Returning to my new home

Returning places is always filled with a sense of wonder.

Quito was a quick maze of government buildings as I sought to register my visa and go to el senso. Neither of these things was I aware of before arriving to Ecuador. En la frontera I was informed, and had to navigate my way through LatinoAmericano bureaucracy in order to take care of these things before arriving in Bahia. Fortunately my friend met me in Quito, knew the city, and helped me both with making my way through the city, and with understanding what people were trying to tell me. You have to be a bit pushy and pleady here in order to take care of things. At the senso, I was actually given an Ecuadorian ID! Cool!

We went to Guayaquil so he could vote, and apparently the elections were a big deal this year. President Correa posed 10 questions which would make amendments ranging from banning bullfighting and cockfighting to not allowing the media to have interests in non-media corporations, to restructuring the judicial system. All of the questions passed in the pre-count, though most of them narrowly and with a good bit of heated conversation. Hopefully things don't become agitated in this country while I'm here!

Guayaquil: caliente, caliente, caliente!
Stepping off the bus was stepping into a mass of muggy air. Each day leaving the hotel room (which was air-conditioned) I immediately wanted another shower. I was a bit worried that Bahia (also on the coast, and even closer to the equator) would have this terrible heat. Though the port city does not have the best reputation, and certainly does not have the colonial beauty like Quito, we had a nice walk on the boardwalk, played around on a sailboat that was open to tour, and climbed to a tower in the old part of the city. You'd see pics, but I forgot to put a fresh battery in the camera.

Bahia: cultura diferente...
Its hard in some ways to describe how things are different here, but they very much are. In Quito, and in Colombia in the cities where I was, things seemed to have less of a distinct difference, but I'm on the coast now, which means coastal time. Coastal time here is a bit like island time, like when I'd go to the San Juan Islands in Washington. There are chickens running all around, a donkey brays, kids are playing in the dirt roads. Motos are common forms of transportation. Everyone knows each other. You take a break in the middle of the day because it's hot. Everyone eats together, even if there is just barely enough. You eat most things with a spoon. Fish and rice are common. The buildings are made of bamboo and wood (and a bit of cement) and the structure is shoddy but everyone has a computer and there's a projector on the wall and 15-year-olds have Blackberries. All work is done manually instead of using machinery and people just seem to do it. People are mining sand form the beaches to use in construction and so the beach is left with less sand and the hills are eroding. The papaya tree is loaded with fruit.

I know my writing is a bit disorganized but I wanted to share a little bit and in many ways its quite overwhelming to be back in this place. Peace and happiness to all who may read this and I do miss friends and family much so let me know how you are doing!

First Solitary Hike in the Southern Hemisphere: Valle de Cocora

My first solitary hike in South America: I arise at 5:30 in the morning, and leave just as the sun begins to highlight the cloud formations and cast its rays to illuminate the brilliant green hillsides. Even in this touristy (and incredibly beautiful) town of Salento, I am early enough to be sitting in the back of a jeep with only locals. It winds on twisted roads, arrives in Cocora, at the beginning of my hike.


I'd skipped breakfast, banking on the fact that one can get food just about anywhere in Latin America at just about any time, if you are willing to compromise quality. Not so here, now. I settle on chips and a sweet coconut snack, hoping it will hold me for the four hour hike.

Rain, lots of rain the night before. (actually, this year Colombia has received more rain than in anyone's memory) Lots of rain makes lots of mud. Through the first part of the walk it was hard to enjoy the incredible landscape around me as I tried to not to sink over the tops of my shoes in muddy horse tracks. But the wax palm landscape (tallest palm and tallest monocot in the world!) was intoxicating in the morning light. Clinging to barbed wire fence to keep myself from sinking into el lodo, I kept on, until reaching the cloud forest.


The day before, a fairly adventurous girl had told me she was glad she'd gone with other people because on this part of the hike there were several river crossings that involved downed logs and bridges of poor integrity. Anticipating this, I was a bit nervous, and decided that I'm experienced enough to know my limits and that if I encounter something I'm not comfortable with, I'll stop, wait, turn around, or make some sort of intelligent decision. However, none compared to the bridges I crossed in El Bolson or the downed log crossings in Chile last year. Thank goodness!

At the far point in the loop one reaches a reserve, which reputedly serves hot chocolate (or other drinks) and a bit of queso for a small price. My lack of breakfast and snacks left me looking quite forward to this. It also was said to have a number of hummingbirds.


Well, the hummingbirds were there, but not a person to be found. I spent an hour taking photos, resting, waiting, changing lenses and taking more photos. Because of this I could not take the hike any further (there's a spur off the loop that heads into paramo), and instead turned around, to have a lunch of trout in a garlic and mushroom sauce (trout is a specialty of the region).

