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!

A picata, 15 pesos at the Farinia, a plate of cheese, olives, and salami.










Dan and I examining the barrels of olives at the Farinia, an outdoor market that sells a lot of salami, cheeses, olives, wines, etc. We often go here to eat and drink wine outside and relax.







A cool tree in the
forest.










A giant lizard, a Tegu.

Me, Angelica, and Boi at the Cataratas.

The weather here is crazy. Last week there were crazy storms and it was actually cold. Today it's like 90 degrees and sunny. It was almost unbearable in the forest this morning. The monkeys were even too hot; they took a two hour siesta late this morning and just layed in the trees (it's actually super cute how they dangle their hands and feet over the sides of branches and swing them in the air). Work has been going well; my group is almost done with our assignment for now. We hope to get all the information we need within the week.

This week is a full moon again, and last night we went to the waterfalls again. They are too cool. They are crazy full of water because of all the recent rain. They had to close parts of the lower trail last week because they were flooded. This week also marks my two months here in Argentina. Crazy. I can't believe I'm 1/3 of the way done with working here. It all goes by so quickly, even if the days seem long; (I often lose the date or day of the week). There is a foot and a half long lizard that came out of hibernation and now lives outside our kitchen. He scurries away when you get too close, but he's pretty sweet. Coatis attacked our kitchen yesterday, and ate most of our bread, and Boi had to chase them out with a stick. In other words, spring is in full bloom, and heat, here.

Same Old, Same Old

I haven´t written in a while because honestly not much new has happened here. I´m deep into the routine of going into the field every day and following, most likely looking for, monkeys, and usually spending the rest of the day, either morning or afternoon, reading or walking around the waterfalls. It has been raining here a lot lately, at least one or two days a week. And by rain, I mean a torrential downpour with bonechilling thunder and lightning. We literally can´t work when this happens and we end up losing the monkeys for a couple of days. And lately our monkey group has been running off into a part of the woods where there are no trails. After a couple of hours of just walking around the forest looking for them, or hacking your way through impassable undergrowth just trying to keep up with the monkeys, we get pretty tired and frustrated and call it quits, only to try to return in the evening to where they might sleep. As nice as it is to have some days off to relax or do stuff around town, it´s actually very frustrating not being able to do our jobs and get the data we need to collect. My mother will be delighted to know, and I´m sure will gloat about this when I get home, that I have actually taken to wearing the silly safari vest thing she made me buy before I left. I wore it when I wanted to look silly for a day and found that it was actually quite handy. I no longer need to take my big backpack into the field with me everyday, and instead put all the little things I need, radio, batteries, notebook, water, snacks, etc. So, as silly as I look, thats mom.

A few days ago there was a massive storm so going into the field would have been dangerous. Dan, Boi, and I decided to go to town, fully decked out in rain gear, and grab some lunch. While there we decided to retrieve a frisbee that we had lost a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, Renata, who has since left, threw the frisbee into a steep forested area by the river in town. At the time it seemed impossible to get because of the incline and the massive swarms of biting ants. With the rain however, the ants would be kept in their holes. With rain gear and rubber boots, the three of us bombed into forest embankment. It was actually easier than expected to find the frisbee and after climbing out of the ravine, the three of us rejoiced at our small victory. As silly as that story may seem, it was an exciting day and just about the only real thing I´ve done in the past few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, Boi and I were walking on the Upper Trail, Paseo Superior, above the Cataratas towards closing time. The park guard that was closing is a friend of ours and he actually let us go back onto the paseo after he made everyone else leave. Boi and I were the only two people in Argentina looking at the waterfalls that evening. We stayed by ourselves marvelling at their power for over half an hour until it started to get dark. For those few minutes the waterfalls existed only for us. It was really awesome.




Before Renata left, my whole group took a day off and took a high speed boat ride under the falls. We all dressed up in silly clothes and got absolutely drenched by the waterfalls. It was super cool. They take you really close and you can barely open your eyes from all the water spraying.

Rain

It´s been pouring here with lots of thunder and lightening for two days now, which means we don´t have to work. My boss left yesterday so my group decided to hang out at here at her house and watch movies. Of course, once we got here the power went out. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, listening to music, eating, and playing the guitar. Dan was nice enough to teach me Wilco´s California Stars on the guitar, since it´s only three chords. I spent most of the day practicing that and coaxing people into singing along. It was pretty cool; I´ve never had anyone sing along to my guitar playing before. We all watched Forrest Gump and passed out. I woke up again today to thunder and rain. It looks like another day of guitar practice and reading, maybe some scrabble. This is nothign exciting, but an update nonetheless.

