Oops!

Sooo... I had a little Machete accident a couple of weeks ago, and I've meant to write about it but our internet has been wacky, but it's a great story.

It was early in the morning and Angelica and I couldn't find our monkeys, and it started to rain. I decided to take one more pass around a set of trails to try and find them before heading out of the forest because of the coming storm. This turned out to be a silly decision, mainly because this meant that Angelica was a few trails away and without a radio. So, I was walking up a hill in the rain, when I slipped on the mud or a root and fill down. Somehow I dropped my machete straight through my hand and sliced my left thumb right open. I looked down and saw a lot of blood dripping onto my pants. I immediately grabbed my thumb with my other hand. I was in total awesome survival mode. I can now safely say I am good under pressure in weird situations. This was odd, because I then couldn't use either of my hands, one being useless and one holding onto the other. I looked around my body to see what I could use to wrap my thumb in and found nothing. I couldn't rip any part of my clothing or use my machete, now lying in the mud, to cut any part of clothing or something. I felt very useless and actually was laughing at myself with my hands tied. Then I struggled to get to my feet, left my machete lying on the trail more out of spite and anger with it after being a good friend always at my side for 5 months and now this. I yelled for Angelica that I needed help but she was too far away to hear me. I ran out of the forest with both my hands held in front of my face (because of the spider webs, which even in a dire situation I didn't want on my face) and onto the larger main trail. There I tried to keep my hands above my hand to stop some of the blood flow. Then I stood there for a while laughing at myself as I tried to reach my radio which was to my side and my back. I let go of my gaping wound quickly and reached for my radio, and clumsily called back to CIES. I finally reached Dan and told him I needed help and that I was coming back. I had him wake up Lydia to help me with my finger and told him that he needed to go into the forest to find Angelica, so she wouldn't be out there alone not knowing what was going on. I was very focused on things that needed to be done. Then I ran down the trail with both my hands over my head. I looked absolutely ridiculous. Luckily there were no tourists on the trail or I would have scared them to death. And sadly all the rain had washed the blood off my pants and hands, or else I would have looked truly badass.

Lydia took me to the infirmary here where they looked at my finger and rummaged around in my thumb, much to my dislike, and then gave me three stitches to close up the wound. Regretfully I didn't bring my camera with me to the infirmary! The giant needle to numb my thumb hurt much more than the initial cut, which actually didn't hurt at all I noticed, and then I watched the doctor stitch me up, which I found fascinating. The medico didn't seem too concerned about my thumb, and I think if I went to someone in the States I would have gotten a couple more stitches and better care instructions, but alas, that's what I get for living in the jungle. I think if I cut a finger other than my fat thumb it would now have only 9 digits.

Then I went to town to get some antibiotics, pain killers, and 2 tetanus shots in my ass (a nice ending to an already horrible morning). I took about a week off from work, finally took my stitches out a few nights ago, and am now working on some self-prescribed physical therapy for my thumb. It's still healing. The nerves in my thumb are slowly repairing themselves. I have a weird numb, tingly sensation in most of my thumb that is preventing me from being able to eat and write, and play guitar, with my left hand, which may I remind you, is pretty important considering I'm left-handed. But I'm managing alright now. I'll have a badass story and a badass scar when I get home.


On another note: My good friend from high school, Shosh, and two of her friends, came up here to visit last weekend. She is studying and working in Buenos Aires for the time being, randomly, and it was great to see her. I took them all around the park for free and then to town one night. They loved the falls. We were fortunate to see 3 different monkey groups also! A very rare sight. They were lucky. It was nice to see a different face for once and also crazy to think that we've been friends for about 10 years and we're both in Argentina now. I'll be hanging out with her in Buenos Aires next week when I'm done with work also. And now we're winding things down in Iguazu!

WILL BE HOME MARCH 2ND!!

Patagonia

Hi all--I just got back a couple of days ago from an awesome 2 weeks down south in Patagonia! I can't tell you how nice it was to experience just a little bit of cold again. I went with Dan, Boi, and Angelica, while Lydia was vacationing with her family who came out for a Christmas visit. All the details of the 15 days are long so I'll try to give you the highlights.

