Hello once again. Well I'm finally ready to sit down and write about the trip we took on Halloween weekend to the nortwestern coast of Ecuador, near a town called Muisne in the provence of Esmeraldas.
We left on Halloween and spent most of the day (7+ hours) on the bus traveling there. We arrived after dark to a biological station and natural reserve called Congal. It is part of a larger organization called Jatun Sacha, which has reserves throughout Ecuador. Congal was founded in 2000 and covers a wide range of habitats, including mangroves and tropical forests. A man named Andres is the director of this biological station, and he is the brother of Tania, the woman in charge of our study abroad program here.
We were shown to our rooms, which for us boys was a cabin-like building raised up one story. Up in the living area was an open deck with hammocks, books, tables and chairs. The deck was surrounded on two sides by several rooms that had bunk beds with mosquito netting. Below this floor were the bathrooms and an open space where wet clothes were currently hanging. We were not the only occupants of this high cabin, there were approximately six volunteers of the station who slept there as well. We got to know them and they turned out to be really cool people who warmly welcomed us and immediately wanted to get to know us and to tell us about the biological station. After dinner they invited us to come down the road to the bar with them. This "bar" was located a few hundred meters down the non-paved road that passed by the Congal station, and was more of someone's house than a bar. Now when I say house, try not to think of anything you'd consider to be a house in the United States, it was more like the raised cabin that we were staying in back at the Station. The main, functional part of it was raised up a story high and was completely open (no windows). It was a big open space with hammocks and tables, and it had one doored room with a bed and a cooler where the beer was kept. The whole place was very informal and we operated on an honor system, where we just had to keep track of how many beers we had and then paid before we left. My guess is that it was built by and exclusively for the volunteers of the station. We had a fun night talking to and playing games with the volunteers and the family living in the "bar". I swapped card tricks with one of the German volunteers.
We had a really early start the following day (had to wake up at 5:30!). Other than a small communication problem that resulted in me locking the keys in our room, we got going on our day trip without any major problems or delays. We rode in the bus to a nearby access point in a river, with slanted concrete walls and stairs leading down to the water for people to go in and out of their boats with their cargo and whatnot. We got in a motor boat and traveled down the river. It was part of a delta system. The boat ride was about an hour long and several people took the oportunity to get some more sleep. I took the oportunity to take pictures of them.
On either side of the river, where the land gently rose up, were mangroves. Now we had been learning about mangroves in some of our classes recently, so it was cool to see them in person. Basically what mangroves are are forests of special trees that can live in both saltwater and freshwater conditions. First of all, it's quite remarkable that a tree can live in saltwater because that means it needs adaptations for dealing with the salinity, but what's even more remarkable is that they live in conditions in which the salinity of the water changes a few times within a day based on what the tides are doing; during high tide, they have to deal with the salt water pushed in from the sea, and during low tide, they have to deal with the fresh water that's coming down from the rivers.
Mangroves are a real helpful and important ecosystem, first of all they are very productive and create a bunch of biomass, which of course decomposes and becomes soil. With this happening over time, mangroves can actually extend the coast line, by creeping further out into the ocean. In this manner, mangroves are actually capable of holding their own against the forces of erosion and can in some cases come out on top. This extended shore line filled with trees can give great protection to inland areas if there's ever a tsunami. These trees have interesting life cycles: instead of waiting until it reaches the ground, the seeds germinate while they're still connected to the trees. It grows into a dart-shaped plant, and when it's ready, it drops off the tree. Now, if it's lucky, it drops during low tide and sticks right into the soft, wet ground, however the alternative isn't so bad. If it falls during high tide, it floats along and gets carried by the current somewhere, maybe it just gets washed out to sea, but hopefully it finds its way to some sort of firm land where it can stick and start growing, maybe even colonize a new area and start a new grove of mangroves.
