So, it turns out Guayaquil is working out nicely for us. What a great place to end the work!
We arrived the night before last in Guayaquil, and had booked a room in a guesthouse in Samborondon, which is a main road into the town, but in the fancy area of town that I described before. The family here rents out rooms in their gigantic house in a gated community. It is fabulous, so clean, and so nice! There are patios, a backyard with hammocks, and a swimming pool! It is bigger than most hotels. Ellen, the mother and the person who runs the guesthouse, is incredibly kind and energetic. She cooks us breakfast and delicious, healthful dinners. It is nice to come home to a house, sit down in the kitchen, and relax. The neighbourhood is so safe that we don't have to worry about the car either!
We have spent the last two full days heading north of the city to collect in small towns. About half an hour north of here, the landscape is covered with rice patties and tons of irrigation canals all draining into marshes - perfect habitat for mosquitoes! I collected over 52 mosquitoes in one trap alone... an amazing catch! We also collected some with an aspirator later in the day, something we have not been able to do as easily before.
Today, we went to a real coffee shop - in a suburban mini mall - think Kanata - and got some good food to eat in the field for once - a nice break from the usual crackers and bananas. I even got a mocha in the coffee shop at the gas station! This might seem normal to you all back home, but this is an astounding bit of northamericana that I have never seen before in Ecuador.
Yesterday, we accidentally took the wrong route back into town and ended up in Guayaquil proper. We followed the map and managed to find our way out again through the tunnels. By night, the main streets of downtown have large, modern buildings, nice restaurants and shops, and everything seemed quite clean and presentable overall! I still have yet to discover why Guayaquil has such a lousy reputation. It is a little hot, and there is a lot of crime - in other parts of town - but so far so good. I could live here. Probably with air conditioning though.
I should also mention that the family here has a little dog who reminds me of Storm. She is not the same breed but she has a bit of the same independent temperament, and the same funny little smile - with her bottom teeth poking out. She lets me pet her a lot too - very cute!
Another interesting little story... this morning Ellen made us a little concoction of noni juice. She used to work on marketing an industrial version of it. It is a fruit that looks like a warty potato and smells like rotten parmesan cheese. The blended version tastes like a fruit mixed with the nasty cheese taste. It is pretty disgusting on its own. However, it is being heavily researched right now for its beneficial medicinal properties. They say it's the new wonder drug, and can even cure cancer. Well, Ellen seems amazingly healthy, so maybe it works! I think I'll hold off drinking more until we can find a way to make it taste and smell more appealing.
Another story... today, while driving, Julio was pulled over by a cop for passing a car on a solid line. Let me put this into context for you. In Ecuador, red lights are merely a suggestion, and cars are known to drive for a long distance in the oncoming lane to pass, with oncoming traffic! So... this is a very minor infraction, and it was surprising that he bothered with us at all. Anyway, the cop told us he couldn't give us a real ticket, because we are foreigners, but something must be done. He kept hinting that there must be another solution to the dilemma. He kindly took the 10$ we passed him in the documents, and bid us a safe trip. It's funny how shameless they are about wanting a bribe.
Anyway, we have another two work days planned, and then we are DONE! We are going to head south of here for the next two days, collecting adults and larvae. Monday, we're hoping to do some touristic stuff in Guayaquil. Santy arrives Tuesday, and we leave early Wednesday morning back to Quito - and Julio back to Peru!
Wish us luck!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Parade of the bugs
Relax, we´re almost done.
Our hotel is amusing me. It is really quite nice to have a clean room and a comfortable bed, rather than a table with a sheet. At the moment, our hotel is playing host to the Miss Manabi - the province - pageant in the lobby. I just interrupted a photo shoot to get back into the hotel... got some pretty catty stares as I walked by in my muddy pants and field boots. Maybe I splashed some of my filth on them. Take that, makeup caked monsters!
We have been trying to be productive, but at times I think we need a satellite view. Maybe Superman can carry me around to find standing water. Finding it from the road is quite a challenge. Today, we drove almost all day and didn´t find more than 2 ponds in which to dip. What a drag.
However, we did find a hotspot of Anopheles mosquitoes, just north of here. I pinned a bunch and we aspirated more this morning as they tried to bite us. Good thing they prefer to bite Julio!!
