Monday, July 21, 2008
New Photos!!!
There are new photos from our last day in Iquitos and our travels to Huaraz and Arequipa posted in the top 2 flickr sites to the right ==>
Huaraz and Huayhuash (Andrew)
Well, we're out of the jungle and exploring the heights of Peru. First up was Huaraz, a mountain town that has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years, in a long valley dominated by the ice-capped Cordillera Blanca. We got there from Lima traveling by bus several hundred kilometers up the coast (through a seeming wasteland of overcast sand dunes punctuated by occasional small towns and irrigated crop fields), then turning east and going up a steep river valley. The valley was much more interesting than the coast, especially since the irrigated part between the river and road was lush and green, while on the other side of the road it was utterly rocky and barren. Eventually we also saw giant squares of corn and peppers laid out to dry in a mozaic of reds, purples, and oranges. We were shooting to get into Huaraz two days before a nation-wide strike, in order to give ourselves an excuse to acclimatatize to Huaraz's 3000 meter elevation without feeling bad for not immediately getting out into the nearby parks. As the bus got closer to town, there were already a few fires smoldering in the road and big logs ready to block it off entirely. But after some deft manuevering by our driver we arrived in Huaraz, worn out and frustrated from the terrible, violent movies shown on the bus all day.
At the recommendation of our friend Matt, we stayed at a beautiful little place called Albergue Churup and met up with him for dinner. It turned out that there was also a regional agrarian strike the next day, followed by the national workers' strike the next, so we had little choice but to stay in the city and explore areas within a safe distance of the hotel. There was lots of graffiti both supporting and condemning the strike, and apparently (judging by the graffiti dates), similar events had happened in April, May and June. It's hard to tell if they are making any progress with their demands. One of our friends joked that this is because Peruvians only strike until lunch time and then they go home and rest. That's not entirely true, but it does seem like they could be more effective with a little more organization.
Huaraz is surrounded by beautiful mountains and has some nice churches and a stream running through the city, but it is also dry, dusty, and many of the buildings have rebar spikes extending up from each corner, as if the owners are all hoping to throw on new additions as soon as they can. However, the dogs all look a lot healthier than those in Iquitos (maybe the cold naturally selects against mange and hairlessness?) and the cars are a lot quieter than mototaxis.
The day after the strike we took a one day "warm-up" hike to Huascaran National Park and the Cordillera Blanca to see some waterfalls, birds, and to get our mountain legs. The early morning taxi took us up steeply from the river valley to the tiny settlement of Honcopampa and along the way we saw men and women in traditional Andean clothing hand weaving wool (sheep or llama?), hoeing plots of land, and herding animals. At the beginning of our hike (the taxi just dropped us in a field and a couple of school girls from the nearby village pointed towards a valley and said "go that way") we were interested to see some plant -covered rock structures, which turned out to have been built before the Inkas arrived (no one we talked to knew what the structures were or who built them but Matt later told us they're probably Huacas 0r burial mounds).
The day hike went well and that afternoon we prepared for a longer hike in the Cordillera Huayhuash, to the south of Huaraz. Leaving the next morning at 5am while nervously keeping an eye on our backpacks, an extra tent, 3 folding seats, and a box full of food, we successfully navigated crowded bus rides to the small town of Chiquian and then on to the smaller town of Llamac. Arriving in Llamac we met our mule driver Elmer and his 2 mules, named Zorro and....Zorro. (Zorro means fox or possum, depending on what part of Peru you're from). The bigger on was white and got a larger load, so I felt some affinity, while the smaller one was gray and had a "J" stamped on it's nose, so Jess got attached to it. However, her's was a boy donkey so she called it "Joselito". It didn't take long walking up the mountain road before we appreciated not having to carry more than a daypack. We tried talking to Elmer some, but he was very reserved, so Jess decided her mission for the trip would be to make him laugh.
We spent the whole first day on the road, initially following a narrow river valley with rock-walled gardens, which widened as we got higher and turned into grassland full of sheep, cows, and horses. There were lots of small corrals built of stone, incorporating into their shapes the largest boulders that couldn't be moved. Every structure in these mountains is made of stone, as there is obviously no shortage of it crumbling off the mountains. And as the Japanese mining company in the valley has discovered, there is also plenty of copper. Unfortunately, this means they are contaminating the local river, but don't worry, they've built immense new irrigation systems to make up for it (which I'm sure will never stop working, especially with the frequent earthquakes...)
Jess and I fell farther and farther behind Elmer, as we were looking at birds and scenerey and generally walking slowly. We eventually spotted him a mile ahead on the road, and caught up in time to set up the tents (our two-person tent and a large cooking/mule driver sleeping tent) in a sheep and cow pasture just before it started raining. Jess then realized that over half of our eggs had been cracked by the bouncing of the burros, so we salvaged what we could for dinner. Elmer (who usually goes with groups that also have a guide and a cook) appeared to be a bit worried about his meal prospects over the next few days and offered to carry the eggs himself- by hand, in a plastic bag. We let him.
The next morning we found ice frozen to the tents and had to wait for the sun to make its way into the valley to melt it off. Meanwhile the burros, which had been tied for the night, took off down the road (twice) to try to get back to their homes so Elmer was kept busy re-collecting them. The hike that day took us off the road and up the steep Rondoy pass (4750 meters high), where we stopped for lunch and Elmer told us stories of mountain climbing accidents and plane crashes. Jess did not appreciate these. Heading down we passed one *bright* blue lake at the foot of the glaciered peaks called Solteracocha (lake of the single lady), and then went farther down the valley alongside another large lake called Jahuacocha (lake of the ... jahua). We admired the coots, ducks, grebes, and herons on and around the lake, but the pasture camping spot at the end was crowded with gringo hikers, mules, and old Andean ladies trying to sell us Cervezas or Coca Cola so we decided to move the next day.
