8/26/14
Comuna Loma Alta
The Comuna of Loma Alta is situated in the Chongon–Colonche mountains of coastal Ecuador, approximately 150 miles northwest of the port city of Guayaquil. It is comprised of four settlements: Loma Alta, El Suspiro, La Union and La Ponga. Its inhabitants are poor farmers with family incomes of less than $100 a month. Their crops include tomatoes, watermelons, cucumbers and paja toquilla, the fiber used to make “Panama” hats.
They own a beautiful yet highly endangered fog forest that is rich in endemic plants and such rare and varied wildlife as howler monkeys, kinkajous, ocelots, toucans and hummingbirds. The forest is also the source of the watershed upon which thousands of local people depend for their very survival.
OUR SITE IN ECUADOR, SOUTH AMERICA
In 1996, in direct response to PAN's innovative combination of community development, participatory research and educational programs, the villagers opted to establish the first Communal Ecological Reserve in western Ecuador! More than 1,500 acres of forest were set aside for future generations.
Today, the Loma Alta Ecological Reserve consists of nearly 7,500 acres. This pioneer community has received national and international recognition for its visionary actions. PAN is proud of its record at Loma Alta and, with your support, will continue its efforts to protect the Ecological Reserve and extend it to neighboring communities
Jan 14--Flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador
Saturday, January 14, 2006.
I awake to a 6 am alarm. Today’s the day I fly to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and the beginning of my long-planned Earthwatch Expedition. I have purchased high rubber boots, a mosquito-net tent, plenty of field pants and shorts, a bushel of socks, a peck of microfiber, fast-drying underwear. I’ve packed headlamp, binoculars, bound bird plates, anti-diarrhea meds, antibiotics, malaria pills, biodegradable soap and shampoo, and a host of school supplies for the tiny village, El Suspiro, from whence we will start our trek into the Colonche Mountain Cloud Forest. I’ve a pocket Spanish phrase book which I plan to study on my four (count ‘em) American Airlines flights to get to Guayaquil: OKC to Dallas, Dallas to Tampa, Tampa to Miami, and Miami to Guayaquil. I got them through the Internet’s CheapTickets (about $900 RT), so I’m not complaining.
Jeff drives me to the airport and I am off. All goes smoothly until I reach Miami, and then the flight is delayed 1 hour. I spend this time calling Florence and buying a best seller (Jonathan Kellerman’s Therapy) to read on the plane. I had brought two books with me, but the one had only 10 pages or so left in it and I finished it before reaching Dallas. The other (sigh) I found I had read only the week before! Dum de dum dumb!
It is said that one needs no English in Miami, and I believe it. My flight is crammed with short, dark, Spanish-speaking travelers and their children, many of whom cannot reach the overhead luggage compartments, so I find myself assisting right and left. Almost all of the women wear their blue-black shiny hair long and most are dressed in bright, tight clothing . . . jeans appearing almost as another epidermal layer. This is to be the clothing benchmark throughout Ecuador, even in the very poor villages.
I occupy the only seat in the 6-seat center section of the big airplane so can stretch out and sleep. We get to Guayaquil, which is on CST, at 1:30 am. As I am getting off the plane, an English accented voice behind me asks if I am with Earthwatch. It is Donna Ore from the UK, one of my fellow Team 6 volunteers. We get our luggage and share a cab to the Palace Hotel in downtown Guayaquil ($5 plus tip) where we awkwardly check in (the front desk doesn’t speak English) and fall into bed about 3:30 am.
Jan 15--Meeting the Gang
Sunday, January 15, 2006
We were instructed to meet our team at 9 am in the hotel lobby, so I am up at 6 am to sort out my Galapagos things (which I leave at the Palace) and to have a hot shower and breakfast, which is part of my room fee.
When I walk into the dining room, I see a gray-haired near look-alike sitting by herself in the corner. I suspect she is Susan Wethington, the PI for our expedition, but she does not encourage me to sit with her so I take a place at another table. I am almost immediately joined by Marlene Coleman and then by Erica Keating, two other Team 6 volunteers. When I introduce myself, they at first think that I am the PI.
