Back from the Colombian border

Hello everyone!

Well I´m back from the first of several collecting trips in the country. As part of my study, I wanted to sample a large variety of habitats just to see what is there. We started the work with a transect in the north of Ecuador between Ibarra and north to a town called Lita. The problem was, the majority of this route passed through semì-desert... very poor habitat for mosquitoes. I barely got any specimens.

The scenery was magnificent though, with gigantic mountains and canyons and small dry prickly shrubs that tore our skin. Towards Lita, there was a lot more agriculture and it was a bit wetter. Along the route are several police road blocks looking for cocaine smugglers. We didn´t have any problems, since we had all the necessary paperwork with us. As well, it was landslide city! There was one landslide in particular that repeatedly stopped us for an hour each way in and out of Lita. It was undergoing constant sliding, with many fist-sized rocks constantly tumbling down across the road. We crossed this quickly when the route was clear! I took a lot of good photos of this but I left my camera cord in Canada... so I will need to get a new one before I upload them.

In Lita, we met a nice young man who worked for the public health authority. He agreed to take us to a few up-mountain communities that had incidents of recent malaria. We went around with him in the forested communities, talking to people in their homes and dipping in the ditches and buckets around their properties. I collected some Anopheles larvae from some permanent tire tracks near a church. He was frustrated because he gave numerous community talks about covering up these water sources and filling in depressions, but nobody seemed to listen or care. Generally we were met with blank stares and distrust, although the residents were very cooperative. Two families in the area let us put up adult light traps on their land, although we didn´t catch too much.

We also visited a highland town called Salinas which sits on an alluvial valley. It used to be a marsh until they drained it several years ago for agriculture. The residents told us that the mosquitoes used to be quite bad when it was a marsh, but they had abated a lot. We didn´t manage to collect any mosquitoes from that place, despite our best efforts. However, there were many many black flies for Julio, probably the result of the fast-running irrigation canals.

I am generally doing well and I´m in good health. We are eating breakfasts in our hotels, snacking in the field, and eating a big dinner that he cooks at night. That way, we are making sure to avoid most problems. Probably our biggest nightmare is the road system in Quito. We got quite lost yesterday coming back into town. Yesterday we stopped in Otavalo for lunch and looked around the market there. It was nice to return to Otavalo on a less busy day and just be able to talk to the residents there.

Today, we are off to a cloud forest reserve. I think we will have more luck there, as the scientists at the research station tell me that there are many mosquitoes.

Ciao for now!