Getting Ready

Measuring California Tiger Salamanders in CA vernal pools of the central valley. Some interesting field work before heading to Peru!

I am back. Peru lives on.

Northern Peru

Hi everyone. Here is a little description of our trip to Northern Peru. It's kind of boring to read but more than anything I needed write it down as documentation. Rudi and I went to Northern Peru on January 5^th-January12th. We took a bus, the fanciest bus I have ever seen, about 8 hours up the coast along the Panamerican Highway. This is the Peruvian equivalent to our Highway 1. The bus had two levels, a bathroom, large cushioned seats, DVD players, temperature controls, speed controls (which were always beeping indicating that the driver was going over the speed limit), and lunch. We traveled along the coast to the town of Trujillo, one of the primary towns in Peru with a beer factory and many old colonial buildings from the time of the Spanish explorers. The northern coast of Peru is desert with intermittent green river valleys. In many ways it looks like parts California.

We spent two days in Trujillo, visiting ruins from Pre-Incan cultures thousands of years old. Peruvians have recently (last 15 years) begun professionally excavating these ruins which are just as impressive and important as those in Egypt, especially in explaing the history of the Americas. We saw the huacas (pyramids) of the sun and moon, and the labyrinth-like ruins of the ancient city of Chan Chan. It’s really not worth describing in words the impressive and magical structures of these ancient cultures and I will have to share with pictures when I return. Trujillo proper is also beautiful with an majestic plaza del armas surrounded by ornate colonial wooden buildings dating hundreds of years back. We also went to a local beach near Trujillo where there were many fisherman and good waves for surfing. Peru has some of the best surf spots in the world and their coast is wild, rugged, with few inhabitants.

After Trujillo, we headed about 4 hours north to the somewhat tacky, highly commercial town of Chiclayo. The primary reason to go to Chiclayo was the beach and a new museum outside of the town. The beach was full of local people and we saw their special straws boats that were used as primitive surfboards. (Peruvians think surfing evolved in Peru of course, which may be correct). The boats are called “caballos del mar”- horses of the seas. People continue to use these boats today alongside what we know are "surfboards".

The museum outside of Chiclayo, built in a stucture imitating the "huaca of Sipan", houses impressive ornaments, mummies, and history from a huaca that was recently excavated. In this huaca, the lord of Sipan, including previous rulers, were excavated. The rulers were buried with excessive amounts of gold, silver, copper, and stones. Through excavating this huaca, archeologists have been able to reconstruct the social system and culture of the Moche, a large culture that lived in northern Peru before the Incans. The Moche had numerous reasons for human sacrifice that was commonplace in their culture. One of their primary motifs and gods is a man carrying a human head and a sword.

I forgot to mention the Peruvian hairless dog, an ancient breed that is prized for strange look and lack of fleas.

A very interesting aspect within the city of Chiclayo is the marcardo de brujas. (whitches/shamans market). Here, the people sell every possible natural remedy, or what they think are remedies, including ground up frog, dead animals from the jungle, herbs, San Pedro cactus (which many gringos have been known to purchase), magic sticks, and trinkets of all sorts. It is quite amazing to see the huge variety of natural goods used in the “curing process”. It’s difficult to tell how effective these medicines really are….not many statistics here.

After Chiclayo, we drove about 4 hours north, in bus that was much cheaper and lower in quality than our previous bus, to the large town of Piura. We then immediately boarded an even cheaper and dirtier bus for a quick 45 minute trip through the desert to the town of Colan. The two most impressive sites on the way to Piura and Colan were the dry desolate conditions in which the few people lived (who were outside of major cities) and the amount of plastic bags that adorned the desert vegetation.

Colan is a sleepy beach town, primarily used by the people in Piura to escape the oppressive summer heat. Rudi and I stayed two nights in Colan, which is comprised of pretty little wooden houses from the 1940’s lining the beach, and only one dirt road through town connecting the various stores and restaurants. All of the small general stores had odd assortments of goods and the restaurants all served the same food. However, if you are going to eat fish, this is the place to do it. There was even a tiny, box-like pizza/empanada stand run by two older men. Rudi and I bought 2 slices of pizza one afternoon. After one man made the pizza he proceded to fall asleep on the pizza-making table and the other man, wearing large fake designer sunglasses, started to play sappy love songs in Spanish from the the 1950’s on his tape player. They were quite a combo. Not to mention, they were both smoking while preparing the pizza. Colan is also home to Peru’s oldest church, constructed in the 1500’s when the Incas were still around. We visited the church perched on a hill above the ocean and watched one of the most amazing sunsets ever.

We spent our last afternoon and night in Piura. First, we went to the small town of Catacaos, just outside of Piura, that is the center for arts and crafts of Northern Peru. It’s a small colonial town with one street full of vendors and their handicrafts. Peru has the most beautiful “artesanias” that I have ever seen, and the most diverse. Later in the evening we found a great café near one the Universities where it was safe to eat salads and sandwhiches and I was rejoicing with my lettuce.

We ended our trip with a quick flight back to Lima in order to see Rudi’s brother, wife and daughter before they flew back to German. Then a few days in Lima before heading to the jungle. Stay tuned.....

