4th of July, marmosas, Bandido

Happy Belated 4th of  July! I'm not actually that patriotic but it was excuse to have a carrete (they don't use the word fiesta here) with all of the other researchers staying at the house. We even had hotdogs and Juan made us a fogata (bonfire)!!! He really is the best. 

There are researchers that come to trap mammals  in enclosures around the park and I was able to see some cool mammals like the elegant fat tailed  mouse opposum (llaca o marmosa), Darwin's leaf eared mouse, and the olive grass mouse (Abrothrix olivaceus). All my pics are of the marmosa. Katie'g blog has others.

Our dog friends came back for a few days! They left for good last night and Juan said he already missed them this morning. We named the lab mix Black Dog (in Spanish they just call him Negro) and the little guy was Button (Boton), Chico, or Bandido (Bandit). I think his furever home will call him Boton. We all took pics with the bubbas before they left.

No one could deny that Juan was their favorite.

Button was my favorite, I just love little dogs!

I started calling him Bandido because he was the trouble maker.
He would dig into rabbit and degu holes and get Black Dog all riled up, too.

We said Black Dog was handsome.

We learned the phrase "Sacar la chuca". It is great, and has so many uses. In English it basically means "bust your ass". In stories you can say that someone busted their ass when they fell, you might say it meaning you're going to kick someone's ass, etc. Not naming names, but one of us busted their ass during our trip to Ovalle in an epic way (it wasn't me since I DD'd). We had a great time telling Juan about that sacar la chucha incident.

The language barrier is interesting. We were in the truck once with Juan and he taught us "rally" which to them means to go off-roading or maybe just a part of the ride that gets rough so Katie yelled "punch it, Juan!" and he thought she said "Pinche, Juan!" which means "Fucking Juan". He laughed and I think just thought it was something to say when you're excited. Then we tried to explain what punch it meant. I've also tried to explain goofball (a researcher here named Jose Luis is a completely goofball and we can't figure out how to say that).