The Galápagos islands are very far away from Quito. And we almost did not make it today.
Our wake up call this morning was at an unGodly 3am. 3:30am for breakfast. 4:10am departure for the airport. And we would have made it out closer to on time if some of our Alumni travelers had not misplaced their passports. They had locked them in a box, but mis-recalled which box. Somehow after searching through piles of clothes and camera gear and what not, memory was recalled and the passports located.
Usually a passport scare is enough for any morning's transportation entertainment, but today was to provide more amusement than usual. Despite our delay, we arrived at the airport before they opened the door to the inspection center for Galápagos travelers. This inspection center is supposed to be looking for fruits and seeds and insects and other items that might put the wildlife in the Galápagos at risk. Of course, it seemed like the half-sleeping workers might or might not have noticed a pair of prairie dogs stuffed in one of our bags... I guess it is the thought that counts.
We checked in for our flight, and most of the students headed through security to the waiting area. Something was amiss, though. Tomas, our intrepid guide, asked me if I had $6000 in cash. I found that to be a rather forward question, especially since I indeed was not carrying that much cash, and couldn't imagine how we would get that much money out of an ATM in the minutes we had before the airplane would start to board.
Turns out that we were all registered as Ecuadorian citizens in the airline system. On one hand, this is a good thing because locals pay only $10 for entry into the National Park in Galápagos. On the other hand, somehow the people at the airline counter recognized that we were indeed not locals, but rather gringos. Of course, the gringo fee is much much much higher... Our guide said that we needed to pay and additional $182 each to get into the park, and if we didn't, the airline would not let us board.
Now, you can imagine my feelings on this issue. If we don't get on that flight, we miss the boat... literally... and would not make it to the Galápagos at all this year. So, I counted my cash (I had alot - tips for the crew of the boat in the Galápagos) and started going around asking all of the students and alumni how much cash they had on hand. $80 here, $500 there, $2 there... At some point I figured that we could indeed get $6000 if everyone chipped in. 10 minutes until boarding... do I start collecting money or hope that Tomas might figure things out?
I was just about to start the process when Tomas returned from talking on his cell and announced that everything had been worked out, and that we would be met at the airport by a guide.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sacha to Quito
SACHA LODGE SUNDAY.
The weather was far more complicated today. Heavy rains followed by strong sun. Many many species of birds and monkeys were seen. A giant (guide says 5 meter long but I can't imagine that to be true) caiman jumped and splashed in front of the dock.
We had our lecture on electric fish, followed by group skits. The Medicinal Plants group won the competition with their informative Plant Rap, but the popular award goes to the Super group which included cross dressing, bambil root tips (sometimes known as the 'penis tree'), and a surprise night jump into the lake (highly not recommended). We can thank one of our Alumni travelers for this most raunchy, dangerous, and hilarious skit.
SACHA LODGE TO QUITO, MONDAY
Our departure from the lodge went smoothly, with a canoe ride, hike, and then power canoe for two hours to Coca. In Coca we took the bus the airport and flew back to Quito. We find that Amazon basin stinky clothing stink more in Quito than it seemed to back in the jungle.
We're off to CENIT in a few minutes for a visit to one of our favorite Quito charities.
The weather was far more complicated today. Heavy rains followed by strong sun. Many many species of birds and monkeys were seen. A giant (guide says 5 meter long but I can't imagine that to be true) caiman jumped and splashed in front of the dock.
We had our lecture on electric fish, followed by group skits. The Medicinal Plants group won the competition with their informative Plant Rap, but the popular award goes to the Super group which included cross dressing, bambil root tips (sometimes known as the 'penis tree'), and a surprise night jump into the lake (highly not recommended). We can thank one of our Alumni travelers for this most raunchy, dangerous, and hilarious skit.
SACHA LODGE TO QUITO, MONDAY
Our departure from the lodge went smoothly, with a canoe ride, hike, and then power canoe for two hours to Coca. In Coca we took the bus the airport and flew back to Quito. We find that Amazon basin stinky clothing stink more in Quito than it seemed to back in the jungle.
We're off to CENIT in a few minutes for a visit to one of our favorite Quito charities.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Sacha Lodge
Today I was reminded why we visit Sacha Lodge. It is truly among the best of the best for a fantastic rainforest experience. No, you won't find yourself naked and using a blow dart to catch your primate dinner for the night... but you will see lots of absolutely amazing wildlife, meet whip smart and frighteningly knowledgeable guides, and stay in the most amazing lodge campus anywhere.