...Just kidding, Julio!
Yesterday we were doing our usual cheap traveller thing, cooking on a little camp stove in our room - very safe indeed - when inexplicably, our pot started to smoke. It was actually clean at the time, so it must be a defect with the pot. We decided with a week of fieldwork left, we are going to forego buying a new pot and just eat in restaurants for dinners. Besides, we are staying in a family-run guesthouse in Guayaquil... so they might figure out that we are cooking in our room... and it would not be good for us.
Tomorrow, we are off to Guayaquil. There are lots of areas in the vicinity to work, and we plan to work until Sunday.
I´m pretty exhausted, so I´ll be glad to be done the fieldwork!
Our hotel is amusing me. It is really quite nice to have a clean room and a comfortable bed, rather than a table with a sheet. At the moment, our hotel is playing host to the Miss Manabi - the province - pageant in the lobby. I just interrupted a photo shoot to get back into the hotel... got some pretty catty stares as I walked by in my muddy pants and field boots. Maybe I splashed some of my filth on them. Take that, makeup caked monsters!
We have been trying to be productive, but at times I think we need a satellite view. Maybe Superman can carry me around to find standing water. Finding it from the road is quite a challenge. Today, we drove almost all day and didn´t find more than 2 ponds in which to dip. What a drag.
However, we did find a hotspot of Anopheles mosquitoes, just north of here. I pinned a bunch and we aspirated more this morning as they tried to bite us. Good thing they prefer to bite Julio!!
...Just kidding, Julio!
Yesterday we were doing our usual cheap traveller thing, cooking on a little camp stove in our room - very safe indeed - when inexplicably, our pot started to smoke. It was actually clean at the time, so it must be a defect with the pot. We decided with a week of fieldwork left, we are going to forego buying a new pot and just eat in restaurants for dinners. Besides, we are staying in a family-run guesthouse in Guayaquil... so they might figure out that we are cooking in our room... and it would not be good for us.
Tomorrow, we are off to Guayaquil. There are lots of areas in the vicinity to work, and we plan to work until Sunday.
I´m pretty exhausted, so I´ll be glad to be done the fieldwork!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
In Portoviejo
Hi everyone,
Well after a nice day at the beach, we left the coast and headed inland to Portoviejo. Here, we plan to settle down - in a nicer hotel - and do some major collecting around the area. The drive was very interesting, as we passed through dry forest during the dry season. The earth looks like sand and there are lots of trees thickened in the centre, that look a bit like baobab trees. It was stunning!
We arrived in Portoviejo, a sprawling town and capital of Manabi province - aka. the sketchy and dangerous province - and checked into our hotel downtown. It has a gorgeous lobby and restaurant, and then the rooms are simple and clean, although not nearly anywhere near fancy. It´s a little more expensive but we have to stay somewhere like this for safety reasons. Also I can´t wait for the reliably hot shower that will ensue!
Tonight, the plan is to cook a simple dinner in the room and crack open a bottle of wine. Tomorrow we hit the countryside in search of every last Anopheles.
Ciao!
Well after a nice day at the beach, we left the coast and headed inland to Portoviejo. Here, we plan to settle down - in a nicer hotel - and do some major collecting around the area. The drive was very interesting, as we passed through dry forest during the dry season. The earth looks like sand and there are lots of trees thickened in the centre, that look a bit like baobab trees. It was stunning!
We arrived in Portoviejo, a sprawling town and capital of Manabi province - aka. the sketchy and dangerous province - and checked into our hotel downtown. It has a gorgeous lobby and restaurant, and then the rooms are simple and clean, although not nearly anywhere near fancy. It´s a little more expensive but we have to stay somewhere like this for safety reasons. Also I can´t wait for the reliably hot shower that will ensue!
Tonight, the plan is to cook a simple dinner in the room and crack open a bottle of wine. Tomorrow we hit the countryside in search of every last Anopheles.
Ciao!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The surf is rolling in and we are rolling out
We had a frustrating few days since Cuenca. As with any time you come to the coast of Ecuador, conditions rapidly deteriorated. We headed down from high altitudes, and stayed a night in Giron, in an interestingly isolated and deserted hacienda. It was cold and windy and would have been a great set for a horror movie.
