Today I am
finally going to Quito, and I just realized that I can't really upload pictures
to the blog from my tablet, so I'm going to try and blast this out on the guest
computer before I go.
Last Monday
(10/1) the new volunteer, Katherine, arrived. I helped show her around, taught
her how to wash the rabbit cages, and basically overwhelmed her with
information. Stephanie was still entering in her data until like 1pm, so she
and Savannah didn't end up leaving until the afternoon. Other than that, it was
a pretty chill day.
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| This little guy is about a month old. |
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| Me with Coya (wings spread) and Tarishka! |
Tuesday we
went to the condors, and Sarah said since the condors knew me pretty well by
now I could probably go and take a picture in one of their cages! So Miguel
took us into Coya and Tarishka's cage. They are a really sweet couple. They
don't seem to fight, they're very affectionate, and seemingly the best couple
to take a picture with. They seemed a little nervous, so they flew to the back
of the cage, but I still got some good shots! About an hour later I heard
crunching up on the hill behind the cages, and I looked up and saw an Andean
Bear! He was super cute, and pretty close. Very cool for Katherine's first day.
That night we had dinner with Fernando, part owner of the Hacienda Zuleta, and
another grandson of ex-president Galo Plaza Lasso. He was really friendly and I
liked him a lot. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I extended my
stay until Friday, and then even more until Sunday (today). Sarah told me later
that Fernando said I could stay the extra nights for free! That's right, the
grandson of a president likes me.
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| Reina Pacha! Isn't she cute?? |
Wednesday
we went to the condors again, and this time Miguel let me into Reina Pacha and
Ruco's cage! That was a little bit terrifying because Ruco likes to beat up on
Reina Pacha, so I didn't want to get in the middle of that. When we walked into
the cage, Ruco was standing about 4 feet from me. He was huge. Miguel had fun
and was wiggling his fingers at him, but he's worked with them for 10 years, so
they know and trust him. Meanwhile, Reina Pacha saw me and started wandering
over right to me. If I hadn't gone to the bathroom right beforehand, I think I
might have peed my pants. These condors can rip open the side of a cow with
their beaks, and one of them was walking right to me. I jumped back so fast I was
practically standing on Miguel's toes. Miguel put food out and I got to see
them eating from only a few feet away, it was crazy! Plus, they're kind of cute
up close. You can see all of their feathers, their heads are kind of fuzzy, and
Reina Pacha was looking me up and down to figure out who I was. I loved it. I
found out later that she does that... just walks up to new people because she's
curious. I don't know why no one thought to tell me this BEFORE I was in the
cage with her, but oh well. I got a lot of pictures of them, as well as video!
It was a very exciting morning. That afternoon I had a photo shoot with the
little brown calf behind our house. The black one is my favorite, but she was
too shy. The brown one loves me though! I think now she's tied for favorite.
And then there is Marco's calf, Stephanie, who I love because I feed her and
she's named after me. I love calves, if that wasn't obvious. Oh yeah, while I
was taking pictures of us, their owner came out to feed them, and she saw me
and started laughing a bunch. I guess not many people go to take pictures with
them...
Thursday
was a normal condor day. Sarah cleaned the house during the day and found a lot
of spare things in the empty room next door, so she decorated a bunch. I also
finished the book Nights in Rodanthe, which was pretty good and a fast read.
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| The 2nd (of 3) litters! These guys are 2 weeks old. |
Friday it
rained while we were up at the condors which wasn't very fun. It was also super
annoying because it rained a bit, then the sun came out and we had to strip off
our wet-weather gear and put on sunscreen. Then it started raining 30 minutes
later. Sheesh! I said goodbye to Miguel because we don't normally run into him
on the weekends, and I think he was pretty sad because I was the only September
researcher who spoke any Spanish, and so he talked with me a lot and taught me
Kichwa. He wrote one more Kichwa phrase in my notebook, but I need to figure
out what it means! That afternoon we fed the rabbits, and I milked Marquesa for the last time. Marco
had to help load a truck with huge sacks of animal feed or something (this was
a huge truck - like a semi-truck), so he was running late. He was finishing up
in the garden so Yolanda (his wife) came out to milk Marquesa, so I got to milk
with her! Then I fed Stephanie for the last time. She loves me (even moreso when
I have milk). She even wiped her milky face all over my pants. Thanks. Then
there was a lot of work drama. It was perfect timing for me because I got my
month in of good work and then got to see some craziness in my last days, but
poor Katherine didn't want to have to deal with it for 5 weeks, so she said she
would be leaving beginning of this week. That night we stayed in the guest TV
room chatting and drinking wine with Daniel and a tour guide. Later Daniel
taught Katherine and I how to salsa and merengue (sp?)! It was a very fun way
to end a crazy day.