For the first two days Boi and I went to Montevideo and Colonia, Uruguay, while Dan and Angelica went to Buenos Aires. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas in Uruguay just walking around the cities and celebrating with a little wine and chicken. Uruguay was pretty cool, but very flat with lots of farms and cows.

Then all four of us bet up in Buenos Aires and flew to a tiny town called Rio Gallegos way in the south of Argentina. We spent quite a few hours in the bus station waiting for our bus, which we finally took to El Calafate. It was very windy and the coldest weather we had experienced since last december in the states, but it was oh so nice not to be sweating every minute. Anyways, El Calafate basically is a tiny town with one long tourist street, with lots of souvenir and clothing stores for a few blocks, and that's about it. Very touristy, but pretty cute. I was happy to get to do some light shopping for once! The town serves as an entrance to a beautiful glacier named Perito Moreno. We spent a day walking on the trails around the glacier, and of course taking lots of photos. The glacier is huge and blue and very close to land actually. We were blessed with excellent weather. It is especially cool to listen to the big chunks of ice falling off the glacier and hitting the icy water beneath.

Our next stop was El Chalten, a mountain town a couple of hours north. Now here was the coldest weather we felt all trip, and man was it chilly. The town of El Chalten is nestled between the mountains of the Fitz-Roy Range and a river, and was only founded in 1985! It, in stark contrast to Calafate, is a bare-bones town with very very very few stores and shops, and even houses. It basically serves for a gateway for backpackers to go into the national park for a few days. We hiked the first day to a nice campsite besides a river and took a mini-hike to a lake surrounded by some mountains, which were unfortunately covered by clouds. But the next day was clear blue skies which gave us a great view of Cerro Torre. We hiked along the trail to a beautiful alpine lake, where the boys decided to go swimming (waaaay too cold for me), and to views of Cerro Fitz-Roy. These peaks are world renowned, but are way too technical of climbs for the average hiker. The hiking was hard and I got some nice blisters, which led me to have to buy hiking boots in the next city.

Then we made a long journey, through a part of Chile and crossing the Straight of Magellan on a ferry, to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost city in the world. This was my favorite place of the trip. The cute little sea-side town of Ushuaia also had its fair share of touristy shops, which again I loved, but it had a little more character to it. We spent a couple day walking around the town and a couple of days hiking in the national park. Boi and I went on an afternoon boat excursion on the Beagle Channel to see some Cormorants, two penguins, sea lions, and a cool lighthouse. We spent New Years camping and just hanging out with a fire and the guitar, pretty chill and fine for me. That's about it. Then we took a long bus back to Rio Gallegos (a crappy town with nothing important), flew back to Buenos Aires, and took another long bus back to Iguazu, where we were greeted with 90 degree jungle heat again.

Overall, a pretty awesome vacation!

Holidays in the Summer Heat

So a lot has happened since my last post almost a month ago. First there was Thanksgiving. There were only 3 Americans here who cared about Thanksgiving, but it was not difficult to get people excited about eating such good food. It was a little difficult however to try and explain what the holiday is all about in Spanish. So us three Americans, with some help from others, prepared the entire meal start to finish. We made three chickens (no turkeys down here), 3 types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, bread, green bean caserole thing, 2 pumpkin pies, and an apple pie, accompanied by plenty of wine. We spent the day in a boiling hot kitchen, cooking in shorts and tank tops--a definite change I'm sure from some of you who were cooking in the snowy east coast. We then moved our kitchen table outside where it was a bit cooler, and sat down to gorge ourselves with about 25 people in total. Everything went smoothly and it was a ton of fun all day. Everyone really enjoyed the food, no matter how odd they thought it was. Then it was back to work the next morning.

Hanukkah too has been very very difficult to explain to people here, especially in my broken Spanish, especially since I'm a little fuzzy on all the details even in English. I put together a make-shift menorah out of a hodgepodge of items I found around here; some vitamin bottles, a medicine bottle, the tops of beer bottles, a coiled rope, a cork, an egg carton, etc. It's actually pretty cool. Some of the items have since caught on fire or melted, oops!, so I've had to minimilize and just put my candles on the piece of wood. It's been fun watching people watching me light them every night with wonder, and a little confusion. This holiday has also been celebrated in shorts and a t-shirt, far from the usual back home.