We didn't have anything planned for the next day, so we moved camp up between the two lakes and then climbed up to Solteracocha to try our hands at fishing. Elmer was not very interested in sharing the rod he had put together (we don't think he gets to fish much on his own or with bigger groups) and then it started to hail, so Jess and I headed back down towards camp. The weather cleared up though, so we rented a fishing rod from the lady in a nearby hut (after refusing the Cerveza and CocaCola) and tried our luck on the beautiful clear stream between the lakes. I got a couple little trout interested in our bread bait, but none big enough to keep. Fortunately Elmer's worms were good enough to bring in 5- six inchers (!!), which we fried up with tomatoes and lime for dinner. (Not too much meat- really only worth it for the story.)
The next morning Jess and I made the tactical decision not to climb up into a nearby valley (my left achilles tendon had started hurting the day before), so the three of us went fishing again for the morning. Jess amused Elmer by jumping in the Frigid stream to go after a snagged fishhook, but still no laughs. In the afternoon we worked our way down the valley (and got to see another massive irrigation project built by the mine), before camping just over another pass (4300 meters high). We had an enjoyable final evening, with a huge dinner of soup, pasta, and hot cocoa, and some good conversations with Elmer, who was starting to talk more about his life in Mahuay. Jess even finally got him to laugh (with a stupid potty-humor joke)! The view from our campsite that night looked a little like some from the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we started thinking about getting home soon. Also, while Elmer was out tending the donkeys, an Andean Fox tried to come in the cook tent and help us finish dinner. Alas it was only noodles.
The next morning we headed down the steep slope to Llamac, grateful that we weren't going in the opposite direction, and arrived with plenty of time to catch the buses back to Chiquian and Huaraz. After a hot shower and steak dinner in Huaraz we were somewhat recovered, although still pretty wipe from our relatively short hike (this altitude thing is no joke!). Now we're off for Arequipa by way of Lima. Keep your fingers crossed for better movies on the bus!!
At the recommendation of our friend Matt, we stayed at a beautiful little place called Albergue Churup and met up with him for dinner. It turned out that there was also a regional agrarian strike the next day, followed by the national workers' strike the next, so we had little choice but to stay in the city and explore areas within a safe distance of the hotel. There was lots of graffiti both supporting and condemning the strike, and apparently (judging by the graffiti dates), similar events had happened in April, May and June. It's hard to tell if they are making any progress with their demands. One of our friends joked that this is because Peruvians only strike until lunch time and then they go home and rest. That's not entirely true, but it does seem like they could be more effective with a little more organization.
Huaraz is surrounded by beautiful mountains and has some nice churches and a stream running through the city, but it is also dry, dusty, and many of the buildings have rebar spikes extending up from each corner, as if the owners are all hoping to throw on new additions as soon as they can. However, the dogs all look a lot healthier than those in Iquitos (maybe the cold naturally selects against mange and hairlessness?) and the cars are a lot quieter than mototaxis.
The day after the strike we took a one day "warm-up" hike to Huascaran National Park and the Cordillera Blanca to see some waterfalls, birds, and to get our mountain legs. The early morning taxi took us up steeply from the river valley to the tiny settlement of Honcopampa and along the way we saw men and women in traditional Andean clothing hand weaving wool (sheep or llama?), hoeing plots of land, and herding animals. At the beginning of our hike (the taxi just dropped us in a field and a couple of school girls from the nearby village pointed towards a valley and said "go that way") we were interested to see some plant -covered rock structures, which turned out to have been built before the Inkas arrived (no one we talked to knew what the structures were or who built them but Matt later told us they're probably Huacas 0r burial mounds).
The day hike went well and that afternoon we prepared for a longer hike in the Cordillera Huayhuash, to the south of Huaraz. Leaving the next morning at 5am while nervously keeping an eye on our backpacks, an extra tent, 3 folding seats, and a box full of food, we successfully navigated crowded bus rides to the small town of Chiquian and then on to the smaller town of Llamac. Arriving in Llamac we met our mule driver Elmer and his 2 mules, named Zorro and....Zorro. (Zorro means fox or possum, depending on what part of Peru you're from). The bigger on was white and got a larger load, so I felt some affinity, while the smaller one was gray and had a "J" stamped on it's nose, so Jess got attached to it. However, her's was a boy donkey so she called it "Joselito". It didn't take long walking up the mountain road before we appreciated not having to carry more than a daypack. We tried talking to Elmer some, but he was very reserved, so Jess decided her mission for the trip would be to make him laugh.
We spent the whole first day on the road, initially following a narrow river valley with rock-walled gardens, which widened as we got higher and turned into grassland full of sheep, cows, and horses. There were lots of small corrals built of stone, incorporating into their shapes the largest boulders that couldn't be moved. Every structure in these mountains is made of stone, as there is obviously no shortage of it crumbling off the mountains. And as the Japanese mining company in the valley has discovered, there is also plenty of copper. Unfortunately, this means they are contaminating the local river, but don't worry, they've built immense new irrigation systems to make up for it (which I'm sure will never stop working, especially with the frequent earthquakes...)