New beginnings in Bogota

Returning to our southern sister continent has been surprisingly easy, in large part due to my hosts Enrique and Mariella, los padres of a friend who I met last year in Bolivia. Settling in has felt quite easy, the language is beginning to come back, and the city does not feel intimidating (though Bogota is large – 9 million people).

After arriving, Enrique and Mariella treated me to a tasty lunch at home; then I slept most of the day away. Today we went to Monserrate, which you can reach via teleferico to the top, where there is a church. Being that it is Semana Santa (Holy Week) there were many people attending the service.

Mossy cross.

View downwards towards the city from the teleferico.

The streets around Monserrate.

Next we went to the home of Simon Bolivar, liberator of many Latin American countries. There was a garden around it: it included some plants signifying peace between countries (including los Estados Unidos), the coat of arms of the countries which Bolivar helped to attain freedom from Spain’s rule (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama), a huerta with a number of culinary and medicinal plants, and other themed areas.

One of the coat of arms.

Enrique and Mariella, at la Quinta de Simon Bolivar.

We strolled the Candelaria district, which is quite old and historic, and saw the main church, the home of the president, and several other notable buildings.

The next day, I chilled out at the Botanical Garden, which is one of the better ones I’ve been to internationally. It includes a mariposario, where I saw many butterflies! Went a bit photo-crazy, and in the mariposario, my lenses steamed up with all the humidity which was creating a false jungle environment. Had to do some photo editing to salvage some of these, but it was worth it. Later, a bit of a walk in Parque Simon Bolivar, a tasty helado, and navigating myself back to the house.

Tomorrow I’m off to Pereira, a la zona cafetera, on an 8-hour bus ride.

Field Guide Project: A bit about the work I'm hoping to accomplish this year

Yep, its work I want to do here. When Jameson and I were in South America several months ago, we were always on the lookout for resources to help us understand more about the flora and fauna we were experiencing. When traveling to new places, some people collect shot glasses, others collect t-shirts or mugs. I collect field guides. I love them. Some are insightful, others are mediocre, but they are my way of staying in touch with a place.

Throughout our travels it became increasingly evident how difficult these are to find, and progressively more so as we ventured into ever more biodiverse areas. This makes complete sense, in a way: there are so many things to describe, and discoveries of new species in these areas are not surprising, either. With this in mind, I decided to follow an ambitious dream to develop locally-to-regionally based guidebooks, starting with the most recent place I spent time volunteering: Reserva Cerro Seco, on the Ecuadorian coast, in the ‘eco-ciudad’ of Bahia de Caraquez, 1 degree south of the Equator in dry tropical forest.

I chose this area for several reasons a) there is a huge amount of deforestation going on in the region and I believe that generating energy and stimulating education around biodiversity and the importance of the forest as a living entity will be one way to help counter that, b) the rate of endemic species is something like 23%, c) though there is a high number of species it is less than something in the rainforest, therefore more manageable, d) I made friends there who are excited to have me and want to support this project, e) I’ll be helping them with other projects such as reforestation, environmental ed, and bringing other volunteers to work with them, f) the ocean will be a 10 minute walk from my home and warm enough to swim in.

There will be a number of opportunities for me to get involved with on-the-ground work and play an integral role in what is going on to build sustainability and conservation programs in the area. After volunteering for month-long stints last year, I'm hoping that this extended stay will provide me with the chance to do some more meaningful work in protecting an area that is subject to a number of human threats (especially deforestation), contribute to the body of scientific knowledge, and connect people more strongly to the land.

Several months ago I began to solicit contacts and initiate some background work on this endeavor; however, I was a bit too busy experiencing life in all of its wondrous glory as I explored the vast West while I conducted fieldwork, and I had to set aside some of my intentions for preparation temporarily in order to properly take advantage of the present. I’m now throwing myself full-heartedly into this work (ok, after 2 weeks in Colombia!), and ready as I’ll ever be. Whatever happens, i.e., whether or not the project is successful, I hope and believe that something will come out of it and I will learn a lot through the process.

New Journey Awaits, and Notes on Loving Life

The sun sets behind me illuminating a haze of clouds on the horizon as my plane jets eastward to Florida. I passed over the beautiful aridity and canyonlands of Nevada, Utah, and the gorgeous topography of Colorado, and now I’m over some farming state I can no longer identify. It grows dark as we escape the sun.

