Acres o´ Thistles

Hey all! Finally back to base camp when no one is using the computer (traffic is high when we first get back, so I usually wait). So the last week, we were at this absolutely spectacular location in the middle of Valle Guanaco, one of the smaller valleys off the side of the larger valley, Valle Chacabuco. Below is a small view of what we could see from camp.

Most of our work the past week was removing several acres of thistles, which are those really prickley tall weeds with small purple flowers. It takes double gloves to not get them in your hands when removing them from the ground. On our second day at the camp, it finally stopped raining (it had rained for about a week prior) and we made some solid progress on the field in the next few days. For the most part, we used large, heavy metal rods to dig the roots out of the ground and then pull them out at the bottom.

The first day we arrived, when it was still a bit rainy, Mack, Justin, and I went for a short hike up a very cool looking valley that had been eroded for quite a bit of time by the river running through it (Rio Furioso, obvious english cognate). In order to get there, we had to cross a relatively fast moving river, but got across dry and happy. This turned out to be a great move --it poured the following day and the river rose a good foot or two, so we would not have easily crossed again during our time there. The hike itself was more exploratory than destination based, so we unfortunately got kinda stuck in the valley and had to climb out through some pretty thick vegatation. We arrived on top of one of a variety of very flat plateaus that are a result of successive glaciations and resultant lakes that formed (crazy thing is that when the glaciers moved from the campo de hielo norte east into the valley, it changed the drainage pattern of the entire valley so that water drained east instead of west through Argentina into the Atlantic, creating a large and presently nonexistant lake in the valley we work in. We heard a talk from a few British scientists that are collecting core samples in the Chacabuco Valley last night).

After work, there were a few days when we went out to catch rainbow trout in one of the nearby streams. Mack and Justin were much more successful than I, but two nights we had fresh fish for dinner, which was an amazing addition to the meal. I also learned how to kill, gut, and cook fish, which will be a useful skill in any future hiking.

Here´s a picture of the three of us at sunset after a bit of fishing.

That was pretty much our week´s work. Yesterday, on our day off, we went on a longer six hour hike to a great peak with a 360 view of the area. I don´t have any pictures that aren´t of the RAW variety, so I can´t post them now, but I can assure you that it was truly spectacular.

¡Fótos!

Quick photo captions ...

Mack, Justin, and I went on a hike the second day I arrived on a nearby mountain. Two shots from that:

Guanacos (the local deer):


Another quick day hike to a lake with flamingos (we didn´t see them):

More photos to come, I have to conciously set my camera to RAW+jpeg to get them on here since just RAW won´t upload.

I am a calorie machine (Or, my standards of cleanliness have been drastically lowered)

So yesterday we arrived back at the base camp, or estancia, after my first week of work. So where to begin ...

I suppose I never really described the base camp itself, especially since I now know it a bit better. Among the ten or so buildings, there is a ¨cafeteria,¨ a gymnasium, a newer building for the large investors, and a building being built that will hold the visitors´center in the future park. The remaining buildings are those that belong to the people that live here, including many families such as Christian and Paula, the couple that deals with most of the estancia´s finances and organization, and their kids. One of the deals that was struck when the estancia was sold to the Thompkins (i.e. the owners of Patagonia and North Face) was that the gauchos would continue to have jobs for as long as they pleased. Thus, the volunteers end up working with a lot of the guachos that would otherwise be herding sheep and cattle around the valley, which is incredibly nice because you get an intimate feel for how much they are connected to the land with which they work and also because they know a good deal of English which makes learning Spanish easier. One of the gauchos, Rene, works with us constantly in the field and is a great cook. During the winters, he also is one of the main puma trackers -- the guachos take care to track as many pumas as possible at a time in the park using relatively old methods of radio telemetry (which is a fancy word for taking out a huge antenna and listening to the frequency of beeps coming from a certain direction). They recently recieved a bunch of GPS collars, which will greatly aid their ability to track the pumas, as well as look at the range each puma needs to survive in the park. The base camp also holds about a dozen horses that are used during the winters.

So yeah, the work outside of the base camp is actually quite fun. First and foremost, it´s just great to be outside in what has been beautiful weather day in and day out. Though the weather is quite unpredictable, the temperature ranges during the day from the 60s to 80s and at night from the 30s to 50s (last night I could see my breath when I went to sleep, so it can get quite cold). We´ve only had a few short bouts of rain during the day, and otherwise, it´s been very very sunny (the Tilley hat is getting a lot of use). The wind can also pose a challenge at certain points in time, especially when putting up and taking down tents, though we haven´t had any gale force winds (yet).

