My run felt more like a swim this morning- it wasn’t raining hard, but it had been constantly showering throughout the night so many of the trails in Parque Metropolitano (I finally found trails to run [that was my ten thousandth word] on! However, in order to get to the park, I had to ascend what felt like two miles in elevation, so it felt quite painful) were completely saturated with ankle-deep water.
In class we learned about soil, which was more interesting than I thought it would be, although I still think monkeys are cooler. After class, I had lunch, went to the daycare, checked my email and skyped my roommate back at USFQ, went home, ate dinner, tried to read, watched some Australian Open, and now I’m ready for bed.
1/27/09
My house is currently out of cereal (and water is also almost lacking) and I don’t know what I’ll do if the situation doesn’t right itself before tomorrow morning for breakfast. I’ve been thinking more about my internship possibilities, and I’ve narrowed it down to two locations- one in the rainforest (Tiputini) and one in a coastal dry forest (Lalo Loor). I’ve heard only good things about Tiputini from people who have gone there as it is composed of pristine rainforest, containing the most plant/animal diversity in the world. Under the guidance of a grad student (a Wisconsin alum), I would probably study group spread in woolly monkeys, but I’m not sure about the specifics. Numerous other research projects will be going on, so I’d probably be able to learn a lot about various topics during my stay. Cons include an additional cost of almost $400, the lack of spoken Spanish (although there may be some Spanish-speaking guides at the research station), and tarantulas.
*I just remembered that in my post describing my weekend in Otavalo and Cuicocha, I had mentioned that the clouds at Laguna Cuicocha were covering Cotopaxi. I lied. Cotopaxi is in the opposite direction from Quito. The clouds were actually covering up Cotacachi...I think.
If I were to do my internship at Lalo Loor, I would study howler monkeys (probably something involving group dynamics, since the monkeys at Lalo Loor haven’t been studied before). Spanish would definitely be spoken there, and since a couple of high schools are located near the site, Joe (my professor, and co-founder of Lalo Loor) said that students could probably be hired to act as field guides/assistants, so not only would the community be involved, but I’d also be able to speak more Spanish. I probably wouldn’t have to pay any additional costs (since a base fee for the internship was already included in the program costs). However, there probably will not be any primatologists on site so I probably wouldn’t learn as much about primatology as I would at Tiputini. Great I just checked in my species guide and found out that tarantulas live in Lalo Loor too.
Today I went to a fútbol game at the Olympic Stadium, and although Ecuador lost 0-5 to Paraguay, it was still fun to watch. Also amusing to see were the numerous airplanes that were descending for a landing. The placement of Quito’s airport in the center of the city makes for some intense sights.
1/28/09
Thunderstorms are cool (in fact, they’re one of my interests on Facebook), but when lightning seems to be striking twenty feet away and causing deafening blasts of sound that leave me wondering if I’ll ever hear again, I get a bit irritated. Especially when I’m sitting in a room alone at the University in the evening and the power goes off, and everything is pitch black except for the light emitted from my laptop screen—do I leave the laptop open, and risk being an exposed target for robbery (or worse, attract insects), or do I shut it, and become blind in the darkness?! While I was debating this in my head, the lights came back on. But the internet didn’t work anymore.
1/29/09
I didn’t sleep much last night, and I won’t tonight either (we had a “quiz” that was more like an exam because it took 1.5 hours today, and tomorrow I have to wake up early to go to the Páramo, a high-altitude ecosystem), but maybe I can sleep a little on the bus.
Today was my last day at the daycare, and not only will I miss the children, but I will also miss stopping en route at the Panadería to buy rolls of delicious, sweet bread that never costs over 60 cents. It was also our last day of normal classes at USFQ, since the “travelling” phase of this semester program begins now. After our two day trips this weekend, we go to Lalo Loor on Monday for a week. Then I think we come back and have class at USFQ for two days before heading to the rainforest for 2.5 weeks. Then maybe another day or two of USFQ class, and then the Galapagos. I already feel like I miss Quito.