From there we headed down to the southern coast and stayed in Manabi. Our hotel was stinky and moldy but the rooms were at least cleanish. Manabi itself seemed like a relatively nice town and had a new mall too, which we visited more than once. I realize that it seems silly to go to the mall, but believe me, when you are travelling this much, a clean public washroom, food court, and stores can bring you back some sense of western civilization, at least for a bit.
We picked up some interesting Anopheles in the area, but not many as elsewhere, as the coast is COVERED with banana fields, as far as the eye can see, and continual spray planes fly by, spraying the coast with pesticides banned in other countries. Julio told me that he saw some program about the disturbingly mutagenic effects that those banana pesticides have on the local children. It´s just awful. Banana Republic comes to mind.
We had planned to drive slightly north and stay two nights in Naranjal, but when we arrived, the highest rated hotel in town was literally a mattress on a dirty floor and they were hesitant to rent it to us for the entire night... they rent by the hour. Disgusted, we decided to forego collecting in the area, and we drove north toward Guayaquil. This, for the record, is why it´s impossible to make hotel reservations in advance. Better to go and see them first!
Approaching the town, you see brown fields of bamboo houses on stilts and shacks made of cardboard. Then you go over this bridge across the river, and suddenly you are in upscale Beverly Hills-type place. The people in the giant mansions can look across the muddy Daube river to the shantytown on the other side. It is just so bizarre.
Well I hate to be elitist but we found a lovely looking sushi restaurant in the fancy area of town, so we stopped there for an awesome lunch. I didn´t care at this point that it was expensive, as we had been driving for hours, with no place to stay, and it was just so hot. And the sushi was just so good.
After lunch, we kept going north toward our next town, Daube. Daube was basically worse than Naranjal, another shantytown. By this point it was 4pm and we had no place to stay. The roads of Guayaquil were too intimidating, so we decided to drive 2 more hours north to the NEXT town on the list. It was a bigger town so we were hopeful.
Anyway we arrived in Jipijapa around sunset and with a list of hotels in town. Turns out there was a big festival in the area and there were NO ROOMS. Santy at this point worked miracles and found us a moldy, yet not too bad hotel on the coast. We kept going until we reached the beach, and collapsed, exhausted.
Today we are taking the day to rethink our plans. The lack of places to stay is overwhelming on the coast and we can not do the route we had originally planned. Today, we came down the coast to a cute hippy town and I´m going to enjoy a nice lunch and buy some shell jewlery. Tomorrow we are going to head north to Portoviejo, near Montecristi - a big town with a nice hotel that actually had a website with photos, so we have a reservation. There are many roads branching out from there where we can collect. In a few days we are going to head back to Guayaquil and look for a place there that accesses the bridges in and out of town easily, and collect in the marshlands north and south of Guayaquil.
Finally, on the 21, Santy is coming to Guayaquil with a group. That means we are DONE the fieldwork and I am going back to Quito. I´m so keen to be done. Fieldwork is one thing, but being on the road constantly is another, and I´m really tired of it.
Please keep me up to date with what is new with you!
From there we headed down to the southern coast and stayed in Manabi. Our hotel was stinky and moldy but the rooms were at least cleanish. Manabi itself seemed like a relatively nice town and had a new mall too, which we visited more than once. I realize that it seems silly to go to the mall, but believe me, when you are travelling this much, a clean public washroom, food court, and stores can bring you back some sense of western civilization, at least for a bit.
We picked up some interesting Anopheles in the area, but not many as elsewhere, as the coast is COVERED with banana fields, as far as the eye can see, and continual spray planes fly by, spraying the coast with pesticides banned in other countries. Julio told me that he saw some program about the disturbingly mutagenic effects that those banana pesticides have on the local children. It´s just awful. Banana Republic comes to mind.
We had planned to drive slightly north and stay two nights in Naranjal, but when we arrived, the highest rated hotel in town was literally a mattress on a dirty floor and they were hesitant to rent it to us for the entire night... they rent by the hour. Disgusted, we decided to forego collecting in the area, and we drove north toward Guayaquil. This, for the record, is why it´s impossible to make hotel reservations in advance. Better to go and see them first!
