed capsules a few weeks away from opening. It would be like killing a pregnant woman! NO thanks....I vouchered it with a photo instead.
Back in Cuenca and had to face the arduous task of pressing the plants again. The lady who ran our inn was very intrigued, though her bustling about trying to clean up after me was a bit annoying and she mixed up some of my leaves. She just loved the plants, though, and asked that the extra inflorescence chunks of Puya navarroana be strewn about the inn for her grandson´s birthday party (aged 4) the next day! So there was a little kids party with spiny Puya chunks next to the candy bowl. Whatever works, I guess. She´ll email us a picture. Then we had one last meal of hamburgers, which were decent, before heading north. OUtside the hamburger shop there was a little boy, maybe two years old, sitting by himself with a little cup, begging for money. He wasn´t very insistent, just sleepy. He kept almost falling over with tiredness. Now, I´ve seen a lot of street kids here, but this one really broke my heart. I know his mother (in a very ragged band of campesinos the next block over) was nearby and had set him here just to prey on my emotions, but damned if it didn´t work. I nearly broke down. I opted instead to give him some money and found him later eating a mango. At least it as nutritious. Maybe someday we´ll adopt a South American kid.
The busride north to Ambato was really annoying, because it was a bus with stops and people would jump on, ride half a mile and then demand to get off. It took about 7 hours and they didn´t even show movies. Thank God for the iPod again. There is a lot of time to be killed down here and the three things that get me by are said iPod, Suduko (Thanks Matt!) and Moby Dick (again, Thanks Matt! My husband is a substitute teacher, and an expert on knowing how to kill time during long boring days). In Ambato, we opted for Chinese food, which was pretty tasty and a much needed change. I couldn´t eat much, I think, because I was getting sick.
I woke up the next morning and couldn´t really eat breakfast and said I was feeling debil/weak. Found our taxi for the day in the driving rain and headed up, up, up over the mountain to Guaranda. I broke into a full fever, which was pretty miserable, but also kind of trippy at 4200m. I got to see (at least I´m pretty sure I saw...) a herd of about 10 wild vicuñas (the ancestor of the llama and alpaca) majestically running through Chimborazo Fauna reserve. They have long skinny necks and reddish fur and white bellies. In my state, I thought they were like Puya and didn´t move, so I though I could just take a picture of them when we returned. Oh well. Cody, I couldn´t convince any to fit into a pocket. This is really the only interesting animal I´ve seen on the trip, except for a few stunning hummingbirds and other birds and this rabbit in El Cajas. No monkeys...
We found Puya vestita growing in rows marking off a cow pasture. It is not the most interesting of plants, but this was the first time I´d seen this people actually use the plants, so that was kind of cool. We made it down to Guaranda, where again, it was a festival day (this towns Independence Day). This means that everyone puts their piglet, goat, chicken, calf on a leash and takes it to town to try to sell it. In the driving rain and in my condition I wasn´t in much of amood to join in the festivities. Found some aspirin, though, and this calmed the chills considerable. I was determined to find the last plant for the day, though...Puya ferruginea, one of my favorites. It grows in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and this was supposedly the northernmost population. We looked EVERYWHERE and asked everyone if they´d seen it, but to no avail. It is gone....I don´t know what happened, as it is a great clumper and I don´t think burning would do it in. Exhausted, fivety dollars poorer and only one species richer, we returned to Ambato. I slept the whole way, a feat in a cab packed with gear. I was way too tired to take the bus to Quito, so I opted to spend one more day in Ambato. I gave Edwin some money (somethign I do a lot, gladly, but I´m rapidly tiring of) and spent the rest of the day in bed. Edwin tried to convince Monica to come down and spend the day with him shoe shopping (about one of the only things she likes to do...but it didn´t work out. Nothing really seems to work out between them. I hope Edwin knows what he is doing!) Napped some, watched some cable, including seeing the Village in English. I thought it was pretty good, actually. Slept through the night, except was awoken by a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I killed it, but I became terribly paranoid I had malaria...which is ridiculous at this altitude, but I wasn´t in my right mind.
This morning the fever was gone and I was able to make it back to Quito. Poor Edwin, I think he was really scared for me. Trust me, I´ve had way worse in both Bolivia and Brazil....no stomach problems this time around! Today I napped some more and am loaded up on tea and juice. I think I´ll be healthy enough for Cotapaxi on Tuesday and then Papallacta. Two more days in the field should about do it for me! I can´t wait to come home, really. I feel like I´ve seen it. I will enjoy the next week, and I do have stuff to do, but the US will be a welcome site indeed. If you have any souvenir requests, get them in now!!
Love,
Rachel
Friday, November 10, 2006
Ambato Bound
Hello all,
I am frantically trying to burn a CD of all my photos, in case anything should happen to my camera. We are supposed to be leaving for Ambato soon, a six hour busride north, and things are not ready. I¨`m trying not to be annoyed. We had a lovely time in Cuenca, staying in this really old house converted into an inn in the center of town. It has a central plaza open to the sky, but they put plastic over it to divert the rain. Speaking of rain, Ecuador really needs rain (I know the feeling, having grown up in Colorado). The country gets most of its energy from hydroelectricity and the river here in Cuenca that feeds the dam is very low. In fact, in about two weeks the country will experience rolling blackouts and various cities will only have power at certain times to save energy. Crazy. It is kind of funny, given that Bolivia, Venezuela and even Ecuador have major oil and gas reserves, but trade between countries down here is anything but straightforward and prices of energy fluctuate a lot. For example, gas cost pennies in Bolivia, but is roughly the same as it is the US here in Ecuador. I hear in Colombia it is even worse. I guess I am glad I live in the US at times like these.
