Viaje numero 2
I am back in IVIC after the second voyage, so I will update my webblog now!!! Unfortunately I haven’t really been keeping up my journal very well, so I’m just going to try to remember about how things were.
When we first left for this trip we traveled through Ciudad Bolivar, which is one of the places that I am trying to find work. It is amazingly beautiful there, a very nice bridge and view of the Orinoco river which somehow felt really unreal to be looking at because it always seemed so distant and foriegn when I learned about it in spanish class and stuff. I also had a meeting with the director of the botanical garden in Ciudad Bolivar, which was mostly comical cause he talked really quietly and mumbled and I didn’t understand a single thing he said. Luckily a friend from the course was with me so she did all the talking for me! We’ll see how that goes. On the bright side, when I mentioned that I know Jon Paul Rodriguez from IVIC they seem to be friends and I think that will help me out a lot to get a position there!
After Ciudad Bolivar the trip was divided up into two groups. My group was almost entirely girls, which wasn’t really very thrilling for me and a whole lot of girlness in one area all the time, but at least they are all pretty cool and practical and I like them all. So it wasn’t bad at all. The first night out a bunch of us went for a walk and I was climbing a tree and slipped and slit my hand open. It was really superficial but long and nasty looking. So then after dinner we were going to buy ice cream and exitting the store I didn’t notice that the door was partly closed from above and I banged my head really hard, and all the locals were laughing at me… so it wasn’t the best start. We began by going to a small town in the middle of nowhere but pretty safe feeling. The transect that we were working on there was nice also. After only a few days there, the bosses decided for not really understood reasons to mix the two groups together, which was nice because I got to meet everyone and spend more time with all the people that I had gotten to know before, but it was crazy traveling in a group of 21 or something! In the small town we were staying every night the resturant just brought out all of the food that they had, and we all basically fought over getting a decent amount of it. Also traveling from site to site in a group that big is really hard to coordinate cars and because there’s always someone who needs to pee so you stop all the time.
On the way to the next transect the groups got seperated so we were waiting for a really long time in a little town somewhere near El Dorado, another little town where the transect is. Crazy thing, in the middle of the Plaza Bolivar, in the middle of this town, we saw a sloth climb down from the top of a palm tree and look around for a while, then climb back up. It was amazing to see a sloth VERY up close in the middle of a town! I got a little bit of a video. The place we are staying here is a campground run by military officials, so there are lots of guys walking around with guns, which is kinda unnerving. It’s on the edge of a river, so one day we all went in the river to “bathe” and swim and drink beer, which was really fun. The showers are the best part, there are no curtains nor seperate boy/girl areas, so we all shower in our bathing suits while being watched by all the people brushing their teeth. It’s a very interesting experience, and certainly makes you feel on the spot about washing!
The transect here goes all the way up to the bourder with Guiyana, or as the Venezuelans call it, the Zona de Reclamacion (aparently it used to be part of Venezuela and they’re still sore about it being taken away, so for the last several hundred years they have been “in the process of reclaiming the land”). The vegetacion here is basically normal rain forest plants.
On one day here we had a free day to go to the Gran Sabana, which is VERY pretty. Basically most of it is just like prairie grassland, but there are large rock formations called Tepuis which are I guess some sort of harder rock substance so erosion has occured around but not on these areas, creating large mountains of rock. Very pretty. There are also tons of waterfalls, we all spontaineously jumped in one waterfall with our clothes on (most of us clothed anyways) and felt the thrill of water pounding on our heads and also went slidding down the pretty red and black smooth rock. Amazing.
When we left El Dorado, one of the rental cars was on it’s last legs, so the trip from El Dorado to San Felix, which should have been like half an hour I think, took all day because the car kept stalling and we would have to jump it. General stressful everyone sick of eachother and the whole situation and way too many people with nothing to do. Finally we got in late at night and luckily ended up in decent hotels in a decent part of town. We left that rental car there, and headed toward Guri for the next transect. This transect is very hot with very little shade, but luckily we only worked on it for one day before heading on to El Tigre for the last transect.