Sickies

I forgot to mention that Frank von May, Rudi's brother, and I got a pretty extreme case of food poisoning after eating steak at a restaurant in Chanchamayo. It probably wasn't the meat that made us sick, but rather one of the various sauces that the restaurants leave sitting around in the heat all day. We were not happy campers and Frank had to take electrolytes intravenously because he couldn't keep anything down. The picture was taken at Rudi's house a few days after Christmas. At least we suffered together.

Barranco

The blog is back

Ok people. I am way behind on this blogging thing. I had a feeling this might happen. Until now, I haven't had easy access to a good computer. I have been sending a few emails here and there from internet cafes. The connection is usually good but often cuts out unexpectedly and you loose everything. Another problem has been the computers themselves, which are usually old, slow and have really weird keyboards that cause me to type things such as: I wnet to w2ytnatrfall @ sw the snah6<...Additionally, there is a lag between the time you hit the keys on the keyboard and the letters appearing on the screen so it feels like you are typing invisible words. Finally, I am in a friend's house using my computer with a wireless connection. Fabulous!

I arrived in Peru on December 19th. I left the US with a weird rash on my legs that my US doctors said was a fungus...? (This rash so kindly followed up a case of amoebas that I had contracted from my previous trip to Peru.) I had to fly to Peru with an ice bag on my legs to keep from overheating and itching. The rash become worse when I arrived to Peru and I immediately headed to the doctor's the following day. The Peruvian doctor said it was an allergy, gave me some strong cream, and Poof! it was gone. It was about $20 for a complete check. I love Peruvian doctors and have visited quite a number due to having experienced a variety of strange ailments when in Peru.

OK...On with the trip...Rudi and I passed our first few days in Lima, in an area called Barranco. This part of Lima is on the coast and is full of old Spanish/Colonial style buildings and is a haven for artists and musicians. You can feast on many of the classic Peruvian dishes and find Afro-Peruvian musicians, like Susana Baca and players of the Cajon (type of drum made from a wooden box that was developed by black Peruvians). Peru has AMAZING FOOD! From the cliffs of Barranco, you can also watch world-class surfers wrestle the beautiful hepatitis/fungus-ridden waves of Lima. (The ocean is much cleaner north and south of Lima). Rudi and I stayed in a quaint little hostel with a view of the ocean and local trash dump. Peru is full of extremes.

On December 23rd, we traveled over the Andes in a car (approx. 5,000 METERS) and descended down into the rainforest to Rudi's family's house in a region called Chanchamayo. Rudi's house lies between two towns, San Ramon and La Merced, and the total population in this large valley, that includes a few more towns, is about 100,000 people. The elevation where Rudi grew up is ~ 800 meters which means it's very warm but not as hot as the Amazon basin (where we are doing fieldwork). The temperature is nearly perfect in Chanchamayo. Hot afternoons tempered by storms, warm nights, and lovely mornings full of singing birds. Rudi's house is in a river valley surrounded by hills the quickly turn into steep mountains as one rises in elevation. Rudi and I stayed in Chanchamayo until the morning of January 3rd. We passed Christmas and New Year's with his father and some other family members and friends.

Just before leaving Chanchamayo, Rudi and I took a small trip to an area called PampaHermosa. It is further up the mountains with a landscape that is described as Montane forest and Cloud forest. The mountains are extremely steep and waterfalls are abundant. If you have ever been to Machu Pichu, it looks like that but without the giant city. However, Incan ruins were recently discovered farther up the mountain from Pampa Hermosa. Large tracts of forest in the lower elevations near Rudi's family's house have been cleared for timber and land is used for agriculture. In Pampa Hermosa, there is still virgin forest and one can find giant Cedro trees (in high demand by the US for furniture), monkeys, ocelots, peccaries (Peru's version of wild pig), perhaps Jaguars, and new species of frogs (Rudi has already found some). The name Pampa Hermosa essentially means "a beautiful flat area". The name is referring to the large flat expanses of forest that are nestled within the steep slopes of the mountains. It is an unusual phenomenon and I cannot explain it geologically. Pampa Hermosa, is a new preserve on paper with the lowest level of protection by law, but is highly vulnerable to the surrounding community of farmers that increases in size as more people migrate down the mountains from the Andes looking for work and food.

The trail that passes through Pampa Hermosa continues through cloud forest and up into the mountains, passing through various communities and finally arriving at a larger city in the Andes above the treeline. People walk for hours between these communities and lead extremely poor and difficult lives. Many of these people farm small patches of land whose soil only endures a couple years. They often grow crops on mountainsides so steep as to appear that the entire farm will someday just slide off the face of the Earth. Many of these farmers walk long distances carrying only the amount of goods that one person can bear to reach a town where they sell their corn, bananas, potatoes, etc. for nearly nothing. They then must return to their patch of corn and begin the process again, only earning enough money to buy the basic rice, oil, and candles. What happens if they need medicine for one of their 9 children? How does one advance when caught in this viscous cycle? The mountain communities of Peru have seen little change in the past hundreds of years.