Another reason I am glad I live in the US is that our political structure is so much more stable and reliable (even when things aren´t going my way). Here they are about to have presidential elections, which is a rarity because usually they just have protests and overthrow the president. One night they had three different presidents ëlected¨before the crowds calmed down. And Ecuadorian presidents are notoriously corrupt. Edwin heard on the news that Ecuador is number one for corruption in South America, which is saying somethign. The lady that runs our inn was saying how she lost all her money when a president fled the country and took all the money out of the banks. I guess he is now a professor at Harvard?? Hard to believe, and maybe my translation wasn´t correct but I think that is what she said. She now hides all her money under a mattress (I don´t think it was mine!) As for the election, it is Noboa, a rich, fat old conservative against the muy guapo Chaves esque Correa. Despite the fact that I never see anyone with Noboa signs, Edwin is convinced he will win. The US should be happy that not another country down here is joining with Venezuela in hating the US. Really, though, I have encountered very little anti US sentiment. In fact, quite the opposite. They name so many things after the US, they use our money, watch our movies, and no one is really taking me to task on issues back home or really asking at all about my country (it was much different in Bolivia). Kind of a relief.
Well, much more later but I´ve got to figure this stupid CD burnign thing out and find the bus. Six hours is a long time to sit, but I¨ve done worse and thank God my iPod is charged. More later...
Love,
Rachelo
I am frantically trying to burn a CD of all my photos, in case anything should happen to my camera. We are supposed to be leaving for Ambato soon, a six hour busride north, and things are not ready. I¨`m trying not to be annoyed. We had a lovely time in Cuenca, staying in this really old house converted into an inn in the center of town. It has a central plaza open to the sky, but they put plastic over it to divert the rain. Speaking of rain, Ecuador really needs rain (I know the feeling, having grown up in Colorado). The country gets most of its energy from hydroelectricity and the river here in Cuenca that feeds the dam is very low. In fact, in about two weeks the country will experience rolling blackouts and various cities will only have power at certain times to save energy. Crazy. It is kind of funny, given that Bolivia, Venezuela and even Ecuador have major oil and gas reserves, but trade between countries down here is anything but straightforward and prices of energy fluctuate a lot. For example, gas cost pennies in Bolivia, but is roughly the same as it is the US here in Ecuador. I hear in Colombia it is even worse. I guess I am glad I live in the US at times like these.
Another reason I am glad I live in the US is that our political structure is so much more stable and reliable (even when things aren´t going my way). Here they are about to have presidential elections, which is a rarity because usually they just have protests and overthrow the president. One night they had three different presidents ëlected¨before the crowds calmed down. And Ecuadorian presidents are notoriously corrupt. Edwin heard on the news that Ecuador is number one for corruption in South America, which is saying somethign. The lady that runs our inn was saying how she lost all her money when a president fled the country and took all the money out of the banks. I guess he is now a professor at Harvard?? Hard to believe, and maybe my translation wasn´t correct but I think that is what she said. She now hides all her money under a mattress (I don´t think it was mine!) As for the election, it is Noboa, a rich, fat old conservative against the muy guapo Chaves esque Correa. Despite the fact that I never see anyone with Noboa signs, Edwin is convinced he will win. The US should be happy that not another country down here is joining with Venezuela in hating the US. Really, though, I have encountered very little anti US sentiment. In fact, quite the opposite. They name so many things after the US, they use our money, watch our movies, and no one is really taking me to task on issues back home or really asking at all about my country (it was much different in Bolivia). Kind of a relief.
Well, much more later but I´ve got to figure this stupid CD burnign thing out and find the bus. Six hours is a long time to sit, but I¨ve done worse and thank God my iPod is charged. More later...
Love,
Rachelo
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Hide the Gringa
Hello everyone,
Well, I´m ever so happy to see the way things have gone over with the elections (with the exception of the Wisconsin gay marriage amendement), so I´ve opted to have a few drinks with Edwin to celebrate. Actually, I had the drinks before I knew and mostly it was because I was feeling a bit rich and we were in a nice restaurant. But I can justify it now, and am excited to see the results. This is my first drink in three weeks, ending a sober streak that I haven´t had since.... lets not go there. Anyhow, we are in Cuenca now, second only to Quito in the mountains in size and splendor. Actually, I think I like it more than Quito. It is smaller, cleaner (I´m very tired of Ecuador´s trash in the streets), very historic, full of big churches and has a nice climate. We woke up in Saraguro and rushed to the bus station to make the earliest bus north. I got to see indigenous women standing in a line in full black shawls held together with the traditional embellished silver pins waiting to buy a piece of hog skin off a very large and yellow pig that was tied down on a cart (dead already, don´t worry, but still gross). I have pictures, don´t worry! Saraguro had treated us well, but the indigenous people in the town were distinctly less friendly than other people in Ecuador. They would barely acknowledge anything I said or return any of the ritualized greetings. I´ll try not to hold it against them. We had much success collecting Puya in Saraguro, with a trip up Fierro Urcu mountain to find the cute, cute, cute little Puya pygmaea. I got to watch these amazing black swifts (birds) zone up and over the mountain side, riding the currents and chasing each other. Maybe I´ll take a day in Quito and go do some serious bird watchign when I get back.
We took the three hour busride north to Cuenca, and got pretty grossed out when this women in front of me was changing her baby and kept throwing filthy newspapers from it out the window by my face (thank goodness I could move seats). Also, for the first time I saw a Puya and passed it by. There was absolutely no town or anythign for the bus to stop at on Tinajillas pass and I kind of realized that I¨ll be lucky if I can get this project to work at all, when I get back in the lab and have time to play with DNA, so I shouldn´t really worry about Puya lehmanniana, which looks quite like so many others I´ve seen before. I hate to think that maybe this all won´t work, so I don´t think about it now. I was explaining to Edwin that I¨m relatively stress free in Ecuador, as all I have to do is collect plants. I can´t do lab work, I can´t read journals, I can´t attend meetings. I just take it one day and one species at a time. The trip stresses him quite a bit, but he enjoys it much more than the officework he does at the garden (I´m still not entirely sure what his job description is, but it allows him to take time off with me no problem so I don´t worry). Edwin got the call today that he will be in charge of writing a book on the flora of Cotapaxi national park, which is quite an honor. I´m going to help him translate it into English and use my nice camera to take pictures for the book when we visit it in a few days. I like giving back to this country and helping in any way I can. I also am going to send him and the garden some pdf papers they have requested. We really forget in the US how lucky we are to have all the resources we do.
