Frogs and Family

In light of my last post, I am interested to see what conservation efforts are like here in Bolivia. While I was working in the National Park this summer, part of my responsibilities included counting waterbirds every week, and entering my results in a database that could be accessed in National Parks all over the country. If anyone wanted to know how many marbled murrelets there were in Alaska in July, for example, they could get a pretty good idea from the Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring program.

Bolivia does not quite have this system set up yet. As I am doing some research about my upcoming Lake Titicaca frog-counting project, I am realizing that frog scientists are not yet at the point of observing population numbers and habits. Instead, they are struggling to define what frog species are actually out there. Most of the struggle lies in the fact that there are very few frogs left in the country. Anecdotally, everyone remembers seeing many frogs here and there, but in recent years, disease and habitat destruction have shrunk these populations to almost nothing. Frog scientists are struggling to find any frogs at all.

While Chytrid fungus and urban sprawl play their part, the most sensational threat to the frog population in Lake Titicaca is human consumption. Some reports state that 150 of these frogs are eaten every day! Nutritious? Perhaps, but the primary reason for frog ingestion is to increase libido. Instead of a blue pill, frog soup is administered for this particular ailment.


Gross!!

Anyways, I am looking forward to my trip and I'm sure I will talk too much about frogs in future posts.

On another note, I wanted to put up some pictures of my family for you all to see. This Saturday was beautiful! It had been raining for a couple of days, but Saturday was sunny and nice. We went swimming at a golf course a little ways out of town. (This half and hour drive is even more terrifying then driving in the city. Suddenly there are three lanes with no lane markers with the same pedestrian/dog traffic! I don't know how people do it.)


Ben, Ximena, and Rodrigo eating Cherimoya, a delicious fruit that is almost exactly like eating fruity sherbert.


Cherimoya--a close up.


Cid showing off his very wild nature.

And finally, because I just think it's so amazing, this picture:


This is the parking lot outside of a major grocery store. Most people agree that they like the trees better than the pavement anyways, so no big deal.

Pachamama and the Pavement

I apologize for not having any new blog posts in awhile...this is because nothing much new has happened. I have settled into a routine here in Cochabamba, but yesterday I made some (hopefully) fantastic plans that will upset my routine just a bit! But first, I'll talk a little about Pachamama's presence in the city.

Recently I felt like I got used to how terrifying the streets of Cochabamba are, but then I stumbled onto a street that looked like this:



Yes, this is a full grown tree erupting from the middle of a paved road. I've seen this scene repeated on cobblestone streets and sidewalks, and every time it amazes me. It's not a romantic vision of nature refusing to be tamed by human civilization, but rather more akin to how the sidewalk can end without warning, leaving you walking through 50 meters or so of mud before you can return to a paved, though still perilous, surface. If nature is trying to peek through the pavement of this city, it will also have to reach through a fair amount of trash that litters the parks and open spaces first. Trees growing out of place seems to be an example of the general disarray of government, not any especial respect for nature. It's strange beacuse the native Andean culture pays its respects to Pachamama, or Mother Earth, but they mostly do it in the form of llama baby offerings. The name Cochabamba comes from the Quechua word for "lake," shown below for your viewing pleasure.


Nature is not necessarily winning.

Not to say that there aren't beautiful places here. People often decorate their portion of the street with flowering trees that overflow the wall dividing their yard from the street (every house is walled). I've noticed that if someone doesn't have a flowering tree overflowing their wall, they have barbed wire or crushed glass bottles instead, so perhaps the trees are a more beautiful way of keeping intruders out.


This picture is a great example of walls adorned with vegetation, but also an excellent example of sidewalks abruptly ending, probably because some trees happened to start growing there.

Sometimes the government does clean things! Last night, a rainstorm toppled a tree into the road, and by 7:50 this morning, someone was already out with a chain saw and traffic cones so traffic could eventually get by. Rodrigo was surprised, saying that that never happens in Bolivia! People don't clean up messes right away! He thought perhaps it had to do with the large and majestic Mormon church across the street. Did you know there were Mormons in South America? Well, there are. They don't let non-Mormons into their church, however.


Very grand Mormon church on the way up to my house!

My host father, Gonzalo, involves himself in many varied business ventures, including, at some point, a concrete factory in Oruro. This particular factory was shipped down in pieces from California, where the same factory was shut down due to environmental violations. The exact same factory was reassembled in Bolivia, and needed only one new part! So, now you know what happens to our old or unusable stuff: it goes to Bolivia! I mentioned this is passing before, but a similar thing happened to cars that got flooded in New Orleans during Katrina. Refurbished, they were then sent here. My host family has one, and they say it was a very good deal and the car has lasted surprisingly well.

Anyways, here are some updates about my routine here in Cochabamba. I said in my last post that I started volunteering at a school in the mornings. This is turning out to be very rewarding! I am helping four students learn English, and also helping their teacher by separating them from the class for a couple periods. Their school is entirely in English, and these students are really not able to keep up in class, so I feel like I have a concrete goal to accomplish with them. They are very cute. It's fun to teach them. I like teaching.

