catch up

WOW, there is so much I want to write about. My last entry was on my way to Bs As then Puerto Madryn. I never wrote about Iguazú. We stayed at the Gueme Hostel in Puetro Iguazu, this is in the Provincia de Misiones, north of Buenos Aires. It is a tourist town, close to an amazing park called Cataratas del Iguazú (waterfalls of Iguazu) which lies on the border of Brasil and Paraguay. This area is a sub-tropical rainforest and very humid. We were very happy that the hostel had a pool.

The first day into the park I went on my own. Took the local bus from town into the park and hiked almost all the trails. I saw Brown Capuchin Monkeys, lizards, a variety of birds, and plenty of Coutis (related to racoons). While having lunch on the lawn I was very fortunate to see a very shy bird called the Black-fronted Piping Guan eating berries in a tree. The second day in the park my classmates and I went on a bird watching tour. I counted and learned about forty-nine species of birds including several Toco Toucans! After the tour a few of us contineud to explore the park. We went to Garganta de Diablo (throat of the devil) where the water begins and comes together to flow into one massive waterfall area. The tallest waterfall is El Salto Unión Avalancha at 80 meters. Took my breath away.

After Iguazú we took a bus back to Bueños Aires to then catch another bus south to Puetro Madryn. First off, these buses are pretty cool. Besides getting bus sick often and staying up late worrying that the driver would fall asleep, the accomodations are great. The seats recline pretty far, endless movies, and we were served dinner and breakfast. Even got wine with dinner, coffee afterwards, and choice of champagne or whiskey to put you to sleep.

Onward to Puerto Madryn. This has probably been the busiest week we´ve had. The group was split into two because of hostel arrangements. Some people stayed in a hostel and the rest (myself included) are staying in a small house. November 9th we went to Punta Tombo to the Area Natural Protegida to study the Magellanic Penguins. These penguins are approximately 1 meter tall and are black and white. There are approx. 1.8 million breeding pairs and they live 20 to 25 years. They are monogamous and lay two eggs which incubate for forty dayes. They lay their eggs in either burrows in the soil or under shrubs. We saw them before their chicks will be hatching in the next couple of weeks. The weather was pretty nasty, blue skies, sun out, expect extremely windy and cold. None of us expected this so I got plenty of funny pictures of us huddling in groups or staying low to the ground where the warm pebbles lay. We did a study that will be comparing the response behavior of the penguins when approchaed by humans in two areas of high and low tourist areas. Punta Tombo is a high tourist area, the penguins didn´t care if I was right next to their nest staring at them. We will be doing another study next week in a low tourist area and comparing our data.

The next day we went swimming with sea lions in an area outside of town called Punta Loma. There are approx. 15 seals in the area we swam in. They are very curious and social creatures. They would gently bite our goggles and any other areas on our bodies they found curious. Someone had their butt nibbled and another their groin. One flipped onto its back in front of me so I pet it for some time. I´ve done some pretty cool stuff but this is definetly the top on my list.

THEN we went on a biking adventure. We rented bycicles and took them 14 kilometers (8 miles) to a wildlife observation area. So a total of 16 miles. It was a wild adventure, everyone was scattered. I got a huge thorn in my tire which flattened it so I had to change my tire. Not all of us made it to our desination. One student, Levi tried to do a stunt off the side of a sketchy hill and face planted into the dirt receiving a mild concussion then going back home with another student. Needless to say, once we got to the observation area we did a mammal study and learned about shrub-steppe plants. On the way back Big Bens bike failed on him and broke so he took Ashley´s bike and this bikes back tire came off sending him over the handle bars. aaahhhh! Why did he take her bike? Ashleys pregnant but still joining us on our journey´s and studying. She´s like seven months pregnant and agrees that she must be crazy. She´s kickin some ass BUT it is very challenging for her. She got a ride back to town while Ben took her shitty bike that could have failed on her!

Yeah, there´s more. I told you we did a lot this week! Yesterday we went to Punta Ninfas for mammal observations of Southern Elephant Seals. We hiked down a tall cliff to the ocean and walked through millions of year old marine fossils. We didn´t get much time to study them because we hung out with the seals. I sat two feet away from a male seal as it napped and snorted out sea salt. I learned that they spend ninety percent of their time in the water. I counted approximately 222 individuals on the beach. woah!

Tomorrow we are renting cars and heading to Peninsula Valdez. We will be camping and whale watching in Puetro Pirámides then head roughly 20km NE of their to study and live at a research station for four days. The four days there will be spent traveling to three areas of the peninsula to study the marine mammals. While we are on these adventures we have to take accurate field notes, daily field journals and a species account book. On top of this we have individual species presentations AND seminar discussions on various scientific research papers. I recently lead one today on xeric plants (plants in dry habitats) and if extra summer water pulses are used and how. The paper was beyond my level of understanding but I did learn a lot.

The groups way past the honeymoon stage. We find ourselves trying to balance the stress of studying in a new country, traveling around, and living in a small group. I feel we are all doing the best we can and having so much fun at the same time! ¡Tiempo por cena, chau chau!