Once in Cuenca, we settled in to the first hostel listed under ¨budget¨in the lonely Planet. The girl who worked there initially misquoted us the price, and so we promptly left (no way am I going to pay 25 bucks each and not have TV!), but luckily the owner showed up and straightened it out and I could finally take off my ridiculous backpacking backpack and get inside away from the mocking of the middle school students across the streets (Hello USA! I love you, baby!) We rented a taxi to take us to Cajas National Park, pretty close by.
Cajas was much more put together than Podocarpus and had fancy signs and more people working at it. So we went inside the entrance and Edwin showed him our stack of papers and explained the situation. The guy proceeded to explain that Cajas does not work under the Ecuadorian Department of the Environment and is its own seperate entity: I, as a foreigner, would have to pay 500 dollars (or actually a 1000 to ¨secure¨my permits) to collect in the park! Insane. Edwin was furious and so we left and just took pictures inside the park. It was absolutly spectacular, though. Rimmed with peaks, full of mountain lakes and cute cushion plants and silence (unlike this internet cafe...). We were able to collect outside the park the plants we needed, so no harm was done, but I got to see clearly the crazy Ecuadorian bureucracy. I also got a taste of it when discussing with Edwin what should be done with all the Puya seeds we have collected. I can´t take them back to the US, because the minister of the environment is very paranoid abotu biopiracy (even though these are pretty worthless plants from an economic standpoint), and they can´t be sent to the worlds bank of seeds in England for the same reason either. The Minister also shot down Edwin´s plan to start an Ecuadorian seed bank, leaving all the vulnerable orchids and thousands of other species without this safety net. It really is ridiculous. I feel so helpless, as this is not my country, and I feel very sorry for people like Edwin who want to make a difference, but are up against a brick wall.
Tomorrow we are going for another ´mother load¨of plants east of Cuenca to Sigsig and Chiguinda. I´m excited! I´m feeling a bit poor, though. We had a nice dinner tonight at a decidedly gringo restaurant, complete with Indian, Thai and Middle Eastern food, decent booze (including my tomato tree daquari...muy fuerte!), and a very nice (yet very obese) American bartender. I also bought a beautiful sweater made by the daughter of the lady who runs our hostel. It was a bit pricey for Ecuador, but is adorable. Back to chicken off the street for us tomorrow!
Well, rock on compatriots and happy Election! The times they are a´changin!?!?
Love,
Rachel
Well, I´m ever so happy to see the way things have gone over with the elections (with the exception of the Wisconsin gay marriage amendement), so I´ve opted to have a few drinks with Edwin to celebrate. Actually, I had the drinks before I knew and mostly it was because I was feeling a bit rich and we were in a nice restaurant. But I can justify it now, and am excited to see the results. This is my first drink in three weeks, ending a sober streak that I haven´t had since.... lets not go there. Anyhow, we are in Cuenca now, second only to Quito in the mountains in size and splendor. Actually, I think I like it more than Quito. It is smaller, cleaner (I´m very tired of Ecuador´s trash in the streets), very historic, full of big churches and has a nice climate. We woke up in Saraguro and rushed to the bus station to make the earliest bus north. I got to see indigenous women standing in a line in full black shawls held together with the traditional embellished silver pins waiting to buy a piece of hog skin off a very large and yellow pig that was tied down on a cart (dead already, don´t worry, but still gross). I have pictures, don´t worry! Saraguro had treated us well, but the indigenous people in the town were distinctly less friendly than other people in Ecuador. They would barely acknowledge anything I said or return any of the ritualized greetings. I´ll try not to hold it against them. We had much success collecting Puya in Saraguro, with a trip up Fierro Urcu mountain to find the cute, cute, cute little Puya pygmaea. I got to watch these amazing black swifts (birds) zone up and over the mountain side, riding the currents and chasing each other. Maybe I´ll take a day in Quito and go do some serious bird watchign when I get back.
We took the three hour busride north to Cuenca, and got pretty grossed out when this women in front of me was changing her baby and kept throwing filthy newspapers from it out the window by my face (thank goodness I could move seats). Also, for the first time I saw a Puya and passed it by. There was absolutely no town or anythign for the bus to stop at on Tinajillas pass and I kind of realized that I¨ll be lucky if I can get this project to work at all, when I get back in the lab and have time to play with DNA, so I shouldn´t really worry about Puya lehmanniana, which looks quite like so many others I´ve seen before. I hate to think that maybe this all won´t work, so I don´t think about it now. I was explaining to Edwin that I¨m relatively stress free in Ecuador, as all I have to do is collect plants. I can´t do lab work, I can´t read journals, I can´t attend meetings. I just take it one day and one species at a time. The trip stresses him quite a bit, but he enjoys it much more than the officework he does at the garden (I´m still not entirely sure what his job description is, but it allows him to take time off with me no problem so I don´t worry). Edwin got the call today that he will be in charge of writing a book on the flora of Cotapaxi national park, which is quite an honor. I´m going to help him translate it into English and use my nice camera to take pictures for the book when we visit it in a few days. I like giving back to this country and helping in any way I can. I also am going to send him and the garden some pdf papers they have requested. We really forget in the US how lucky we are to have all the resources we do.
Once in Cuenca, we settled in to the first hostel listed under ¨budget¨in the lonely Planet. The girl who worked there initially misquoted us the price, and so we promptly left (no way am I going to pay 25 bucks each and not have TV!), but luckily the owner showed up and straightened it out and I could finally take off my ridiculous backpacking backpack and get inside away from the mocking of the middle school students across the streets (Hello USA! I love you, baby!) We rented a taxi to take us to Cajas National Park, pretty close by.
Cajas was much more put together than Podocarpus and had fancy signs and more people working at it. So we went inside the entrance and Edwin showed him our stack of papers and explained the situation. The guy proceeded to explain that Cajas does not work under the Ecuadorian Department of the Environment and is its own seperate entity: I, as a foreigner, would have to pay 500 dollars (or actually a 1000 to ¨secure¨my permits) to collect in the park! Insane. Edwin was furious and so we left and just took pictures inside the park. It was absolutly spectacular, though. Rimmed with peaks, full of mountain lakes and cute cushion plants and silence (unlike this internet cafe...). We were able to collect outside the park the plants we needed, so no harm was done, but I got to see clearly the crazy Ecuadorian bureucracy. I also got a taste of it when discussing with Edwin what should be done with all the Puya seeds we have collected. I can´t take them back to the US, because the minister of the environment is very paranoid abotu biopiracy (even though these are pretty worthless plants from an economic standpoint), and they can´t be sent to the worlds bank of seeds in England for the same reason either. The Minister also shot down Edwin´s plan to start an Ecuadorian seed bank, leaving all the vulnerable orchids and thousands of other species without this safety net. It really is ridiculous. I feel so helpless, as this is not my country, and I feel very sorry for people like Edwin who want to make a difference, but are up against a brick wall.