We enjoy a lively breakfast. Marlene, a triathlete, speaks fairly fluent Spanish and has been staying with friends in Cuenca (Quenka) for the past week. She and Erica discover that they live within blocks of each other in NYC. Erica is a massage therapist and Marlene, a triathlete, works for HSBC bank. Turns out that she and Brazilian, Ricardo Gelasko, and Brit Donna Ore all work for this bank which has paid their contributions and travel to show their support for environmental endeavors. I am envious.
After breakfast, we meet the rest of the team. Yes, the woman in the restaurant was Susan Wethington, from Patagonia, AZ, and founder of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Other team members include Carlos Martinez-Rivera, a herpetologist from Costa Rica who is doing graduate work at the U. of Missouri, Columbia, and his girlfriend, Evelyng Astudillo, an Ecuadorian ornithologist. Chas Edwards and Dawn Woodroffe enter the lobby wearing huge backpacks. They are birders from the UK and live together. Cathy Hutcheson is also in the lobby. Cathy is from Illinois and is an expert birder and bander. We also meet Ricardo, who wonders aloud if birding is a little “unmanly.” Males are a decided minority on this trip . . . 3 males to 8 females.
After breakfast, we meet the rest of the team. Yes, the woman in the restaurant was Susan Wethington, from Patagonia, AZ, and founder of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Other team members include Carlos Martinez-Rivera, a herpetologist from Costa Rica who is doing graduate work at the U. of Missouri, Columbia, and his girlfriend, Evelyng Astudillo, an Ecuadorian ornithologist. Chas Edwards and Dawn Woodroffe enter the lobby wearing huge backpacks. They are birders from the UK and live together. Cathy Hutcheson is also in the lobby. Cathy is from Illinois and is an expert birder and bander. We also meet Ricardo, who wonders aloud if birding is a little “unmanly.” Males are a decided minority on this trip . . . 3 males to 8 females.
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| Front: Erica, Ricardo, Cathy, Susan Wethington; Back: me, Chas, Dawn, Donna, Marlene, Evelyng, Carlos; behind us is the little shuttle that we will cram into for the three-hour drive to Valdivia and our Eco lodge |
Oniour way out of town, we pass a huge hillside cemetery sometimes called La Ciudad Blanca (The White City). It’s spread out over several hills, all of the graves above ground in ornate white crypts and cement coffins. Carlos explains that because the Ecuadorian people are predominately Catholic, they eschew cremation. But space is limited, so after the deceased occupies a gravesite for 10 years (plenty of time for the soul to reach heaven) the bones are removed, pulverized and presented to the family. It’s now someone else’s turn to occupy the gravesite for the next 10 years.
When I return to Guayaquil after the Earthwatch expedition, I walk to this graveyard. The newer part of the cemetery has grass and tree-lined boulevards fronting what seem like high rise white buildings but each is a mausoleum with stacked drawers and drawers of the dead. In the old section of the cemetery, many of the graves are completely crumbling out of the hillside, covered with rubble from previous graves. Torn silk linings hang out from some. Trash and rubble litter the ground. The guidebook says, “The cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful in South America.” This statement may be true about the new part of the cemetery but certainly is not in regard to the old part of the cemetery. (See below)
When I return to Guayaquil after the Earthwatch expedition, I walk to this graveyard. The newer part of the cemetery has grass and tree-lined boulevards fronting what seem like high rise white buildings but each is a mausoleum with stacked drawers and drawers of the dead. In the old section of the cemetery, many of the graves are completely crumbling out of the hillside, covered with rubble from previous graves. Torn silk linings hang out from some. Trash and rubble litter the ground. The guidebook says, “The cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful in South America.” This statement may be true about the new part of the cemetery but certainly is not in regard to the old part of the cemetery. (See below)
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| Ill kept cemetery; the photo to the right might read "Buried Again" |
We also pass a mass of colorful houses perched on the hillside. Leaving the city, we travel through a very dry, dusty, trashy countryside, dotted with tacked together, tin- or palm-leaf-roofed houses—most on stilts for the cooling breezes. The roadway is full of all sorts of vehicles from ritzy SUVs to the ubiquitous beat up pickup trucks, their wooden benches filled with farm workers, fishermen, or families. Also crazy colorful local buses, one of which we will experience tomorrow. Many mountain bicycles, too, their riders taking their lives in their hands amidst the notoriously reckless Ecuadorian drivers. Susan tells us that the most dangerous part of our expedition is not the venomous snakes and malarial mosquitoes of the Cloud Forest but the time we will spend in a vehicle getting to and from our hike-in/out point.