In a typical day, we usually get up around 830 or 900, or whenever our tents heat up to the point of being unbearable to sleep in any longer, and have a quick breakfast. The meal usually consists of some sort of cereal (Apple O´s or oatmeal) with dried milk and bread. Afterwards, we head out into the field, where the intial trek depends on how much fence we were able to roll up the previous day. For example, our first day we started about 5 meters from the tents, but by the last day, we probably hiked about an hour to get to where we stopped working the day earlier. From then on, we roll fences by taking out the big stakes that are driven multiple feet into the ground using large metal rods with which we gain leverage, taking out nails that hold the fence to posts, cut up any stray wire that we accumulate into large red bags, and roll fence into piles and take it to the nearest road for pickup. The work itself is quite physically demanding, but at least right now, we have enough people so that we can switch up jobs during the day. For lunch, we typically do bread with avocado, tuna fish, fruit, cucumber, and some cookies for pudding (British for dessert). Sometime between 4 and 6, we head back to camp, cook, talk, relax, and get to sleep around 11 or 12. One of the really great things about being here is that it´s light from around 8 am to 10 pm, I don´t think I can stress how unbelieveably nice it is.

Foodwise, I can say that as a group of 20ish, we probably eat enough for 35 or 40 people. The other day we cooked about 8 or 9 pounds of dry rice and lentils and ate all of it without a problem. To give you an idea of how we eat, at least for the younger males, we basically try to stuff in as many calories as possible into a given meal. Pasta with cheese? No, cheese with pasta, and maybe some cream yogurt as well, with some more cheese on top. Bread? No, bread with honey, peanut butter, dulche de leche, and sugar. We each easily eat enough for two grown people.

In terms of cleanliness, after a week of not taking a shower, which is by far the longest stretch I have ever had, it´s not nearly as bad as it seems, though my standards have been lowered. Fortunately, we were at least able to take a dip in two lakes that we encountered on warm days, and even though the water was freezing, we probably smelled at least a little bit better.

Outside of work, we do spend a good deal of time talking around the fire, as well as playing a variety of games. The brits have 6 dice with which we play a dice game (too difficult to explain here, but it´s quite fun), and while I´ve taught people how to play euchre, I´ve also learned how to play pitch, crazy eights, and a Swiss version of Uno with regular cards. Before bed, I´m trying to finish a book of Frost poems so I can get on to Paradise Lost. I also listen to some sort of classical music while trying to fall asleep, but I usually find myself about an hour later listening to something completely different.

Anyways, that´s all for now. Things here are great, especially with our crew including people from all around the world. If I forgot anything, I´ll be sure to post it next time I have Internet access. I´ll try to add some pictures to this post later.

Introductions and Prickly Things

The internet is painfully slow here, so I will post some pictures next time. I tried earlier today, but it was going to take more than 45 min to post 5 pictures. I gave up.

In other news, the food here is actually quite delicious. The meals are very hearty, i.e. consisting of grains (pasta, beans, rice, potato), protein (almost always lamb), and juice. So far I´ve been pleasantly surprised, much better than the rice and beans that most Central Americans eat, but we´ll see what happens when we go out into the field tomorrow. Mack and Justin have said that the food is good, though poorly spaced out during the day (breakfast at 830, lunch at 1230, dinner at 730, at least at the base camp).

The base camp itself consists of probably about 10 houses, plus a couple larger buildings such as the Thompkins´ house overlooking part of the valley, a yet-to-be-finished visitors center, a gymnasium that has very old pool, foosball, and ping-pong tables, and a lodge for guests (except only ones that have donated over $1 million to the park, so that makes for a small group).

My spanish is slowly improving, though it takes a good deal of effort to think through spanish phrases, hopefully they´ll come to me a bit more easily in the next few weeks. It´s really nice to be one of the only gringos that can speak to the small Spanish speaking population at the camp.

Mack and Justin are doing well. Mack went out this afternoon for a three hour or so horse ride around the valley while Justin and I checked email, worked on blogs, and want for a short hike. Unfortunately, the hike took a turn for the worst when we realized we were in the middle of a swamp, though we quickly got out and hiked along a ridge with a nicer view. This morning, a larger group of us went out to a small lake to the east where we were hoping to see flamingos, but we hadn´t realized that we needed to go the far side of the lake to see them -- next time.

Things here are really prickly. The most ubiquitous animal by far is the guanaco (a cute deer relative, pictures are coming), and I assume the grasses and other plants here have evolved such that they deter any potential herbivores. Justin, Mack, and I went on a decently long hike yesterday, and up at the higher elevations, we encountered a lot of prickly hitchhiker type seeds that got all over my pants and keenes (naturally, they forgot to tell me that these seeds might be a problem). We didn´t quite make it to the top of this very high ridge, but apparently there isn´t much of a view in the other direction because there are simply another set of mountains to hike up.

Be back in a week! Hopefully without too much ¨sabor¨ -- see either of the other two blogs.