Mangrove trees are pretty easy to recognize, especially at low tide because they've got very typical roots that come out of the soil and prop the tree up. This ensures that the roots will get air at some point. Some mangroves also send little root shoots out from the ground around them to get air that way. These stilt roots provide really good hiding places for animals like shrimp and crabs. There are also other mangroves that send long shoots down from their branches down to the water. They look really cool, especially when driving by them in a boat. Unfortunately, pretty much the only pictures I got of the mangroves were while driving by in a boat, so most came out with some blur. Here's one picture where you can see the roots coming up out of the water and if you look closely, you can see stuff hanging down from the branches.
When we finally got out of the boat, we walked along muddy paths of raised earth that separated several large ponds. Along these paths grew pineapples, and in the ponds were shrimp. I'll talk more about shrimp farming later. We walked until we left the ponds and wetlands behind and we came to a field surrounded by forest. It was here that I saw my first monkey in the wild. Andres, who was leading us around, pointed out high in the trees several monkeys, they were black crested howler monkeys, and although they appeared to be little more than black blobs in the branches, we could see that they were in fact monkeys. One was kind enough to start walking along a branch so we could see its shape better. These ones were being pretty quiet, but in the distance, we heard the howling of other monkeys. We would have loved to stay and watch them for a while, but the mosquitoes were getting annoying. Even though we were all taking malaria medicine and had bug spray on, they were still coming after us. We headed back to the boat.
Heading back up the river, we stopped for a mid-morning snack, which we had packed with us, and then got out of the boat for a walk around another area. Andres took us on a long walk, showing us various things, like balsa trees, papaya trees, pineapple shrubs, palms, mangroves, and crabs. This was an area connected with the Congal station, and he showed us some of their projects, like growing pineapples that could be sold at market. The problem with that one was that during pineapple season, commercial pineapple farms flood the market, lowering the prices, so it's not really very profitable for local small-scale farmers to try pineapple selling. We learned that in this area are seven different types of mangrove tree: two red ones, one white one, one black one, and three with more specific names. We moved from a mangrove area to an area of tropical forest. This was at slightly higher ground, so it didn't get the constant flooding like the mangroves. Here, among other things, we saw palm trees with tons of spikes growing out their sides. We also came out into an open field with a bunch of palms. Here we found some more crabs that had dug holes in the soft ground, and a cool-looking lizard with a bright blue tail.
Finally, after a few hours, we had come full circle back to the boat. All of us were dying to get in and leave the hungering swarms of mosquitoes behind. A pleasant, mosquito-free ride back in the boat brought us to where we had started on the river that morning. We piled onto the bus and I immediately conked out. I was woken five or ten minutes later when everyone was getting back off the bus. We hadn't moved anywhere, we were now getting off to go to a beach. I just picked up all my stuff, without even changing out of my mud boots, and followed them down to the river, where we took a ferry to the other side, to the town of Muisne.
At Muisne, we got into these chariot-like vehicles that were carts that could fit two people (open without seat belts, just a bench to sit on and walls around) and it was either pushed or pulled by a guy on a small motorcycle. They took us to the beach. The beach was pretty cloudy and not too many people were there. At first, all I wanted to do was sleep. We sat down outside a restaurant, where they said it would be a half-hour before our food would be ready, so I walked around on the beach with my buddies. We splashed around in calf-deep water for a while and then headed back for food. After lunch, I changed into my swim trunks and then two buddies of mine and I went for a swim. Although we didn't see them, there were jellyfish in this water. I thought I felt one wrap around my ankle, but it didn't really end up hurting: just tingling, and it didn't last very long afterwards. Maybe it was a little one. I think that one of my friends got stung a little harder, though. After satisfying our swim needs and having a race along the beach, I was tired again and this time had a bad headache. I rested back at the restaurant with everyone else while we waited around for the next event on our list, which was going into the town of Muisne.
We didn't get to take the chariots back to the town, and instead we walked. I found myself dressed in the bizarre combination of my button-down striped flannel shirt, my bright red swim trunks with scorpions on them, and my big rubber boots. On our way out of the beach another student and I each bought a coconut and walked down the road while sipping the milk through a straw. How cool! I think that was on a minor to-do list that had been floating around in the back of my head.