It takes us 3 hours to reach our destination for the evening, an Eco Lodge on a seaside cliff above the town of Valdivia and the ancient village of San Pedro. We are all stunned by the beauty and “luxury” of the Lodge, having expected to rough it from Day 1.
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| View of the ocean from the benched and thatched pavilion |
I share a thatch-roofed cabin with Susan (two Susans in one cabin). Our beds have mosquito net canopies. We have a bathroom with hot running water and shower. We both wash up and then it’s time for a full big lunch served in the open dining room overlooking the ocean. This is an unexpected treat!
Carlos shows us the suction-cup feet of a gecko found in one of the cabins.
Carlos shows us the suction-cup feet of a gecko found in one of the cabins.
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| Susan's and my cabin on the right |
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| Susan's and my bedroom |
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| Carlos, Marlene, and Erica on the Eco lodge balcony casting their binoculars on the fishing scene in Valdivia far below. When the fishermen pull in their nets, all sorts of birds gather; right: Erica with purple towel and hat before the purple entrance to the Eco Lodge. |
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| Birds gathered about returning fishermen--what we were seeing in Valdivia with our binoculars; the big black birds are Magnificent Frigatebirds |
After lunch Susan wants to lead us on an informal birding outing along the beach and to a lagoon with a variety of species. The trail down the cliff to the beach is a literal cliffhanger, crumbly and dangerous, so we must hike along the roadside—a feat probably more dangerous than risking the trail to the beach. We all make it to the bottom in one piece, however, and then walk along the beach where fishermen and their families are relaxing before going out again for an evening catch. Their boats are colorful and crude. Black vultures are picking about the beach like gulls. Laughing gulls and great and cattle egrets are foraging on the beach also.
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| Fishing boats on the Valdivia beach |
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| Black vulture scavenging on the beach |
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| Black-necked Stilts |
At the lagoon we have a great birding fest. We end the day having spotted the following birds: Little Tinamou (heard) [1], Magnificent Frigate Birds, Blue-footed Booby (flying in the distance), Neotropic Cormorant, Brown Pelican, Great egret, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egret, Striated Heron [2], Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Savanna Hawk [3], Barred Forest Falcon [4], Spotted Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Black-necked Stilt (many), Semipalmated Plover, Collared Plover, Wilson’s Plover, Kildeer, American Golden Plover, Laughing Gull, Rock Pigeon, Ecuadorian Ground Dove, Croaking Ground Dove [5], Pacific Parrotlet [6], Pacific Pygmy Owl, Pacific Hornero, Southern Beardless Tyrannulet [7], Vermillion Flycatcher, Masked Water Tyrant [8], Tropical Kingbird (9), Long-tailed Mockingbird, Blue-and-white Swallow [10], So. Rough-winged Swallow, House Wren, Tropical Gnatcatcher [11], Blue-gray Tanager [12], Scrub Blackbird [13], Peruvian Meadowlark [14], and Yellow-tailed Oriole.
