Half Done with the Condors

Another week in Zuleta! I'm more than half done with this program, which seems crazy. My last day is September 30. Though, a couple days ago Sarah had 2 of the 3 October researchers cancel because of family things, so she asked if I might be willing to stay on a couple extra days to help out. That should actually work out wonderfully, because I was going to be waiting for my dad to arrive in Quito for like 9 days, and from what I hear, there's only so much of Quito to see. Plus it's in a state of emergency right now with wildfires surrounding the city, so you know... the longer I can give them to put those out, the better.

So... I left off last weekend. Sunday was another day off for me. I decided that I would go on a hike, look for some cows to milk, and explore the town of Zuleta. What I didn't realize is that Sunday is the worst day to do this because everything is closed! I started with a 2 mile hike to the La Cocha Milkshed, which, based on signposts, I thought might do hand-milking. I got there and the place was empty (which I figured might happen). But just down the road from that was a watermill, and a bit further a waterfall! I got to the watermill sign, but all I saw was a locked gate. Damn! So I walked a bit further to find the waterfall. The map suggested that the cobblestone path would turn into a dirt path, and I would be at the waterfall fairly quickly. Thirty minutes passed and I found myself wandering on an almost non-existant trail into the foothills, sidestepping cows and trying not to draw the attention of the bulls. When I saw rainclouds moving in, I decided to give up.

Galo Plaza Lasso, ex-president of Ecuador

My original plan was to go into Zuleta and see a saddle-maker, stop by the embroidery shops, get some embroidery lessons, see some wood art, etc etc. But I decided to quit while I was ahead and just continue back to the house since everything seemed closed. I did stop in one store that looked open because I wanted to buy a sweatshirt, but they only had blouses and dresses. Apparently showing any interest means you want to buy something, because the woman was ready to give me a $140 hand-stitched dress on faith that I would return with the money. I didn't actually want the dress... it just looked nice!

Monday was my big Minga Day. The other girls had the day off, so they went into Ibarra to buy snacks. I fed the rabbits, got firewood, took out the recycling, and then spent a couple hours entering my condor observation data into the computer. The day was pretty relaxed, but the one thing that makes Monday Mingas a pain is washing all the rabbit cages (there are something like 40 rabbits in 20 cages). Fortunately a few rabbits had just been fed to the condors (hah, fortunately...), so there were empty cages which made moving the remaining rabbits around a lot easier.

One of the rabbits had babies!

Miguel, with his machete!

Tuesday was probably the highlight of my week. Savannah and I got an early ride up to the condors because Miguel, the guy who feeds the condors, was bringing them meat. That day was also Savannah's birthday, and Miguel offered to take our picture in the river. We thought we would just be walking like 2 minutes to take a picture in a really deep part or something, but we went on a decent expedition (as in, Miguel brought a machete) into the woods with no idea where we were going. Eventually we got to a "bridge" that crossed over the river, where "bridge" actually  means 3 logs with rocks shoved in the gaps. That hike was seriously incredible. There were so many wonderful views of the river and the forest, and we had our own personal guide! It didn't even matter that Miguel doesn't speak English and that our Spanish is very weak. We got around the language barrier by not using it! For instance, he picked up a stick and "walked" it up a tree trunk to indicate that there are stick bugs in the area. I love Miguel... he is so sweet and loves teaching us Kichwa, which is a language that comes from old Inca.

When we finally returned to the condors there was even more excitement - one of the wild ones, Yuracunga, landed on the ground and was out taking a stroll. He stuck around for much of the morning. Later it started drizzling, which kind of sucked, but at least the wind wasn't blowing. However, that meant the mosquitoes were out in full force.

This was because of the mosquitoes...

Wednesday was just an average condor day. Though, I definitely got burned on my thumb and pointer fingers from writing all day. The true mark of a field biologist!

