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.