If I’ve not told you personally or you haven’t picked up on it via Facebook or something, I’m headed back to South America, solita, to do some work in the dry tropical forest at Reserva Cerro Seco, an eco-reserve on the coast. The main thing I’d like to tackle is developing a field guide to the plants of the area, though my other work will include volunteer coordination, sustainability and reforestation projects. Since everyone asks, no I’m not getting paid, yes I’m self-funded from strict and regimented saving during a couple stints of botany work I had over the last few months in the States, yes I would love to make further connections down there and learn about grant and other work opportunities, and no, I don’t have a return ticket.

The last few days and weeks have brought me a whirlwind of unexpected emotion as I prepare to leave and live in Ecuador. Not all of them have been pleasant. I’ve come to love my country more and appreciate all the wonderful luxuries we enjoy. I’ve been surrounded everywhere I go with an abundance of love from family, friends, and strangers. I’ve experienced exquisite beauty in forgotten desert landscapes that beckons tears from my eyes: the call of an unidentified bird in the sunset glow of the Sonoran desert; ochre buttes and elk herds in the Wyoming wilderness; granite outcrops punctuating pine forest in the Sierra Nevadas; Joshua Tree’s jumbled rocks. I’ve spent more time with my family in these past few months than in any other years of my adult life, and I love them.

The last few months I have been living life quite fully and have appreciated each and every day: its splendor and its sadness. I wish for everyone to live and love life as completely as is possible for them in whatever situation they find themselves able to do so.

Overdue notes on Arizona

Oh, Arizona.

Desolate beauty.

Saguaro cacti piercing vast open sky.

Saguaros, so twisted, contorted.

So much like people, with unique, different, morphing shapes, stately arms, most reaching towards the heavens, some grasping for the earth, weighted by their own selves, some curving around, like arms of a ballet dancer circling her waist as she twists.

Some appear like faces, with funny noses protruding.

In the daylight: green, fully exposing their multiple uses by many species for habitat, their skins carved, eaten, becoming woody with age. Hosting nests of large birds in their elbows and shoulders.

In the evening: as the light falls, colors fade and the spines catch the dimming light, appearing to glow at their tops where their spines come together.

In the dusk: silhouetted against the sunset, the sunrise, the moonrise: giants, anthropomorphized towering statues, reaching for the stars.

Saguaros occurring singly amidst vast creosote seas.

Saguaros in dense forests of their own.

And a little horny toad scuttles from a hole underneath an ocotillo to the shade of a creosote bush.

Ohhh, co tillo. Mesmerizing in your spidery, upward reaching legs, arms, spines.

And you can walk for miles and not see a trace but then there are traces in the strangest places. Old rusted cans. For sale signs, selling land, selling hope (ha, is this what’s going to happen to Obama’s sale of hope to the American people?), selling the illusion of profit, the idea of a life.

And in the background, there is the gnawing knowledge of immigrants crossing this bleak landscape, often in scorching sun. They are desperate. In border areas you see abandoned clothing, and other remnants of human passing. They hide in the cool shade of the washes in the day, waiting to rebegin their fateful journey in the evening. And I can only wonder at what it is that drives them to undertake such an arduous crossing. Even after several months of being confronted with this reality, I am still overwhelmed when thinking about it.

There are drug smugglers, too. That is a whole other story, and one I am lucky I didn’t encounter, but merely heard about. Many things occur on these open lands that are myths, and realities of what is still the wild west.

We drove down an old road at the edge of a nothing town to find a plot. And at the end of it, at the very end of this very remote road in this out of the way place, we came to a gate guarding a house, and on the gate, was a sign, and the sign told us: GO AWAY. When you are out there, that far out there, you don’t want anyone here. What is it like to be ‘out there’? Surrounded by silence, surrounded by stunning, sometimes deafening silence, by all encompassing sky, and desert pavement that extends into the distance.

And you can walk for miles through creosote, its leaves yellow-green, always surviving this arid scorching ground. Creosote bush: ultimate survivor, oldest living plant species, the only thing growing in the most abandoned, forgotten places; when it is dying you know that the last fertility that the land could offer is gone. And you wonder what could have happened there to have robbed the soil of its soul.

We see a bighorn sheep in the canyon. It stares us down, calmly, coolly. It doesn’t mind we are there, in awe of him. He has a presence that renders us close to speechless, we can only whisper our most immediate observations. He moves surely, and almost silent except for the occasional rock that tumbles under his weight as he meanders towards the next bite of food.

And the agricultural land, green and lush and productive, using stolen water to manufacture life and livelihood.

And the cattle, grazing on nothing, their tracks and long-dried up piles of pies leaving legacy to their visit. You walk, and wonder how they survive.