Many of the students, and Dr. Ball (of course!) went to the Yasuni forest early this morning to visit a large clay lick. The clay lick is a hit or miss experience - if you are unlucky all you will see is a big pile of clay... but if you ARE lucky, you'll see hundreds of parrots and parakeets. The weather cooperated, rain overnight with a clear morning, and the trip to Yasuni paid off in spades.
On the way back our students ate ants. They ate ants because two of our students have been demanding opportunities to eat things you might find in the forest. What do ants taste like?? Not chicken but lemons. Next up on the menu, grubs (they don't taste like chicken either).
This evening was capped off by a small group braving the rain to fish for electric fish. This is always fun... you catch the fish with aquarium nets in a shallow stream with bats flying around your head. You find the fish by shining your flashlight into the water and looking. We caught plenty, but the real coup was the capture of a 30 cm electric eel. We put it in the bucket with the other fish and suddenly they became flying fish. Another bucket was found, because I need to use one of those fish for a behavioral experiment, and could not allow it to be predated by our new friend.
Another beautiful but LOUD night. Everyone is sleeping - life here is fantastically grueling.
Time to test my thermal imager - think 'Predator' with the ex-Govenor of California.
Apologies about no photos - we´re more than 80 kilometers from the nearest town and it is a joy to use whatever molasses slow internet we have...
- Eric Fortune
Many of the students, and Dr. Ball (of course!) went to the Yasuni forest early this morning to visit a large clay lick. The clay lick is a hit or miss experience - if you are unlucky all you will see is a big pile of clay... but if you ARE lucky, you'll see hundreds of parrots and parakeets. The weather cooperated, rain overnight with a clear morning, and the trip to Yasuni paid off in spades.
On the way back our students ate ants. They ate ants because two of our students have been demanding opportunities to eat things you might find in the forest. What do ants taste like?? Not chicken but lemons. Next up on the menu, grubs (they don't taste like chicken either).
This evening was capped off by a small group braving the rain to fish for electric fish. This is always fun... you catch the fish with aquarium nets in a shallow stream with bats flying around your head. You find the fish by shining your flashlight into the water and looking. We caught plenty, but the real coup was the capture of a 30 cm electric eel. We put it in the bucket with the other fish and suddenly they became flying fish. Another bucket was found, because I need to use one of those fish for a behavioral experiment, and could not allow it to be predated by our new friend.
Another beautiful but LOUD night. Everyone is sleeping - life here is fantastically grueling.
Time to test my thermal imager - think 'Predator' with the ex-Govenor of California.
Apologies about no photos - we´re more than 80 kilometers from the nearest town and it is a joy to use whatever molasses slow internet we have...
- Eric Fortune
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Quito and Sacha Lodge
QUITO, Thursday
It had been raining daily for five weeks straight, so we were warned that rain was inevitable on our Quito tour and to be well prepared. Instead, we had bright sun and perfect temperatures all day for our walk in the historic center of the city. The bus picked us up on time after a breakfest of fruit, breads, and eggs and we headed off to the center of the city. The colonial center is regarded as the best preserved example in South America. We saw the beautiful white colonial style built upon the irregular dark stones of the Incan and pre-Incan peoples. This style is known as the Quito School, and can be found both in Quito and the surrounding historical cities. Our tour took us to La Compañia, a church that is covered with gold from the floor to the very tops of the cupolas. We also visited the San Francisco square, where we did a little shopping and tasted a unique fruit from giant green seed pods known locally as Guaba. These pods are harvested from trees during a short period in the early winter - so we were lucky to taste the sweet white meat covering the 2 inch long brown seeds.
Speaking of eating - we had lunch at the most amazing restaurant in Quito on the corner of the Plaza Grande. Its worthy of mention at least because the desserts were steaming from dry ice hidden inside the dish. The food was fabulous, and we had a nice opportunity to get to know each other better.
More activities, and back to the Hotel Sierra Madre for our dinner and lecture. Our lecturer was Santiago Burneo, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador, which is just up the street from our hotel. Santiago directs the mammal and avian collections at the museum there (QCAZ, for museum buffs) and is an expert in bat biodiversity. His lecture was about the Sixth Extinction... which is happening right now. He tried to keep a positive outlook and a positive attitude towards this horribly depressing subject. Nice lecture, lots of good discussion.