Approaching the town, you see brown fields of bamboo houses on stilts and shacks made of cardboard. Then you go over this bridge across the river, and suddenly you are in upscale Beverly Hills-type place. The people in the giant mansions can look across the muddy Daube river to the shantytown on the other side. It is just so bizarre.
Well I hate to be elitist but we found a lovely looking sushi restaurant in the fancy area of town, so we stopped there for an awesome lunch. I didn´t care at this point that it was expensive, as we had been driving for hours, with no place to stay, and it was just so hot. And the sushi was just so good.
After lunch, we kept going north toward our next town, Daube. Daube was basically worse than Naranjal, another shantytown. By this point it was 4pm and we had no place to stay. The roads of Guayaquil were too intimidating, so we decided to drive 2 more hours north to the NEXT town on the list. It was a bigger town so we were hopeful.
Anyway we arrived in Jipijapa around sunset and with a list of hotels in town. Turns out there was a big festival in the area and there were NO ROOMS. Santy at this point worked miracles and found us a moldy, yet not too bad hotel on the coast. We kept going until we reached the beach, and collapsed, exhausted.
Today we are taking the day to rethink our plans. The lack of places to stay is overwhelming on the coast and we can not do the route we had originally planned. Today, we came down the coast to a cute hippy town and I´m going to enjoy a nice lunch and buy some shell jewlery. Tomorrow we are going to head north to Portoviejo, near Montecristi - a big town with a nice hotel that actually had a website with photos, so we have a reservation. There are many roads branching out from there where we can collect. In a few days we are going to head back to Guayaquil and look for a place there that accesses the bridges in and out of town easily, and collect in the marshlands north and south of Guayaquil.
Finally, on the 21, Santy is coming to Guayaquil with a group. That means we are DONE the fieldwork and I am going back to Quito. I´m so keen to be done. Fieldwork is one thing, but being on the road constantly is another, and I´m really tired of it.
Please keep me up to date with what is new with you!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
In Cuenca
Hi everyone!
I´m still alive! We have been keeping so busy and internet is rather sporadic in remote areas! The constitutional election happened last Sunday, and due to the government propaganda, the SI side won... so Ecuador has a new constitution allowing the government to have more power. Great. Basically, they sent people out into the country to paint slogans on people´s houses and fences, and there were only a few poorly funded groups campaigning for the no side.
Santy arrived Sunday on the bus to Banos, and worked with us for the entire week! We came back from a frustratingly unsuccessful trip to find dry ice, only to find him waiting for me in my hotel room! It was so great having him around! I was sorry to see him go.
While in Banos, I had to chop off most of my hair. It had gotten so burned and tangled from the sun that it was a big frayed mess that I couldn´t get a brush through! Anyway we went to a hole in the wall and the woman chopped it bluntly around shoulder length. It´s a huge mess and looks awful. I can´t wait for it to grow out again!
Out of Banos, we worked on a transect between there and Puyo in the Amazon. We drove past Puyo into the jungle and collected far down the Pastaza river. where the forest is being cleared to make way for cattle ranching. It´s one thing to see Amazonian deforestation on the TV and quite another thing to see it.. very sad. The worst thing is that the people in the area don´t seem to care about the destruction, as they only see the economically beneficial side of the land change.
Anyway, a very exciting thing happened! The three of us discovered a very unique and unusual caterpillar behaviour that we plan to publish as a note later. I don´t want to give anything away in case there are scientific spies reading. Nevertheless, it is a major discovery in caterpillar behaviour and we have enough data for a small yet significant paper after only a few stops at the site!
We were sad to leave Banos (as the food was so good there), but we had to carry on. We drove south to a town near Alausi called Huigra and stayed at a hacienda there. On the road, we drove through Chimborazo and actually saw Ecuador´s largest volcano (Chimborazo)! It was massive!
We collected more mosquitoes along the transect from Huigra to El Triunfo. It was interesting to visit farms of the true indigenous highland people and talk to them about their fly problems. The valley was so dry but we managed to collect some Anopheles anyway. One old man asked us to give him the trap. It´s hard to know how people will react to our visit!
