Here I sit, on the beach, in Ecuador, with the waves slowly crashing as the tide goes out. A little bit of heaven or magic on Earth, no doubt. This past week has flown by, tomorrow we head back to Quito for a few days to prepare for our extended journey into the Amazon Rainforest. We have the entire day off today and thus far it has been great, relaxing and quite a novelty given that most of us are well nurtured Midwesterners not accustomed to being a short drive or a walk from the ocean.
Anyway, picking up where I left off, Thursday was out final full day at Lalo Loor Dry Forest Reserve. The dry forest was an intriguing ecosystem to visit, quite a bit off bird life, some awesome bugs and other more elusive animals. I am still struggling with the whole white person, save the world mentality that seems to fuel much of conservation, but maybe I am being to self righteous to not acknowledge nonwhites interested in conservation. I do not think that I will be too distracted by it for the entire semester, but it is certainly going to be something I grapple with for the next few months or indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Thursday morning after a brief lecture where Joe wrapped up his talk about insect orders we split into three groups and went out to collect insects. Our group went into the forest, one out into a forest edge, and my group went out to the cow pasture. I had a great time trying to ctach a blasted butterfly, and I was reminded of how much I loved entomology a few semesters back. I was accompanied by Colleen, Nora and Jean. We made a great team, collecting 92 insects in about 45 minutes.
After lunch we sorted and took inventory of all our insect friends. I was surprised when our group had the most insects, but still a little disappointed that we never bagged a butterfly, just some shabby moths. Anyway, we finished our bug exercise and had a little time off before Catherine gave us a lecture on mangroves in preparation for our visit there Friday morning. Thursday night I went for a night walk with Karl, Sheena and Steph. We saw a couple of rather large tarantulas, about the size of my hand and heard some loud insects chirping away.
Friday morning we left Lalo Loor for the mangroves. On the way we stopped at the yogurt stand along the road by the Lalo Loor farm. I had a pineapple yogurt and it was delicious. The drive to the mangroves was about one and half hours so we had another opportunity to check out coastal land uses and enjoy views of the Pacific Ocean along the way. It is disgustingly humid on the coast and I sweated more this past week then I have my entire life combined, but once again as long as it is not Quito air, I am pretty well satisfied. We got to the mangroves a little after nine thirty and hardly had time to catch our breath before we were whisked onto a small motor boat and zipped out to the Mangroves on Rio Chone in a race against the tide. The mangrove reserve we visited was called Isla de Corazon because the island is shaped like a heart. When I say island you probably imagine a sandy beach and some trees, but it is actually a mass of sediment tied up in the roots and trunks of the mangrove trees. There were about 237 hectares of mangroves remaining at the sit, an area representing less then five percent of the original expansion. Our main tour guide told us that he is one of three original men to be on the organization who put the reserve together. It has been a hard battle for him to convince his community and even his family that conserving the mangroves is a necessity. It was interesting to hear his story without us prodding and poking him.
We toured a portion of the mangrove by motorboat and did some birding along the way. For a small reserve there were tons of birds including Neotropical cormorants, great blue herons, tri color herons, great egrets, frigate birds, snowy egrets, white ibis, Cocoi Heron, little blue herons, cattle egrets and Peruvian pelicans. As we cruised along we came upon other people touring the mangroves in canoes and out boat driver quickly cut the engine and pulled up along side one of the canoes. Before we knew it we all had transferred from motor boat to canoe, mid river. It was probably a dangerous idea seeing as our life jackets looked about as likely to save us as those that saved all those folks back in 1914 when the Titanic went down.
Settled into our trusty canoes we were commandeered through the mangroves themselves. That was awesome because we could watch crabs scuttling up tree roots, here the mud suctioning, see pneumatophores of black mangrove appear as the tide receded and it felt like we were on a great adventure. One major downfall of the whole tour was all the trash in the mangroves, but going through and picking it up would be an endless task since every time the tide comes back in a whole new load is dumped. All in all, mangroves are really cool and appeal to my plant nerdiness with their amazing adaptations to a high salt environment.