We return from the lagoon through San Pedro, a very old, poor community with the usual dirt streets, mangy dogs, pigs, chickens, mules, and kids. All along the lagoon and along the trails and dirt roads, we walk through trash. It seems to be okay to throw one’s trash and garbage anywhere. Some of it, as well as the landscape has been burned. Amidst this squalor, there often blooms a gorgeous hibiscus or an African flame tree, made more beautiful by the stark contrast to its surroundings. A man has a pig by its hind legs and is dragging it squealing to its slaughter. We all feel for the poor animal that seems to know its fate.
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| San Pedro's homes and main street; the flowering trees add an unexpected touch of beauty and color |
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| Marlene greets some vendors selling melons and coconuts; one of the women has just had a baby and asks Marlene to be its godmother |
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| Dig the Inca-type concrete poolside bench |
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| Joyous faces around the dinner table |
Jan 16--Bus to Loma Alta
Monday, January 16, 2006
Valdivia Eco Lodge to Loma Alta to El Suspiro
Valdivia Eco Lodge to Loma Alta to El Suspiro
After a breakfast of coffee, eggs, juice, and fruit, we dragged our bags to the courtyard where the bus was to come at 7 am to pick us up for our ride to Loma Alta, the start of our hike to the El Suspiro and Cloud Forest. But the bus didn't come . . . and didn't come. Eventually, Evelyng got on her cell phone and managed to get ahold of the driver’s wife. He'd left his village an hour ago. Susan was contemplating hiring another bus when ours finally showed up, laboring up the hill to the Eco Lodge.
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| Loading the gear atop the bus, Susan Evelyng and Carlos pose before the bus, the fake-fur-trimmed mirror and the great bumped noses of the Ecuadorian Indians who helped load the bus |
What a bus—the driver sits on the floor like a go-cart, and the bus is decorated inside with pictures of Jesus interspersed between stickers of Tweety Bird, Goofy, and other oddities. Hanging across the front window is a tasseled curtain, and hanging off the front fake-fur-framed mirror are religious medals, children’s sandals, stuffed toys, etc. The drivers—two men with the great bumped noses of ancient Ecuadorian Indians—piled our bags on top of the bus, we all crammed in, and off we went at breakneck speed, honking the horn often and loudly at vehicles, animals, and persons in our way. Soon we were on a dirt road and then a narrower dirt road full of river crossings (no bridges) and potholes. Whenever we passed through a village we encountered “sleeping policemen” (speed humps) every 100 feet. It says something about our bus to note that it got hung up on one of these and had to try several times to get the rear wheels over it.
Finally the bus entered the village of Loma Alta (“High Hill”) and pulled up in front of the Loma Alta Ecological building.
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| Signing in at Loma Alta Ecological Reserve headquarters-Alejandro in white shirt |
The Loma Alta Ecological Reserve (LAER) is a community owned forest. Our Earthwatch project is a biodiversity and ecosystem conservation effort involving the community of Loma Alta, Guayas, Ecuador. The project compares the sociology of the conservation & ecology of avian communities in the Loma Alta & Dos Mangas watersheds of western Ecuador.
Originally our PI was to be Dusti Becker, founder of the LAER & co-director of PAN (People Allied for Nature), but Dr. Susan Wethington, from Patagonia, AZ, founder of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network (HMN), became our PI instead. Susan is especially interested in mapping and studying the habitat needs of the tiny Esmeraldas Woodstar, an endangered hummingbird that she suspects breeds in the Colonche Hills. Susan and Dusti have also tried to unite ecosystem and wildlife conservation with the needs of local people to make a living. Ecotourism has good potential in the Colonche Hills, and hummingbirds should be an attractive focus for nature-sensitive tourism.
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| Cathy's photo of a beautiful iguana seen as we were leaving Loma Alta |
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| Cathy's close-up of an iguana |
We spend only a brief time in Loma Alta. Carlos asks to hire Alejandro, a LAER Ranger who hunts down poachers and keeps tabs of the wildlife in the Reserve. Carlos wants Alejandro to help him find some good sites for frogs and snakes. Susan gives her permission, and Alejandro is set to meet us at La Mono (“The Monkey”), our first camp, in two days. After these arrangements are made and after we have each signed-in at the Center that we are entering the Reserve, we began our hike along the La Mono River from Loma Alta to El Suspiro ("suspiro" means "sigh" in Spanish).