On Saturday, I put Santy on a bus to Guayaquil for one of his tours, and said goodbye for the next 20 days. It will be so hard to be apart for so long while knowing he is close by in the country.
Today, we drove to Cuenca, stopping for an hour at Ingapirca, which is Ecuador´s largest Inca ruin site. It was not anything spectacular but still very interesting to see the Incan walls.
I promise to get some photos up when I get the chance, but I still have not had a lot of time to do it. In the meantime, everyone send me their addresses so I can send some postcards!
I hope you are all doing well too! Bye for now!
I´m still alive! We have been keeping so busy and internet is rather sporadic in remote areas! The constitutional election happened last Sunday, and due to the government propaganda, the SI side won... so Ecuador has a new constitution allowing the government to have more power. Great. Basically, they sent people out into the country to paint slogans on people´s houses and fences, and there were only a few poorly funded groups campaigning for the no side.
Santy arrived Sunday on the bus to Banos, and worked with us for the entire week! We came back from a frustratingly unsuccessful trip to find dry ice, only to find him waiting for me in my hotel room! It was so great having him around! I was sorry to see him go.
While in Banos, I had to chop off most of my hair. It had gotten so burned and tangled from the sun that it was a big frayed mess that I couldn´t get a brush through! Anyway we went to a hole in the wall and the woman chopped it bluntly around shoulder length. It´s a huge mess and looks awful. I can´t wait for it to grow out again!
Out of Banos, we worked on a transect between there and Puyo in the Amazon. We drove past Puyo into the jungle and collected far down the Pastaza river. where the forest is being cleared to make way for cattle ranching. It´s one thing to see Amazonian deforestation on the TV and quite another thing to see it.. very sad. The worst thing is that the people in the area don´t seem to care about the destruction, as they only see the economically beneficial side of the land change.
Anyway, a very exciting thing happened! The three of us discovered a very unique and unusual caterpillar behaviour that we plan to publish as a note later. I don´t want to give anything away in case there are scientific spies reading. Nevertheless, it is a major discovery in caterpillar behaviour and we have enough data for a small yet significant paper after only a few stops at the site!
We were sad to leave Banos (as the food was so good there), but we had to carry on. We drove south to a town near Alausi called Huigra and stayed at a hacienda there. On the road, we drove through Chimborazo and actually saw Ecuador´s largest volcano (Chimborazo)! It was massive!
We collected more mosquitoes along the transect from Huigra to El Triunfo. It was interesting to visit farms of the true indigenous highland people and talk to them about their fly problems. The valley was so dry but we managed to collect some Anopheles anyway. One old man asked us to give him the trap. It´s hard to know how people will react to our visit!
On Saturday, I put Santy on a bus to Guayaquil for one of his tours, and said goodbye for the next 20 days. It will be so hard to be apart for so long while knowing he is close by in the country.
Today, we drove to Cuenca, stopping for an hour at Ingapirca, which is Ecuador´s largest Inca ruin site. It was not anything spectacular but still very interesting to see the Incan walls.
I promise to get some photos up when I get the chance, but I still have not had a lot of time to do it. In the meantime, everyone send me their addresses so I can send some postcards!
I hope you are all doing well too! Bye for now!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Oh yeah!
Hi from Banos! I am so glad to be here. We found a really nice hotel here for 25$ a night... kind of expensive compared to what we have been paying but it is so nice for a change. I am looking forward to some decent food and a comfortable bed. Right now I am in front of a window overlooking a magnificent waterfall. Amazing!
We will be here for a while, as we cannot work tomorrow due to the election. For safety reasons we decided that road travel was a bad idea so we are taking a day off to enjoy Banos.
All for now!
We will be here for a while, as we cannot work tomorrow due to the election. For safety reasons we decided that road travel was a bad idea so we are taking a day off to enjoy Banos.
All for now!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Hiding under long sleeves in malarious La Mana
Hi everyone,
It´s our last night in La Mana, and I´m ready to go.