My day ended by me checking my email and receiving a message from Facebook, asking if I would accept a friend invitation from my mom (biological, not host)…which I will awkwardly confirm.
1/30/09
Reasons why Ecuador is so cool:
- We went to Cayambe Coca today to study plants of the Páramo, and it was yet another ecosystem that should be documented on Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth. Only one tree can survive above the treeline (oxymoron?), called Polylepis, and they are short, gnarled trees with multiple layers of crusty/flaky bark, causing everyone to believe we were intruding upon gnome habitats. At altitudes higher than those acceptable for Polylepis, the short shrubs came in reds, blues, and greens, and their seaweed-like structure made the land look like an underwater reef scene…except without the water.
- With my dinner today, I had two glasses of colada morada, another Ecuadorian delicacy consisting of strawberries and pineapples ground up in mora (like a blackberry) pulp. It’s normally consumed during Día de la Muerte in November, and baby dolls made of bread are dipped into the purple drink to symbolize dead ancestors. And then the bread is eaten. But my host sister likes it so much that we were able to drink it (with bread slices) today.
- It’s hard to take my eyes off the window of the bus when I’m travelling anywhere (except within Quito) since the landscape is so diverse.
- María cookies.
- Bananas are always ripe.
The Páramo was definitely one of the most unique environments I’ve ever seen. Yesterday during class, Joe and Cath warned us about the dangers of altitude sickness, and how blue lips and slurred speech could foreshadow death. We were only at these lethal altitudes (13,800ish feet- under half the size of Everest) for about eight hours, so no one felt affected. At the higher altitudes (without Polylepis), the air was thin and frigid, yet there was 100% humidity and the ground had a bouncy quality due to the dome-shaped cushion plants. Unsurprisingly, it was cloudy again and so we couldn’t enjoy the surrounding snow-capped mountains. At the end of the day we went to some hot springs and probably caused severe damage to our bodies by jumping in a freezing river (seven seconds was supposed to be the amount of time to spend in the river…I’m guessing because if it were any longer, we would turn into ice and receive permanent brain damage) before entering the hot pools.
1/31/09
What makes humans so morally important? I completely respect those who work for other people, such as social workers and people involved in community development—I’m thinking of becoming a doctor myself—but people aren’t the only organisms on which we should be focusing our energy. Millions of species, both plants and animals (and bacteria!), have existed before us and therefore have more of a claim to Earth than we do, since we’ve only existed for about one second on the “geological clock.” The book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn has made me think differently about our own species, and although I read it a few years ago, I think more and more about it as time passes. I feel like we cannot justifiably call Earth “our planet.” Not only should our efforts be directed at improving humans’ quality of life (indeed, by improving humans' lives we can therefore spend more time and energy on conservation), but nature as well has an equal voice in demanding our attention. Also, talking gorillas are cool.
We went to the Páramo again today, but this time to the side of the mountains opposite from yesterday’s excursion. It was generally warmer and clearer, so we were able to get short glimpses of Antisana, the volcano covered with glacier, from which Quito gets most of its water. Joe and Catherine always seem about as impressed (or even more so) with the landscape and wildlife as we are, and it’s refreshing to have professors who absolutely love their jobs. The environment was again dominated by bunch grasses and cushion plants, which were dotted with lamb carcasses (which make up the majority of the diet for an Andean bird called the Cara-cara). We saw an Andean condor!
It was a student’s birthday so we went to La Mariscal (I really would like to explore some other bars around Quito= the city is huge. It’s not like La Mariscal is the only place to go out on a weekend). Actually, his birthday was on Thursday but Joe and Cath urged us not to drink the night before going to the Páramo since hangovers apparently feel like death at high altitudes. After calling the taxi service about fifteen times and receiving only busy signals, I finally got through and had one sent to my home address to pick me up. However, after a frustrating half an hour of waiting (it never showed up), I decided to start walking from my house and flag down the first taxi that passed me. I saved $2 from walking partway! However, I was a bit nervous since another student from my class had told me a few days ago that a local person was murdered in the early evening last weekend. I do feel quite safe in my neighborhood, though.
