Salida #4 (para mi la ultima)
29-8-06 This morning early Javier, Tatiana, Sergio, Jose, a choffer, and I left to finish up several transects. The one that we did today was in the Llanos, near Villa de Cura. Basically a lot like the other llanos transects except not QUITE as muddy. Lots of scrubby vegetation and a few houses. We only did a few points here, so I’m not very familiar with it.
30-8-06 Today we finished up the few remaining points on another transect (on the western edge of the llanos) that the other group was unable to do because the road was too bad to pass in a rental vehicle. We had the 4 wheel drive Toyota, and I still thought we might not make it! So first we went up this really big basically verticle hill (no problem) but then on the other side was basically a mudslide down into a river and another pure mud bank on the other side. Literally, all mud. Total crazyness to take a car into, but I’m with a bunch of crazy biologists… soooo first Javier and I jumped part of the river to an island in the middle (actually I kinda fell in) and then to the other side in order to move a log with barbed wire on it from the middle of the road. Obviously not a commonly used trail here. And then Jose took off his shoes and squelshed through to see how deep and how solid the bottom was. And then the Toyota came roarring through with water up to the middle of the tires, as in touching the bottom of the carriage, and spraying mud and slidding and didn’t make it up the other side for the first couple tries but finally made it up. I was very sure that we would be stuck down there forever.
Besides that the transect here is pretty non-descript. There are a lot of small, easy to catch butterflies, so that’s fun. Mostly highly disturbed sites. One wierd thing I saw, in one yard there was, just laying there, a dead goat. All the people moving about their business; I’m sure they’d noticed that their goat was dead, but no one moving it or anything like that. It wasn’t like smelling or rotting yet, just laying there dead. Across the street were three very alert and well cared for horses, so it doesn’t seem to be delinquincy that they didn’t remove the dead goat from their yard, just didn’t seem to think it’s so important to remove all signs of death as it is in the US.
Tomorrow morning Javier and Jose are returning to IVIC because we today found out that we are all being kicked out of our rooms TOMORROW and need to bring back the keys and get all our stuff out, so they’re going to try to find us a new place to stay! Crazy how things work around here…
3-9-06 We just finished up the LAST transect that I will ever do!!!!! It was a very nice one to end on, gorgeous views on the edge of the mountains with very green vegetation and very red dirt and very blue lakes here and there. Very nice. There are no hotels in this city (Quebrada arriba) so we asked the Guardia Nacional if there’s any place to stay and they hooked us up with this farm that we are staying at in the back yard on this cement roofed area in tents. We stayed there for free and we are allowed access to their kitchen, and it’s only about 5 minutes from where the transect starts. The bathroom is just a cement room with two toilets without seats and the only way to flush them is to pour water down them. The shower consists of a bucket of water which can be dipped out and poured over your head. Pretty rustic, but fun. At least it’s not too cold here. The farm has cows, pigs, and a horses. Supposedly they run bulls here, and they sell the pigs for food.
The transect was rather boring because there were very few butterlies, although those that we did see were the kind that flies really fast and is basically impossible to catch, so I got to do a lot of fun running to try to get them! Frusterating though to spend all day running and only catch a very few. Finally the transect is totally dry, and we didn’t get rained out even once. Oh, one day we ate lunch at this place where they breed roosters to fight, and they had cage after cage after cage of roosters. Anyone who has ever been annoyed by the neighbors waking you up early, just be glad you don’t live there. In the middle of the day, when they should be crowing less than normal, I counted an average of 8.429 crows per MINUTE (based on a sample size of 7-I threw out one datapoint because it was counted while there was loud machinery running which may have affected the rooster’s crowing frequency) with a maximum recorded of 11 crows per minute. That’s about one crow per 6 seconds… ALL DAY LONG! Imagine trying to do homework there!
The guy who works here is 22 and the son of the guy who owns it. He’s really nice and very farmerish (short on words and to the point). There is also an older woman who’s here a lot, I”m not sure if she’s hooked up with the guy or hired hand or both. On the last night there they invited us to a benegit party for some guy in the hospital. We started off at a bar where I felt really uncomfertable because all the guys were giving me that look and talking about the “gringa” and I was only with Sergio who was getting drunk, the choffer, and the people who I had only met 3 days ago. But then we left there for the party with a big dance floor and loud music and lots of not so scary people dancing. It was kinda awkward becasuse I didn’t really know anyone to dance with and I think I’m not supposed to ask, but everyone was really nice and I actually felt pretty safe. The boys (at least those I danced with) are fall more polite than boys in the US because they ask if they can dance with you instead of just grabbing you, and there is generally more appropriate space between people who don’t know eachother at all. At least in my experience so far.
We are now in Yaritagua staying with the sister of Sergio and her family, and then returning to IVIC tomorrow!