Vacation from vacation on vacation

Hello folks!

An exclusively verbal update--I've landed in Valdivia, Chile after touring the southernmost stretches of Nothofagus forest and bearing the mighty wind of the Patagonian steppe. I'm now settled for a few weeks at a hostel/permaculture demonstration center, where I'm working on putting together a rocket stove/thermal mass heater system, as well as cataloguing the plant life of the second-growth rainforest on property owned by the hostel owner...pictures to come!

My camera battery has gone dead, and I have yet to find an adapter for the Chilean electric outlets...there's one at the hostel somewhere, that I just need to get my hands on.

much love,
steve

Change in plans



Today I'm resting and letting lower digestive tract issues run their course...tomorrow I´ll head to Mendoza, Argentina and with any luck meet up with Noah, otherwise continue further south to see the transition of late summer into fall in Tierra del Fuego, and move northward as the season deepens toward winter in the southern hemisphere (meanwhile, my beloved savannah and woodland birds will get the hankering to fly thousands of miles north to Missouri).

I´ve parted ways with Ryne and Jen, who are currently hanging out in subtropical forest, and are headed southward thereafter...maybe to meet up with later in Patagonia? Today, I´m hanging out in and near Jujuy, Argentina, and found it a convenient situation to make a (monster) blog entry. Here goes!

Earthquake damage in Pisco, on the Pacific coast of Peru. We had a stopover in this town and spent the day seeking out birds of the coastal wetlands nearby.



Up into the cloud forest of the western Andean slope! The town of Abancay lies in the valley below the loosely designated nature preserve where these pictures were taken..

Something along the lines of a sunflower, acting much like a tree.

Podocarpus, a yew-like conifer of the cloud forest

Lush epiphytic growth made possible by persistently humid conditions

Abancay below, although there were folks living far up the mountain, higher than my body would comfortably go, as at this point I had not acclimated well to the altitude. On the second day of our visit to the area, I stayed much lower than the first, and my day´s adventures were much more physiological than ecological. Ryne continued up to the paramo, where even there were some houses of Quechua folks. On the second day, I was happened upon by a crew of 12 to 14 year olds who gave me some food (arroz, carne, y hot dog slices), and enjoyed having a Quechu-spanglish-pseudo-conversation with their groggy gringo friend. A couple of days later we were at lower elevations and heading into Machu Picchu (via testosterone-poisoned cab drivers…really fast on those narrow, unpaved mountain roads).

Spires surrounding Machu Picchu

Temple of the Moon (in a cave near Machu Picchu)

Oft-present rufous-collared sparrow

Present-day mammalian inhabitants of Machu Picchu

Ruins...fairly complete, I thought, aside from the deficit of rooftops

Then we ran into Alec Lindsay on the way back…this was actually a guy originally from near Joliet , IL who, with his Peruvian wife Gladys, intends to start giving bird tours out of Aguas Calientes…the railroad corridor between this town/gringo hang-out did indeed support a great diversity of birds.

Lake Titicaca, seen from an island within it. We stayed one night on the island, and despite the heavy sheep –grazing, there were some intact natural communities (mostly where rocks and steep inclines prevented sheep from grazing, or people from cultivating food plants). People on the island cultivated quinoa, sorrel, and potatoes for the most part, grown in perhaps ancient terraced beds

Jungle Jen avoids the gringo trail

The walk back to our hosts´ home included scenes highly reminiscent of our old familiar Lake Michigan…except with fewer shorebirds and more (flightless, endemic to Lakes Titicaca and Poopo) short-winged grebes

El Choro trail, near the trailhead in La Cumbre, Bolivia. My hammock didn´t quite work the first night here, but I still managed to get in a decent sleep…

High elevation cushion plant bog

Diminutive alpine flowering plants

I was glad this weather waited for the morning! There was a thunderstorm in the next valley over, and we were graced with a wintry morning, which turned to rain on our way down, clearing up and warming up eventually (as evidenced by my fingers not having dropped off of my hands!)



Beautiful Tachinid (or is it Tachniid…someone correct me) fly in the shrub zone below the paramo

I will send baked goods to whoever can tell me what genus this plant is in.  

Polylepis shrub



Great sedge! (I promise to devote an entry to monocots later)



A happy camper, yours truly, basks in the glory of the lower cloud forest

Ryne and Jen walk past some of the hugest bracken fern I´d ever encountered

Army ants headed to their bivouac

Sock-drying time was great for insect-watching in the sunny Yungas forest

Typical wet season road conditions in Bolivia



Ryne has a look at the prop-roots of this “walking palm” (Socratea) that has meandered to a light gap atop a leafcutter ant colony



Short-tailed pygmy-tyrant  nest…the bumblebee-sized bird (tied for smallest passerine in S. America) was too small to photograph.

