Archive for the 'plants' Category

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Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica

Published on September 28, 2005 in photos, plants, school and travel. 0 Comments

Just prior to my last update, before I had time to write about it, we went hiking in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Diana was quizzing us as we walked down the trails, asking us to identify what family different plant species came from. I don’t know any of the genus and species names, but I can look at a plant and tell you if it’s from the Piperacea family or not. Which, you know, two weeks ago I would have said “Huh?”.

After the hike, as we were relaxing near the entrance to the reserve, some sort of animal — I still don’t know how to spell the real name, I just call it the Raccoon Dog — was very curious and walked all around the area looking for a bite to eat. I thought it was funny when he came up to my bookbag and poked around… thinking that my zippers were secure, until he deftly opened the front pocket with his slender snout and stole my peanut butter and jelly sandwich! He quickly took it off into the woods and ripped it open. Ha! Here are some pics.

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Plant life…

Bryophyte #1 — Liverworts! Oh baby!

Bryophyte #2 — Mmmm.

Fungi #1 — Red and pink.

Fungi #2 — More mushroom-like.

Leaf #1 — The protrusions are called galls, which are some sort of defense mechanism when leaves are attacked by insects. Nifty.

Forest View #1

Huge Tree #1 — You could put about seven of me in front of this thing and still not cover it up (one included for reference).

Heart Trunk #1 — This was the hollow trunk of a fallen dead tree (likely a strangler fig, whose inner host tree had perished a long time ago). You can’t see the depth in the picture, but I was standing at one end and the other end was about 5 meters away. Looks like a heart shining through.

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Continental Divide #1 — A view from the top of the continental divide.

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Animal life…

Insect #1 — This guy was about as big as a house fly. He was very cooperative when I leaned in to take a macro shot. Beautiful.

Insect #2 — An alternate view.

Land Crab #1 — You never know what you’re going to find in the rainforest. A crab!

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People…

People #1 — Taking a break. L-R: Diana, Tiffany, Mollie.

People #2 — Lunch break at the top of the mountain.

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And finally…

The Coondog #1 — This is the SOB who…

The Coondog #2 — Stole my sandwich!

Baños, Ecuador

Published on August 14, 2005 in friends, misc, photos, plants, school and travel. 0 Comments Tags: ecuador, travel.

Baños was really nice. Probably one of my favorite destinations. On the bus there, we met a kid named Milton. He was one of the street children who get on the bus to sell candy or other odd things to make some money. But he wasn’t annoying like the rest… very charming and cute. So we bought some candy and talked to him for a half hour, then when he got off the bus, we gave him a dollar. As our bus was stuck in traffic for a few minutes, we could see him jumping up and down on the sidewalk and running to follow us and wave. Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of him. Then later, this woman and her kids and a puppy got on the bus and we also talked to her and held her puppy for a while (she was going to stick him in the overhead bin!). So cute! See picture below.

We arrived to Baños late in the day, checked in to our hostal, and found some food to eat. The first place we ate was Casa Hood… they had plenty of vegetarian food, but were out of gluten, which was a disappointment… we also apparently showed up on movie night and got to watch “What the *^&$! do we know?” which was really really weird.

In the morning we rented bikes and went on the 15km downhill trek out of town where we passed several waterfalls and took a cablecar (only a single cable… yikes) across the gorge. Ultimately we arrived at the town and river “Rio Verde”… yes, it really was green. Jenna wasn’t feeling great after biking so far, but I made her hike down to the Pailon del Diablo waterfall anyway. And it was the biggest waterfall I’ve ever seen. Check out the video below.

We took a camioneta (basically, a truck for hire) back to town. We wanted to eat dinner at some particular place that I now forget… we couldn’t find it, so we decided on Cafe Hood (not to be confused with Casa Hood above). It was amazing. Jenna had a burrito that was delicious and I had some indian food that hit the spot. Yum yum.

After dinner we went looking for pirate DVDs and I ended up buying a CD of Soda Stereo’s greatest hits. $1! They are a great band from Argentina and definitely worth checking out. Then we went back to the hostal, listened to the CD on their stereo system, and played a game of chess.

The next morning we found some of the famous taffy that they make in the doorways of the taffy shops, bought bus tickets, and headed to Riobamba…

Pictures…

The puppy on the bus!

A really nice abandoned house that we saw on the way to Baños… odd

Waterfall pictures (each is a different one)

Me standing in the river

View from the cablecar

Jenna and I in the cablecar

Video of the Pailon del Diablo (54 megs) – don’t download unless you have broadband

Orongo

Published on August 14, 2005 in photos, plants and travel. 1 Comment

I just now have time to write about my three (!) weeks at the Orongo research farm.

Basically, Orongo is Maquipucuna’s organic research farm. It’s located about 45 minutes away from the ecolodge, near a really small town named Palmito Pamba. The main crops are banana, coffee, and lemon. I think they also grow a type of walnut called “nogales”, because I saw some locals cleaning them there, but I never saw the trees so I’m not sure. Anyway, I got to help harvest the coffee and bananas, trim the banana trees (see pics), and also assist in a reforestation effort that is part of the Kyoto Protocol.

I was originally supposed to be there for one week only, but due to the shuffling around of volunteers, I decided to stay for two weeks, so I could be there with my friend Elke also. The first week I was working with Rachel Small, who also goes to UGA (I think she is in the forestry department). Then I was working by myself for almost 6 days, where I mainly spent time cleaning up 400+ banana trees located on a steep hillslope… it was fun, and not fun, at the same time.

Elke and Andrea, a new volunteer from England, arrived the next week but we only got to have 3 days working together before we went back to Quito for the weekend… so Elke and I decided to come back again the next week to help some more.

Orongo is run by one guy, Marco. He is amazing… I really don’t see how he does it by himself. There are thousands of coffee and banana plants and I think a couple hundred lemon trees. For all of you in Athens, if you ever go to Jittery Joe’s in the SLC (and maybe elsewhere in town) and buy Ecuadorian coffee, 100% of it comes from Orongo. I helped harvest about 150kg, of which probably 60kg will make it through the processing and quality control to end up in Athens. So go buy a cup in a month or so and know that my hands probably touched those beans.

Also, while I was at Orongo a few archaeologists from the states showed up. They are investigating a “tola” near the town that was built by some unknown ancient civilization. Basically about 3m of dirt was added to the top of a hill to make it higher, and the scientists have been coming here for years to investigate it (they guy who discovered it has been coming for 2 decades). They were really nice and it was fascinating to talk to them about it.

One of the scientists was named Alexandra and she brought her 9 year old daughter Paula. They were amazing and we really bonded. It was so fun to talk to Paula… she is so smart and totally hilarious. Definitely the best 9 year old I have ever met. And her mom is one of the smartest and most kind persons I have ever met as well. I have pictures of Paula and I somewhere… I will try to add later… I think they are still on Elke’s camera.

Photos…

There’s a type of butterfly that invades the stalk of the banana plant and kills it. Here are some photos. Interesting!

Banana trees, before and after cleaning the dead and infected leaves. Looks like a warzone after!

Before cleaning

After cleaning