Also, a shoutout to Dan´s dad Rick! Thanks for reading!

Luna Jena, Full Moon

This week was the full moon, and we got a chance to go out to the waterfalls at night, something that no one is normally permitted to do. One of the park guards has become a good friend of ours and he offered to take us out on the Paseos (the catwalks above the falls). It was Boi´s birthday so we had a small party first and then at around 11 or 12 went to the falls. It was so amazing that it´s hard to describe. There was absolutely no one else around, just about 10 of us and the waterfalls, which in the daytime are awesome, but at night were crazy. The sound of them is overwhelming. In the full moonlight the scene was so black and white like I´ve never experienced before. Dan took some pictures and they came out in color, but all I was able to see was stark monotone. Then a few of us walked a little farther to the Garganta and took in the massave waterfall in the moonlight also. Literally, no flashlights needed in the middle of the night. And here, we were the only people again. There´s probably no other time when there would be no people at the Garganta. We stood in awe for about an hour, getting soaked by the spray and revelling in the awesomeness, monotone, and power of one of the world´s greatest waterfalls all by ourselves in the moonlight. We even layed down on the catwalk for a while staring that the moon. We decided to get up before we all fell asleep there though. The night was incredible and I think we´re going to try and go down to the lower trail tonight while the moon is still bright.

Yesterday afternoon a few of us hopped over to Foz de Iguazu, Brasil again. It´s crazy to hop on a bus and be in a completely different country in about 30 mins. We only walked around and got some food and drinks and then came back to Puerto, where we got a kilo of ice cream for about $3. My boss leaves tomorrow for a month-long vacation back in the states, so we´re pretty much left to ourselves to be responsible for her project. It should be fun!

Cataratas and some animals

above-me practicing the guitar, which the two boys have been kind enough to teach me. I think it suits me well.

My group-- Renata, Me, Dan, Boi, Lydia, and Angelica

flying toucan

Agouti

toucan

coatis

a funny sign

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this... nothing much exciting has happened in the last week or so. We had a going away party for this kid Fabio who was going back to school in Spain. They made arepas, which are a bread with this meat, chicken, corn, veggie mix on top = absolutely delicious. Then we had another late night out dancing in town, but luckily I didn't have to work that morning. My computer is a little busted, the e key doesn't work, so I have to ctrl-v (paste) an e every time i need to use one. And I accidentally knocked my friend's computer on the floor and shattered its screen, so basically 5 of us only have my slow computer to use. It sucks.

We spent a few days without being able to find our monkey group. I had to walk around the jungle for hours hoping to run into them, but with no luck. It was a very frustrating couple of days. But we're making some good progress on getting the data we need. And I'm making some good progress on learning to play the guitar. The two boys here play and have been teaching me chords. They say I'm picking it up quickly, but I'm not so sure, especially since I'm tone-deaf. But Boi taught me to play Brown eyed Girl and that's what I've been working on. I really hope I can get decently good at it in the next five months. My groups has been hanging out in town at the river, the Rio Iguazu, which is gorgeous and really chill.

There's been some drama in our group lately. My boss has some issues with the administrator who runs the research station that we stay at, and we have to be on our very best behavior or we'll be evicted and have to live somewhere else. So we've had meetings and meetings and meetings, and we're safe for the time being, but all a little unnerved.

I did spend some time at the waterfalls, and I'll post some of those pictures as soon as I can, hopefully later today at the Sheraton, to show how unbelievable they really are. The other day I saw some Pecaris, small wild hogs. A troop of about 10 of them crossed the road a few meters away from us, but luckily they didn't turn and attack us, as they've been known to do. I think they were pretty cute. Then I almost stepped on a coral, or fake coral - I didn't get a great look at it- snake. Those are the red ones with black and white stripes. It was a good animal sighting day. Today is a rain day and we're supposed to be cataloguing our data, but I really don't want to do any of that.

P.S. mom-- send me an email!

En la bosce

Dan taking a focal

The other side of the river is Brazil

A rhino beetle

Fermino machete-ing some wood for a bridge

Fermino and Dan laughing about something

A huge toad

Badass. And that's the legit trail.

A cute juvenile. Here you go, Daniel.