2/1/09
I just realized that no one here has been talking about Groundhog’s Day (I'm guessing that my dad is hyping it up in Madison right now). I guess it’s not celebrated in Ecuador…but I wonder if they have their own holidays, such as Llama Day. Or Pollution Day. Or Drive-Really-Fast-And-Honk-Your-Horn-When-You-Approach-An-Intersection-So-That-Other-Cars-And-Pedestrians-Will-Know-That-They-Need-To-Dive-Out-Of-The-Way-In-Order-To-Avoid-Death Day (that holiday is celebrated 365 days per year).
We had a day off today, so I was able to sleep in, dodge some cars during my run, eat breakfast (there was only a cup of chocolate milk, a cup of mango juice, and two slices of bread set out for me on the kitchen table. Although that is all very delicious food, it in no way counts as a satisfying breakfast, and I was starving for the rest of the morning until lunch) and then have lunch at Crepes and Waffles. Dinner was almost as dissatisfying as breakfast, but not because of the food (I had two cups of colada morada, bread, and fig ice cream). Instead, during dinner my host mom’s sister gave me my second dance lesson of the semester, and I’m sure I looked way more awkward than I felt.
We travel to Lalo Loor tomorrow, a coastal dry forest that’s a seven-hour bus ride away. I’ll be laptop-less for a week, and since I’ve become dependent on typing the events of the day on a keyboard, I will either write sparingly in a notebook or not write anything at all while I’m away.
2/8/09
…PANDA WATCH! I’ve always wanted to begin my blog with that, but I’ve never had the chance for it to make sense and I don’t think I ever will.
We returned to Quito a few hours ago, and I’m surprised at how tired I am right now. I had gotten about seven hours (or more) of sleep each night at Lalo Loor (Monday-Friday), and I slept decently at the beach at Punta Prieta (Friday-Sunday), and I was asleep more than I was awake for the bus ride home today (speaking of the bus ride, anyone who could have witnessed the bus’s passengers would have thought that we were all recovering from some type of battle: some people were rubbing entire aloe plants on the reddest most sunburnt parts of their bodies, some were applying ointment to deep gashes they had received when the riptide carried them out to areas where waves smashed them against large jagged rocks, and others were passed out, completely hungover and probably still drunk from the night before), but I feel exhausted nonetheless.
Inasmuch as I’d like to blame my sleepiness on hours upon hours of pure physical activity, I heretofore proclaim that the time spent at the beach was definitely one of the laziest weekends of my life (notwithstanding one of the weekends during which I was suffering with pneumonia, but even then I had enough strength to climb up and down a two-story tall snowbank, spider monkey style, on the capitol square and then go sledding down my street…also, words that are composed of three different words are questionable). But seriously. I swam in the riptide-infested and nearly-uncomfortably-warm ocean, took naps in the hammocks hung underneath thatched roofs, and ate fresh fruit and/or seafood for every meal. I can’t wait to run tomorrow morning, to cleanse myself of this doldrums-like sense of idleness. The most physical activity I performed over the entire weekend was when we all had to get out of the bus and find gravel to place on top of the driveway, and then help push the vehicle uphill. Rain from the previous night had made the trail a bit muddy. The rain also had managed to penetrate the tent I was sharing with two others, and since we didn’t have a tarp underneath, I woke up with my feet dangling in a standing puddle of water that was slowly growing. The water had only accumulated on my side of the tent because the ground was slightly sloped, so I spent the next twenty minutes moving all of my luggage out of the tent (trying unsuccessfully to avoid dripping on and waking up my tent-mates) and to the area under the thatched roofs where the hammocks resided. I was thankful I had placed my camera and wallet on top of a pile of clothes the night before, instead of laying them on the ground.