We had a great day in Latacunga first, a small town in the mountains, where we inquired with about 15 directionally-challenged ice cream men before finding a place that would sell us dry ice. We bought a block for 25 bucks and had a great night in town during a festival. Basically, during the festival, they get a bunch of pigs, cuy, chickens and rabbits, cook them, and make giant statues out of skewered cooked animals and liquor bottles, then carry these around town as part of a parade. As disgusting as that was, it was very interesting, and there was dancing in the streets!
From Latacunga we drove across the Andes for 2 hours before descending into the valley where we are studying, depositing traps along the way. We are staying at a small hacienda outside of La Mana, and are the only guests around. There is nothing to do at the place at night other than to hunt the giant venomless snakes or watch poorly pirated movies inside the main lodge with the couple´s little girl. We are getting a lot of larval Anopheles here... this place has a problem with malaria. We figured out that someone dammed the river upstream and here there are rock pools in the empty stream where Anopheles breed in huge numbers. I´m a bit freaked out about getting malaria or dengue as we are getting a lot of bites, despite our best efforts.
Interestingly, we had one of our traps removed by the police. The woman who we had left it with was apparently senile, and although we explained what the trap does, she called the police and told them that it was a bomb. We had to explain quite a bit to get our trap back! After that, the whole town did not trust us and sneered at us when we drive by. If you get the chance, don´t go to Tingo.
The technical problems with our traps are continuing. Despite the dry ice, the batteries are dying before we can get back to the traps... either a problem with the charger or the battery. We are trying to charge them for longer to see if it makes a difference. It is so frustrating....
Anyway, tomorrow we are getting up early and driving a long way, all the way to Baños. I am really looking forward to getting there, as the food here is terrible... we are eating crackers and tuna, since that is all that they sell in many grocery stores! I need to eat good strong meals to stomach my malarone and anti-parasite medication. Baños has some great restaurants with international food... I can´t wait.
Baños, here we come! When we arrive, the next day is the big vote on the new constitution. For safety, we are not going to be on the road working that day. Instead, we´ll have a nice Sunday in Baños to walk around town and rest! I´ll be sure to download some pictures then!
It´s our last night in La Mana, and I´m ready to go.
We had a great day in Latacunga first, a small town in the mountains, where we inquired with about 15 directionally-challenged ice cream men before finding a place that would sell us dry ice. We bought a block for 25 bucks and had a great night in town during a festival. Basically, during the festival, they get a bunch of pigs, cuy, chickens and rabbits, cook them, and make giant statues out of skewered cooked animals and liquor bottles, then carry these around town as part of a parade. As disgusting as that was, it was very interesting, and there was dancing in the streets!
From Latacunga we drove across the Andes for 2 hours before descending into the valley where we are studying, depositing traps along the way. We are staying at a small hacienda outside of La Mana, and are the only guests around. There is nothing to do at the place at night other than to hunt the giant venomless snakes or watch poorly pirated movies inside the main lodge with the couple´s little girl. We are getting a lot of larval Anopheles here... this place has a problem with malaria. We figured out that someone dammed the river upstream and here there are rock pools in the empty stream where Anopheles breed in huge numbers. I´m a bit freaked out about getting malaria or dengue as we are getting a lot of bites, despite our best efforts.
Interestingly, we had one of our traps removed by the police. The woman who we had left it with was apparently senile, and although we explained what the trap does, she called the police and told them that it was a bomb. We had to explain quite a bit to get our trap back! After that, the whole town did not trust us and sneered at us when we drive by. If you get the chance, don´t go to Tingo.
The technical problems with our traps are continuing. Despite the dry ice, the batteries are dying before we can get back to the traps... either a problem with the charger or the battery. We are trying to charge them for longer to see if it makes a difference. It is so frustrating....
Anyway, tomorrow we are getting up early and driving a long way, all the way to Baños. I am really looking forward to getting there, as the food here is terrible... we are eating crackers and tuna, since that is all that they sell in many grocery stores! I need to eat good strong meals to stomach my malarone and anti-parasite medication. Baños has some great restaurants with international food... I can´t wait.
Baños, here we come! When we arrive, the next day is the big vote on the new constitution. For safety, we are not going to be on the road working that day. Instead, we´ll have a nice Sunday in Baños to walk around town and rest! I´ll be sure to download some pictures then!
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