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| The dirtt road out of town; mango trees; just outside of Loma Alta we come upon a tree farm that is growing trees for reforestation of areas within the Reserve--some of their beds above |
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| Family that runs the tree farm |
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| Blue-crowned Motmot (it was in a tree at the tree farm), Blue Morpho butterfly, the underside of its blue wings to the left of it, and leaf cutter ants. This is the first time I have seen them and they fascinate me. |
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| Evelyng & Carlos |
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| Carlos at our hostesses luncheon table |
As soon as we enter the room, our hostess takes one look at me (red faced and panting from the exertion and the heat) and pulls from the refrigerator’s freezer two small fruit juice popsicles in little plastic bags. You can tell that this woman has had experience with previous Earthwatch volunteers. Also, she is dressed in an "I [Heart] NY" tee, the logo outlined in rhinestones, obviously a gift from a former Earthwatcher and one of her dressier pieces of attire.
She has killed a chicken, and so serves us a traditional lunch of hot, brothy soup—this with a chicken leg and a piece of corn-on-the-cob in it—followed by a plate of rice and chicken and thinly sliced onions and tomatoes. Such a big hot lunch is not my heart’s desire, but I eat as much as I can so as not to offend our hostess. While in the cloud forest we are to be served a variation of this lunch every day, seldom with chicken which is special, but always with huge amounts of rice. Eventually we decide that these diminutive natives see us huge Americans and Europeans as needing equally huge plates of food!
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| Driving pigs. . .I hope driving them home rather than to slaughter. They were squealing their heads off. |
While walking to El Suspiro we also see many butterflies. The photos of the scarlet peacock below are mine but the rest were pulled from the Internet. My favorites are the Esmeralda and Oleria glasswing. I think that the stunning blue butterfly, bottom right is called a red cracker (it has red on the edge of its underwing) because the male makes a cracking sound to attract a mate.
After lunch we continued on into the village proper and collected our bags, which had been bused in and dropped off at the village bakery. The bakery is operated by Mauricio’s wife and some of his children. (Mauricio is a LAER naturalist who is joining our group for the two weeks we are in the cloud forest.) His son, Andreas (a midget and one of Mauricio’s 10 children), and the son’s wife, run the bakery and send us bread and rolls when water is sent up to the campsite.
After lunch we continued on into the village proper and collected our bags, which had been bused in and dropped off at the village bakery. The bakery is operated by Mauricio’s wife and some of his children. (Mauricio is a LAER naturalist who is joining our group for the two weeks we are in the cloud forest.) His son, Andreas (a midget and one of Mauricio’s 10 children), and the son’s wife, run the bakery and send us bread and rolls when water is sent up to the campsite.
Andreas carves birds and monkeys and other wildlife into tagua nuts and also makes jewelry from the nuts, which harden and are sometimes called “vegetable ivory.” Above is a photo of some of the nuts I purchased from Andreas. The one in the back is the way the nut looks uncarved. Some natural nuts, like this one, contain beautiful designs.
After getting our gear, we lugged it to a room in the schoolhouse which had been cleared for our tents. The room is cinderblock and cement and has only two windows. It is so hot that some (including me!) want to set up their tents outside, but we are cautioned about doing so by Tanner, an expat who has become the village’s English teacher. He tells us that the pigs and animals bed down for the night in the area and it would not be wise to put our tents there. He did open the village teacher’s house for us as it has a shower of sorts, a flush toilet, and a sink, from which we finally coaxed a few dribbles of water.
