Animals of the Amazonian Rainforest - Tibutini Biodiversity Station

So this last weekend I went to the rain forest to the Tibutini Biodiversity Station which is co-owned by USFQ and BU. I do not have time today to give a full account of the trip (which was one of the best weekend of my life) but I will give you a teaser: a list of the animals I saw. This list is far from complete as it was a long list and I can only remember so many names.

• Monkeys- Howler monkey, Wolly monkey, Squirel monkey, and Pygmy Marmoset (the smallest monkey in the world)
• more than 10 types of Taninger birds
• Scarlet and Blue and Yellow Macaws
• Amazonian squirel
• Anaconda
• Poison Dart Frog
• Bats
• Turantula
• Banana Spider (adult and babies)- the most deadly spider in the Amazon
• A frog the size of a rabbit
• Various types of falcons
• Crane
• Amazon River Dolphin
• A bunch of different humingbirds
• Various types of ants- Bull Ants (cause extreme pain when they bite you), leaf cutter ants, and Lemon Ants (which we ate and actually really taste like lemon)
• millipeds
• lots of grasshoppers
• Pipping Guan
• lots of butterflies and moths
• a trutle
• A couple different types of Tucans

A more detailed description of my trip and pictures will come later.

Volcanologia

So this last weekend I had another salido de campo for my volcanology class, but the fun started for that class on Thursday when we made anaolg volcanoes. This was sort of like making those paper mache baking soda and vineagar volcanoes but we used dynamite and gunpowder. It was a fun class of blowing things up.


So on Saturday we left for our field trip to Cotopaxi, Baños, and Tungurahua. Cotopaxi and Tungurahua are both active volcanoes. Cotopaxi is actually about 30 years overdo for an eruption. It also has a glacier on top which is on of only a few glaciers that exist of the equator.


On Saturday we left at 7am and headed to Cotopaxi. We stopped a couple of places to look at lahar (volcanic mud slide) and volcanic ejecta deposits. I collected a few rock samples for myslef because I am nerd. Once we got to Cotopaxi we went to this lava flow deposit. To get it to it we ran down this very steep dirt slope. We walked up to the edge and Theo (our professor) said, "Ok so now we all have to run down there." About half the class thought he was joking, but of course he was not. It was lots of fun. As we were looking at the lava flow deposit (of whch I also took a sample) it started hailing. I felt like I was back in Minnesota. We then had to climb back up the hill, which was less fun than running down. We then went back to the bus. From there we all had the option to walk up part of Cotopaxi. I chose to do this. Let me tell you, it was hard. It was super high, and because of the altitude you walked 20ft and were gasping for breath. It continued to hail a little and also started thundering which was comforting. I made it up a little ways past the refugio. The parking lot where we started was at about 4600m and the refugio was at 4800m. It was really cool because you could see the glacier. I did not quite make it to the glacier. It got really cloudy so I would not have been able to see the glacier really well anyways, plus it was getting late, so I decided to go back to the refugio. I got some hot chocolate and then refreshed, I walked back down to the bus. It took about 45 minutes to walk up to the refugio and only about 10 minutes to walk back down. It was a great feeling of accomplishment and a lot of fun. As soon as everyone was back at the bus, we left for Baños.



As soon as we got to Baños we checked into the hotel and then went to get dinner as we were all starving. After dinner I just spent a chill evening hanging out woth a couple people. We wandered around a little bit, got ice cream, shared a bottle of wine, explored a little park across the street from our hotel, and hung out on our balcony. We had to get up super early the next morning so we all went to bed by 11pm.



On Sunday we left at 5:30am to go to this water fall and look at some lovely rock outcrops. We also looked at the different types of sediment that a few of the rivers in the area were carrying to compare the sources. We then drove by a hydroelectric plant. We also got to see Tungurahua. We didn't get very close, but it was clear so we could see it. It was erupting gas and steam. We then returned to our hotel for breakfast and hit the road by 9am. We drove a ways and looked at some pyroclastic flow deposits from when Tungurahua erupted in 2006. We heard a talk about coexisiting with volcanoes and the Ecuadorian government's many shortcomings in that department. We also looked at more lahar deposits and I got a piece of 3 year old basaltic andesite, which I think is pretty cool. We then returned to Quito. It was an awesome weekend.

Chill Weekend in Quito

This past weekend I just stayed in Quito. Most of the other BU kids went to the beach, but I had a lot of work to do and they all left Thursday night and I had a quiz in class on Friday. It obviously was not meant to be.

But on Thursday before everyone abandoned me, I went to this huge orchid exhibit with Rachel, Caitlin, and Kayla. It is an annual thing and there were orchids and other plants from all over the world. It was super beautiful. I took a bunch of pictures with Rachel's camera so when she puts them on facebook I will add them to this. I had fun making up my own names for some of the orchids. To give a few examples there were panda orchids, tie die Rorschach orchids, screaming baby orchids, to name a few. After the exhibit, we went to this cool little cafe with a great view of Quito.