Jess and I fell farther and farther behind Elmer, as we were looking at birds and scenerey and generally walking slowly. We eventually spotted him a mile ahead on the road, and caught up in time to set up the tents (our two-person tent and a large cooking/mule driver sleeping tent) in a sheep and cow pasture just before it started raining. Jess then realized that over half of our eggs had been cracked by the bouncing of the burros, so we salvaged what we could for dinner. Elmer (who usually goes with groups that also have a guide and a cook) appeared to be a bit worried about his meal prospects over the next few days and offered to carry the eggs himself- by hand, in a plastic bag. We let him.
The next morning we found ice frozen to the tents and had to wait for the sun to make its way into the valley to melt it off. Meanwhile the burros, which had been tied for the night, took off down the road (twice) to try to get back to their homes so Elmer was kept busy re-collecting them. The hike that day took us off the road and up the steep Rondoy pass (4750 meters high), where we stopped for lunch and Elmer told us stories of mountain climbing accidents and plane crashes. Jess did not appreciate these. Heading down we passed one *bright* blue lake at the foot of the glaciered peaks called Solteracocha (lake of the single lady), and then went farther down the valley alongside another large lake called Jahuacocha (lake of the ... jahua). We admired the coots, ducks, grebes, and herons on and around the lake, but the pasture camping spot at the end was crowded with gringo hikers, mules, and old Andean ladies trying to sell us Cervezas or Coca Cola so we decided to move the next day.
We didn't have anything planned for the next day, so we moved camp up between the two lakes and then climbed up to Solteracocha to try our hands at fishing. Elmer was not very interested in sharing the rod he had put together (we don't think he gets to fish much on his own or with bigger groups) and then it started to hail, so Jess and I headed back down towards camp. The weather cleared up though, so we rented a fishing rod from the lady in a nearby hut (after refusing the Cerveza and CocaCola) and tried our luck on the beautiful clear stream between the lakes. I got a couple little trout interested in our bread bait, but none big enough to keep. Fortunately Elmer's worms were good enough to bring in 5- six inchers (!!), which we fried up with tomatoes and lime for dinner. (Not too much meat- really only worth it for the story.)
The next morning Jess and I made the tactical decision not to climb up into a nearby valley (my left achilles tendon had started hurting the day before), so the three of us went fishing again for the morning. Jess amused Elmer by jumping in the Frigid stream to go after a snagged fishhook, but still no laughs. In the afternoon we worked our way down the valley (and got to see another massive irrigation project built by the mine), before camping just over another pass (4300 meters high). We had an enjoyable final evening, with a huge dinner of soup, pasta, and hot cocoa, and some good conversations with Elmer, who was starting to talk more about his life in Mahuay. Jess even finally got him to laugh (with a stupid potty-humor joke)! The view from our campsite that night looked a little like some from the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we started thinking about getting home soon. Also, while Elmer was out tending the donkeys, an Andean Fox tried to come in the cook tent and help us finish dinner. Alas it was only noodles.
The next morning we headed down the steep slope to Llamac, grateful that we weren't going in the opposite direction, and arrived with plenty of time to catch the buses back to Chiquian and Huaraz. After a hot shower and steak dinner in Huaraz we were somewhat recovered, although still pretty wipe from our relatively short hike (this altitude thing is no joke!). Now we're off for Arequipa by way of Lima. Keep your fingers crossed for better movies on the bus!!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Last Weeks in Iquitos and Moving On (Andrew)
After getting back from our last trip to San Antonio and Atalaya, we launched into our last 2 weeks in Iquiotos with all the frantic energy, strategic planning, and stress brought on by a swiftly approaching deadline. We gave the voluteers from the program we were helping organize a little time off, before dragging them to the office to talk about their experiences living in communities for 2 months, figure out the details of their independent projects for the next 2 months, order their food and supplies for the field, and (most importantly for us) clean up and difçgitally store the information from their interviews in the communities. This last step ended up taking longer than expected, both from database technical difficulties and the sheer amount of data, so we found ourselves staying later and later each evening.
In addition to overseeing the data entry and answering questions (while struggling to keep them focused), Jess and I each had our own projecs to wrap up. Jess´s spare moments were consumed with writing up a plan (in Spanish) to modify the interview system we sent the volunteers with into a shortened, dividable form that would be easier both for future voluteers to carry out in 2 months and for the PROCREL feild team to piece together during short trips to other communities. I was usually found converting the volunteers´ hand-drawn resource use maps to digital forms, and overlaying their GPS points and written information on top of it for PROCREL to use in their master planning.
On the second-to-last Saturday we had a small going-away lunch at our friends Sergio and Maghali´s house. It was a nice way to share anticuchos, presents, and silly Long-family "tail" races before most of the team headed out for a long trip to the field. We worked increasingly frantically over the last week, eating delicious lunches prepared by the wonderful Elsa in the office kitchen, and tking over vacant computers for the volunteers. In the blank spaces between tasks, Jess and I took ourselves out for juice and cake breaks and delivered the furniture and cooking equipment from our apartment that we had silent-auctioned off. After work we packed up our other things and realized that they had been reproducing on their own when we weren´t looking. Our bags packed to the brim, we had to send a box by mail to meet us in Lima (the mail gets out of Iquitos a lot faster than it comes in- the box arrived before we sent the Fulbright commission an email to let them know it was on its way!)
After a sleepless Friday night, we "finished" our work (or at least got it to a place where we felt we could leave it) late Saturday. At that point we were ready for a good night of sleep, but we were convinced by our friends Pam and Cesar to go out to some of the bars and dance clubs that we had successfully avoided to that point. After several never-ending pitchers of less than stellar "jungle drinks" and an only slightly better drag show, we staggered home for a few hours sleep and a miserable-feeling morning finishing the packing. We did have a nice late lunc with Pam and Cesar befoire checking out of the apartment, taking some last-minute photos and making our last trip to the Iquitos airport. It was a little heart-wrenching to pass by familiar places for the last time, but we´ve promised ourselves that we´ll come back. This was a little surprising for me, because, as I told Jess, there were some points in the trip where I was pretty sure I wouldn´t be sad to go.
