Sunday through Tuesday

PICTURES TO COME SOON

So I’ve definitely slipped from my attempt to update every day here. Shortened version of what I’ve done the past few days: 

Sunday, aka “Just get on the green bus, they said. All green buses lead to Quito, they said. It’ll be 25 cents, they said.” 

Savannah and I knew we wanted to go explore Quito, so Claudia and Antonio recommended that we visit Plaza Foch and the Telefériqo, so after taking some directions and tips, we went on a bus adventure. 

And by bus adventure, I mean Savannah and I took the green bus to the end of the line in the wrong direction (FYI, it goes to Puembo, which is a poor shanty town) and then hopped on the next one going the opposite direction to finally make it to Quito.
Arriving at the Rio Coca bus station extremely hungry, we decide to each have an empanada from a vendor set up near the ticket stations before taking the Ecovía to the intersection of Manuela Cañisteras and 6 de Diciembre to get to Plaza Foch. Turns out it is a direct stop in tourist trapland. Savannah had a cup of coffee from The Magic Bean, which apparently did not have magic in their beans, and then we took a taxi to Telefériqo. 

Telefériqo was incredible. I’m constantly shocked at how thin the air is at higher altitudes and how noticeable it is in my lungs but other than that and the chill up there, the view was fantastic. I refer you to Savannah’s page for some good images of our experience. We could see all of the mountain ranges in the cordillera around town, especially Cotopaxi, which I will climb in Mountain Geology class in a few weeks. Pretty gorgeous. 

Then we took the Teleférico shuttle back to an Ecovía station and rode back to Rio Coca, hopped on a green bus the correct way, and finally got back to Cumbaya in time for a nice dinner of rice, beans, and chicken. At some point in the evening, I heard my computer charger make a snapping sound in the converter box area and realized it stopped working. It was great. 

We watched the animated movie “TinTin” with host mom, host dad, and Antonio, and then went to sleep. 

Monday: CLASS STARTS! 

The first day of Tropical Ecology was really nice. We did some introduction and course explanation, syllabus-type stuff, and proceeded to review basics of ecological concepts. We were split into 5 groups to for an independent research project, which we are to present at the end of the course in 3 weeks. Our professor Esteban Suarez kept emphasizing how important field work is to learning ecology and that by first learning the facts and patterns of the systems and then seeing them in real life and interacting with them directly, we are genuinely learning in a living laboratory. This week we are hiking down Paluguillo to see the páramo wet alpine ecosystem, next week we’re exploring a cloud forest, and the week after that we will be going to the Amazon to spend several days at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station. Biology at its purest. 

Unfortunately, I felt rather ill the entire 3 hours we spent in class this morning. After class we had lunch and I tried to buy a computer charger. It was really expensive, so I didn’t buy it at that point. So instead I went back to the house for water and a nap to nurse my tumultuous stomach.
About 2:30, I went back to campus to take a Spanish placement test for the voluntary supplemental language class we’re offered in the afternoons. So it was my luck that I twisted my ankle stepping from a ramp just outside of the classroom. Fortunately, some classmates were coming from the room and were able to help me up. I’m told I entered the classroom a much paler color than my normal complexion. 

I was pretty sick the rest of the day, but after several hours of sleep with some Pepto Bismol and Motrin, I woke up feeling infinitely better, did my class reading, and prepared for class the next day. 

Tuesday: Páramos are really awesome and really sad at the same time 

We discussed altitudinal zonation features of páramo ecosystems. Páramo are wet alpine ecosystems, located in the northern Andes (where we are!), some in Africa, and some very sparsely in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Plants and animals are, of course, adapted for their surroundings. Plants have many features that help them deflect wind and cold, protect against fires and other damages, and generally survive harsh conditions. 

One of the things we learned was the nursing effect of alpine cushion plants - where there is more cushion plant ground coverage, there is a higher number of species living in or around the cushion plant. 

Something really interesting and philosophic that Esteban mentioned was the idea that in times or places of plenty, there is competition; but in times or places of hard and trying times, there is solidarity and cooperation. Something to think about.

Páramo ecosystems are not meant for cattle raising. In fact, even to see a white-tailed deer is something incredibly rare in these mountains (unlike the US, of course), because the soils are nutrient poor due to cold temperatures and the plants are small, waxy, and paranoid. Grazing animals don’t prefer these for food. However, as an agrarian reform movement a few decades ago, land in the middle and upper páramo systems was given to poor farmers as an ownership right. These farmers tend to raise sad, skinny cows, which they hang onto dearly because it is their “savings account” and their only thing with monetary value. 

The only way for the cows to not be sad and skinny is to give them enough to eat, which generally might mean not trying to raise them in high altitudes with nutrient-low plants, or it might mean burning the mountainside so that the dead leaf coverage on the ground is cleared to give way to quick-growth wild grasses. Guess which happens most commonly? Yeah, that’s maybe why my bathroom smells like campfire smoke if I forget to close the window some nights. 

Another event leading to extensive ecosystem destruction is the push for forestry instead of cattle-raising for poor farmers. So some farmers grow pine and eucalyptus trees to sell, neither of which are native to the area, and both of which are extremely water-demanding. 

85% of all of the water used in Quito (a city of over 2.5 million people) and 100% of all water in Bogotá, Colombia is directly from the páramo systems. The high concentration of organic matter in the topsoil that isn’t decomposing due to weather serves as an excellent sponge for water. In fact, páramo soil can absorb 4 times its volume in water, and this means that during dry seasons páramo communities can count on a reliable source of water because it has been stored by the mountain surface. Destruction of these ecosystems not only threatens the livelihood of those depending on the land and severes ecological ties between species that keep these mountains alive, but it also means endangerment of the water supply. Whoops! Let’s start learning to live without water? Oh wait... 

We learned some specifics about plant forms, too, but I just told you the things most interesting to me from today. 

Other things... I did some email duty, couldn’t really stomach more than 3 bites of a “vegetarian pizza crepe” for lunch that was basically cheese and sauce in a crepe, went to language class, did reading, and had a small dinner of lentil soup, noodles, and palento. Savannah today seems to be facing some similar digestive problems as I did the past 36 hours. Seeing our pathetic pale faces today, Natacha demanded, “What did you eat on Sunday!?” and we sheepishly answered that it was probably the bus station empanadas. No comeremos la comida sketchy jámas. 

BUT. Tomorrow we are hiking from 14,000 feet on Paluguillo! My twisted ankle and I are ready.