The town of Muisne is something that in the States we would describe as something we'd expect to see in a poor, underdeveloped area. I guess that's what it was. It's by no means the poorest town in these parts. Many of the houses had concrete walls with cracks in them and chipping paint on those that were bothered to be painted. Pretty much all of them had courrogated tin roofs. I don't remember any of the streets being paved, and glass windows were rare. While walking around, we got to peak our heads inside a school room. It had old, faded paintings on the walls, heavily used desks, and nothing but some iron bars covering the windowways.
That evening, we saw a miramba concert/performance, which was a few guys playing instruments (miramba and drums) and six adolescents dancing typical dances from the area. It was fun and they were good. At the end, each of them came over to our group and dragged us up to dance with them I was one of three guys to be singled out, so I danced for a little while and that helped wake me up. I was just glad that I had put some pants on over my swim trunks so I didn't look quite as ridiculous, still it would have been nice to not have to dance in rubber boots, but I think all things considered I did a pretty good job.
We headed back to Congal, where we ate dinner and crashed. We were able to break into our room wher I had locked the key in that morning. This would have been the perfect place to end the day, but my two buddies, Zack and Derek needed help catching cain toads for their herpetology project, so I walked around with them for two hours looking for the little buggers. We only found one that night and it was within the first 20 minutes. We did however find some really huge snails. One must have been 4-6 inches long. Finally a little after 11, I climbed into bed and, feeling safe and sound within my mosquito net, I conked out and slept like a log.
We didn't have to wake up quite as early the next day, but it was still earlier than I would have liked. After breakfast, we set out on a hike that was mostly over a really big hill covered in tropical forest. Along the way, we saw several highways that belong to leaf-cutter ants. These are basically paths several inches wide that the ants keep free of leaf litter and other junk commonly found on the forest floor, and they use these paths to go back and forth between thier nest and the source of the leaves that they are cutting. Leaf-cutter ants are pretty cool because they don't harvest leaves to eat directly themselves, but rather they have fungus farms in their nests, and gather leaves as something for the fungus to grow on and get nutrients from. There are very specific conditions that the ants keep in the nest, making sure that it doesn't get too warm or too cool or too moist or too dry. To protect against bacterial growths that would spoil the crop, the ants secrete an antibacterial substance. When the fungus is ready, they harvest it and eat it!
From the top of the hill, the view was amazing. There were breaks in the trees where we could look out over the sandy delta, where the river emptied into the ocean. On our way down the othe side, we came across some army ants, the ones that walk around and eat anything in their path. Luckily none of us were eaten, though there was this one small dog who was with us who seemed to be having some problems with the ants. We saw him rolling around in the leaf litter, trying to get some off, but of course he was probably just accumulating more. The good news is that he made it out alive with all his flesh and fur.
We walked to a little town called Bunche, which like Muisne had dirt roads, non-fancy school buildings, and similar styles of houses. We went to a corner store, where we were treated to some soda. I got this drink called Inca Kola, which tasted a little bit like bubble gum, though not on purpose, and was really sweet. I liked it. Andres told us about this one particular guy who lives in the town. He's not all that big, and can be very friendly and a good guy to talk to. However, this guy also has a very quick temper. Make him mad, and before you know it, you just might find yourself dead. Really. This guy has murdered several people in his life, and the whole town knows he's no joke. He went away for a while, but now he's back, and the whole town is on their best behavior. Recently water jugs were installed in the town for people to go get fresh water. Guess who they put in charge of the water jugs. That's right, Mr. Murderer. Under other circumstances, it's probable that the jugs would have been vandalized, destroyed, or taken by people in the town, but not with him there. I think there are some other things he's in charge of around town and by golly, they get done.
After our soda break, we went down to a river where we splashed around a bit in our mud boots and watched an SUV be ferried across on a raft.