Pam and Cesar saw us off at the airport and as we waited in the departure lounge teh sun went down over the palm trees and rusted hulks of old planes along the runway. A fresh group got off our plane as it arrived, and we smiled t the gringos taking pictures of themselves and then we listened patiently to American high schoolers talking about the wonders of playing soccer and seeing monkeys during their week-long trip to an area we worked in.
We passed through our comfortable stand-by hostel in Lima before dropping off half our stuff at the Fulbright Commission and catching a bus to Huaraz, where we find ourselves now. It feels like we´ve just finished a long 2 weeks of final exams and are settling in for a cold Christmas break. Except it´s early July. There are ice-capped peaks to the east of us and we are using ALL of our warm-weather clothing. We´re going to spend a couple days adjusting to the altitude, catching up with a fellow Fulbrighter doing research here, and getting our gear in order before heading out to the mountians for some backpacking.
In some ways it´s a difficult transition. Even though we had several weeks winding down, it felt like we left abruptly and just as we were really getting involved in the meat of our work. It´s hard not to judge everything in these new cities against Iquitos (it really is a completely different culture here) or compare ourselves to the multitudes of gringo backpackers passing through, but we´re going to make the most of our last weeks in Peru and take it all in. We´re really looking forward to getting back to see family and enjoy the end of the tomato season. For those of you who haven´t heard, we both got jobs in the Asheville/Hendersonville area, Jess with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and me with the Nature Conservancy, which we´ll be starting after Labor Day.
In addition to overseeing the data entry and answering questions (while struggling to keep them focused), Jess and I each had our own projecs to wrap up. Jess´s spare moments were consumed with writing up a plan (in Spanish) to modify the interview system we sent the volunteers with into a shortened, dividable form that would be easier both for future voluteers to carry out in 2 months and for the PROCREL feild team to piece together during short trips to other communities. I was usually found converting the volunteers´ hand-drawn resource use maps to digital forms, and overlaying their GPS points and written information on top of it for PROCREL to use in their master planning.
On the second-to-last Saturday we had a small going-away lunch at our friends Sergio and Maghali´s house. It was a nice way to share anticuchos, presents, and silly Long-family "tail" races before most of the team headed out for a long trip to the field. We worked increasingly frantically over the last week, eating delicious lunches prepared by the wonderful Elsa in the office kitchen, and tking over vacant computers for the volunteers. In the blank spaces between tasks, Jess and I took ourselves out for juice and cake breaks and delivered the furniture and cooking equipment from our apartment that we had silent-auctioned off. After work we packed up our other things and realized that they had been reproducing on their own when we weren´t looking. Our bags packed to the brim, we had to send a box by mail to meet us in Lima (the mail gets out of Iquitos a lot faster than it comes in- the box arrived before we sent the Fulbright commission an email to let them know it was on its way!)
After a sleepless Friday night, we "finished" our work (or at least got it to a place where we felt we could leave it) late Saturday. At that point we were ready for a good night of sleep, but we were convinced by our friends Pam and Cesar to go out to some of the bars and dance clubs that we had successfully avoided to that point. After several never-ending pitchers of less than stellar "jungle drinks" and an only slightly better drag show, we staggered home for a few hours sleep and a miserable-feeling morning finishing the packing. We did have a nice late lunc with Pam and Cesar befoire checking out of the apartment, taking some last-minute photos and making our last trip to the Iquitos airport. It was a little heart-wrenching to pass by familiar places for the last time, but we´ve promised ourselves that we´ll come back. This was a little surprising for me, because, as I told Jess, there were some points in the trip where I was pretty sure I wouldn´t be sad to go.
Pam and Cesar saw us off at the airport and as we waited in the departure lounge teh sun went down over the palm trees and rusted hulks of old planes along the runway. A fresh group got off our plane as it arrived, and we smiled t the gringos taking pictures of themselves and then we listened patiently to American high schoolers talking about the wonders of playing soccer and seeing monkeys during their week-long trip to an area we worked in.
We passed through our comfortable stand-by hostel in Lima before dropping off half our stuff at the Fulbright Commission and catching a bus to Huaraz, where we find ourselves now. It feels like we´ve just finished a long 2 weeks of final exams and are settling in for a cold Christmas break. Except it´s early July. There are ice-capped peaks to the east of us and we are using ALL of our warm-weather clothing. We´re going to spend a couple days adjusting to the altitude, catching up with a fellow Fulbrighter doing research here, and getting our gear in order before heading out to the mountians for some backpacking.
In some ways it´s a difficult transition. Even though we had several weeks winding down, it felt like we left abruptly and just as we were really getting involved in the meat of our work. It´s hard not to judge everything in these new cities against Iquitos (it really is a completely different culture here) or compare ourselves to the multitudes of gringo backpackers passing through, but we´re going to make the most of our last weeks in Peru and take it all in. We´re really looking forward to getting back to see family and enjoy the end of the tomato season. For those of you who haven´t heard, we both got jobs in the Asheville/Hendersonville area, Jess with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and me with the Nature Conservancy, which we´ll be starting after Labor Day.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Tarapoto and Nuevo Loreto (Andrew)
Last week we took our first “business trip” in Peru that didn’t start out on a boat. We, with our friend Pam, headed to the Iquitos airport on Friday. Due to a lucky twist of timing, we had the experience of seeing what happens when one of the famous soccer teams from Lima comes to play a rare game in Iquitos. We passed the crowd circling one of the plazas, but they caught up with us at the airport with horns honking, giant flags waving and bells ringing. It looked like this game was going to be much more exciting than the international match we saw. The security guards, however, didn’t look nearly as excited.