The monkeys have also been a bit problematic because of the heat. They spend a great deal of time down on the cliffside, where there some water and a cool breeze, but where we are unable to take data, or even see them for hours at a time. This means we usually lose our monkeys for a day or two. They also had some weird movements lately, where we think the group had split in two. We actually didn't take any data for about 10 days! That's a lot of work we need to get done in the coming weeks. So the past couple of weeks have been really frustrating...and did I mention hot? Before the monkeys went all crazy on us, we began darting! Boi and I have been chosen to be the darting team (it's less cool than it sounds). We take a little wooden dart with some mouse-trap clue on it, stick it in this large plastic tube, and blow. The aim is to hit a monkey, for now a peripheral juvenile, in the hopes that the dart will stick and fall off having collected some hair for later DNA analysis. It was been great fun to try and get a good angle and be sneaky about it so the monkeys don't exactly know what's going on, and to get a good quick shot. It's pretty difficult because the monkeys move a lot and are at various heights and such, but man, I can hardly express how fun it really is to shoot those monkeys.

We've planned a 15 day vacation over Christmas and New Years, and we all can't wait for tuesday to arrive! Our plan is to go as far south as possible. We're going to Uruguay for a couple of days, then flying from Buenos Aires to Rio Gallegos and then going to El Calafate, where there is a beautiful glacier and mountains, and then to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego--the End of the World. It's so close to Antartica, I'm going to try and become a stowaway on a ship. It's literally the farthest south we could possibly go on this continent, and we're all anxious to experience a little cold! Exactly what we'll be doing for the holidays, I dont know...probably some hiking and camping, and wildlife viewing. Can't wait for vacation!





So I hope everyone has a wonderful Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years. I'll be sure to
post some more when I get back from vacation.

cute monkey eating a stick








Playing in a swamp in the forest, not a day has gone by with this new monkey group where my boots haven't been soaked.































A sweet rainbow over the Garganta







A bunch of monkey sleeping. Seriously, how cute is this? I love how they just let their arms and legs dangle.

Once again, it's a rainy sunday so I decided to spend it at the Sheraton using their fast internet. The past week has been quite interesting. Our group hit some speed bumps with the project and our boss, so we took a couple of days off to have some meeting together to sort some stuff out (saying more than that is a loooong story). The good news is we're all excited about the work again and are going to stick it out until the end. It was also two of the hottest days we've had here, somewhere between 95-100 degrees. And humid. So it was nice to be in the field for a couple days. Today, as I said is cold and rainy, which is such a nice change. It feels so nice to be able to wear pants again.

Anyways, as I'm sure some of you reading this have heard that the Twilight sequel New Moon came out on friday. My friend Angelica and I were dying to see it, so we made a plan. Friday we worked the morning shift, ran the 3km back to our place, hopped on a couple of buses and went to Brazil to their movie theater (in a nice shopping mall no less), only to find out it was SOLD OUT. In a tiny city of Foz do Iguazu, this movie was sold out. So we walked around a bit, got some chinese food, which does not exist on my side of the falls, and returned to Argentina. We did the exact same thing the next day. We bought tickets the previous day and went all the way back to Brazil. I can't explain how awesome it felt to be in a real movie theater. It was super exciting. The teenage girls actually screamed at some parts. The movie wasn't horrible so it was overall a very good adventure. So moral of the story is I went into an entirely different country to see this movie (Lua Nova in Portuguese). It luckily was in English with portuguese subtitles. I also was able to get a Subway sandwich!!! The mall's food court had one and they were exactly the same as in the states. Oh my god, I was in heaven. So those have been my adventures for the past week. I also saw an armadillo the other night, very odd creatures.

The Weather's a-Changing

Things have changed down here since we got back from vacation. My group has moved on to a new monkey group! This new group, Silver, is a much larger group than our previous one and it has many more adults that we need to take data on. We've been spending most of our days trying to get to know the faces, habits, movements, and territory of Silver. Their territory is about a 45 minute walk down a 3km trail, so quite a ways. I'm tired and hot by the time I get to work! This also means that our days are longer, much longer. The morning shift has to wake up at 4:45 AM, and the afternoon shift works until 8pm. Their territory is also riddled with swamps and a decently big river, that I had to cross three times in one afternoon with the water up to my waist. Every day since working with Silver, my boots, socks, and feet have been soaked. But working with this new group is at least a change from the routine of the old one. Soon, we will be starting to dart the monkeys. This involves a blow dart-like device with some sticky stuff on the ends of the darts. The aim is to have the dart blow past the monkey collecting some hair for DNA analysis. Nobody knows how this will work exactly, so it's a very trial and error kind of thing. Boi and I have been picked to be the preliminary dart team. We practiced one night in the kitchen hitting random objects, books, pots and pans, each other, and I wasn't horrible. I'm looking forward to getting to shoot some monkeys soon.