On the way back to Congal, we stopped at a shrimp farm. A few decades ago, shrimp farming used to be a big thing all throughout the coast of Ecuador. It required very little work, and was very profitable. All you had to do was have a pond, get shrimp in it, and wait for them to breed and grow up. Then you would drain the pond and have a big screen at the outlet to catch all the shrimp. The shrimp could be sold for a very good price at market. Shrimp farming caught on very quickly and many people invested their lives in it because they saw the profit it turned. Well as they say, all good things must come to an end, and shrimp farming in Ecuador met its end about 2 decades ago, give or take, with the introduction of the dreaded "white spot disease". White spot came over from Asia with some imported shrimp. I think Asian shrimp are not affected by white spot, but can carry it, and carry it they did. All of a sudden, farmers were noticing that all their shimps were dying, and that these dead shrimp had a white spot on the back of their neck. It turns out that white spot is kind of like the shrimp version of HIV, so it attacks the immune system. The disease was spread quickly from pond to pond by birds who were feasting on the shrimp. This knocked just about every shrimp farmer out of business and threw the coast into a steep economic decline. Today, there are still shrimp farmers on the coast of Ecuador, but they are not nearly as numerous as they were back in the day. They are taking many precautions against white spot including, I believe, growing different species of shrimp. Others have started using their ponds to harvest other types of water animals. Most of the farmers have abandoned or sold their farms.
We finally arrived back at Congal. Andres offered to those who were interested a trip to a nearby beach. I was too exhausted to go, so I stayed behind with half the group and tried reading until I just conked out. I woke up several hours later, still exhausted, to find that the electricity had gone out. People from my group were out on the deck with the volunteers and they were betting on when the power would come back on. It didn't take long for it to do so, and when it did, we headed down to dinner. That evening I helped Derek and Zack look for cain toads again. We found only 1 again, and after 2 hours, we called it quits. Derek and Zack had gone to take showers, and I was lounging in my room when I heard "we caught a toad!" I rushed down to find a girl, Sarah, standing in the wet, muddy grass with a big squirming toad in each hand. I grabbed a bag to put them in and showed them to Zack and Derek when they were done showering. They were delighted. I helped them take their necessary measurements and then we all headed to bed.
The next day was Monday, our day to head back to Quito. It was a holiday, so we weren't missing classes or anything, and in fact lots of people were coming back from a weekend vacation on that day. We were expecting a bunch of traffic. Before officially setting off on the road, we went to a beach called Atacames. It wasn't such a bad beach, but none of us wanted to go swimming because we'd rather not spend the whole bus ride home covered in ocean water. We instead walked along the beach and ate hot dogs. Then we were ready to head back. We sat around in a closed outdoor bar, waiting for everyone to show up so we could start heading back. After waiting a while, we were told that we'd be staying an extra 2 and a half hours more than we were originally told, and that we would be eating lunch there. We were all very tired, and not keen on staying, but we had no choice. We sat around until lunch time: noon.
By lunch, all of us were feeling a little frustrated and bored, but hoped that some food would pick us up. The service at the restaurant was sub-par. The food took a long time to get to us. I was the first to get food, and by the time I finished, there were still three or four people who hadn't even gotten their food yet (and that's NOT because I ate mine super-fast).
It was well after 1:30 by the time we actually got on the bus and left. On the ride home, we slept, listened to music, and watched movies. I'm glad that we got to walk around in the mangroves and forest and that we got to see monkeys and leaf-cutter ants, and see gorgeous tropical views, but I was very glad to be back at Quito, where I could catch up on sleep, eat my host-mom's yummy food, and escape the swarms of mosquitoes.
(Whew, that's my longest entry yet: almost 6 full pages in Word)
Take care everyone!
~Joey
P.S. To learn more about the Congal Biological Station, feel free to check out the website: http://www.jatunsacha.org/texto1.php?id_submenu1=19&id_menu=3&id_submenu2=6
Edit: Added Nov 16th at 10:20 pm. When I got home, a bread baby (guagua de pan) and a warm mug of "colada morada" were waiting for me. They are traditional foods of day of the dead here in Ecuador, which was on November 2nd. Colada morada is a dark reddish-purple sweet fruit drink made with a variety of yummy fruits. Bread babies are maybe a foot long in the rough shape of a baby and are decorated to give it clothes and a smiley face.