We arrived in Tarapoto in the dark just as the rain was hitting, and after launching ourselves into the pickup truck sent to pick us up at the airport, we arrived at our hostel, La Patarashca. It continued to rain hard the first night, so it wasn’t until the second night that we discovered that we were across the street from Tarapoto’s loudest bar. But there was a great little courtyard with rainforest plants and a leaf-thatched roof over a patio which was great for catching up on some of our work. There were also a couple parrots that started chatting at 6 in the morning, but we liked everything else so much (including the price) that we stayed through the weekend and into the week. We tried to visit a nearby waterfall on Sunday, which is often listed as one of the most interesting things to do around Tarapoto. Unfortunately, we got halfway there to discover that President Alan Garcia was visiting so they had blocked the road.
The purpose of our trip was to meet with an organization called the Centro de Conservación, Investigación, y Manejo de Areas Naturales (CIMA) which administers the Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul. The park itself spans the border of 4 Peruvian departments. CIMA works with 89 communities around the park to determine the amount of their resource use and implement monitoring and control for the park. Since PROCREL wants to do similar things, we wanted to talk with some of their staff and join them on a trip to a community where they are implementing a newer version of the social survey we used for a model when developing one for PROCREL.
We left in the wee hours of Thursday morning, throwing our stuff in the back of a Toyota 4WD pickup truck and cramming ourselves in the backseat. We met our equivalent in the CIMA organization, a guy from Spain now studying in New Zealand, who is here doing graduate research for a few months. The first part of the journey turned out to be the most dangerous, as we passed through an area where the road had been cut out of the cliffs and several couch-sized boulders had found their way onto the asphalt. The asphalt eventually ended, and the next hour took us over bone-jarring stretch of gravel roads until we reached a tiny town on the edge of a river. We were supposed to pick up two more team members, but they took one look at all the people in our vehicle and decided to go on their own with a motorbike. After fording the river, the road turned to clay, and even though it hadn’t rained for nearly a week, parts of it were still pretty muddy and rutted out. We were grateful for the abilities of both our truck and the driver. But even they couldn’t get us through our next obstacle- two log trucks and a giant bulldozer/monster-machine blocking the path (see videos). And that was before they dropped another tree across the road! Eventually, the monster hauled up the lost cargo, pulled out the trucks, and pushed the new tree out of the way so we were only stuck for an hour and half or so.
The town of Nuevo Loreto is reminiscent of our home communities in a few ways (houses clustered around soccer fields, lots of kids and chickens), but very different in most others (mountains looming all around, new crops, roads instead of rivers). The community was bigger, and had several sawmills working around the clock to produce furniture and better-constructed houses. The people were friendly, although like any new community we go into for the first time, it’s hard to connect with anyone outside our group of visitors. When the sun was out, tarps covered with cacao and rice would mysteriously appear in spots between buildings to dry out the harvest. Little kids led horses around and there were a few more pigs tied up in backyards. Once again we slept on a porch, although with a tent this time, but instead of music going until late in the evening, it started at 3:30am and went until dawn. Between that and the wall clock which played a song at the top of every hour, I was not a happy camper. The actual social inventory started the next day at the school, which was empty because the kids were celebrating “Flag Day”- which celebrates a noble (ie pointless) sacrifice of a Peruvian flag-bearer in the war against Chile. The inventory dialogues involved representatives from several neighboring communities and went for the full day and most of the next morning. We learned a lot from the process and got interesting ideas for new activities, although we came away with the feeling that the methodology we came up with is better suited for the circumstances of our organization.
We returned in the truck to Tarapoto without too much more excitement (only 1 bag fell off). When we stumbled into the hotel with sore lower halves and dusty bags, the uniformed attendants looked a little surprised. The last day in the city passed uneventfully as we recovered and waited until our late evening departure (we had built in some extra time in case of road delays). This time, there was no direct flight, so we spent the few hours of our layover on the couch graciously offered to us by Pam’s Aunt in Lima and arrived back in Iquitos at 7 the next morning. It was a fun trip, but we're glad to be back home for our last 3 weeks as we wrap things up.
We arrived in Tarapoto in the dark just as the rain was hitting, and after launching ourselves into the pickup truck sent to pick us up at the airport, we arrived at our hostel, La Patarashca. It continued to rain hard the first night, so it wasn’t until the second night that we discovered that we were across the street from Tarapoto’s loudest bar. But there was a great little courtyard with rainforest plants and a leaf-thatched roof over a patio which was great for catching up on some of our work. There were also a couple parrots that started chatting at 6 in the morning, but we liked everything else so much (including the price) that we stayed through the weekend and into the week. We tried to visit a nearby waterfall on Sunday, which is often listed as one of the most interesting things to do around Tarapoto. Unfortunately, we got halfway there to discover that President Alan Garcia was visiting so they had blocked the road.
The purpose of our trip was to meet with an organization called the Centro de Conservación, Investigación, y Manejo de Areas Naturales (CIMA) which administers the Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul. The park itself spans the border of 4 Peruvian departments. CIMA works with 89 communities around the park to determine the amount of their resource use and implement monitoring and control for the park. Since PROCREL wants to do similar things, we wanted to talk with some of their staff and join them on a trip to a community where they are implementing a newer version of the social survey we used for a model when developing one for PROCREL.
