3/4/11
I'm fairly certain that last night I saw more spiders than I've ever seen in my life, all of my 20.75 years combined. It was freaky, to say the least. I also saw the biggest tarantula I've ever seen before, including ones I've seen on TV. Luckily, we also saw an adorable gecko and a bunch of huge toads to make for the eight-legged freaks, but that was pretty much all we saw. At the moment I am in the tropical dry forest on the west coast of Ecuador (which is, of course, the only coast of Ecuador), which is hot as hell, but not humid like the Amazon (hence the name "dry forest." Sort of.) It is drier here and there are actual seasons (well, a wet and a dry season) because the Andes block all the moisture from the rainforest and the Humboldt Current nearby brings cooler water along the coast. It was interesting to feel the temperature change, especially coming from Quito where it's like a perfect spring day everyday. We took a nice charter bus all the way there; it was about an 8 hour drive. Along the way, we saw much beautiful scenery, including cloud forests and many plantations for cacao, coffee, and palm oil. Cultivated cacao pods are star fruit-shaped and about the size of a small football. The process to actually make chocolate is very involved: there are two periods of drying and then some fermentation in between to make cocoa butter and other stuff. The best part of the trip through was napping and listening to Glee, buying pineapple, and seeing the ocean for a few miles. I didn't realize how much I had missed the ocean until I saw it again. It was such a beautiful, inviting azure blue. We don't get to go until Sunday, and we are there all day Tuesday as well. The reserve we are at, Bosque Seco Lalo Loor (Bosque Seco means Dry Forest, and Lalo Loor is the owner [Lalo is kind of a nickname]), is very cool, and while the facilities are nice, they also leave much to be desired. We live in a huge "house" with bamboo-thin walls. There are rooms, thankfully, but I do kind of miss the Tiputini cabins (where we could actually drink the water haha). Last night though I listened to Pirates of the Caribbean when I went to bed so that drowned out a lot of the annoying background noise and I was actually able to sleep. There's also this excellent hammock house just outside - so relaxing, I think I need one for my house! Today we went on a hike to learn about the dry forest and again saw an unnecessary amount of spiders, tons of baby frogs and toads, lizards, and a bunch of Mantled Howler Monkeys lounging in a couple of trees. We also learned about the adaptations organisms must have to live in the dry forest - for instance, most trees here lose their leaves during the dry season to conserve energy, and many also have photosynthetic bark to make up for the loss. Many trees also have excellent water storage capabilities - the middle of the trunk gets fat and swollen with water during the rainy season so it can sustain itself during the dry season. They sure look funny! Sadly, we happened to be there at just the right time when there's a zillion spiders hanging around and staring at you, but at least there were also a bunch of reptiles to make up for it. And monkeys.
3/6/11
The past couple of days have been pretty amazing and may have been some of the best of my life so far. Yesterday half of our group trekked to the nearby town of Tabuga in order to do some water quality tests on the stream that runs behind the town. We did this because our professors are doing a month-long study abroad project in the summer (through UW and Ceiba of course) that focuses on community health in Tabuga. Our tests were sort of preliminary - we tested random stuff like stream flow, habitat types, species of microinvertebrates (the types of these animals that are present in a stream can really tell you a lot about how clean it is), and other things. It was fairly interesting but honestly I have done more enjoyable things here! The cool part was being in the community and talking to the locals a little, especially the kids - they are often very enthusiastic and curious about what we are doing. Later on we had lunch, and then a bunch of us went down to Don Lalo's yogurt stand down the road to get our yogurt fix (the guy makes some darn delicious yogurt). He is the same man who owns the reserve we are staying at. Anyways, the stuff is delicious and I drank nearly half a liter of mora yogurt! Lalo Loor is the "ranchero" or "ganador," but is also very conservation-minded, hence his voluntary agreement with Ceiba to keep a large part of his land as a reserve that is now used for environmental education and ecotourism. The forest is beautiful, despite the spiders; I really love this place. I even enjoy the outdoor showers - it's actually pretty awesome taking a shower outside where you can hear Howler Monkeys and giant, loud-ass toads calling all around. The showers are excellent especially when you are sweating more than you ever have in your life and the water is pleasantly cold. Even if when you go to shut off the water, a large spider decides to come at you down the shower head. But I digress. We had a talk from Don Lalo about the reserve (in which I fell asleep because it was about 90 degrees, even though the talk was interesting) but then we had Coke and I became chipper enough to enjoy the lecture afterwards about soils and land use in the tropics (it was actually really interesting because it reminded me of some Geology and Geography classes I've had). The evening though, was the best - we were invited to attend a party in the community for the inauguration of the 3 Forest Trail (a trail connecting three reserves in the area, including Lalo Loor's). It was such a great experience to be able to go to a town fiesta in rural, costal Ecuador. So awesome. We even got to be rebels and ride to the party in the back of a truck while watching all the stars come out (you can see quite a lot of stars out there). I got a huge bottle of cerveza (beer) for $1 and drank it even though it was gross and danced the night away with my classmates and some local Ecuadorians. It was a total blast! They played some great salsa