QUITO - SACHA LODGE, Friday
Today we departed the hotel at the downright luxurious hour of 9am for our 15 minute drive to the airport. I was annoyed when a few students decided that they needed to buy more memory chips for their cameras, so we stopped a couple of times at stores and malls to find what everyone needed. Alas, we made it to the airport with time to spare, and besides, it was hardly possible that the plane would leave without about 1/2 of the passengers.
We flew past Antisana volcano and glided down into the rainforest, following the Coca river to our destination of Puerto San Francisco de Orellana, which is simply known as El Coca. One of our favorite guides flew with us - Jorge 'Mono' Fabre... He is a fantatic guide, has worked with USAID and other conservation and sustainable development projects throughout South America, and has had perhaps too many adventures with the Huoarani.
After our flight we had the short bus ride through Coca to the river, and our 2.5 hour motorized canoe adventure down the Napo river. For the first time in the many years that I have been with the course, and also in Jorge's experience, we had to pull over the canoe to allow two nameless students to pee. Somehow bodily functions are being more prominantly featured in this year's course than ever before... and I wonder what it means about young people today.
All joking aside, we made it to the Sacha Lodge dock on the Napo. Fromt here we had a 40 minute hike in a stunning rainforest trail to a landing where small canoes were waiting to take us on the last step in our journey. We saw Hoatzin and black tamarin monkeys and Oropendulas and squirrel monkeys and caiman and... and... and so on. Quite fantastic for less than a few hours at the lodge. But the best fun today was the swim in the lake at the Balsa. Especially since one of the Alumni schooled the students in fearless deep diving... the challenge was to bring up a handful of mud from the bottom of this dark amazonian lake. It is much less than 20 feet deep, but fear keeps most people from the reaching deeper limits.Our students tried their best for more than 20 minutes, but our Alumnus took the honors in his first attempt.
It seems that everyone has passed out while I am writing this at the lone internet connected computer at Sacha... connected via a private radio system to the civilized world 80 kilometers to the west in Coca. It is LOUD here at night - millions of bugs, frogs, birds, owls, and other creatures making their presence known. Still a fantastic nights sleep.
And with that. I too am off to bed. Our day starts at 5:30am.
It had been raining daily for five weeks straight, so we were warned that rain was inevitable on our Quito tour and to be well prepared. Instead, we had bright sun and perfect temperatures all day for our walk in the historic center of the city. The bus picked us up on time after a breakfest of fruit, breads, and eggs and we headed off to the center of the city. The colonial center is regarded as the best preserved example in South America. We saw the beautiful white colonial style built upon the irregular dark stones of the Incan and pre-Incan peoples. This style is known as the Quito School, and can be found both in Quito and the surrounding historical cities. Our tour took us to La Compañia, a church that is covered with gold from the floor to the very tops of the cupolas. We also visited the San Francisco square, where we did a little shopping and tasted a unique fruit from giant green seed pods known locally as Guaba. These pods are harvested from trees during a short period in the early winter - so we were lucky to taste the sweet white meat covering the 2 inch long brown seeds.
Speaking of eating - we had lunch at the most amazing restaurant in Quito on the corner of the Plaza Grande. Its worthy of mention at least because the desserts were steaming from dry ice hidden inside the dish. The food was fabulous, and we had a nice opportunity to get to know each other better.
More activities, and back to the Hotel Sierra Madre for our dinner and lecture. Our lecturer was Santiago Burneo, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador, which is just up the street from our hotel. Santiago directs the mammal and avian collections at the museum there (QCAZ, for museum buffs) and is an expert in bat biodiversity. His lecture was about the Sixth Extinction... which is happening right now. He tried to keep a positive outlook and a positive attitude towards this horribly depressing subject. Nice lecture, lots of good discussion.
QUITO - SACHA LODGE, Friday
Today we departed the hotel at the downright luxurious hour of 9am for our 15 minute drive to the airport. I was annoyed when a few students decided that they needed to buy more memory chips for their cameras, so we stopped a couple of times at stores and malls to find what everyone needed. Alas, we made it to the airport with time to spare, and besides, it was hardly possible that the plane would leave without about 1/2 of the passengers.
We flew past Antisana volcano and glided down into the rainforest, following the Coca river to our destination of Puerto San Francisco de Orellana, which is simply known as El Coca. One of our favorite guides flew with us - Jorge 'Mono' Fabre... He is a fantatic guide, has worked with USAID and other conservation and sustainable development projects throughout South America, and has had perhaps too many adventures with the Huoarani.