We left in the wee hours of Thursday morning, throwing our stuff in the back of a Toyota 4WD pickup truck and cramming ourselves in the backseat. We met our equivalent in the CIMA organization, a guy from Spain now studying in New Zealand, who is here doing graduate research for a few months. The first part of the journey turned out to be the most dangerous, as we passed through an area where the road had been cut out of the cliffs and several couch-sized boulders had found their way onto the asphalt. The asphalt eventually ended, and the next hour took us over bone-jarring stretch of gravel roads until we reached a tiny town on the edge of a river. We were supposed to pick up two more team members, but they took one look at all the people in our vehicle and decided to go on their own with a motorbike. After fording the river, the road turned to clay, and even though it hadn’t rained for nearly a week, parts of it were still pretty muddy and rutted out. We were grateful for the abilities of both our truck and the driver. But even they couldn’t get us through our next obstacle- two log trucks and a giant bulldozer/monster-machine blocking the path (see videos). And that was before they dropped another tree across the road! Eventually, the monster hauled up the lost cargo, pulled out the trucks, and pushed the new tree out of the way so we were only stuck for an hour and half or so.
The town of Nuevo Loreto is reminiscent of our home communities in a few ways (houses clustered around soccer fields, lots of kids and chickens), but very different in most others (mountains looming all around, new crops, roads instead of rivers). The community was bigger, and had several sawmills working around the clock to produce furniture and better-constructed houses. The people were friendly, although like any new community we go into for the first time, it’s hard to connect with anyone outside our group of visitors. When the sun was out, tarps covered with cacao and rice would mysteriously appear in spots between buildings to dry out the harvest. Little kids led horses around and there were a few more pigs tied up in backyards. Once again we slept on a porch, although with a tent this time, but instead of music going until late in the evening, it started at 3:30am and went until dawn. Between that and the wall clock which played a song at the top of every hour, I was not a happy camper. The actual social inventory started the next day at the school, which was empty because the kids were celebrating “Flag Day”- which celebrates a noble (ie pointless) sacrifice of a Peruvian flag-bearer in the war against Chile. The inventory dialogues involved representatives from several neighboring communities and went for the full day and most of the next morning. We learned a lot from the process and got interesting ideas for new activities, although we came away with the feeling that the methodology we came up with is better suited for the circumstances of our organization.
We returned in the truck to Tarapoto without too much more excitement (only 1 bag fell off). When we stumbled into the hotel with sore lower halves and dusty bags, the uniformed attendants looked a little surprised. The last day in the city passed uneventfully as we recovered and waited until our late evening departure (we had built in some extra time in case of road delays). This time, there was no direct flight, so we spent the few hours of our layover on the couch graciously offered to us by Pam’s Aunt in Lima and arrived back in Iquitos at 7 the next morning. It was a fun trip, but we're glad to be back home for our last 3 weeks as we wrap things up.
Addendum to "Why Some Peruvians have Strange Opinions about Gringos" (Andrew)
On our trip to Tarapoto, we met another interesting “gringo” from the U.S. He told us that he had come to Peru for three reasons: “1. For Adventure, 2. To build a church, 3. To find a wife”.
Me: “How’s that going?”
Strange Gringo: “Pretty good, but the women are really aggressive here”
My guess is, that if you show up announcing that you’re from the US and are here explicitly to find a good wife (and a long-term meaningful relationship???...), you will probably attract a certain subset of the population. Good luck, strange gringo man, whoever you are.
Me: “How’s that going?”
Strange Gringo: “Pretty good, but the women are really aggressive here”
My guess is, that if you show up announcing that you’re from the US and are here explicitly to find a good wife (and a long-term meaningful relationship???...), you will probably attract a certain subset of the population. Good luck, strange gringo man, whoever you are.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
A bit of an update (Jess)
We realized that we have still posted more from our two-month trip in Patagonia than our 8 months here. That is partly because it's easy to stop writing about things once they seem normal and our life here in Iquitos seems full and busy and, well, normal now. Nevertheless, it might make more sense for you guys reading back at home if we filled out the picture a little bit with the less flashy parts of what we're doing these days (i.e. not just the trips out to the villages).
A lot of our time recently has been devoted to working with our friend Pam organizing a volunteer program for PROCREL where recent graduates from environmental programs at the university here in Iquitos get placed in the communities around our proposed conservation areas for 4-month stints. The idea is that they will get important experience working on conservation initiatives in the field and interacting with rural communities (a TOTALLY different world than the city of Iquitos that many Iquiteños don’t actually have much exposure to) and they will help strengthen PROCREL’s relationship with those buffer communities while learning about the communities’ needs and activities. This last part has been Andrew and my pet project since Christmas, though it has evolved a lot since then. We are trying to adapt and design a plan for gathering and storing information about what forest resources people use, what areas are economically or culturally important, what are people’s perceptions about their quality of life, where their income comes from, how they feel and what they know about “conservation”, what they consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of their communities, and a whole range of other themes. This kind of information will be important for PROCREL and any other organizations working in the area in the future as they try to make a master plan for how the conservation area will be zoned, what sorts of programs will be developed, what their priorities should be, and how they can include local people in the protection of the area’s resources. This has been fun and challenging since Andrew and I don’t have any anthropological training, only have a few months’ experience in the area, and have less than perfect Spanish. However, we’ve been able to explore the ways that other conservation organizations have approached the problem and have received generous help from people working on social assessments in Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul (we get to go visit and watch them in action next week!).