Tomorrow we are going for another ´mother load¨of plants east of Cuenca to Sigsig and Chiguinda. I´m excited! I´m feeling a bit poor, though. We had a nice dinner tonight at a decidedly gringo restaurant, complete with Indian, Thai and Middle Eastern food, decent booze (including my tomato tree daquari...muy fuerte!), and a very nice (yet very obese) American bartender. I also bought a beautiful sweater made by the daughter of the lady who runs our hostel. It was a bit pricey for Ecuador, but is adorable. Back to chicken off the street for us tomorrow!
Well, rock on compatriots and happy Election! The times they are a´changin!?!?
Love,
Rachel
Monday, November 06, 2006
Mama Cuchara
I was relieved to find that my backpack made the haul from Loja to Saraguro with minimal grossness, as it was packed in under the bus with several boxes of live baby chickens. I was a bit sad to leave Loja, as it was quite the nice city. The ride there, though, certainly was not. We took the twelve hour overnight bus from Quito, and the seats were a bit more comfortable than on the small commute buses, but that meant you could lean them back and so there literally was a person laying in your lap! Luckily, it wasn´t full, so I moved to the back and had two seats to myself. I couldn´t bear to watch or listen to ¨Big Mama´s House¨ dubbed into Spanish, so I started my iPod in alphabetical order by artist and dug in for the long haul. I refused to allow myself to skip any songs or albums, no matter how bad ¨Jagged Little Pill¨ is ten years later or how dearly I wanted to hear the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I couldn´t really sleep, as the road was so twisty and bumpy that my head kept flopping around every time I nodded off. It would have been maddening without the iPod, but with the iPod I got into kind of this weird trance like state and just waited it out. I kind of got the idea that maybe I should write a play about riding buses in Ecuador. We´ll see. I´m feeling very creative these days, which never happens in the States (except when the newest Martha Stewart Living comes out). Maybe I should roll with it.
Believe it or not, I only made it to Ben Harper when the sun came up and we rolled into Loja. It is the fourth largest city in Ecuador, but is quite a bit smaller and cleaner than Quito. Spotless, actually. Edwin hadn´t slept either (or the night before as he was tending to Monica in the hospital...she´s fine now), so we were both kind of cranky and had to haul all our stuff around town trying to find a hotel. I thought they were full for dia de los Muertos, but I guess there was one of about ten holidays to the Virgen of Cisne going on (this doll of the Virgen that lives in a beautiful house up in the hills and inspires visions. The largest pilgrimage every year is to carry her to Loja), so many were full. Finally we settled in and had our first of many tasty, tasty meals in Loja. I ate so well! They make this great drink called Orchata...it is purple and has about eleven plants in it and makes me feel healthy and strong. Ate a lot of chicken and drank heavenly tomato tree and pineapple juices too.
That first day we took a cab over the hills down to the desert of Catamayo. Found a couple species there, but it was kind of depressing seeing how the cows had eaten this area down to about nothing. I´ll have to upload a picture of the weird zig zag patterns the cows make on the mountainsides here as they walk up and down looking for food. Everywhere I saw people burning the forests, to maybe encourage grazing or the rain. It is so depressing and so prevelent. They plant these crazy Eucalyptus and pine trees here, because they grow really fast for timber, but there is virtually no biodiversity in these new ¨forests¨. Then, they even burn these forests, which I certainly can´t understand!. I really don´t know what the solution is...education, maybe? Edwin says most people have no idea how biodiverse Ecuador is (one of the richest countries on earth, despite its size) and there are just so few resources for conservation.
The next day we went to Podocarpus National Park (named for the giant, endemic gymnosperms that used to cover the Andes. I got to see a virgin remnant of one in Bolivia...impressive). There are literally just a handful of rangers for a park the size of connecticut, and very few roads (which is good, or it would get logged and burned more than it already is!). That day, we first took a military road up, up, up to this crazy antennae high in the paramo. We got to cut through so many different habitat types, including real rainforest. Orchids, epiphytic bromeliads, birds, ferns, the whole bit. Saw cute, cute, cute little Puya cuevae high on the cold paramos and lots of other nice plants. I could photograph them all day (be prepared for the slideshow!!). This guy we hired had a nice, two cabin truck and hauled us all around through some pretty sketchy places with ease...all for seventy bucks, which isn´t too bad.
We then went in the main entrance of the park and the lone ranger at the entrance was all to glad to abandon his post and jump in the car to come with us! We drove way up, and then hiked straight up the mountain to a gorgeous view of the continental divide and mile after mile of forest. We heard parrots and saw all kinds of lovely birds soaring about. Such a magical experience, even if the hike was brutal. Seriously, they don´t believe in switchbacks here..its straight up or nothing. Good thing the giant biting flies motivated us to keep moving! Found a couple of nice species up there and what might be the first registered hybrid of the two...I promised Edwin I´d name it after him, if it is! It was such an amazing place. I gave the ranger a pretty hefty (by Ecuadorian standards) donation to the park. I like to give money to the Nature Conservancy, and they help fund this park, so I figured I´d cut out the middleman and help at the source. I hope to do likewise in other parks we visit...I think you get a lot of bang for your buck out here.
Spent a pretty brutal morning pressing all the plants. It takes hours and the spines and bulkiness of the plants makes it ever so hard. You go through a ton of newspaper and the plant press gets high really fast. Then there is the ever present worry about mold. You can treat the whole plant with alcohol to disinfect it, but this discolors it and would be a real pain. So, we bundled them all up when they were flat, put them in a bag, addressed it to Edwin´s brother and put in on the next night bus to Quito. Apparently this is totally standard, but it makes me very nervous. He will take them and get them in the drier at Quito before the mold sets in, hopefully. It is hard to part with my hard won plants, but necessary.