music, some random Elvis tunes, and a good mix of popular American and Latin music. I have never been so sweaty from dancing in my life, which is saying a lot; as you may know I do put a lot of energy into my dancing! Anyways, we had a great time. I even got to hold a beautiful Indigo Snake that Paul Hamilton (the herpetile guy from Tiputini) brought to the party to teach the locals not to be afraid of snakes (sadly, many people kill them on sight because they believe they are all poisonous and will die too soon after they are bitten to get to a hospital, both of which are untrue). The snake was a beautiful blue/black with iridescent belly scales. It was one of the smoothest snakes I've ever touched, and I was able to hold it around my shoulders for awhile and show it to some of the local kids. Gotta love snake hugs hahhahaha!! Today was pretty amazing as well. About 10 of us went back to Rio Tabuga, this time to do a trash pick up. It was sad how much trash we did find - we used up an entire box of garbage bags. We ended up recruiting some local kids to help us, and two of them, Andrés and Marcos (10 years old) ended up following us around - we went to a local artisan shop, and then Andrés came with me all the way back to the reserve! He wasn't actually from Tabuga; he was in fact from Manta, and you could definitely tell because he obviously had a good education (a good environmental education; which we discussed at length). The education at Tabuga and in most rural areas is not great - reading level is low and critical thinking skills are not really taught - but a couple of ex-Peace Corps people are doing a lot of work to fix that and they are making great progress with the kids. Still have so much to do though. Andrés took a liking to me and followed us all the way to the beach after we went back to the reserve for lunch. It was a long hot walk but it was so worth it! Andrés and I started running as soon as we saw it. The beach was entirely deserted except for a few other of my classmates (and the ones lagging behind me). I haven't seen such a beautiful beach in a long time - it was wide and scattered with rocks polished by the surf, basalt cliffs were on either side featuring a few tide pools with eroded patterns, and 90 degree water with waves perfect for body surfing. It was amazing and I loved it and I can't wait to go back! I've got some painful sunburns, but I still had fun all the same. I took a walk along the beach to pick up some rocks and shells and stayed in the water as much as possible. I sure walked and swam a lot today so I'm pretty exhausted. But I really love this place.
3/8/11
Happy Birthday Dad!
I am currently sitting on a piece of driftwood on a beach called Punta Prieta here on the magical coast of Ecuador. It is one of the most beautiful beaches I've seen - it is perhaps one or two km long and hugged by light-colored cliffs on both sides. The sand is soft and the usual tan, but is black and almost glittery near the cliffs. Beautifully battered rocks, shells, and sea glass are scattered all around, especially near the tide pools. I took a run down the beach (I was just itching to do so; don't get so many wide open spaces in the forest!) to check out the cliffs and tide pools - found lots of crabs scuttling around such as ghost crabs (my favorite) and "gringo" crabs (so called because they are red, white, and blue). I sat a little ways up a cliff for awhile just watching the waves roll in (to the tune of Pirates on my iPod!). The sea is so gorgeous - so many gradients of blue that blend easily with the light blues, whites, yellows, and pinks of the horizon. It's just so amazing to be here and the ocean breaking on the shore and the scent of the sea are very soothing. Earlier today we were at a different beach near Lalo Loor that was really fun - we got bowled around by these huge waves and ate tasty burritos and such. There was some good salsa music playing loudly from a covered dance floor area, so that added to the ambience. Tonight we sleep on the beach and have a bonfire, which should be awesome. Tomorrow I plan on getting up early to watch the sun rise and take pictures. Tomorrow we also must head back to Quito. Nobody wants to! Yesterday was really cool - we hopped on a bus to go check out the mangroves near San Vicente. Everyone was out and about because of Carnaval and the vibe in the town was very playful and welcoming. I love coast because the people's mentality is very different from Quito - happier maybe, and definitely more gracious. We walked in to a shop at one point and the owner gave us free bread just for stopping in. The other day, the lady at the Artisan shop gave us free key chains with our purchases. They are pretty cool. On the way back from the mangroves, there was a huge traffic jam due to a road collapse and so everyone got out of their cars to play music and we scrambled off the bus for some street fun and volleyball. Pretty fun stuff. The mangroves themselves were very interesting, and we saw a lot of cool birds, including frigates.
To be honest the bonfire wasn't that exciting but a couple of us went down to the surf around midnight with one of our professors and the waves were glowing as they came in - bioluminescent dinoflagellates, tiny plankton!! Every time you kicked around in the waves, they would light up and it was so magical with the glowing waves at our feet and the stars twinkling above! I couldn't really sleep that night (kind of difficult when you're covered in sand and shoved in a tent with two other people) so I got up early to watch the sunrise, which was kind of cloudy but beautiful nonetheless. Took some great pictures and got bitten up by sand fleas (didn't notice that until later when they started to itch like crazy!) Then sadly we had to leave back to Quito (none of us wanted to go because the hotel was so quaint and beautiful and had excellent food, and of course the beach was amazing) but I ended up sleeping a lot of the way back on the bus. All in all a wonderful week :)
Note: Again, I apologize for any grammatical/spelling errors!
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=278476&id=704687656&l=2b841d3bbc
