Field work, and other activities...

I feel like most people I know ask me about my trips to Chile as if they are a vacation, when really it is the busiest and most important part of my year. Which doesn't mean that I don't get to have fun here, because I really do! We've been working really hard trapping. We hike up a mountain to get to our traps and then sit in the cold for 3+ hours watching with binos for a degu to enter a trap and if one does we yell "DEGU!!!". Then a team of 2 goes running down to the degu to collect blood and it has to be within 3 minutes of the degu being trapped. Lots of time the degu enters, eats a lot of oats without setting off the trap, and leaves. Sometimes they dig around the outside of the trap and manage to get oats that way. But we've been doing pretty well, getting 2-4 degus a day. We come back to the lab around 3pm and have to process our samples and sometimes we have a group meeting to discuss projects. The field is fun because you never know what you may encounter. Sheep frequent the area by our traps, there are lots of beautiful birds flying around, and today we saw two foxes being chased away by the herd of sheep. 

The Copa America is going on right now so it gets really exciting when Chile is playing. And Chile is hosting so all the games are being played somewhere in the country (there are two stadiums in Santiago). It was amazing to watch Chile beat Ecuador. We were watching in a bar and it is so impressive to see everyone singing, chanting and celebrating together. After the game that night there was karaoke!! So fun! Chile tied their game with Mexico and the next game is this Friday against Bolivia. 

This past Sunday we took a much needed day off and I drove some of us to Valpo. That city is so cool with all of its street art and of course there are dogs everywhere. We sat along the coast and watched sea lions for awhile. I took so many videos of them flopping off their basking structure and then hopelessly trying to launch themselves back up. We visited a very touristy part of the city called Cerro Alegre and ate at a place called Fauna. Like the name suggests, there was somewhat of an animal theme with each table having an animal figurine on it. Ours was a tiger. The menu was in Spanish and English and the staff all spoke English, which made it a lot easier as we were all trying to pay for our food separately and figure out the tip with the cashier, etc. etc. 

In a little over a week I will be going to Fray Jorge. I am excited for the peace and quiet and the clean air (Santiago smog is really getting to me). Of course it is a challenge not having internet. But we will be very busy with projects there so I do not think I will miss it that much. Megan and I watched the whole new season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix so we don't have to miss out on that once we are in the park :) 

A few other random things I've seen in Santiago: a really cool outdoor Zumba class that appeared to be free! and a giant parade that lasted all day supporting the legalization of marijuana! 

Here are some art shots from Valpo:

I love the art

This is not my photo but I loved this street art in Valpo!

Love the new field shirts!

Sea lions

Fox skull I found while peeing!

Valpo dog on the rocks with us

Valpo dog

Valpo dog

Valpo dog

Ascensor in Valpo

Valpo view

Loved this sculpture by the ocean

Valpo dog waiting to cross the tracks with us

Sleepy Valpo dog

Another view with some ocean 

Traffic from our balcony on a Chile game day

Great degu handling shot with Kendall, Kendra and Carolyn at Rinc

Megan retrieving a degu from a trap while Kendall checks out our data in the field notebook

Panoramic view from the apartment in Santiago

Panoramic view from the field site in Rinconada

Can you spot the sheep?

Megan and I stumbled upon Rocky Horror Chile!

Sleepy Santiago dog at the university

We've been joking about taking our own #distractinglysexy field photos.
 



 

At it again!

Flying over the Andes (this time at sunrise) is still the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my travels. I told a lot of people this before I left, but Delta gives you complimentary wine, beer and liquor on international flights which is awesome. I tried to sleep on my flights but ended up watching a lot of movies. We had a very easy time getting through immigration and customs and lined up a taxi very quickly. I warned the other students about how crazy taxi rides can be and it sure was a crazy one. At one point the driver pulled over on the highway (where there was barely a shoulder so we were basically in traffic) to adjust the suitcases in the back. Then dogs started chasing our car as we pulled away (I had also mentioned the street dogs to the students by then). 