Now we are in Saraguro, which has a very distinctive indigenous population. They dress mostly in black, men and women wear long braids and black felt hats and the men wear short cutoff pants. Supposedly they wear black as mourning for Atahualpa, the Incan king who founded Quito and was murdered by the Spanish. (perhaps more cool Incan facts later). We´ve got our car hired for tomorrow and we should hit the record of six species. Tonight we are eating at Mama Cuchara, a cooperative run by indigenous women to benefit its members and keep them from being abused. I was adventurous and ate a few bites of cow stomach stew for breakfast this morning, but I think i´ll stick to good old chicken tonight!
Happy trails, all, and more later!
Love,
Rachel
Believe it or not, I only made it to Ben Harper when the sun came up and we rolled into Loja. It is the fourth largest city in Ecuador, but is quite a bit smaller and cleaner than Quito. Spotless, actually. Edwin hadn´t slept either (or the night before as he was tending to Monica in the hospital...she´s fine now), so we were both kind of cranky and had to haul all our stuff around town trying to find a hotel. I thought they were full for dia de los Muertos, but I guess there was one of about ten holidays to the Virgen of Cisne going on (this doll of the Virgen that lives in a beautiful house up in the hills and inspires visions. The largest pilgrimage every year is to carry her to Loja), so many were full. Finally we settled in and had our first of many tasty, tasty meals in Loja. I ate so well! They make this great drink called Orchata...it is purple and has about eleven plants in it and makes me feel healthy and strong. Ate a lot of chicken and drank heavenly tomato tree and pineapple juices too.
That first day we took a cab over the hills down to the desert of Catamayo. Found a couple species there, but it was kind of depressing seeing how the cows had eaten this area down to about nothing. I´ll have to upload a picture of the weird zig zag patterns the cows make on the mountainsides here as they walk up and down looking for food. Everywhere I saw people burning the forests, to maybe encourage grazing or the rain. It is so depressing and so prevelent. They plant these crazy Eucalyptus and pine trees here, because they grow really fast for timber, but there is virtually no biodiversity in these new ¨forests¨. Then, they even burn these forests, which I certainly can´t understand!. I really don´t know what the solution is...education, maybe? Edwin says most people have no idea how biodiverse Ecuador is (one of the richest countries on earth, despite its size) and there are just so few resources for conservation.
The next day we went to Podocarpus National Park (named for the giant, endemic gymnosperms that used to cover the Andes. I got to see a virgin remnant of one in Bolivia...impressive). There are literally just a handful of rangers for a park the size of connecticut, and very few roads (which is good, or it would get logged and burned more than it already is!). That day, we first took a military road up, up, up to this crazy antennae high in the paramo. We got to cut through so many different habitat types, including real rainforest. Orchids, epiphytic bromeliads, birds, ferns, the whole bit. Saw cute, cute, cute little Puya cuevae high on the cold paramos and lots of other nice plants. I could photograph them all day (be prepared for the slideshow!!). This guy we hired had a nice, two cabin truck and hauled us all around through some pretty sketchy places with ease...all for seventy bucks, which isn´t too bad.
We then went in the main entrance of the park and the lone ranger at the entrance was all to glad to abandon his post and jump in the car to come with us! We drove way up, and then hiked straight up the mountain to a gorgeous view of the continental divide and mile after mile of forest. We heard parrots and saw all kinds of lovely birds soaring about. Such a magical experience, even if the hike was brutal. Seriously, they don´t believe in switchbacks here..its straight up or nothing. Good thing the giant biting flies motivated us to keep moving! Found a couple of nice species up there and what might be the first registered hybrid of the two...I promised Edwin I´d name it after him, if it is! It was such an amazing place. I gave the ranger a pretty hefty (by Ecuadorian standards) donation to the park. I like to give money to the Nature Conservancy, and they help fund this park, so I figured I´d cut out the middleman and help at the source. I hope to do likewise in other parks we visit...I think you get a lot of bang for your buck out here.
Spent a pretty brutal morning pressing all the plants. It takes hours and the spines and bulkiness of the plants makes it ever so hard. You go through a ton of newspaper and the plant press gets high really fast. Then there is the ever present worry about mold. You can treat the whole plant with alcohol to disinfect it, but this discolors it and would be a real pain. So, we bundled them all up when they were flat, put them in a bag, addressed it to Edwin´s brother and put in on the next night bus to Quito. Apparently this is totally standard, but it makes me very nervous. He will take them and get them in the drier at Quito before the mold sets in, hopefully. It is hard to part with my hard won plants, but necessary.
Now we are in Saraguro, which has a very distinctive indigenous population. They dress mostly in black, men and women wear long braids and black felt hats and the men wear short cutoff pants. Supposedly they wear black as mourning for Atahualpa, the Incan king who founded Quito and was murdered by the Spanish. (perhaps more cool Incan facts later). We´ve got our car hired for tomorrow and we should hit the record of six species. Tonight we are eating at Mama Cuchara, a cooperative run by indigenous women to benefit its members and keep them from being abused. I was adventurous and ate a few bites of cow stomach stew for breakfast this morning, but I think i´ll stick to good old chicken tonight!
Happy trails, all, and more later!
Love,
Rachel
Friday, November 03, 2006
Cooped up in Quito
Hello all,
Edwin`s girlfriend turned out to be pretty sick, though I still don´t really know with what, so we didn´t end up taking the bus last night because he was at the hospital with her. There were several frustrating hours when I didn´t know what was going on and I just sat around eating Doritos and reading back issues of the American Journal of Botany sulkingly. My diet in Quito would make any twelve year old jealous....white bread and Oreos for breakfast with sugary juice and neon colored yogurt, and then Ritz crackers and peanut butter, intermixed with Doritos for a salt fix, throughout the day. It beats eating meat off the street and Í know how to get such foods quickly.