Following the canoe tour we walked along a boardwalk that twisted its way through the trees. Our guide us all about the differences between the four species of mangroves and why it is important to conserve them. They act as buffers for coasts by absorbing the energy from storms. He also introduced us to his son, a ten year old who had been trooping around with us all morning and expressed hope that his son would take over the reserve in the future. Before our tour ended we went back to the mainland and watched a short film about Isla de Corazon. Though the English subtitles were a bit more directly translated then sensible, it was a good summary of the island and its overall goal as a reserve area. We had lunch at the reserve, shrimp and rice, which is ironic since most of the mangroves have been wiped out to make room for shrimp farms. It was tasty though and included maduros also known as green fried bananas, which in my opinion make just about any meal here delicious.
Back on the bus we headed north again towards Lalo Loor, but not quite there. Instead we turned off the highway at a small town consisting of a shop, a cafe and a bus stop, called Punta Blanca. One kilometer ff the road was our home for the next two days and two nights, Punta Prieta y la playa norte. Hello beach. I would never consider myself a beach bum but Punta Prieta is a place I could be convinced to spend some quality time at. The beach itself, black and sandy, was soft and swarming with crabs which are really fun to chase and catch. After sweating our butts off for four days in the dry forest, it was no surprise that the first thing most of us did upon arrival was take a dip in the ocean. I must say though, I have mixed feelings about swimming in the ocean, on one hand it is awesome, attempting to ride the waves and splashing away, but that salt water does nothing for my contacts. Then again, if you drive me to the ocean, I will probably swim in it.
Saturday we had no class and entire beach to explore. I went walking with some of my friends and we climbed up a cliff to get a view of the beach from above. We found some sea caves, that were not so much caves as they were washouts. Of course I went for a swim again, but only after we played Ultimate frisbee, on the beach, at low tide. My team lost but we did a great job of passing the frisbee around so the entire team contributed. Late afternoon the rain started to come down pretty hard so we moved to higher ground and inside to the entertainment room. Some of us played pool, some watched a terrible movie I warned them about, and others chatted with another Peace Corp volunteer who is a friend of Joe and Catherine. Saturday night we had a delicious dinner of fresh prawns followed up with chocolate cake to celebrate Colleens birthday. It was delicious. Earlier that afternoon Colleen, Christa and I also had walked into town and got two cases of beer to share with the group so after dinner we played some games and did some more celebrating. It was a great night.
Sunday morning woke us with a sunny sky, perfect beach weather arriving just in time to send us off. At breakfast we had a vote and decided to stay for a couple of more hours to enjoy the rays. Most of the group went straight to the ocean, I took a nap on a bench because my sun burn was not feeling so great with the intense sun. I laid listening to the waves, waiting for my divine moment of ocean inspiration. Nothing came, but maybe that is the point. Maybe I will never find inspiration from sitting idle, maybe there will never be the grand epiphany that enlightens me. Maybe that stuff is meant for the Emersons and the Muirs of the world and maybe I am just not one of them. Maybe that is okay. Solo reflection after all isn;t everything because learning along means growing alone and it is with others that I think I grow best.
All too soon our extra time was up and we climbed back onto the bus for a long six hour ride to Quito. About four hours in we stopped for lunch, I had shrimp and rice one last time before kissing the coast goodbye, but not for too long since Rio Muchacho farm is about 30 minutes form a locally known surfers haven. Who knows, maybe I will return to Wisconsin tan and with surfing skills. Stranger things have happened.
All in all our coastal adventure was great. We saw some cool dry forest plants and animals, ate some delicious yogurt and sea food, though not together thankfully, swam to our hearts content and got sand everywhere imaginable. On top of that I think our group cohesiveness exploded over the weekend, and we are well on our way to becoming amazing friends. Thank you Ecuador.
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