We came upon 6 dead cattle; fresh enough to let off an odor so rank and forceful as to cause us to turn around, old enough to be so emaciated as to reveal rib and pelvic bones protruding. They are clustered. What is the mystery of their deaths? Were they shot? Put out of they misery of their hunger? We can only ponder, solemnly. A tear falls down Susan’s face.

Nightly, we sleep under the stars, in the elements, feeling the peace of the night as it settles in slowly. I become more and more comfortable living houseless, cooking on our makeshift stove setups, closing down myself with the coming of darkness and awakening before the light. I become more and more drawn to the sunrise, and fall more in love with it every day.

We slept next to a gas compressor plant, which sounded like an ancient truck trying to start up constantly; nearby was Poison Well, and the horizon was decorated by the steam of a nuclear power plant and a water reclamation plant in the distance. In the morning we arose early, eager to leave and were greeted with the most fascinating sight.

The sliver of a new moon fell slowly into the dawn, and was illuminated by the rising sun into a blood red as it dropped.

And the rocks are so dominant in the landscape. Piles of rocks, exposed by weather, the only thing with enough stamina to withstand the blazing sun, the absence of water.

And yet the topography is so completely shaped by water: the undulating surface of the land is defined by washes. Unseen during these spring months were those deluges of water, but in the landscape you could read its presence. A road seems it will traverse endless flat land, while there actually is a great deal of hidden topography, allowing our rented vehicles to go only so far.

I climb a rock to its top and perch. I gaze over the vast landscape before me and it is a seascape in reverse: green basin, blue mountains in the distance. I take it in and close my eyes and imagine it in reverse, thousands of years ago, when these mountains perhaps emerged, green from blue ocean, covered in vegetation. I always saw this ocean in my mind’s eye.

And the mountains in Arizona are of every color. They can be of red or orange or brown rock of any shade; covered with yellow lichen, or green vegetation; in twilight in the distance they take on several hues of blue and purple, until they become a black silhouette against the starry night sky. The rainbow on the earth is mirrored by the multihued sunsets: as starkly beautiful when cloudless as they are dynamic and beautiful with morphing clouds overhead.

The desert will enchant you. It will steal your heart.

The desert will eat you. It will eat your shoes.

And the cholla will bite you, and they will not apologize.

Interlude I

The Wyoming chapter has closed, for now.
A brief interlude now in the southwestern Sierra Nevadas, and then on to the Arizona borderlands, to experience desert wildflowers.

Wyoming Fall was magnificent but I left being romanced by the beginning of winter.

Good-bye to the snow-covered buttes, duotone shading of wintering sagebrush and sepia grasses, farewell to frozen ponds, frozen time, and sub-zero temperatures. Imprinted in my memory are the golden eagles swooping low by the roadsides, competing with flocks of ravens and outnumbered by myriads of magpie as they dive in for their share of the pronghorn roadkill on its back on the road's shoulder. When I close my eyes I can see the sunrise: a bright, huge ball, magnified in intensity and size by the frozen cold of the atmosphere, light consuming half of the sky, the rest of it clouds glowing pink and blue and green and everything in between, while the soft cotton sides of the buttes end in of slivers of rose or gold.

Lo extrañará (I will miss) the openness, the ability to see for miles and miles: long dirt roads now hidden in snow, two-tracks serve as snowshoe or ski paths for hours of solitary contemplation as I stare into shades of whiteness. Venturing off-path, even in a snowstorm, is possible with caution because everything is so visible: here, landmarks have taken on different relevancies.

The roads are a constant grey or white. A new element is added to driving. Years of being told what to do when a car slides becomes reality and you learn to guide your vehicle to dance with differing substrates underneath its wheels. My little 2wd Tercel is getting a workout. I begin to realize its limitations when it briefly gets stuck in a snowdrift. I further realize its near its capacity when it cannot take on the hill to a friends house, and begins to slips backwards and into a curb.

I walk in the snow: each day it changes, and becomes its own snow: slushy or fluffy, powdery or crunchy, dry or moist. When it falls it arrives differently; I am becoming acquainted with snow here like I began to know rain in western Washington, or the fog in California's Central Valley. Even the cold temperatures can be appreciated: on particularly cold mornings a person can feel their nosehairs freezing as they breathe in.

Southwest Wyoming will always hold a place in my heart.
It embodies the wild that I love.
It is free and independent and true to itself.
It has not fallen victim to the modernities that have so completely consumed much of our country.

People say that some have come to Kemmerer, for a job, and just turned their car around and left, calling in to say that there is no way in hell they can live there. I say, thank god they do. Because a place like this wouldn't exist if they'd stayed.