The transect in El Tigre is very grassy and there is a lot of petrol equiptment. Also there are a lot of snakes in the grass there, so it was not a good idea to stray much from the road. One night Yully my friend from Colombia went to visit with some friends so I tagged along which was fun to see the way they live and to experience the incredible hospitality. There are several families living together, with a variety of little kids. They were very nice, feeding me and showing me all the plants that they have out back. In the middle of the city, although a very small and poor city, they had passion fruit, mango, platano, and some sort of cucurbit plants, as well as several dogs and ducks. From El Tigre I returned early to IVIC in order to begin to work on trying to find jobs. It was fun because it was just two of us back in IVIC, so after all of that big group time it was nice to spend some time just one on one with someone. We managed to make Arepas and mango juice, and I relatively effectively cut my first curly hair. We spent one day with a couple other friends from the course in Caracas, eatting at a friends mom’s house (all the people are so hospitible here!), shopping for rubber bands which are very hard to find in Venezuela, and spending the evening at an open air bar in the artsy area of Caracas. On the way back to our friend’s house to spend the night we were followed by a man who apparently has been to prison several times and is quite dangerous, but who has an understanding with Junior and so didn’t threaten us at all. It was a bit unnerving because, although I knew that he wasn’t a real great type, I never would have known that he was potentially dangerous. This is why it’s good to stay with people who know the country!
Several days later we returned to Caracas with the whole group and went to the same bar which this time was set up for dancing, mostly Salsa and Merengue, which was VERY fun. I was mostly dancing with Leo, who knows more ballroom I guess style competitive salsa, which is really easy for me to follow, and with Carlos, who dances Venezuelan style which is also very fun but very difficult for me to follow and I spend the whole time thinking about which foot I should be on. I need to practice the Venezuelan style because I’m in Venezuela of course and cause Leo left so now i”m stuck with having to dance that way! After that we went upstairs to another bar where they mix their drinks very strongly, worse than New Orleans, and danced some more. Generally a lot of fun.
The next day we spent at the zoo in Caracas where Junior works. I think the most fun part was we went in the cage with an anteatter which I don’t think I”ve ever really seen one before but it wasn’t like the big black and white ones you think of, it was smaller and browish all over and so adorable. It took a liking to Javier, and was laying upside down like a baby in his arms and snorffing with it’s big nose in his ear and clinging with it’s tail to his arm…. really cute. And finally when we went to put it down it started climbing up his pant leg!
After this we returned to IVIC to study for a take the test, which I don’t know how well I did nor do I really care because I’m not taking this course for credit anyways, and then packed and prepared for the next trip into the field!
This trip I am with 4 other fluent spanish speakers, which is really good for me because I don’t really understand any of what they are saying when they speak among themselves, so I’m learning to listen for the words that I know and piece it together from that. I can’t believe how bad I am at spanish still after 7 some years of learning!!!!!
This trip is into the llanos, which is in the south-west I guess of Venezuela, and is very seasonal between a wet season and a dry season. Right now it’s the wet season, and the ground is entirely saturated. We were trying to dig holes and put pots in them to catch dung beetles, but the pots would just pop up out of the ground because of the water pressure! Also it rained basically every day from about 10 am till 1 pm, and again in the afternoon, so it was hard to catch butterflies as well. The people here are very distinctively darker than in Caracas, and I am way more obviously a foriegner. I got a lot more stares on this transect than any other. I also had an eyeopening experience of having a man at one of the resturants yelling at me that I am gringa and imperialist etc. This was the first hate I have gotten so far here. Besides this one expereience though the people are very friendly here. The transect runs through a farming community with a lot of people walking or biking along the roads and everyone greating eachother with a shout of “Waaaaayyyyyy” as they pass. Lots of people sharing bicycles, guys giving rides to girls sitting sideways on the bars, groups of boys, up to three per bike…. the most amazing thing I saw was two one legged men on a bike, one riding on the bar and the other pettling with one leg and catching the petel with his sandle for the upstroke. And the bike wasn’t wavering or anything. Amazing!
After this transect we returned to IVIC (yesterday), and we have today off which I have mostly been spending trying to decide what is best for me to do with the next few monthes, and then we are going to be running the last few transects for the next week, and then we’re done and I’m kicked out of IVIC and need to find a new place to stay or somewhere to travel to or a job! I should be able to access the internet here at least once when I get back, so I’ll try to post a bit about the last few days and what my plans are if I have any yet!