Don´t worry, though. Today I had the most lovely meal in oldtown Quito and I again owe it all to the Lonely Planet. This spotless and big cafe right down by the old theatre served me a heaping bowl of chili with BEEF (the introduction of a new animal into the diet was a much welcome change) and BEANS (ahh, how I´ve missed them). And then i finished it off with their very famous fruit salad...pineapple, papaya, apple, mellon, raspberry sauce and whipped cream. I´d kind of forgetten that food can be a good thing, but now I´m terribly full and happy and feeling healthy again. I wandered around the historic center that I had toured with Edwin by night. It was quite full of people, which was kind of irritating but it is another holiday here (Independence day for the city of Cuenca, which everyone celebrates too), so families were out in force.
A very cute little girl showed me her stuffed dog and we had a nice conversation about it, and then two little shoeshine boys ripped me off in front of the big cathedral. They convinced me to pay them a buck to take their picture, and then demanded a buck each when it was over. I opted for 1.50 (hey, I guess I got to sort of hold them to their word), but they looked so retched and are so cute, I didn´t feel too bad about getting jacked (it is all relative here....keep in mind that two bucks would buy me eight rides back and forth across town on the Trolle). I´m sure they bank on that. At least it isn´t like in Bolivia where they wear black ski masks to hide their faces. I had my shoes ¨shined¨in La Paz, and I still rub off some of the gross black stuff from time to time. A picture is much better.
Wandered in to many churches, but it seemed like Mass was constantly going on, so I felt awkward and hung in back briefly before leaving. The outsides sure are nice, but the insides in general aren´t too impressive. Certainly not Europe (snob that I am), but not the really wacky kind of Catholic churches like I´ve seen in southern Arizona, where people tear out their hair and tie it on to idols and light candles everywhere. Cody, they definitly need some re-frescoing. There were the weird dolls of Mary, baby Jesus and other patron saints in boxes that they parade around town at Easter time, but none were exceptionally creepy or pretty. I did see one church that used native animal statues in place of gargoyles, which was sort of nice I guess. I don´t really care that much about the art and architecture around here (which really is too bad and I really should be better), but that really isn´t why I´m here and I wanted to see such things, I´m sorry, but I´d haul it across the pond instead.
I did have a nice pineapple and papaya juice drink before I took the Trolle back home. Its this rather clever cable car that whips north and south through Quito in its own lanes...clean, fast and safe...and twenty five cents! I am so proud of myself for figuring out public transportation here...now cab rides seems so exhorbitant. Spent some time looking at the Chilean and Argentinian maps today, thinking ahead to the next leg of the trip. They seem like they will be a lot of fun, too. Argentina should be pretty easy, but doing all of what I want in Chile in just six days might be a bit hard. Most species there are around Santiago and Vina del Mar (a very posh beach), and I might be very tempted to be a tourist there instead. Then, there is just one species that I really want way up north on the beach side of the Atacama desert, perhaps the driest place on earth. I´ll hope my friendly Chilean contacts will be able to advise me on what to do. It is so hard to learn new countries when all the names of Ecuadorian places are bumping around in my head...sometimes they overlap with names in Argentina and Chile and I´m hopelessly confused. It is amazing to think all the new words I have fit in my head since becoming a graduate student. I´ll never get Alzheimers at this rate! Maybe memorizing botanical Latin or obscure towns will become all the rage with octagenerians...
But for now, Ecuador it is. I´m very happy I get a ¨break¨in the US at the lovely home of Lisa and Simon and Buck and Giti before going back. I want to go to Target and eat a big salad and take the longest, hottest shower ever and have my nails done and curl my hair and hug my husband and drink good wine and watch TV in English about things I care about and wander around without my passport strapped to my waist and play with Padfoot and call my family and friends cheaply and speak in English.
Off to Loja for real now!! It better be!!
Love,
Rachel
Edwin`s girlfriend turned out to be pretty sick, though I still don´t really know with what, so we didn´t end up taking the bus last night because he was at the hospital with her. There were several frustrating hours when I didn´t know what was going on and I just sat around eating Doritos and reading back issues of the American Journal of Botany sulkingly. My diet in Quito would make any twelve year old jealous....white bread and Oreos for breakfast with sugary juice and neon colored yogurt, and then Ritz crackers and peanut butter, intermixed with Doritos for a salt fix, throughout the day. It beats eating meat off the street and Í know how to get such foods quickly.
Don´t worry, though. Today I had the most lovely meal in oldtown Quito and I again owe it all to the Lonely Planet. This spotless and big cafe right down by the old theatre served me a heaping bowl of chili with BEEF (the introduction of a new animal into the diet was a much welcome change) and BEANS (ahh, how I´ve missed them). And then i finished it off with their very famous fruit salad...pineapple, papaya, apple, mellon, raspberry sauce and whipped cream. I´d kind of forgetten that food can be a good thing, but now I´m terribly full and happy and feeling healthy again. I wandered around the historic center that I had toured with Edwin by night. It was quite full of people, which was kind of irritating but it is another holiday here (Independence day for the city of Cuenca, which everyone celebrates too), so families were out in force.
A very cute little girl showed me her stuffed dog and we had a nice conversation about it, and then two little shoeshine boys ripped me off in front of the big cathedral. They convinced me to pay them a buck to take their picture, and then demanded a buck each when it was over. I opted for 1.50 (hey, I guess I got to sort of hold them to their word), but they looked so retched and are so cute, I didn´t feel too bad about getting jacked (it is all relative here....keep in mind that two bucks would buy me eight rides back and forth across town on the Trolle). I´m sure they bank on that. At least it isn´t like in Bolivia where they wear black ski masks to hide their faces. I had my shoes ¨shined¨in La Paz, and I still rub off some of the gross black stuff from time to time. A picture is much better.
Wandered in to many churches, but it seemed like Mass was constantly going on, so I felt awkward and hung in back briefly before leaving. The outsides sure are nice, but the insides in general aren´t too impressive. Certainly not Europe (snob that I am), but not the really wacky kind of Catholic churches like I´ve seen in southern Arizona, where people tear out their hair and tie it on to idols and light candles everywhere. Cody, they definitly need some re-frescoing. There were the weird dolls of Mary, baby Jesus and other patron saints in boxes that they parade around town at Easter time, but none were exceptionally creepy or pretty. I did see one church that used native animal statues in place of gargoyles, which was sort of nice I guess. I don´t really care that much about the art and architecture around here (which really is too bad and I really should be better), but that really isn´t why I´m here and I wanted to see such things, I´m sorry, but I´d haul it across the pond instead.