It’s crazy how it feels like I never left Santiago. I still remember my way around (at least in the areas where I’ve been before) and the university is exactly the same as when I left it on December 1^st.  My apartment is really cute but pretty small. I am trying to appreciate all the amenities (comfy bed, comforter, pillows, couch, WiFi, ice cubes) that I don’t have in Fray Jorge. Although, this year we are supposedly living in a house with a refrigerator (which means a freezer for ice cubes), beds, etc. so I’m hoping it’s a more comfortable 6 months than last field season. The view from the apartment is pretty cool, although you’ll notice the smog in a lot of the pics. It’s definitely worse than anything I see in Phoenix. Santiago is in a valley, like Phoenix, so smog sticks around, unless it rains and then you can get beautiful views of the Andes. We watched a fútbol match yesterday for the Champions league between Barcelona and Juventus. Barcelona won 3-1. It was fun to have some drinks and get to know the other students with us. A postdoc from NDSU, Carolyn Bauer, is here with us for a couple weeks, and we were all able to go out to dinner last night. We went to a Peruvian place, Ají Seco. I had my first pisco sour of this field season. It’s a Peruvian drink but Chile also claims it as its own. During the day we went to a vegan fair which was awesome! We got lots of goodies. I bought some cheese (made with cashews), a little quiche, and a vegan dessert. Today we went to the lab to get everything ready for the field tomorrow. I’m so excited to go see some Rinconada degus! 

Apartment kitchen/living room

Poster at the vegan fair

Another street dog!

Pisco sour

Street dog party (3 dogs)

First dinner out for Team Degu!

Babies!!

I was just starting to feel like I would never get to see a baby degu and then I finally got to hold baby rodents! Ok so that was about a month ago (sorry I haven’t blogged).  The mammal team was finding baby degus and abrocoma during their 9 day stint in the beginning of October. Juan took us to one of his grids and we found 2 very young degu pups (~20g) and a dozen or so older pups (40-50g). The little guys were not very mobile yet and they weren’t biting us. But the older ones were jumpy and tried to bite us, and would run away when released. One baby degu even decided that Megan’s shoulder was a great place to nestle. 

Doesn’t he look the happiest any degu could possibly look? 

 Megan also had the important task of warming up the little guys when they were hypothermic. She used her breath to warm them, and also had them bundled in her hoodie pocket.

The other guys found baby abrocoma and were nice enough to show us! They are so cute and silly looking. It’s something about their face and ears. You can see some very flattering shots of Jose Luis, Hector and Juan in the backgrounds.

In other baby news, birds have been nesting around the house, including a giant hummingbird! Juan showed us three eggs there and Jose Luis, one of the mammal guys, looked in there are saw a baby hummingbird! Like most baby birds it is really really ugly. I still can’t believe how strong that nest is. We have tornado like winds all the time and somehow that nest stays put.  Now he is pretty cute though. 

Momma giant hummingbird sitting on her nest

Baby on his own

Juan found a nest of baby Darwin's leaf eared mice! They were so precious and their nest was made from a lot of Megan's hair! It was so beautiful.

And there is a bird nest inside this little shed that also houses Juan’s outside oven. So we were worried about them dying of smoke inhalation.

But they have survived him making a few batches of bread out there and smoking a TON of meat for his bday celebration! Yesterday was Juan’s bday and it was really fun! 

His family came to the park and we all ate and drank jote (wine with coke) and took an impromptu trip into the forest to look at baby rayaditos with Matias, a field assistant that is studying them here. They were so cute!!! 

Rayaditos!

These crystals precipitated out of our wine/coke mixture...were we drugged????

It would make good eye shadow. I'm supposed to wear purple with my brown eyes anyways.

Me and Juan at his bday (he's sitting on my lap)

Juan's nephew Brandon in the forest on Juan's bday.

Terremotos from over a month ago!

Delicious chirimoya (a fruit that tastes like frozen yogurt!!)

My mom is always asking to see practical things like signs. Here are some from the park.

We perform the investigacion (research). We have to go through this gate to get to our house.

If I've learned anything from my nearly 5 month stay in Chile it's this:

This is posted on Juan's fancy new motorcycle!

 Below are views from the mountain. We feel so skinny after hiking this trail.

Can you spot the house?

This is where we pump our water from.

Our owl

Getting up early means we see beautiful sunrises.

Beautiful flower on our hike (reminds me of the flower in Tangled-even thought that one is yellow)

And the coolest thing ever....Megan found a fox skull!!!

Finally, it's the little things in life that can bring you great happiness. I've almost been here for 5 months and am starting to get anxious to come home BUT after about a month without hot showers we had a hot water heater installed and in our newest truck we have an antennae which means I can listen to fun North American and Latin American pop songs to and from my site. And these things makes me so happy!