This cinderblock house was built for the village teacher to encourage him to stay the week, but according to Tanner, he is rarely there, perhaps coming once or twice a week to hold lackluster classes from 8 until 1. (We all wondered what on earth attracted Tanner to such a poor and godforsaken place. A good looking guy in his mid to late twenties, he had been living in the village for the past 2 years. He seemed to do nothing much during the day, had no passions either scientific or human to keep him occupied--was he hiding from something?)
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| Our tents set up inside the school room |
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| Me taking a photo of a darling little girl in front of the school; Susan and Tanner to the left |
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| A happy Donna in her tent; this was the first time she had camped and she was loving it |
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| Erica setting up her tent in the schoolroom; my tent the black mesh one at wall |
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| All my little friends. Top right the child whose photo I was taking in the before-the-schoolhouse picture. This was a very exciting day for them when the gringos arrive in their tiny village. The little girl in orange and the one in pink became my good buddies and followed me wherever I went. They were in a near frenzy of excitement. |
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| Marlene's lunch family and some of the village urchins; they gathered in Tanner's house and watched television |
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| Making enough pizza for all of us and the village too |
Evelyng and Susan were negotiating with the townspeople for our next day’s pack mules and muleteers when we started this task, so we operated by guess and by gosh, requesting needed bowls, knives, and warm water in basic sign language... until Tanner and Susan arrived on the scene. Tanner was recruited by the villagers to translate the recipe into Spanish. Susan knew how to make pizza dough. We had fresh peppers and tomatoes, and I cut up the tomatoes. When Susan arrived, she asked if I had washed them first. I had not. Susan said to give them to the pigs and start fresh with tomatoes washed in hand soap and cold water. After we had done this, Carlos reminded us that the tomatoes would be cooked in a 500-degree oven for 30 minutes.
Eventually we assembled two very large pizzas. Andreas and his wife baked them in the large bread ovens they had in the back. While the pizzas were baking, the table we had been using was placed in the courtyard as were various benches. We had enough pizza for us and for each of the villagers, who, if their smiles were any indication, enjoyed the treat. They will be able to recreate it as one of the women wrote down Tanner’s recipe.
After dinner we took turns taking showers in the school teacher’s house. Cathy and Ricardo and I were the last three, and by the time we were ready, there was no more water available . . . so we went to bed dirty . . and hot.
After dinner we took turns taking showers in the school teacher’s house. Cathy and Ricardo and I were the last three, and by the time we were ready, there was no more water available . . . so we went to bed dirty . . and hot.
Jan 17--Hike to La Mono
Tuesday January 17
El Suspiro
El Suspiro
This morning we arose, packed up our tents and kit, and went back to the bakery courtyard for breakfast at 6, which consisted of hard boiled eggs, fruit, coffee and freshly baked rolls. The muleteers were gathering and all of the villagers and children were again on hand to see us off. A bronze-winged parrot flew into the patio. We learned that this parrot was semi-wild having been raised and released by Andreas. It lived in the wild but came back often to visit (and beg).
Several of the villagers thought to ride their mules or horses up to camp with those hired to take our stuff up (the food and provisions had gone up two days previously), but Susan explained that we could pay only those muleteers whom we’d hired to carry our things . . . but several managed to strap a bag to their mount and ride up anyway. You have to understand that this is a big adventure for these isolated villagers, and though they receive only $10 for their RT service, they make only about $100 a month normally.
I had taken some photos of the saddles and the fashion in which the mules were loaded, but these were lost when in Guayaquil I erased photos that I thought had been downloaded to a disc. If I receive photos from my fellow volunteers, I will try to show what the loads looked like.
