5/02/2011
So today was our first day of actual surveying! It took us 3 hours to get there and I rode in the bed of the truck for about an hour and a half of it. It was a beautiful day out the sun shining and you could smell the forest! We got to tutupali and there were federal government agents from Quito there actually conducting archaeological assesments of some rocks in the area. These rocks had half moon shaped "bowls" carved into them and the archaeologist was saying how they were probably pre-incan incan....aka really really old! It was pretty awesome to be so close to something like that and not have it behind a glass window in a museum but right there in front of you to look at enjoy in the JUNGLE!
So after the officials and archaeologists we got to survey some people of the town and then about partway through the president invited us for some flore de begona (or something like that) its this juice/tea they make by boiling these flowers that taste like lemons and then mixing it with sugar cane alcohol, and gave us shots of it! Man it was strong at first and they all laughed at us as we took the shots and made some interesting faces trying to respect their culture! It was actually quite delicious after the first one, and very strong!! haha After we finished conducting our surveys for the day they invited us for cafe (coffee and sandwiches) before we left since it was 3:00 and we hadn't eaten yet that day!
Well on the way back we had a couple people join me in the back of the pick up 3 people to be exact...or atleast it started out that way! I attempted to speak spanish with them and told them about what we were doing in Loja these 3 white people haha. It went fairly well, but couldn't understand most of what they said but got the gist of what they were talking about. So we dropped off the first person in a little village and as soon as he got out 3 more came jumping into the back of our truck! it was quite the scene one of the guys almost went through the back windshield of the truck but luckily my knee caught this big old guy haha! And then we got to the next village to drop off another guy and 2 more people got into the truck! so now we got like 8 people in the back of this truck and its an awkward silence as they all steal glances of me but try not to stare! So i said hi to the guy next to me and after that they relaxed a little bit. It was just quite the scene rolling through these towns not even stopping and people jumping in and out of it like their life depended on it!
So we made it to 28 de Mayo and everyone unloaded except for a man that became known as "el professor" (the professor) he taught in Tutupali and was riding in the back of the truck with me all the way to Loja! So we spoke some spanish the kilometers passed and it was getting really dark outside, it was only 7 but the sun goes down at 6-630ish here. We were making our way back up the mountain/jungle pass when we started slowing down, and stopped! What the heck are we doing stopping on the highway I thought! Then you could here it faintly over the sound of our 4 cylinder diesel pickup a crashing sound almost like a stream but when we went to investigate what was in front of us it was a rockslide that was sliding!!! It was quite a frightening sound seeing about every 10th rock that came down shooting across the road...and then it stopped for a minute....and then went again...and stopped. It seemed to be slowing down so after about 15 minutes of watching this rock slide everyone that was stopped in the line up of cars hurried back to their cars and jumped in ready to take their chances of shooting across this dangerous rock & car bowling range! Might I add too that at this point it is very foggy and we could barely see the rocks falling down from where we were watching but could instead hear them way better! This was quite a dangerous move but we decided that at some point during the night we had to get back! So we waited our turn, we pulled up to the line waited for the crashing sound to slow and gunned it across the rock slide area! With the engine roaring and the tail end sliding as we accelerated quickly we shot through the rock slide in a matter of seconds! Man that was exhilirating me and the professor were both relieved to make it across in the open bed of the pickup we both looked at each other and he gave me the thumbs up sign shaking his head like good we made it and i returned smiling and laughing! I will have to post pictures of the rock slide next time we go through that way and will show you how sketchy it really was!
No comments:
Post a Comment