5/21/2011
Hola, so today went really well but it was an early morning! We were up by 530 am and headed out to the field by 630. We then drove towards the Yacuambi-Ona-Sargurro Wetland system which is where myself and 2 others will be working and then 2 others a little bit closer in La Paz doing mining observational work. We stopped on our way in Zamora capital of Zamora-Chinchipe province for a delicious breakfast and continued on our 3 hour drive! It was very cool we got to meet the “presidents”(mayors) of each town of La Paz, 28 de Mayo, y Tutupali. They were all very nice and treated us with open arms! For the ride in now that’s a whole other story, to say the least it was WILD. We had to get off our Mercedes-benz bus/van and hire some locals to take us in with trucks for the last hour of it, and they knew how to drive those mountain single-lane roads! People here use their horns a lot not only in the city but in the mountains too especially for going around corners…we made it safely both ways in the pickups but we will definitely be getting our own transportation the next time we go to Tutupali.
The scenes we saw in the Yacuambi Canton (“state”) were beautiful multiple waterfalls everywhere! The mountains just seem to climb forever into the clouds! If I had to choose any other country to live in it might just be Ecuador because of the scenery and the people. The only thing that as a Wildlife major is kind of disappointing we haven’t really seen any wildlife! There’s stray dogs and chickens running around the forest and we’ve seen some sort of vulture circling us in the jungle but no monkeys, bears, foxes, or any other mammals for that matter. I can’t really describe how awesome the views are in Ecuador so you’ll just have to check out my photos at http://www.photobucket.com/lostintheparamo .
Thanks for sharing Jeremy. This is interesting and exciting to read. - Jennifer and girls
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