The Chanchamayo region was colonized by Europeans in the 1800's when Peru was giving away free land to "develop". The new colonists blended into the landscape and interacted (probably in good and bad ways) with many of the native people alreadly populating the region. Old haciendas belonging to Italian, German and French families sprinkle the hillsides in the region, primarily above the towns of San Ramon and La Merced, but also much farther up into the mountains. Isabelle Allende writes about remote German-speaking communities in the high, forested mountains in South America and it's possible she is referring to the towns such as Oxapampa and Pozuzo, further up another moutain road from La Merced. In these towns, you can find blondes speaking Spanish and German, and dark-skinned people with blue eyes. Rudi has a German-Peruvian acquaintance that lives in a falling down hacienda off the road to Pampa Hermosa where he grows a bit of coffee, listens to ham radio, complains to his dog, Nicki, and goes a bit crazy with the extreme solitude.

To reach Pampa Hermosa from Rudi's family's house, one must drive about 2 hours up a very steep gravel road that is constantly threatened by landslides and washouts. To visit Pampa Hermosa, one either stays at the only lodge in the area or camps on a farmer's property. Rudi and I camped on the lodge's property (we cut a deal with the owner) which is at the base of the preserve. It is the only lodge in the region and is owned by a local Italian family. The actual owner, who's had a few "nips and tucks" but cares about conservation and is aware of the importance of eco-tourism, lives the Miami Beach life and her son runs the lodge.

Rudi hired a driver from the town of San Ramon to drop us off at the lodge and we were told that the manager of the lodge would take us back down the mountain in his truck 2 days later. When visitors come to the lodge, only by prearranged visits, the lodge maintains a truck and driver for emergencies. Do to negligence on the part of lazy employee in San Ramon, who was supposed to communicate to the manager that 2 guests would be staying at the lodge, thus needing food and a vehicle, there was little food and no car at the lodge when we arrived. However, Sandra the cook was highly creative with our cans of tuna and the noodles, yucca and plantains that she found. Without a car, this place is more remote than where Rudi and I are doing graduate fieldwork because one is trapped at the end of a steep mountain road with no phone or radio contact.

The atmosphere in the lodge was a bit strange because we were the only people staying at this beautiful, spacious lodge. The lodge is actually quite fancy with 10 cabins, gardens, and open bar and dining area with plenty of beer in the refrigerator. There are 6 or 7 macaws that sleep in a cage at night and fly around the lodge during the day. All of the lodge's energy is derived from a small hydroelectric dam that the owners built. Everything is constructed with endangered rainforest hardwoods, and the lodge is perched at the base of a steep mountain covered with forest, next to a roaring river. It was definitely a scene out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. An enchanting but empty place, haunted by the spirits of Indians, European colonists, and jungle animals.

During our stay, I dropped my camera on a concrete floor and altered its ability to function correctly. Fortunately, Rudi had a camera. While hiking around Pampa Hermosa, we found lots of animals. Of course, Rudi found many frogs, even tadpoles living in brommeliads. Rudi and I both found species of glass frogs along the river. I found a large lizard that Rudi blindly shot his hand out into the dark night in order to catch. I also found my favorite snake along the trail at night (not sure on the species), a Dipsis. We saw many groups of monkeys and Peru's national bird, the Cock of the Rock. Yes, the name sounds bad but it's a beautiful bird. We set up a blacklight for insects and the primary visitors were moths. Very few beetles. I was hoping to catch a Chagas bug but alas, found nothing. Tomorrow I am going to the National Institue of Health to meet a professor and talk about Chagas bugs. Fun!

Overall, Pampa Hermosa is an amazing place. The lodge itself is important because it provides tourists (mainly from Lima) with the opportunity to learn about and experience the beauty, high biodiverity, and intrinsic value of Pampa Hermosa. For me, Pampa Hermosa is one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen and I highly recommend any adventurous tourist to visit. In Peru, and many other Andean countries, forest at this elevation is very threatened because much of it has been cut and there is high biodiversity. Because the habitat changes drastically with small elevational steps, there is a high level of endemism at many different elevations. One can think of these forests as horizontal trips along the Eastern slopes of the Andes. Within the narrow, horizontal strips of forest habitat, there are also valleys and pampas that create even more habitat changes, thus leading to more speciation and higher endimism. The large numbers of monkeys at Pampa Hermosa and abundant frogs, insects, etc. indicate that the habitat is probably in good shape and there are a number of new species waiting to be discovered and described. However, we must work hard to protect this area and because it is truly fragile.


Well....stay tuned for the next blog.....Northern Peru....land of the Moche!

Hola de Peru

Hi everyone. Happy Holidays from Peru. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, and I hope you have a happy New Year! I am in Chanchamayo (Selva Central Region of Peru) visiting with Rudi's family. We went swimming yesterday, drank hot chocolate, and ate Panetone. We had dinner at 11pm and ate a bit of Paca, a large rodent from the jungle. I will have to continue typing later because this computer has a lag time of approximately five minutes after you type each letter!

Love and miss everyone.

Nos vemos pronto,

Jen