Some Good news, Some Bad news

Good news first...

We talked to one of our people in the field today, who has found many more chicks than were expected for this time of year and project. We have the potential to triple how many chicks may be able to be fleged from this compared to last year.

Now the bad news. The good news means that I am going to be sent out into the field for what looks like more than a month straight, which means that I will have no ability to send emails, or keep updating this blog every week. My director, Toa, has aggreed to print out my emails and bring them to me, as he will be in town much more often, I just have no way to send replies. If anything comes up and you really need to get a hold of me, I have gotten our administrator´s email, and she lives in La Paz. Emergency-wise, this is the only way to contact me, as I will have to check in with her each day via my two-way radio for instructions and updates. Send an email to: alisoruco@gmail.com in the case of an emergengy, with the words ¨Chris Duke Urgent Message Emergency¨ in the subject. She speaks English perfectly well, and will understand. As soon as she reads it, she will send a plane to come and get me, and I can be leaving the field on the same day. I have a limited ability to dictate updates to her from me once a week, and she will send a general email to my family to let them know I am okay. I have been promised one other return to Trinidad before I leave in December, and I will be sure to write several posts here to catch everyone up. I am sorry about this, it was unexpected, but there is really no other way.

Enough depressing news. As I said, I will still be able to get my emails delivered to me, so please feel free to write, it is wonderful to hear from you, I just won´t be able to respond for a while. You have my word that I will return each and every one of my emails as soon as I can, and that I will have all of you in my thoughts. Until then, amigos...

-Chris
Trinidad, Beni province
Bolivia

¡Hola de Boliva!

Hello one and all, the Eagle has landed!



I am here in my new town for a while, Trinidad, still working on my jetlag. I have been travelling since 7:00 am yesterday, and am finally getting a bit of a chance to slow down and get a grip on things. I am trying hard to get back into the tropical way of doing things, its proving a bit difficult. For one thing, the Spanish here is a bit tricky, or maybe I´m just rusty. They don´t use tons of slang like Mexicans tend to, but they seem to be very fond of dropping the back half of their words, a frustrating tendancy for the ears. Anyway, as our adventure begins...

I flew into La Paz just as the sun was beginning to peek over the Andes, around 5:30 am local time, and that alone may be one of the most stunning things I have ever laid eyes on. I´m not sure that I can really do it justice by trying to explain it, there are a series of huge snow-covered mountains standing like sentinals around the bowl in which La Paz sits. The most prominent is Illimani (picture above), a towering, sprawling chunk of sharp rock that looks as big as the entire Sandia range, or some sort of enlarged combination of Mount Ranier and Shuksan. The elevation is instantly evident, the airport sits on the rim of the La Paz bowl, in a suburb known as El Alto (the High Place, for good reason, it sits at 4000+ meters in elevation). The airstrip is much longer than the ones I am accustomed to, for the simple reason that the air is so thin, it takes a lot longer for the planes to slow or to get off the ground. Ground temperature was 30 degrees farenheit when I landed, and by 7:30 when I boarded my plane to Trinidad, it had reached 50. Most noticable, however, is that you take four steps before you are seriously sucking wind, but before I could really get a chance to catch my breath, I was back in the lowlands. It reminded me quite a bit of the New Mexico high desert, I will have to spend more time there later.

Which brings me to Trinidad. Tropical, humid, the same smell of a grossly sweetish general decay that I have come to associate with tropical towns. Not overbearingly unpleasant, just kind of a signiture feel. I met Toa Kyle, my program director after a completely punctual (!?!!) flight in a plane so small I had to shuffle into it on my hands and knees. Not made for a gringo, for sure. Toa is a very laid back Canadian with a sort of frank demeanor, seems like a good guy. He went into town with me and put me up in a nice hostel run by a sweet old lady named Rosmerta, met up with a vet from Santa Cruz that is helping out, and took us to get some food. I just sat there and listened to them discuss the project and wolfed down whatever was set in front of me.

I was completely wired at this point, and decided to make use of my inexplicable energy to wander around a bit, and get a little birding in. I made my first ¨stupid gringo¨ mistake when I stopped to take a look in what appeared to be a gutter full of small fish. A local walked up to me with a semi-disgusted look on his face and asked what the hell I was looking at. I explained to him about the multitudes of little fish, and he started laughing, then followed this fit of laughter with an extremely profane sentance, which explained to me that the gutter that the fish were in was actually an open sewer. He then asked me if I was going to take a swim in it, too. I politely declined. Sigh. Gringos.

On that note, I think I should be getting off to bed. Big week ahead, I am heading off into the great green yonder on Sunday, I will try to get to a computer and answer my much-appreciated emails tomorrow. Thanks to those who wrote, it is great to hear from people, keep em coming!

Oh, and I almost forgot. As some of you know, I place a great deal of importance on the first bird identified when I get to a place, it sets the pace and is an omen of the rest of the trip. So my first Bolivian bird? A friendly, bubbling little bird called a Cattle Tryrant, landed on the tarmac of Trinidad airport not 5 feet from me, and looked up curiously as I grunted past with my enormous backpack. A common bird here, but a good one, I think (pictured below).



Until I can write again, love you all tons, and I´ll see you all in un momentito!

-Chris
Trinidad, Beni Province
Boliva