I did have a nice pineapple and papaya juice drink before I took the Trolle back home. Its this rather clever cable car that whips north and south through Quito in its own lanes...clean, fast and safe...and twenty five cents! I am so proud of myself for figuring out public transportation here...now cab rides seems so exhorbitant. Spent some time looking at the Chilean and Argentinian maps today, thinking ahead to the next leg of the trip. They seem like they will be a lot of fun, too. Argentina should be pretty easy, but doing all of what I want in Chile in just six days might be a bit hard. Most species there are around Santiago and Vina del Mar (a very posh beach), and I might be very tempted to be a tourist there instead. Then, there is just one species that I really want way up north on the beach side of the Atacama desert, perhaps the driest place on earth. I´ll hope my friendly Chilean contacts will be able to advise me on what to do. It is so hard to learn new countries when all the names of Ecuadorian places are bumping around in my head...sometimes they overlap with names in Argentina and Chile and I´m hopelessly confused. It is amazing to think all the new words I have fit in my head since becoming a graduate student. I´ll never get Alzheimers at this rate! Maybe memorizing botanical Latin or obscure towns will become all the rage with octagenerians...
But for now, Ecuador it is. I´m very happy I get a ¨break¨in the US at the lovely home of Lisa and Simon and Buck and Giti before going back. I want to go to Target and eat a big salad and take the longest, hottest shower ever and have my nails done and curl my hair and hug my husband and drink good wine and watch TV in English about things I care about and wander around without my passport strapped to my waist and play with Padfoot and call my family and friends cheaply and speak in English.
Off to Loja for real now!! It better be!!
Love,
Rachel
Thursday, November 02, 2006
REI Posterchild
Hello everyone,
Well, again, there was a change of plans, but things ended up much for the better. Edwin´s girlfriend/fiance/whatever is sick now (God, I hope I didn´t give them all my nasty gringo sickness!), and so Edwin thought he should tend to her today instead of going tot he soccer match. Which really is for the best as I remember that I don´t actually like to watch sports, especially not soccer (sorry, Berger, but its true). He advised that I take the teleferio, as it is most safe for tourists. So I took a very expensive seven dollar cab ride to the base of Mt. Pichincha. The state of the art amusement park at the base didn´t really tempt me and I bought my ticket to take the gondola up, up, up the mountain. It was fun and reminded me so much of summers with my family riding gondolas in the Colorado mountains. I spied many Puya beneith (retrosa, maybe??), but they ended abruptly at a certain altitude and we kept climbing. The end of the gondola was at 4100m, which is pretty darn high.
I didn´t want to buy touristy clothes or food, so I set off on a trek to the summit of the volcano. It was a lovely, rolling grassland and this mist hung overhead, but beneath it I had a stunning view of gigantic Quito (180 degrees of it). I found my first Americans who took my picture. I love finding Americans in other countries! They were a family of Christian missionaries from Ohio, spending a year out on the edge of the Amazon. I found it curious that they spoke no Spanish and didn´t really know anything about the culture. The dad teaches biology at a school for English speaking Christian missionaries kids, so I guess they don´t really need it. They were super nice though and I was all too glad to chat with them for a bit. Continued hiking, as they decided to take a horseback ride instead (which might have been fun). The trails went straight up the hillsides, which is a real killer at that altitude. I had to take lots of breaks, but luckily all the exercise kept me plenty warm. I had on all my field gear from REI and the scenery looked right out of the catalogue. Hiking felt so good. When we collect, I´m usually paying the driver by the hour so we are in a bit of a rush and can´t really take time to just hike about. But I go to today!!
When I was just about tired out, I stopped to chat with a couple of engineering professors. One is a Cuban who teaches in Syracuse New York and could speak English quite well and the other was Equadorian. They kind of questioned if I really knew what I was doing going to Loja tonight, as it is a major holiday, but they didn´t know themselves how to get around in the country, so I found it a bit rude. I think it is a bit of the subtle sexism and ageism that I encounter here. I´d like to think that I really am challenging peoples perceptions about what young women alone can do.
The clouds were really coming in, so I never did get the perfect picture of rugged Pichincha, nor did I make it to the top (I think that would have been a serious mistake to try, though a weird grouping of an Irishman, an Australian and a kiwi (New Zealander) were trying). I went back and had my first decent cup of coffee of the trip. Everyone drinks instant Nescafe here in hot milk, which is pretty nasty. They made real drip coffee and I was in heaven. I sat and drank it with this nice Colombian man who had been in my gondola on the way up. He didn´t speak any English, but luckily his Spanish was straightforward enough and my brain was clear enough that I was able to keep up. He said my SPanish is very good, which is really the best compliment I can get here. He was working for an oil company near Coca in the Amazon reason (boo, but he seemed to appreciate nature, so I tried not to judge. More later perhaps on all the environmental atrocities in Ecuador). He told me all about how great Colombia is and how I should visit and he took my email and I took his. Maybe I will? I think he really wants me to visit so I can speak English to his two daughters. That could be a fun way to make a living. He says that real Colombians know exactly how to get around the country to be safe.
We took the gondola down and he helped me take a bus and get on the right Trole line to get back home, which helped make up for the expensive cab ride earlier. I had a nice Papaya ice cream and am now waiting for Edwin´s call. I have no idea if the buses will be full tonight because of the holiday, but I¨m counting on Edwin to know what is up. Hopefully I´ll write from Loja next!! Happy dia de los Muertos. I didn´t get to see any weird traditions, but it was a great day nonetheless.
Love,
Rachel
Well, again, there was a change of plans, but things ended up much for the better. Edwin´s girlfriend/fiance/whatever is sick now (God, I hope I didn´t give them all my nasty gringo sickness!), and so Edwin thought he should tend to her today instead of going tot he soccer match. Which really is for the best as I remember that I don´t actually like to watch sports, especially not soccer (sorry, Berger, but its true). He advised that I take the teleferio, as it is most safe for tourists. So I took a very expensive seven dollar cab ride to the base of Mt. Pichincha. The state of the art amusement park at the base didn´t really tempt me and I bought my ticket to take the gondola up, up, up the mountain. It was fun and reminded me so much of summers with my family riding gondolas in the Colorado mountains. I spied many Puya beneith (retrosa, maybe??), but they ended abruptly at a certain altitude and we kept climbing. The end of the gondola was at 4100m, which is pretty darn high.