We are using focus groups, household surveys, interactive maps, and various other exercises to get villagers talking about these things, and the volunteers are documenting all their responses in this first pilot round to test out how well the questions Andrew and I have written and chosen work. Meanwhile we are trying to make a database where we can put all the information that they are gathering, and we’re also going out to check on them periodically to make sure that everything is going alright. Hopefully, when we end our time with PROCREL in early July, we will leave them with an accessible database, a field-tested set of tools, and an adaptable methodology that they can use for doing the social assessments in the rest of the buffer-zone communities. I have heard that some communities are just about sick of being socially assessed because every organization that comes to work in them does their own version and then they don't share the information with the other organizations, so we are trying to be sensitive to this and not re-invent the wheel and use any available information already collected and make our data accessible to others, but we are kind of new to this, so hopefully we won't make too many unfixable mistakes.
Getting this ball rolling, keeping up with the logistics of having six volunteers currently in the field, and lending a hand with the projects of other PROCREL staff members has led to some long days in the office recently. Weeks when we are teaching English classes at night are even busier (classes have been fun recently- we showed an episode of Planet Earth to an appreciative audience of biologist students and talked about the English "nature words" that are used in it.) Then there is also the time spent looking for and applying to and worrying about jobs and other opportunities for when we return home not too long from now. Fortunately for my stress level, there is an AWESOME juice stand on the way home where we stop for fresh delicious juice (I prefer cocona, maracuya, and sometimes uva, Andrew’s favorite is toronja) which comes in a plastic bag with a straw if you get it “to go”, and a giant piece of warm pound-cake. This costs 1$ for everything. I will miss it terribly when we leave.
A lot of our time recently has been devoted to working with our friend Pam organizing a volunteer program for PROCREL where recent graduates from environmental programs at the university here in Iquitos get placed in the communities around our proposed conservation areas for 4-month stints. The idea is that they will get important experience working on conservation initiatives in the field and interacting with rural communities (a TOTALLY different world than the city of Iquitos that many Iquiteños don’t actually have much exposure to) and they will help strengthen PROCREL’s relationship with those buffer communities while learning about the communities’ needs and activities. This last part has been Andrew and my pet project since Christmas, though it has evolved a lot since then. We are trying to adapt and design a plan for gathering and storing information about what forest resources people use, what areas are economically or culturally important, what are people’s perceptions about their quality of life, where their income comes from, how they feel and what they know about “conservation”, what they consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of their communities, and a whole range of other themes. This kind of information will be important for PROCREL and any other organizations working in the area in the future as they try to make a master plan for how the conservation area will be zoned, what sorts of programs will be developed, what their priorities should be, and how they can include local people in the protection of the area’s resources. This has been fun and challenging since Andrew and I don’t have any anthropological training, only have a few months’ experience in the area, and have less than perfect Spanish. However, we’ve been able to explore the ways that other conservation organizations have approached the problem and have received generous help from people working on social assessments in Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul (we get to go visit and watch them in action next week!).
We are using focus groups, household surveys, interactive maps, and various other exercises to get villagers talking about these things, and the volunteers are documenting all their responses in this first pilot round to test out how well the questions Andrew and I have written and chosen work. Meanwhile we are trying to make a database where we can put all the information that they are gathering, and we’re also going out to check on them periodically to make sure that everything is going alright. Hopefully, when we end our time with PROCREL in early July, we will leave them with an accessible database, a field-tested set of tools, and an adaptable methodology that they can use for doing the social assessments in the rest of the buffer-zone communities. I have heard that some communities are just about sick of being socially assessed because every organization that comes to work in them does their own version and then they don't share the information with the other organizations, so we are trying to be sensitive to this and not re-invent the wheel and use any available information already collected and make our data accessible to others, but we are kind of new to this, so hopefully we won't make too many unfixable mistakes.
Getting this ball rolling, keeping up with the logistics of having six volunteers currently in the field, and lending a hand with the projects of other PROCREL staff members has led to some long days in the office recently. Weeks when we are teaching English classes at night are even busier (classes have been fun recently- we showed an episode of Planet Earth to an appreciative audience of biologist students and talked about the English "nature words" that are used in it.) Then there is also the time spent looking for and applying to and worrying about jobs and other opportunities for when we return home not too long from now. Fortunately for my stress level, there is an AWESOME juice stand on the way home where we stop for fresh delicious juice (I prefer cocona, maracuya, and sometimes uva, Andrew’s favorite is toronja) which comes in a plastic bag with a straw if you get it “to go”, and a giant piece of warm pound-cake. This costs 1$ for everything. I will miss it terribly when we leave.
Why Some Peruvians have Strange Opinions of Gringos
Here are two examples from recent weeks that have shed some light on the way light-skinned foreigners are perceived and treated here in Loreto.
On our last trip on the Rio Nanay, we came around a bend to see a canoe full of water with a man and a woman holding on to the side (There is a picture on the second of the 3 Flickr website links to the right). We pulled alongside and bailed out the canoe, helped the people on board our boat, and retrieved as much of their floating cargo as we could (lots of limes). The mother was hysterical until we found their young daughter hanging on to a tree on the side of the river upstream. It turned out that a large passing boat (which we could still see going around the next bend as we arrived) had swamped them with its passing wave. They had lost their peque-peque motor (costs several hundred soles) and most of the cargo they were traveling to Iquitos with to sell, and they probably would have lost the canoe if we hadn’t arrived. They were several days from home and had now lost their income and their transportation.