But enough about the beach. The real reason we had our week-long trip was to experience and study the environment of a dry forest (which differs from a tropical rainforest by way of having distinctive dry and wet seasons, and therefore not supporting as much growth). My life is now almost complete, since I was able to observe wild primates (specifically, howler monkeys- not only did they almost urinate on us, but they also served as excellent alarm clocks, beginning their howls at 5:45am sharp [in order for my life to be totally complete, I need to eat another banana/nutella waffle at Crepes and Waffles, watch the latest season of Lost, and learn how to flutter-tongue on my clarinet]). Other types of wildlife we witnessed include many bird species, snails, insects, and tarantulas. During the first night we spent at Lalo Loor, the professors suggested we go on a “tarantula watch” on the trails, and I guess my willingness to fit in overcame my arachnophobia so I followed everyone outside. Within minutes we found our first tarantula, and about five more would follow that night. Although my heart was pounding like a jackhammer, I was surprised that I was able to see some beauty in the creatures. I was even able to touch one later in the evening without screaming….loudly. The biggest reaction I had in regards to tarantulas actually resulted from an oral stimulus, when my professor mentioned a “tarantula hawk” (which is a large wasp-like insect that preys on tarantulas), and upon hearing those words I immediately tensed up and dropped my camera.
Our days at Lalo Loor generally began with a wake-up call from the howler monkeys before or during sunrise, followed by breakfast (which included the best yogurt I’ll probably ever get to taste) and morning activities which usually involved some type of data collection of the plants or insects in the forest. The orienteering exercise was my favorite, and I hope to do a large-scale orienteering competition someday. The insect collection and identification activity was surprisingly enjoyable as well. After lunch, we would have an hour or so off (spent perfectly with a nap) before an afternoon lecture, and then dinner would be served around 6:00 or 6:30. Since there is no electricity at the visitors’ house, we would light candles and our living quarters appeared primitive yet romantic. Although we slept underneath secure mosquito nets (which were mostly to protect against insects that carry the fatal Chaga’s disease), during the first night I dreamt that tarantulas were crawling over me.
I think I just broke my host family’s toilet.
2/9/09
It had taken over a month, but today I finally received comments about my E=F♭ Einstein Theory for Musician T-shirt. I see people with instruments all the time at USFQ (unfortunately I haven’t seen any clarinetists yet- mostly guitars and violins. And I saw a trombone two weeks ago), so I’ve been slightly surprised that no one even offered a glance of recognition whenever I wore my prized T-shirt. But finally, during a bus ride this afternoon, a girl who had been eyeing me from her seat for a couple of minutes told me she liked my shirt, but before I could thank her for being so observant, she got off the bus at the next stop. The only piece of information I learned from her was that she was from Maryland. I think I love her.
Then, to my utter amazement, about thirty minutes later I received a similar comment about my apparel from a guy working at South American Explorers (a travel agency/clubhouse that I visited to inquire about Machu Picchu). I’ve been missing my clarinet a lot (after all, I’ve never gone over a month without playing- my four-week-long stay in Nicaragua in high school was the longest), but I’m still glad about my decision to leave it in Madison with my mom, who is supposed to be diligently monitoring the humidity of the case. I probably would have ended up with lung damage had I tried practicing at this high altitude, and there aren’t many good places to play anyway. My host family probably wouldn’t enjoy listening to finger and articulation exercises or Cavallini etudes since I rarely hear them listening to music (except one morning, I woke up to the sound of a melodramatic male opera voice whose every word was waterlogged with the widest vibrato I’ve ever heard- my host mom said it was to wake up my sister).
I saw my host brother Nicolas for the fourth time today, and so I quickly pounced on the opportunity to give him my gift from Madison (a UW Badger T-shirt). He doesn’t have to work tomorrow evening so he offered to take me to the Teleférico (a gondola that ascends Pichincha and apparently offers a great view of Quito).
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