female masked trogan
Cloud forest!
It is a boy!
This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting El Pahuma, an Orchid Reserve one hour from Quito. El Pahua is a smallish fragment of land and Ceiba (the program which my study abroad is through) backed a family into keeping the land. Usually people sell or exploit the land by Ceiba backed the Lima family into conserving the forest.
El Pahuma is in a Montane Cloud forest it looks like a forest straight of Jurassic park. Even in one of our biology books it said you probably expect a dino to walk out at any time. I arrived Friday around 10 to the reserve and we walked around the Jardin for a little bit learned a lot about plants and caught some lizards. Learning about plants often includes smelling them for an example the family Peperacae smells like......PEPPER or at least has a spicy smell to it. For many familys of plants smelling can aid in identifying the species. We also walked up to one of the waterfalls. After browsing around a bit we had lunch at the Lima family owned restaraunt. and I ate TROUT...I dont' even like trout but it was pretty good, it didn't have a fish flavor Hooray!! After lunch we made the long hike up to the guardaria del oso (bear cave, really it is just a cabin. no bears were sited on my trip). The hike was exhuasting because it was very steep. It was very beautiful though because literally everthing is covered in green. Plants called epiphytes cover all of the trees. The rest of friday we spent kicking around the cabin, ate dinner and had a night hike. There were tons of really cool walking sticks, I found three within probably three hours. If i had been here for my bug collection I would probably only have taken me one day to collect all 75 species.
On Saturday we woke up at 6 am to do a little bit of bird wtching. I didn't really have to much luck because it is hard to get used to bins (short for binoculars). Then we ate breakfast, packed a lunch and did some more hiking. This hike took about two and half hours to reach or destination but there was a lot of stopping, passing back plants and shells etc. for learning purposes. Once we made it farther up the montain we started hiking through an old Inca trail. This was super cool because it was tunnels of vegetation to walk under. We also had a scavenger hunt on the way back down to find htings we learned about. My team did not win, but we found everything except for one thing a type of frut/flower we had learned about for the family Clusiacae. which has oppostie leaves, the leaves come out in different planes. the leaves are also kind of waxyish. sooo now you know the kind of things I'm learning. Saturday night we had Espegetti for dinner ( the put in E in front of words that start with S....for instance my family calls me Estefi). Later a member of the Lima family came and talked to us about the difficulties and process of conservation of private land. We also had a type of drink called canalazo which is cinamon (when something ends in lazo it means it and cana is cinamon) and also a type of fruit called narnajiia and a bit of liquor. idk what though. It was pretty tastey and it is served warm. AFter that we went on a night hike. I saw my first frog...in ecuador. I don't remember the name, but it is a type of frog that doesnt' lay tadpoles.
Sunday once again I got up at six for a little bit of birding. I missed the first toucan which of course was prettier and easier to see the colors (bins are very hard to get used to and when everthing is green it is hard to spot things) however I did see a toucan later (no pics, but i promise I'm not lying). After breakfast we made the hike down and on the way down we go tto play in a waterfall!!!!!!!! It was FREEZING brrr. or as they say in the indigenous ecuadorian language aychichi. I have no pics of the waterfall playing because my camera battery was dead by that point. I hadn't charged it before I left. At the restaraunt for lunch we had some type of pork and potatos.
Nothing else too exciting has happened. Tonight I had llapingachos for dinner which is cheesy mashed potatos. Those are on the top of my list for favorite ingredients and once I have more free time my host mom is going to teach me hw ot make them along with cheese empanadas which are suprisingly good with sugar as well. My spanish is continuing to improve. I had my first exam on Monday which I thought was hard, but we will see how things go.
This weekend I have two day trips both into the paramo area again about an hour from Quito this time I'm going East. And on friday we get to go into thermal springs! Can't Wait!!! I will try and upload pictures on here later, but I was just trying and it failed. Internet is a wee bit slow for uploading pictures here.
love you all!
El Pahuma is in a Montane Cloud forest it looks like a forest straight of Jurassic park. Even in one of our biology books it said you probably expect a dino to walk out at any time. I arrived Friday around 10 to the reserve and we walked around the Jardin for a little bit learned a lot about plants and caught some lizards. Learning about plants often includes smelling them for an example the family Peperacae smells like......PEPPER or at least has a spicy smell to it. For many familys of plants smelling can aid in identifying the species. We also walked up to one of the waterfalls. After browsing around a bit we had lunch at the Lima family owned restaraunt. and I ate TROUT...I dont' even like trout but it was pretty good, it didn't have a fish flavor Hooray!! After lunch we made the long hike up to the guardaria del oso (bear cave, really it is just a cabin. no bears were sited on my trip). The hike was exhuasting because it was very steep. It was very beautiful though because literally everthing is covered in green. Plants called epiphytes cover all of the trees. The rest of friday we spent kicking around the cabin, ate dinner and had a night hike. There were tons of really cool walking sticks, I found three within probably three hours. If i had been here for my bug collection I would probably only have taken me one day to collect all 75 species.
On Saturday we woke up at 6 am to do a little bit of bird wtching. I didn't really have to much luck because it is hard to get used to bins (short for binoculars). Then we ate breakfast, packed a lunch and did some more hiking. This hike took about two and half hours to reach or destination but there was a lot of stopping, passing back plants and shells etc. for learning purposes. Once we made it farther up the montain we started hiking through an old Inca trail. This was super cool because it was tunnels of vegetation to walk under. We also had a scavenger hunt on the way back down to find htings we learned about. My team did not win, but we found everything except for one thing a type of frut/flower we had learned about for the family Clusiacae. which has oppostie leaves, the leaves come out in different planes. the leaves are also kind of waxyish. sooo now you know the kind of things I'm learning. Saturday night we had Espegetti for dinner ( the put in E in front of words that start with S....for instance my family calls me Estefi). Later a member of the Lima family came and talked to us about the difficulties and process of conservation of private land. We also had a type of drink called canalazo which is cinamon (when something ends in lazo it means it and cana is cinamon) and also a type of fruit called narnajiia and a bit of liquor. idk what though. It was pretty tastey and it is served warm. AFter that we went on a night hike. I saw my first frog...in ecuador. I don't remember the name, but it is a type of frog that doesnt' lay tadpoles.
Sunday once again I got up at six for a little bit of birding. I missed the first toucan which of course was prettier and easier to see the colors (bins are very hard to get used to and when everthing is green it is hard to spot things) however I did see a toucan later (no pics, but i promise I'm not lying). After breakfast we made the hike down and on the way down we go tto play in a waterfall!!!!!!!! It was FREEZING brrr. or as they say in the indigenous ecuadorian language aychichi. I have no pics of the waterfall playing because my camera battery was dead by that point. I hadn't charged it before I left. At the restaraunt for lunch we had some type of pork and potatos.
Nothing else too exciting has happened. Tonight I had llapingachos for dinner which is cheesy mashed potatos. Those are on the top of my list for favorite ingredients and once I have more free time my host mom is going to teach me hw ot make them along with cheese empanadas which are suprisingly good with sugar as well. My spanish is continuing to improve. I had my first exam on Monday which I thought was hard, but we will see how things go.
This weekend I have two day trips both into the paramo area again about an hour from Quito this time I'm going East. And on friday we get to go into thermal springs! Can't Wait!!! I will try and upload pictures on here later, but I was just trying and it failed. Internet is a wee bit slow for uploading pictures here.
love you all!
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