After our flight we had the short bus ride through Coca to the river, and our 2.5 hour motorized canoe adventure down the Napo river. For the first time in the many years that I have been with the course, and also in Jorge's experience, we had to pull over the canoe to allow two nameless students to pee. Somehow bodily functions are being more prominantly featured in this year's course than ever before... and I wonder what it means about young people today.
All joking aside, we made it to the Sacha Lodge dock on the Napo. Fromt here we had a 40 minute hike in a stunning rainforest trail to a landing where small canoes were waiting to take us on the last step in our journey. We saw Hoatzin and black tamarin monkeys and Oropendulas and squirrel monkeys and caiman and... and... and so on. Quite fantastic for less than a few hours at the lodge. But the best fun today was the swim in the lake at the Balsa. Especially since one of the Alumni schooled the students in fearless deep diving... the challenge was to bring up a handful of mud from the bottom of this dark amazonian lake. It is much less than 20 feet deep, but fear keeps most people from the reaching deeper limits.Our students tried their best for more than 20 minutes, but our Alumnus took the honors in his first attempt.
It seems that everyone has passed out while I am writing this at the lone internet connected computer at Sacha... connected via a private radio system to the civilized world 80 kilometers to the west in Coca. It is LOUD here at night - millions of bugs, frogs, birds, owls, and other creatures making their presence known. Still a fantastic nights sleep.
And with that. I too am off to bed. Our day starts at 5:30am.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Quito
We had a group photo in Atlanta in front of an advertisement featuring a giant stuffed llama. This choice was particularly auspicious, and has resulted in good luck for the rest of our journey down to South America. Our plane was loaded with all of the latest features including personal LCD TVs, wireless internet, and a full 2" more of legroom. Everyone made it through customs, and we found our friendly guide in a wet and slightly chilly Quito airport. Oh, and one of our students threw up at the last minute as we were disembarking the plane for reasons that remain mysterious.
This morning everything is dry and warm, and we're hoping to avoid rain. Apparently it has been raining every single day for the past 5 weeks. This is in stark contrast to last year, which was the dryest in over 30 years resulting in wildfires on the mountains surrounding Quito. Dr. Ball is excited to see la Compañia, a church that is covered in gold leaf from floor to ceiling.
Photos will come soon!
This morning everything is dry and warm, and we're hoping to avoid rain. Apparently it has been raining every single day for the past 5 weeks. This is in stark contrast to last year, which was the dryest in over 30 years resulting in wildfires on the mountains surrounding Quito. Dr. Ball is excited to see la Compañia, a church that is covered in gold leaf from floor to ceiling.
Photos will come soon!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Moving moving
We've made it, group intact, to Atlanta. Not without our scares - one student had a visa issue and another forgot to bring her green card to the airport. Phone calls, last minute letter writing, and a mad dash back and forth from BWI to Baltimore and Back solved our problems and we boarded.
Now we're passing the time in age appropriate ways in Altanta airport.
Now we're passing the time in age appropriate ways in Altanta airport.
Lectures are done!!
We had two fantastic days of lectures. But no matter how much we learned, I think that there is no doubt everyone is very very eager to get started on our voyage.
We are just getting to know our students and our Alumni travelers. One of the best parts of the course is getting to know everyone and sharing this intense experience.
Attentive or barely awake... you be the judge.
We've talked about a very wide range of subjects, but focussed mainly on the amazing biology that occurs in Ecuador. But our eyes will also be open to the unique cultural, historical, and political features of Ecuador.
Our official meeting point is at Mason Hall at 9:30 in the morning. We won't arrive in Ecuador until over 12 hours later, but at least there won't be any jet lag since Quito is in the same time zone as Baltimore.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
EGI2011: We start tomorrow!!!
I am working everyone in my laboratory to the bone in the last few days before our departure...
We are preparing the equipment that we will use to conduct our experiments while at Sacha Lodge and when I am at Yanayacu research station. You'll hear all about the research, and perhaps participate, when we are in the forest later this week.
See you tomorrow morning bright and early in Ames 233.
- Eric Fortune
Alican, Sarah, and Terry hard at work in the lab.
We are preparing the equipment that we will use to conduct our experiments while at Sacha Lodge and when I am at Yanayacu research station. You'll hear all about the research, and perhaps participate, when we are in the forest later this week.
See you tomorrow morning bright and early in Ames 233.
- Eric Fortune
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