I didn´t want to buy touristy clothes or food, so I set off on a trek to the summit of the volcano. It was a lovely, rolling grassland and this mist hung overhead, but beneath it I had a stunning view of gigantic Quito (180 degrees of it). I found my first Americans who took my picture. I love finding Americans in other countries! They were a family of Christian missionaries from Ohio, spending a year out on the edge of the Amazon. I found it curious that they spoke no Spanish and didn´t really know anything about the culture. The dad teaches biology at a school for English speaking Christian missionaries kids, so I guess they don´t really need it. They were super nice though and I was all too glad to chat with them for a bit. Continued hiking, as they decided to take a horseback ride instead (which might have been fun). The trails went straight up the hillsides, which is a real killer at that altitude. I had to take lots of breaks, but luckily all the exercise kept me plenty warm. I had on all my field gear from REI and the scenery looked right out of the catalogue. Hiking felt so good. When we collect, I´m usually paying the driver by the hour so we are in a bit of a rush and can´t really take time to just hike about. But I go to today!!
When I was just about tired out, I stopped to chat with a couple of engineering professors. One is a Cuban who teaches in Syracuse New York and could speak English quite well and the other was Equadorian. They kind of questioned if I really knew what I was doing going to Loja tonight, as it is a major holiday, but they didn´t know themselves how to get around in the country, so I found it a bit rude. I think it is a bit of the subtle sexism and ageism that I encounter here. I´d like to think that I really am challenging peoples perceptions about what young women alone can do.
The clouds were really coming in, so I never did get the perfect picture of rugged Pichincha, nor did I make it to the top (I think that would have been a serious mistake to try, though a weird grouping of an Irishman, an Australian and a kiwi (New Zealander) were trying). I went back and had my first decent cup of coffee of the trip. Everyone drinks instant Nescafe here in hot milk, which is pretty nasty. They made real drip coffee and I was in heaven. I sat and drank it with this nice Colombian man who had been in my gondola on the way up. He didn´t speak any English, but luckily his Spanish was straightforward enough and my brain was clear enough that I was able to keep up. He said my SPanish is very good, which is really the best compliment I can get here. He was working for an oil company near Coca in the Amazon reason (boo, but he seemed to appreciate nature, so I tried not to judge. More later perhaps on all the environmental atrocities in Ecuador). He told me all about how great Colombia is and how I should visit and he took my email and I took his. Maybe I will? I think he really wants me to visit so I can speak English to his two daughters. That could be a fun way to make a living. He says that real Colombians know exactly how to get around the country to be safe.
We took the gondola down and he helped me take a bus and get on the right Trole line to get back home, which helped make up for the expensive cab ride earlier. I had a nice Papaya ice cream and am now waiting for Edwin´s call. I have no idea if the buses will be full tonight because of the holiday, but I¨m counting on Edwin to know what is up. Hopefully I´ll write from Loja next!! Happy dia de los Muertos. I didn´t get to see any weird traditions, but it was a great day nonetheless.
Love,
Rachel
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Un descanso antes de....
Edwin insisted that I take today to heal myself from el gripe (the nasty cold) which has plagued me since I arrived. It probably originated in Wisconsin, from my poor sick husband and morphed on the planeride over. I swear, airplanes are the worst for your health. I really didn´t feel that bad, but loafing around was kind of fun. I slept a lot, but was woken up earlier than I´d like by the coughing and weezing of our poor old night guard. He´s this cute little old man who is just so nice to me, though i can´t really understand a word he says, but periodically throughout the night he goes into the bathroom right behind my bedroom and hacks up a lung. Now, this reminds me all too much of Laramie Peaks apartments and Old Man, and I just can´t really deal with such a noise. There really is no escape, though, as there is virtually no soundproofing in any walls in this country. Poor guy, though. He works all night here (though not very hard...I seriously doubt too many people are trying to break into the herbarium. I am glad for the guard, though.) and then he puts on this ridiculous bright colored track suit that all the lotto ticket and ice cream vendors around here wear and stands in the middle of traffic all day peddalling his wares. I feel most sorry for the people that stand around in the traffic all day in Quito trying to make a buck. The diesel fumes are truly terrible and it must be very dangerous. Lots of people try to sell you things, but there are also little kids doing gymnastics and weird hippies juggling or throwing battons in the air (I swear some of them are American backpackers that lost their way).
So, I had the day to myself and didn´t really feel like going anywhere interesting. I´m in the far northern part of Quito, which is far from the touristy part, and I really couldn´t deal with taking a cab today. I read some nice books about paramos and plants, letting all the strange names of genera I´ve yet to see bump around in my brain. Maybe a few caught. Edwin said he´d call me at 9 to talk about the football game and renting a car, which of course meant he called at 11 to say he´d come at 2, which turned out to be 430 with no futbal game and no car rental, as his brother is sick and he´s the only one who can drive (Edwin neglected to tell me earlier that he doesn´t have a drivers license! Thank god for taxis and buses or I´d be doing the driving, which I wouldn´t do).. This is kind of irritating, but what can I do? I sat in the sun, watched a hummingbird defend its territory and took a nap. It is good for me to remember how to do nothing. I think it helped get rid of el gripe anyways. (That and healthy doses of my favorite gringo foods I can find...ramen and Oreos!)
So the plan has changed and tomorrow I am going with Edwin to watch a different football game south of town. It is Dia de Los Muertos, which I guess means you watch futbal games and eat weird things. The shops are full of bread decorated like dolls, which you take to the cemetary and eat over your dead relatives. Supposedly tomorrow night I will eat a traditional soup with Edwin´s family...I hope there is no sheeps blood in it! And then we are going to take the giant overnight bus to Loja. Yup, everything is backwards now. We are starting in the far south and working our way north. It is all the same to me, and I think it will be just fine. So I´ll write more from the sunny south soon!Happy November!
Love,
Rachel