We hailed some kids passing by in a canoe and paid them with soda and crackers to tow the bailed out canoe to their community nearby to be retrieved later. We then took the family and caught up with the offending large boat which had not stopped or slowed down (Also a picture on Flickr). Jess and I realized as we pulled up that there was a big red cross on the side and the words “Chosen Vessel.” When we pulled up alongside (they refused to stop), we could clearly see white people inside the cabin. We assume that these people were either missionaries or on some sort of religious tour. Either way, they were very reluctant to deal with our group and didn’t want to take any responsibility for the damage caused by their waves. Eventually the family just got off our boat and forced their way onto the “Chosen Vessel” with their stuff and we drove away, leaving them to negotiate some sort of compromise, but we felt quite embarrassed for the behavior of our fellow Americans.
The second story comes from within the city. There is a construction going up on the water just outside the La Pascana hostel, where we spent our first couple weeks in Iquitos. Our friend Nick (a fellow Fulbrighter) is visiting this week and we were walking along the waterfront boulevard when we stopped to look at the construction. We noticed a sign on the front that had a website address so we decided to check it out when we got back to the apartment. It turns out that this is a project to build a giant Egyptian-modeled floating pyramid. There are lots of pictures on the website, as well as a seemingly stream-of-consciousness description. Our favorite section is this one:
“I believe that Ayahuasca sets up a channel between ourselves and higher intelligences so I do not claim the architectural creativity is mine - I consider the project a blueprint from the Gods, or certainly higher alien intelligence. I have no architectural or engineering training or experience. Often I'd take some Ayahuasca and ask it questions like how do I join this piece of wood to this piece of wood? The Ayahuasca always provided the answers.”
May be the Indiana Jones movie wasn’t too far off with its aliens and pyramids in the Amazon. After he builds the pyramid, this guy intends to float it to the far side of the river (if he can finish in 2 weeks before the river drops!), anchor it, and turn it into a meditation/spirituality/ayahuasca retreat complex. With coffee, a gym, and wireless internet of course. There is a British Flag on top of the structure, so it doesn’t seem to be an American production.
Nick noticed the same thing we’ve seen with Iquitos tourists- there are two distinct crowds. One is the older, wealthier travels, here for an ecotour in the “Jungle”. The other is the young, dreadlocked ayahuasca crowd, usually as part of the next step in their experimental drug use. Out on the river, you’re more likely to run into a missionary or a businessman. So people tend to be confused when we introduce ourselves as interns with a Peruvian governmental organization.
On our last trip on the Rio Nanay, we came around a bend to see a canoe full of water with a man and a woman holding on to the side (There is a picture on the second of the 3 Flickr website links to the right). We pulled alongside and bailed out the canoe, helped the people on board our boat, and retrieved as much of their floating cargo as we could (lots of limes). The mother was hysterical until we found their young daughter hanging on to a tree on the side of the river upstream. It turned out that a large passing boat (which we could still see going around the next bend as we arrived) had swamped them with its passing wave. They had lost their peque-peque motor (costs several hundred soles) and most of the cargo they were traveling to Iquitos with to sell, and they probably would have lost the canoe if we hadn’t arrived. They were several days from home and had now lost their income and their transportation.
We hailed some kids passing by in a canoe and paid them with soda and crackers to tow the bailed out canoe to their community nearby to be retrieved later. We then took the family and caught up with the offending large boat which had not stopped or slowed down (Also a picture on Flickr). Jess and I realized as we pulled up that there was a big red cross on the side and the words “Chosen Vessel.” When we pulled up alongside (they refused to stop), we could clearly see white people inside the cabin. We assume that these people were either missionaries or on some sort of religious tour. Either way, they were very reluctant to deal with our group and didn’t want to take any responsibility for the damage caused by their waves. Eventually the family just got off our boat and forced their way onto the “Chosen Vessel” with their stuff and we drove away, leaving them to negotiate some sort of compromise, but we felt quite embarrassed for the behavior of our fellow Americans.
The second story comes from within the city. There is a construction going up on the water just outside the La Pascana hostel, where we spent our first couple weeks in Iquitos. Our friend Nick (a fellow Fulbrighter) is visiting this week and we were walking along the waterfront boulevard when we stopped to look at the construction. We noticed a sign on the front that had a website address so we decided to check it out when we got back to the apartment. It turns out that this is a project to build a giant Egyptian-modeled floating pyramid. There are lots of pictures on the website, as well as a seemingly stream-of-consciousness description. Our favorite section is this one:
“I believe that Ayahuasca sets up a channel between ourselves and higher intelligences so I do not claim the architectural creativity is mine - I consider the project a blueprint from the Gods, or certainly higher alien intelligence. I have no architectural or engineering training or experience. Often I'd take some Ayahuasca and ask it questions like how do I join this piece of wood to this piece of wood? The Ayahuasca always provided the answers.”
May be the Indiana Jones movie wasn’t too far off with its aliens and pyramids in the Amazon. After he builds the pyramid, this guy intends to float it to the far side of the river (if he can finish in 2 weeks before the river drops!), anchor it, and turn it into a meditation/spirituality/ayahuasca retreat complex. With coffee, a gym, and wireless internet of course. There is a British Flag on top of the structure, so it doesn’t seem to be an American production.
Nick noticed the same thing we’ve seen with Iquitos tourists- there are two distinct crowds. One is the older, wealthier travels, here for an ecotour in the “Jungle”. The other is the young, dreadlocked ayahuasca crowd, usually as part of the next step in their experimental drug use. Out on the river, you’re more likely to run into a missionary or a businessman. So people tend to be confused when we introduce ourselves as interns with a Peruvian governmental organization.
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