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| Andreas with Bronzed-wing Parrot |
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| One of the loaded mules--me, Susan, and Evelyng in background; children peeking out of the bakery window at the departing gringos |
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| Kathy, Evelyng, Susan Wethington, and me--Ricardo and Donna in background--standing in front of the bakery. We all have our arms folded waiting to see how the muleteers sort things out. |
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| The muleteers in front of the schoolroom putting our baggage in plastric bags for loading onto the mules; rounding up the muleteers and pack animals |
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| Bagging our bags for the pack animals; the teacher's house is just behind Ricardo; an additional muleteer wants to join the trek |
We hire 14 muleteers and start our long hike about 9 am. The first three hours or so are not too bad as we are following the river, but then we turn into the hills and have mile after mile of climbing. Donna and I are hiking out front, Donna eager to “get this part of the trip over with,” while the rest straggle behind with our two “hikers’” mules (carrying our boots and extra gear). Eventually Donna has had enough and rides one of the mules. I continue on foot despite sore feet.
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| A bird seen along the way; have no idea what species |
We can see row after row of hills fading off into the distance (left) but our muleteer tells us that the one we are hiking to can not be seen from where we are.
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| The distant hills that we are hiking to |
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| Alejandro and another ranger at the Mono River bottom |
After our lunch, we cross the river and climb “the wall,” a very steep and muddy trail. It is far too steep to ride the mules, so Donna has to get off her mule and we find ourselves hiking together again. My feet and toes had been screaming on the downhill trail to the casita and now my calves complain of the uphill portion. Finally we come to our La Mono campsite on a ridge near the La Mono River (really a small stream), which we will use for wash up and toilet flushing water.
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| Bucket Shower |
Under the casita the cooks, Amelia and Isadora, have set up their kitchen and have stored all the food and gear, the food on makeshift shelves. Several of our Ecuadorian staff have set up their tents under the casita also, and there are 2 hammocks strung under it as well and a community wash basin for hand-washing and disinfecting. Near the casita is a long picnic table under an old palm-roofed shelter. This is where we eat our meals.
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| El Mono; my tent was to the left on the porch at the top of the stairs |
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| Blurry photo of the Earthwatch dining shelter |
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| Isadora and Amelia in the kitchen and storage area; most of the bottles on the table to the right are filled with hummingbird nectar |
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| Our camp: Place under El Mono where the staff ate and some camped; our stores shelves; the kitchen; the Earthwatch table under a grass roofed shelter nearby |
Getting to our nets requires crossing the creek, climbing a bank, and, for nets #9 and #10, climbing up a hill. Mauricio goes off into the forest and cuts us two poles, each with a “Y” at the end, for pushing the nets up the bamboo poles and opening them each morning. I decorate mine and write my name on it. Cathy and I also use our poles as hiking sticks to help us get up and down the muddy slopes. The Ecuadorians don’t seem to need such things.
We mix the hummingbird nectar, which Carlos will take farther up the mountain to the “pasture” this evening when he goes out collecting frogs and snakes. He goes out each night in the dark to collect his specimens. Alejandro is not up the mountain yet to guide him, so Carlos goes alone this evening. The following night he recruits Marlene to go out collecting with him. I would volunteer to go as this fascinates me and Carlos is very knowledgeable of all plants, insects, reptiles, and animals encountered, but he is planning on going all the way back down the wall and to the stream at the casita where the rangers are and where we had lunch. My feet and legs would not thank me for such a long descent and climb again, particularly in the dark. Already I am going to lose three toenails—two on my right foot and the great nail on my left. Having lost the great nail on my right foot on last summer’s cross-country bicycle tours, my feet are looking pretty nasty.
We take turns taking showers, asking for “agua calliente por favor” (hot water, please) from the cooks who heat teakettle after teakettle for us and empty a kettle into a tall yellow plastic bucket for each person. We then mix this hot water with cold from the barrel of river water in the shower area and take bucket showers. It’s a little tricky, but we all perfect a system that works for us and conserves as much water as possible. While in the shower area I find a beautiful yellow/white/black caterpillar.
We eat by candlelight and make plans for tomorrow’s mist netting before going to bed, weary after a long, tough day. Just as we go to bed it begins to rain. It rains all night.
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| Caterpillar to the right is the one I photographed; one on the left is the one from the Net I wish I'd seen; I never could find what kind of butterfly or moth either of these metamorphosed into |
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