Thursday was another Minga Day for me. That night the four of us girls went to dinner, and we were joined by Ximena (the woman running the research) and another gentleman. Ximena bought watermelons to use for the condor enrichment the next day, so we were going to hollow them out after dinner. (We give the condors things like traffic cones, straps of leather, meat frozen in ice, etc to make them think and to give them a bit of entertainment.) Sarah thought that was the perfect time to give us her presentation on Andean Bears (she used to work for an Andean Bear organization), and the guy seemed interested so he came along too. We found out that the guy (Oswaldo), was a grandson of Galo Plaza Lasso, an ex-president of Ecuador. So there we were, carving watermelons, learning about Andean Bears, and chatting with the grandson of an ex-president. You know, typical Thursday night...

Friday was interesting. We gave the condors the meat in watermelons, and they eventually got the meat out (but I think they got kind of juicy because they spent longer than usual rubbing their faces in the grass). That afternoon some guys came to see about making the internet faster. Somehow, their presence made the wifi work on my tablet. YAY!!! The unfortunate part of the day was when I went to take a shower after dinner and saw dirt in the water. Like a lot of dirt. I could've planted flowers in our shower. Turns out it was in the bathroom and kitchen sinks as well. Fortunately we have separate drinking water, but it just meant no showers that night.

Trying to show scale here... Ruco (condor) is just slightly in the foreground.

Reina Pacha trying to eat meat in ice.

Tarishka fighting off Coya for food...

...and Tarishka asserts his dominance!

Candlelit sitting room!

Stephanie and I went to the condors the next day, and when we got back I checked with reception about getting the water fixed. The woman (Laura) said Savannah had already stopped by about the water and the electricity. Umm... what? Apparently the electricity went out earlier in the day, so we needed that fixed as well. I thought it was no big deal because it had gone out a couple times on my days off last week.  Anyways, Laura said a guy was coming by to fix both problems. He showed up an hour later and fixed the water, indicating we needed to let it run a bit to flush the remaining dirt out of the pipes. As for the electricity, he tried to explain the situation to us in Spanish. After hearing the words "electricidad" and "imposible" and then seeing him give us a handful of candles, we knew we were screwed. (It only took 2 days to finally get electricity, but it took 3 until our lights actually worked.) So Saturday night I took a shower by candlelight (which was probably good, so I couldn't tell if there was still dirt in the water!) and we just put some candles around the house. It was so quaint!

The wingspan of a condor. Those feathers are the length of my arm.

Joaquin joined us up at the condors. I'm wearing gloves to avoid burning my hand more...

Fito is huge and makes a wonderful pillow, especially because he was lying in our only patch of shade.

Sunday we went to the condors, and then we went to dinner early to enjoy some electricity. After dinner we stuck around the guest TV/computer room and watched Eclipse and Dexter (a great combination). With the guest ammenities, we're supposed to leave immediately if guests come by to use the rooms. Sunday night they couldn't have kicked us out if they tried, considering the only thing we had to go back to was a cold, dark house. We took our shoes off, brought books, journals, and data sheets with us, had the fire going, and were all sprawled out on the couches watching TV.

The cow behind our house got a friend!!

Monday was my (and Steph's) day off, and Savannah had her Minga Monday. Some guys came to work on the electricity starting around 11. They ended up rewiring the house and didn't leave until after 3, and we still didn't have working lights. We walked into the town of Zuleta to peruse the shops, but I think things are different in a small town - a lot of the shops are out of peoples' homes, so they don't necessarily wait in them all day for customers, but instead they do their own thing until a customer comes and rings the bell. As a result, the town kind of looked empty. That night we set up camp in the guest TV room again.

Today Savannah and I went up to the condors. I had another exciting day with the llamas, who wandered up to where I was and were just grazing around me. They were so close I could have touched them! Llamas are really cool, and they make funny whining noises while they eat.

 

BTW, there are a number of pictures (like some of the "bridge") that I might add later because they are on Savannah's camera. Adios!