On Friday I just spent a lazy afternoon and evening hanging around the house. I watched 3 movies, read my book, and drew sketches of a couple of the flowers in my garden. It was nice to have an evening to myself and not have to worry about how I should be doing homework.

On Saturday I pretty much just spent hanging out with my host family. I went for a walk in Parque Metropolitano with Matele (my host mom), and her niece from Guayquil (another city in Quito) with her 3 kids. It was a pretty short walk because the kids got tired pretty quickly, but it was pretty and I want to go back sometime and explore more. Matele and I then went home, had lunch and rested. At 5 I went to my first Latin American Catholic mass. It was interesting. I could hardly understand the priest at all (he was mumbling and I think the microphone might have been a little to loud) so I can't really tell you what the sermon was about (we also got there a little late so we missed the first part). I can tell you he in general sounded very angry, even when what he was talking about was not something you would think he would be angry about (like love for example). I think it was his way of being intense. After mass we went out for ice cream with the niece and her kids. We got these amazing sundays. I got blakcberry ice cream in a cone bowl with strawberries, choclate sauce and chocolate shavings. It was awesome! Later on Saturday night I went to see Si Señor (Yes Man) with Jana, another international student. I was pleasantly suprised by the movie. It was funnier than I thought it would be.

Sunday was my host niece Sammi's birthday. She just turned 13. She is super adorable and sometimes comes to stay with Matele so we have hung out. The birthday party was at Matele's daughter's (and Sammi's mother) house in Cumbayá (the town where my university is). It was a gorgeuos hot day. The party was a little awkward because I had never met half the people thee and when there are lots of different Spanish conversations going on at once I get lost pretty easily. But then I started playing with the kids at the party on the trampoline and that was a blast. I must say the trampoline is a great invension. We also had great food at the party. I had mashed potatoes for the first time in many months which was awesome. We also had chocolate cake.

All in all, even though I had no super exciting adventures or travels, I had a lovely weekend.

Mindo

So two weekend ago (January 30 - February 1) I went to this town called Mindo with a bunch of kids from the BU program. Mindo is about 2 1/2 hours by bus west of Quito. We left on Friday afternoon and took the bus there. It was you normal bus ride winding around the side of mountains. We got into Mindo around 7 pm and were met at the bus stop by Cecilia the woman whose hostel we were staying in. She led us to the hostel which was great because it was dark and we may never have found it on our own. The hostel was called Casa de Cecilia and was pretty much like staying in a tree house as there were no windows and it was very open (see pictures). Friday night we just got dinner and hung around the hostel. We were all tired and we wanted to get up fairly early on Saturday so most of us went to bed pretty early.

The next day we woke up and got breakfast at the hostel at 8:30. Then we decided to go on a hike in the cloud forest. Our plan had been to do the hike and then go zip lining. We went into town and rode in the back of a pick up truck up to the top of the mountain were we would be hiking. To get to the place were the hiking paths were we had to take this cable car thing. It was not the sturdiest thing but it was awesome. I had a lot of fun riding it and it gave you a nice birds eye view of the forest. Once all 13 of us got to the other side we decided to do an hour long hike to the largest waterfall in the area, Cascada Victoria. The hike was absolutely beautiful. We were walking through this gorgeous jungle. There were so many different shades of rich green. We also got to see lots of cool bugs and some AWESOME spider webs. We all tried to take pictures of the webs but the never came out. Pictures really do not do the forest justice. It was a really fun hike. We got to cross a few mini water falls and trek through some mud.The waterfall was also incredible. They had built this stair case so you could climb up closer to the top of the waterfall. We all climbed up and I waded around in the waterfall. After playing in the water we hiked back. At this point it started raining some. It wasn't too bad in the forest because we had lots of natural umbrellas. By the time we finished it was a little after 1. We were all pretty hungry, but all the places to eat were back down the mountain and we would have to come back up for zip lining. Since we were all hungry and it was raining pretty hard we decided to wait on zip lining until Sunday. So we rode a pickup truck back down and went to lunch. We then went back to the hostel to get dry clothes. When we got back we heard that the major road we would have to take back from Mindo to Quito had been washed out by rain. There was only going to be one bus on Sunday that leaves at 6:30 am and had to take a 6 hour route home to avoid the road that had washed out (lets call this the scenic route). We all managed to get tickets, but it messed up our Sunday plans. We decided to just enjoy the rest of our stay and not worry that our weekend had been cut short. We chilled at the hostel, drank boxed wine, and ate pizza. It was a lovely evening.

The next morning we woke up ridiculously early and had breakfast at 5:30 before going to get on the bus. The ride home was uneventful (not counting one major pothole). We got back to Quito around 12:30 and I almost left my phone on the bus (key word luckily being almost). I went home and collapsed and watched the Dick Van Dyke Show on my computer.

It was an awesome weekend, but I think a bunch pf us want to go back so we can go zip lining and do the other things we wanted to do.