When we were on vacation, a Puma attacked and killed a deer very near to our place of residence. So close in fact that a couple people went out and watched it devour its prey. I'm actually sad I missed it. For a while we were all on high alert at night for more puma and jaguar sightings. One jaguar was sighted in the 5 minute walk from my house to the Sheraton. Things were pretty exciting around the jungle. Sadly, for me probably not for you who is reading this worrying, there have been no recent sightings. As for me, lately I have seen an array of wildlife. Besides the usual monkeys and coatis, the tegus (the big lizards) have come fully out of hibernation and are everywhere, I have seen 3 snakes-2 dangerous coral snakes and one regular big snake that was maybe 2 meters long, and a cool woodpecker with a yellow head and a red face. I think that's all.

It's been hotter than hell here recently, some days reaching well into the 90s with lots of humidity, as we round into summer down here. The good news is is that it is still raining a lot. It poured today for a few minutes in fact. I can't believe it's already the middle of November! Three months down, three months to go. Around the 20th, my friend Angelica and I are planning a little trip across the border again into Brasil to see the movie New Moon (there is no movie theater in my tiny town of Puerto Iguazu here), no matter what language it is in. And then before I know it, it'll be time for another short vacation (not sure where we're going yet). I'm also starting to think about where to travel to when I'm finished here in February. Hmmm.. I think that's all that's new down here in Iguazu!

Accidental Days Off

Good news! We finished collecting the minimum amount of data our boss wanted to. It was a struggle to finish actually. As soon as we were close the monkeys decided to elude us for a few days. Finally after spending a few hours following the monkeys off trail, hacking away at the forest with my machete, at round 630 as the monkeys were heading to bed and the light was fading I was able to get the last 10 minutes of focal data to reach our goal. It was glorious. Needless to say, we decided to treat ourselves to a party and a day off. We blasted some music at our boss´house (she´s out of the country until tomorrow) and have some fun. The next day, our planned celebratory day off, we ventured across the border to Foz de Iguazu, Brazil. I´ve actually made friends with the smiley bus driver who laughs at us silly Americans who just want some Chinese food. We ate, bought some stupid costumes and nicknaks (I came away with a tiki torch, and a funny foam hat that says brazil on it; Lydia bought a child´s panda mask; Boi bought a costume cape; and Dan bought a child´s acordion), we walked around town and went to the large grocery store to get some products not available in our tiny town of Puerto on this side of the falls. Just as the rain started to pour we headed home.
Coincidentally, we also had the following 3 days off because of storms. We´ve been hanging around CIES, reading (I´ve been reading an insane amount of books, including randomly Othello this week as I felt like reading a classic) , playing guitar, and playing lots of scrabble. Yesterday was our first day back with the monkeys but they were in such a poor area that we were unable to collect any more data. And today, of course, I woke up at 6am only to hear thunder and a downpour. So overall it´s been a pretty relaxing week. There´s been so much rain that the Rio Iguazu, the river in town, is so flooded that the riverside eatery we usually spend some time at eating empenadas and hanging out is completely under water.


Dan decided to run a half marathon (or the equivalent distance) sunday morning because his family was doing the same back in Ohio. A few of us went out on the town saturday night and on our way home, we had our taxi stop randomly along the road back from town to the park so we could place water bottles for him along the way, under signs and by posts. We left him a note for where to look for them and he set off early in the morning. Our taxi driver was pretty confused as to why we kept wanting to stop but we eventually explained it to him. Dan says he couldn´t have been able to finish without the water, all of which he found with ease on his run.

Our boss comes back tomorrow so we´re enjoying another relaxing day of rain before we have to get hurriedly back to work!