On Monday, I went to the library with my four kids and was just starting the class, when some man walks in with a suit, tie, and sunglasses, and asks to speak with me. I was very nervous that I was in trouble with the Bolivian government, but, as it turned out, I didn't have to worry. (I had heard some stories about how the Bolivian administration was putting pressure on International schools to have fewer American teachers, so I had some reason to be worried). He just wanted me to tutor his daughter twice a week. 40 Bolivianos an hour! That's 6 dollars! Still, by Bolivian standards, that's very good.

Yesterday I talked to a friend of Ximena, Arturo, who studies amphibians. We made plans to go to Lake Titicaca next week to examine an endangered frog that lives in the lake! Hopefully this pans out, because I am excited to visit the lake, and potentially snorkel in it, though apparently the lake is very cold and the last time I snorkeled I almost drowned. Wish me luck!


Street gangs of Cochabamba.

Salar de Uyuni and the Far Southwest

On Saturday, Ben, Simon, and I set out for the Salar de Uyuni. We hopped on a four hour bus to Oruro, and after a lengthy connection, another eight hour bus to Uyuni, eventually arriving at four in the morning. We spent a good ten minutes on the bus after everyone had unloaded trying to find my water bottle, which had rolled away during the very bouncy ride sometime in the night. Though we never found it (sorry Cate and Liz, we no longer having matching bicycle waterbottles), the busdriver eventually said we could stay on the bus till seven in the morning, giving us a place to sleep until daylight--very much appreciated.

As we stumbled off the bus, a very astute salesperson asked if we wanted to go on his tour. After some comparison and discussion, we decided to go with the first guy, as he had teeth and seemed honest. We teamed up with three other people for our three day expedition: one Australian couple and one woman from Israel. All spoke English and were very nice!



The Salar was immense and beautiful. Because it is the rainy season, the salt flats are covered in anywhere from three feet to a couple centimeters of water, giving the expanse a mirror-like quality. Islands in the Salar showed up as blobs in the sky, as everything was reflected over the horizon.We spent a lot of time trying to take perspective photos that didn't work out so well, but we do have one nice one of us jumping.



We spent that night south of the Salar, in a small village called Villa Alota. At one point, we realized that our three bottles of wine were not going to be enough, so the six of us walked down the desolate street, feeling like a street gang in search of trouble. We managed to buy out a store, leading to a very fun night of candlelit cards and a spontaneous dance party in the dining room of the hostel.

The next day we hopped back into the 4x4 and drove south through high desert surrounded by snowy volcanoes. 2000 year old volcanic eruptions left behind fascinating rock formations. Lakes spotted the landscape, each with very high mineral contents, or "contamination," as our guide Pedro repeated--though the minerals were natural. The minerals caused each lake to be a different color--red, turquiose, white. Each lake was filled with flamingoes, and bordered by llamas and vicunas.


Volcanic rock was very fun to climb! Unfortunately, our altitude meant I didn't enjoy it as much. I climbed a freestanding boulder at one point that was only about 50 feet tall, and more of a scramble than a climb, while our driver Pedro fixed a flat tire. Every move was about 30 times more difficult at 14,000 feet. It was kinda scary, realizing I couldn't rely on myself quite as much as I had thought.


Flamingos in one of the lakes, with a volcano in the background.


This lake was "contaminated" with sulfur. Apparently, if you smoke with sulfur in the air, you become a dried out llama baby.


Vicunas are wild relatives of llamas and alpacas. Apparently their fur is so prized, it was reserved for the Incan emperor himself. Their population is very low, but has seen a rebound in recent years.

By the end of the day, we made it to the Reserva de Fauna Andina and to the famous Laguna Colorado. This lake is a brilliant shade of red because of a particular algae it supports. Someone told me that the algae is the reason the flamingos are pink, but I'm not sure I believe that.


Only the very border of the lake is green--everywhere else is a vast moonscape of volcanos and black rocks.




Llama sex is pretty boring itself, but becomes more interesting when there are more than two participants.

This evening there were no bottles of wine--that day, we had gotten up to almost 16,000 feet, and I was feeling the sun and the less-than-ideal hygiene conditions. I think everyone was pretty subdued. The next morning we woke up at four to enjoy some geysers that are best seen at sunrise. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and we didn't see the sun, and it was very eerie seeing bubbling mud pits and billowing steam in the half-light.

At 7 am we encountered the highlight of the day: very pleasant hot springs. Instead of mud, the bottom was formed with the volcanic rock and sand. The temperature was perfect and the only thing that could have convinced me to leave were the pancakes we ate for breakfast.



We continued driving south until we got to the border with Chile, where we dropped off two of our group. The rest of the day we drove back to where we started our trip in Uyuni. I felt worse for the wear but very happy that the trip was quite so beautiful. We bordered a bus at 9pm to Oruro, and caught a 4am connection to Cochabamba, arriving back home at 9:30am. Quite a lot of traveling!