QueenPuya

Sorry I haven't written in so long.  I've been happily busy hiking and photographing plants, restored to more or less full health.  I moved venues and am now staying with Mauricio and his wife Diana and his families Bogota home.  It is our basecamp for all our fieldtrips and it is hard to keep fieldgear and plant specimens from making the house dirty.  His family is just lovely, though.  I enjoy morning chats with Gilberto and Bianca (his parents) and I got to meet his sister and her husband, both very famous dolphin biologists who maintain a freshwater dolphin refuge in the Amazon!  How cool would it be to see that...

Over the past three days, Mauricio and I have visited three different paramos and I have been able to collect five species of my Puya plants.  We drove our hilariously small car (the Chevrolet Spark, with wheels the size of a medium pizza) up to a satellite antennae watchtower on the first day of collecting.  We brought cookies for the soldiers stationed there, which I think they appreciated in this fairly isolated place.  Two of Mauricio's former students, Diego and Camilo accompanied us and were very useful.  We lucked out and had no rain, making it ever so nice to sit in the sun enjoying the view.  After I took my first transect data, we headed to a small side canyon for a taste of a tropical forest.  The next day we went to a paramo just behind Bogota and we were surprised to find an ex-president of Colombia and his family hiking there too with us.  There was one armed guard with them, but I think it speaks volumes to the security situation here that we were able to sort of talk with him and no one really harassed us.  Well, I didn't talk because in many situations I am silent so no one will know I'm a foreigner.  Its just easier that way.  I'd like to think I could pass for Colombian, but past basic greetings, I'd be found out.  This paramo, Cruz Verde, had thousands of the giant Puya goudotiana, the largest plant I've seen to date.  Unfortunately I missed the bloom on all species of these plants, which I'm sure must be spectacular.  But a three meter tall giant is impressive even when setting seed.  I waded through a sphagnum bog with Diego, making another transect, when to my dismay I saw that some individuals of this plant were able to reproduce vegetatively, shooting my whole theory that was going to make me "famous", but such is science.  I'll keep graphing anyway and hopefully I  can cobble together enough data to make some sense of this mess.  It is a terribly nice way to pass the time, though.  The paramo is so quiet and sometimes you can hear distant thunder.  I was very glad it didn't rain again that day, or I would have been swamped and miserable.  The next day it did rain, but not too bad.  We took a bus to a more distant place with Chlorofila, a hiking group that Mauricio is part of, and we hiked in with about 25 other people.  I was even introduced as a sort of paramo expert and gave a little talk in Spanish about my work, which I guess went kind of well.  It was fun to be back in botany teaching mode, even if in another language.  I saw fields of Puya santosii, which come in two distinct sizes and love moist soil.  I finally saw the super-fuzzy and diminuitive Puya trianae, which had just finished its bloom and I saw a few fading blue flowers.  I truly hope I can see just a few full flowers of it at some point!  The hiking, at around 12000ft elevation was ok when it was level, but we made one final push up a slope to have a nice view of the lake below for lunch and Diego literally had to push me up the slope!  I really hope I'm up for the more difficult paramos to come.  At the top, cold potatoes and rice never tasted so good and we could see for mile!  Clouds would roll through quickly, making it quite cold and then would leave, making it quite warm.  I've never felt weather change so quickly.  It misted and drizzled on us all the way back, which made for a cold ride home.  I was so happy to take a shower, get dressed up and go out for dinner with Mauricio and Diana to a lovely place overlooking a square filled with lights and families celebrating Christmas.  A charmed life, indeed.  Today we are taking a break and I might head soon to the Botanical Garden.  Tomorrow begins the more difficult paramos and we will do a three-day trip a bit north starting wednesday.  More later!