A common butterfly near Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Paracas, continued

At the bus terminal in La Paz, now...we´re going to be in the area until late afternoon, as the bus drivers that drive between here and Oruro are presently on strike...apparently not an uncommon thing to have happen. It´s nice to not be on a bus after about 20 hours of being on one--we came from the swampy-hot lowland jungle all the way to La Paz on the Altiplano, where we drove the last hour or so through snowy mountain rises.

Back to about a month ago, some pictures to fill in the gaps--with its arid southern coastal desert, it was somewhat surprising to encounter such an abundance of life which the ocean brings--here are a few pictures for illustration... 

Peruvian boobies nest in dried-guano bowl-shaped nests high up on coastal bluffs

Said bluffs...here we also saw Humboldt penguins, Inca terns, red-legged cormorants, Peruvian pelicans, a sea otter, and sea lions--a sharp contrast with the inland landscape, which was covered by a surface crust of crystallized salt and sand (you could tap on the surface and hear its hollow resonance, cavernous as the salt crystal formations were)

One of at least three lizard species we found near the cliff´s edge; aside from some lichens, there were no forms of photosynthesizing life for miles.

I´m convinced these are human artifacts, not certain from when (Jen found them semi-buried in a rock pile). The notch in the darker stone made for a comfortable spot to rest one´s thumb, while the lighter rock appeared to have been repeatedly struck by other rocks (difficult to see in this picture). A means for cracking open crabs?

Epiphytes for Primary Production

You know where you are?!

You´re in the jungle, baby! This first frog (Osteocephalus sp.? I don´t know) sitting in a Heliconias plant fully met up with my stereotypical preconceptions of what rainforest must be like.

I couldn´t wait to post these photos - I´ll fill in with details between dry, lifeless Atacama desert and mega-diverse lowland/foothill Amazon rainforest in coming posts. These are all from Parque Nacional Madidi in Bolivia, near Rurrenabaque. Enjoy, and have a lovely evening or day!

Vines and palms in abundance

Long-tailed Potoo, second sighting at Chalalan Eco-lodge in 15 years

Beautifully camouflaged crested toad in the fallen and decomposing forest leaves

A curled fallen palm frond provides a suitable microclimate for the wasps pupating within these cases. Regrettably, my curiosity and desire for instant knowledge spelt the premature death of the pupa furthest left.

Cup fungi fruiting on wood

¨Monkey Ladder¨

A vine which has apparently converged on the tetrapod limb. On some nodes, the tendrils appeared to grasp onto neighboring vines with all three extensions, or just hold on by pinching between two.

We had taken a hike to an oxbow lake (of the Tuichi River) and then to the riverside, via a fishing trail which was not well-trodden. I lingered at the river´s edge to watch a water tyrant as my party headed back to the main trail, and, having been blindly following the guide on the way there, did not know the exact way back to the trail. I began to head back on what looked to be the most prominent trail, only for it to dissolve into nothing distinguishable from the ambient vegetation. I tried the same trail a few times, and then strayed progressively further from the river in search of the main trail, hollered to try and get the attention of my group, and beat on the butress roots of Almendrello trees for lack of vocal volume. There were certainly plenty of trails, but all I could find were those of peccaries and ants! Once dusk began to fall, I was unable to see tracks in the mud, which by that time were increasingly those of my own, trying to find the trail. I decided not to move too far from the river in case anyone came back looking for me (bad PR, I figured, if they neglected to), but accepted the idea of sitting the night out up in a tree, outside the reach of peccaries (very intimidating inhabitants of the jungle) and at least away from the direct routes of pumas and jaguars which may have been hunting along the river. I plucked a Theobroma cacao fruit, anticipating eating it for breakfast the following morning, and enjoyed the coming and going of swifts, bats, moths, calls of insects, rising of the moon, and ever-slight turns of the planet, seen as constellations moving slightly. A wonderful evening, graced by the visit of the arboreal mammal in the photo (using a camera flash, I could only see its eyeshine). The guides, of course, came back to find me, and we went back to the lodge...interesting night - I only didn´t like that other people had to be bothered on my account.

Tree frog on the way back to the lodge.

Great big snail! There is a mosquito captured in flight, in the background (I wish I could say it was intentionally photographed).