Saturday
Katherine and I did our last walk up to the condors, so we were taking pictures
of everything (things I probably have a dozen pictures of already). Ximena met
us up there later in the morning with another week-long volunteer from the
university. We taught him how to do ethograms, and then we did some (when we
could). It rained so much that day! At one point we saw a wall of rain moving
up the valley, so we had to seek refuge in the little information house for
tourists. When there was a break in the weather we high-tailed it back to the
hacienda to feed the rabbits. That afternoon I finished my last ethogram sheet
(it's amazing how much faster you are after 5 weeks) and started packing, and
then we went to dinner. When we were leaving, we asked Daniel if we could have
another wine night, and Yolanda said there was a party down the road that we
should go to. So Daniel came by the house to get us around 10 (we were all
snuggly by the fire and didn't want to move, but I am so glad that we did). |
| The huge, hand-made tower that they exploded. |
We walked
20 minutes down the road and ended up at another hotel. They were shooting off
fireworks to announce that that was where the party was (all this time I
thought people were just like... shooting animals in the middle of the night).
I now understand why fireworks are illegal in a lot of places. These people
were just shooting them all willy nilly. I'm so glad it rained for 2 days,
because I bet the house would have caught on fire. They were shooting them up
next to the trees, sometimes they didn't go up enough and so they exploded on
the ground, people were holding them and letting them off in the middle of the
courtyard, the burning bits rained back down onto people... it was nuts.
Katherine and I were horrified, but the other volunteer guy just said
"it's not fun if it's not dangerous". When we got there they were
setting up this huge tower that Daniel said they were going to burn later. They
didn't set it on fire, but it was covered in hand-made designs of sparklers and
stuff, so it just exploded everywhere. Some poor guy stood under it and spun it
around the whole time, another stood with a very long pole to light different
sections of it, and then a bunch of crazy people walked in a circle underneath
it, holding their jackets over their heads so at least some part of them was
"protected". It was crazy and amazing.
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| The child on her back was out cold... even with fireworks. |
We got
drinks, which were interesting because they were in a plastic bowl basically,
and you got plastic cups the size of shot glasses, and you just drank little
cupfulls from your bowl. I have no idea what that drink was, but there were
different tables of people selling it at different levels of alcohol content.
It was also crazy because people here (in Zuleta, that is) just share their drinks
with everyone else, and they kind of expect the same (I guess you can do that
in a place this small, where you know everyone and everyone else knows you).
There was an old grandmother (sidenote: everyone was at this party -- adults,
grandmothers, children, dogs... there were quite a number of people dancing
around with sleeping children on their back) in the middle of a dance circle
handing out her little plastic cup as people passed by, and then later she
tapped Daniel on the shoulder to have some of ours. A son of the hotel owners,
Sebastian, came over and offered us drinks to welcome us to the hotel. He also
said that this party only happens twice a year, and it just happened to be on
my last night in Zuleta. How amazing is that???
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| So blurry, but this is the guy holding the cow. |
Anyways,
the dance circles were also fun and interesting - it's literally a small group
of people that move around in a circle and occasionally change directions. Plus
we were moving around so much that the dirt between the cobblestones, which was
already damp from the rain earlier, was turning to mud beneath our feet. By the
end of the night people (the drunk ones, mostly) were slipping around the
circles. Just before the end of the party, some guy came out holding a wooden
frame thing with a cow hide stretched over it, and sparklers on the hand-made
face, tail, etc. Then they lit the cow and this guy danced around in the center
of the courtyard with sparks flying all over, with people running out of the
way to avoid being completely hit with them (again, Zuletenas are all about the
safety).
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| The band! |
After that
the party was basically over (this was around midnight), but the band (they had
a full band with trumpets, trombones, percussion, saxophones, clarinets, etc.)
started playing and walking out the courtyard. Turns out they were leading us
to the next party! So we followed them down the road, with them playing the
entire time, until we got to another party. This one was much smaller, and it
looked to be out of someone's ... side yard, if you could call it that. They
had 4 or so guys playing music and singing, more of the same bowl drinks, and
it seemed like there was more dancing here, but it could've just been because
it was in a much smaller area. When we got there we ran into Yolanda, Marco,
Ramiro (who works with Marco), and other guys from the hacienda. Yolanda,
Ramiro, Daniel, and I did some circle dances for a while (Marco refused - he
hates dancing, 
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