Finally I have time to write a bit again! Our new volunteer, Giulia from Italy and 23y, arrived last Thursday, and is settling in to life at the field centre. It's good to have someone else around to help cook and for the odd game of cards (usually Canasta) in the evenings. I'm sure its good for Nic too to have younger company!
Friday we had a southern storm bringing strong wind and a lot of rain so most of the day was spend inside doing translations and a bit of cooking for consolation. We decided to do a pizza for lunch, much appreciated all round I think! I certainly enjoyed it.
I was also preparing for a 2 day field trip with José so getting out the tent, filling the necessary water bottles and sorting out suitable food. José seems to live on sardines, tomatoes and bread rolls,with a few peanuts too but he certainly appreciated some of my nutty flapjack and wants the recipe!! I took some apples and carrots to munch as well.
The plan changed last minute ( as usual) meaning I could leave to go to Trinidad at 8am instead of 5.30am, so much relief there. I arrived with enough time to do the shopping tasks required for the centre and get some new batteries for my head torch before meeting at José's apartment. We ended up leaving late at about 2.15pm due to extra jobs he had to do, and snatching a chicken sandwich for lunch with Gatorade (erghhh...), not ideal before a camping trip! The 2h drive was fine, with a ferry crossing where the bridge scheduled for completion 2 years ago is only just started! The ferry consisted of six metal barges strapped together, powered by a small wooden boat with a tiny outboard. But it managed the job, if somewhat slowly. The guys had the planks for driving on and off plus the winching to tie the boat fast down to a fine art, all for 20p a vehicle!
At the entrance to the property our horses were waiting along with the ranch hand, a lad of about 18 to accompany us. We loaded all our gear and set off, I was given the slowest horse so had trouble keeping up. He also jibved at anything unusual especially the telescopic pole for mounting the camera I was carrying when it Vought on a tree!! So the lad carried it for me after that. We arrived at the ranch house about 4.30 with a 2h ride to continue on to reach our isolated destination, la Verde.
Since it gets dark at 6 here and the route is not that easy to follow I was surpised that José wanted to press on that evening. But we set off, seeing amazing flocks of ibis and ducks, herons and egrets, plus countless other birds I can't name, amazing. Also some green winged macaws and orinoco geese, beautiful! But we managed lose the track after about an hour and ended up backtracking to the ranch house for the night, arriving after 3h riding, in the pitch dark, with a close encounter with a black caiman of about 2m whose eyes shone red in the light of our headlamps!!!! The horses gave it a wide berth as you can imagine!
We camped in our tents on the terrace as the house was locked in the owner's absence, an early night after our sardine supper, though we did a little exploring and found an interesting cavity with tiny bats. I was woken by pigs and piglets snuffling under the raised deck we were on, thinking it might be something !ore fearful!
Alarm set for an early start 4.30 to make for lost time, when it went off José realised the night was far too dark to go so we had an extra hour, and left at 6 am. Another ride surrounded by magnifent birds that you rarely see singly, yet here they were in huge flocks. It was the earliest in the year that José had done the trip and water levels were still very high, hence the need for horses, often wading up to their bellies. The track normally made by the vehicles in the dry season became invisible again and it proved impossible to find a way through the thick growth of the forest island, where the mosquitoes were equally denseand I resorted to putting on my head net, a welcome defenseman at least for that part of me! So after circling for 3h we had to admit defeat and return to the ranch again. José had forgotten to bring the GPS with track to follow on it which might have helped...
We got back there at 11am and spotted a pair of blue and gold macaws so decided to check their nest with the camera. They had a chick about to fledge, lovely to see! After 5 hrs in the saddle it was good to dismount and have an early lunch (yes sardines!) Followed by a siesta in a convenient hammock while Jose went nest hunting with the ranch hand.
Their were blue and gold macaws, various green parakeets and several birds of prey around. Plus a tiny wren who came very close and I watched for quite a long time. There was the usual troop of dogs and a cat that didn't stop miaowing, hens and chicks and ducks with half grown ducklings all wandering loose, like the horses and pigs!
We left in mid afternoon to ride back to the entrance, stopping en route to do a transect of a forest island - again horrendous clouds of mosquitoes so the protection came out again.
I was far less sore after the 9 h in the saddle total as the horses were bigger and more comfortable, plus the horses carried some of our supplies so we had less on our backs.
On the return trip we just made the last very crossing of the day - it was also local election day and everyone here HAS to vote so not many people were on the road. I saw my first capybara, then my 2nd... I saw 9 in total on the way back. The sunset was magnificent too across the wetlands, we also saw 3 horned owls out hunting in the dusk.
By the time we reached Trinidad we were both hungry - not for sardines, so we stopped at a little kiosk style restaurant that did steaks with chips and rice. The only drinks available coca cola or fanta - not even water or beer, let alone coffee or tea! But the food was good and very welcome. We headed back to José's apartment, as it was too late for a taxi back to Sachohere. José was taking the night bus to Santa Cruz for a meeting the following day, so I was able to sleep in his bed which was bliss! No rush the following morning as Rafa had still not returned from la Paz where he had to fly back to for voting. But I headed back after breakfast and dropping off the keys with a friend for José to collect after another night on the bus back to Trini!A somewhat quieter week with general work on the new aviary, collecting different fruits for the birds that are now coming into season, and continuing translation scientific papers into Spanish. Until yesterday when I had a phone call at 12 noon to say all hands on deck as the government inspectors had decided to come that afternoon at 3pm. Nic was on his day off, Rafa and Giulia were working in Trini so had to return to help make the place look really good. José arrived too and by the time the inspection party arrived everything was looking really good! I'm not sure if they were impressed as they have doubts about the project's aims to release the offspring of our birds into the wild. There is a huge amount of politics and red tape blocking everything we are trying to achieve to protect the species.
My last day off on Friday as I leave the project in a week's time - its amazing how fast the time has passed!
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