16 August 2010

Chao Chile!

Well I’m back in the U.S. now after leaving Chile last night. The last week there I spent finishing up some work and helping Monica out with her coruro trapping. I got to handle two coruros one day!

Last day at Rinconada

Also, on Wednesday was Monica’s birthday, so a bunch of us went out to dinner at a nice

restaurant called De Cangrejo a Conejo (from crab to rabbit). I had a really yummy crab meat and cheese bake thing.

Mmmmm. Other than that, this week I bought some souvenirs and lots of cookies to bring home, and revisited some of my favorite places in the city. Saturday night we went out to Tiramisú for my last night, and I got the bacon and egg pizza again (yum!) and we all shared a supercopa and another ice cream dessert.

Super good! Sunday morning we all went to visit La Chascona, Pablo Neruda’s house in Santiago. It was also very eclectic, but sadly many of the original items etc. were destroyed by the military coup. Definitely worth the visit, but I think La Sebastiana is my favorite. The other girls are going to try visit Isla Negra (his third house in Chile) and it is supposed to be beautiful also. Oh, and Saturday night Juliano was back and we took some photos with him and I said goodbye!

And now I am Raleigh, NC getting ready to start my master’s program. It’s definitely going to be an interesting transition coming from Chile. I already miss Santiago and everyone there. They promised to skype me a lot so we can have Martín Rivas book club some more. And if the actors from Martín Rivas come to Tina’s birthday party (long story) I might have to go back!!! Until next time!

10 August 2010

Weekend in Valparaíso! So this past weekend Tina, Rachel, and I decided to take a trip to Valparaíso, about an hour outside of Santiago, on the coast. We took a bus from Santiago on Saturday morning and got there around 11am. It was so beautiful! Very different from Santiago! It is a port town right on the ocean, and it is made up almost completely of small hills, which are covered in colorful houses. When we got there we rode the funicular up the cerro(hill) that the hostel we were staying at. Super nice hostel!!!

It had a nice shared living area with a fireplace, a kitchen/dining area, and nice outdoor patio thing too! Anyways so we dropped off our things there and spent the morning/afternoon wandering around the city – lots of stair climbing was involved. We stopped for lunch at a cute café and then were persuaded into buying ice cream cones by the nice lady handing out samples. It was so good!!! We spent more of the afternoon wandering around and buying a few souvenirs,

then later had dinner at a restaurant called Vinilo which had some pretty good authentic “Chilean” food. Tina thought it would be fun to order codorniz relleno de queso Philadelphia y membrillo (quail stuffed with cream cheese and quince) which turned out to be smaller than we expected…so we pretty much laughed about it all through dinner. It had such tiny wings!!! Hahahahaha. Sunday we got up and went to see La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda’s house in Valpo. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside, but it was awesome! Very colorful and full of fun/strange stuff that Neruda collected.

Then we went to lunch at a Thai restaurant (OMG YUM) and afterwards headed back to Santiago. Sunday night we had a going away dinner for Michael at Tiramisú (with supercopas of course!)because he left on Monday. ¡Que triste! We will all miss you Michael! Good luck at school!

9 August 2010

As promised, a blog about the animals in Fray Jorge!!! First and foremost, of course, were the degus that we were trapping and studying while staying at the park. For an awesome explanation of the actual work we did, see Rachel's blog on the subject. Degus are the cutest!

However, everyone had been telling us about an animal called the abrocoma (or chinchilla rat) that was the calmest wild animal ever, (plus really cute!),

so everyday we were hoping to catch one of those as well. About the second week at Fray Jorge we were lucky enough to catch one!! And Rachel, Tina, and I spent about 30 minutes holding it and taking photos. It was definitely the calmest wild animal I have ever seen, it would just sit in our hands and let us pet it and cuddle it! Pretty much the best thing ever!

One of the last days we were trapping we managed to catch a number of different things, including degus, some birds, a small mouse, and a nother rodent which we couldn't identify. At the time we thought it was just a small mammal that we were unfamiliar with, it looked a bit like a mix between a

degu and an abrocoma, and we just took some

photos and let it go. However, after showing the photos to a number of people, we still aren't really sure what it was, so we call it the "degrocoma" (degu + abrocoma). It was bigger than a degu or abrocoma and it had huge ears that were flat against its head. Anyone have any ideas?

Another thing that we were really excited about (of course)

were the guanacos!! They are wild ungulates related to llamas and are somewhat elusive. Many visitors to the park do not see any guanacos, as there are only two small groups of them along with a few solitary individuals. So lucky people that we were, we saw guanacos all of the time!!! One of the first times we saw the guanacos close up, they were across the valley from us at our study site, and two of them actually ran across the valley towards us! So exciting! After that we made jokes about the guanacos planning attacks against us, until Juan told us that guanacos have actually attacked people. Then I was a little

more wary of them...

Other than that we saw lots of zorro (foxes),

other birds, and lizards, including this one that lived under our house!

August 3rd 2010

Wow!!! About time for an update! Well we arrived back in Santiago on Friday night after a succesful 2.5 weeks collecting data at Fray Jorge National Park. We managed to accomplish everything we had set out to do, and definitely had lots of fun doing it! There is definitely too much to put in one blog post, so I will likely stretch it out over a few. And of course, I took TONS more photos that won't all fit on here, but you can check out my facebook album.

So the group of us that traveled to Fray Jorge was Loren, Raúl, Rachel, Tina, and me. We stayed in the park the whole time at a cabin used by many biological researchers. Most of the time that we were there, another man who worked at the park, Juan, was also staying in the cabin with us. And he was the best cook ever!!!! He would cook for us all the time and then we would gobble down the food in seconds. The last night we were there he made the best fried fish EVER that we are going to attempt (and probably fail) to recreate at home.

The park was also beautiful, and we definitely the warmer weather there as compared to here in Santiago. Our study area was in the semi-arid part of the park and it would get pretty warm in the afternoons (perfect for naps between telemetry rounds). We spent a few days capturing and collaring degus, and then about a week of telemetry and afterwards another few days of trapping to recover collars. I will probably have a separate a blog just for all of the animals there! Hmm anyways we have a lot of catching up to do, but we finally have internet in our apartment! So hopefully more blog updates soon. I can't believe I have less than two weeks left here :( It has gone by so fast!

10 July 2010

More cool things!!!! This morning we turned on our tv to TVN (the Chilean national channel which is the only one that comes in) and watched weird cartoons while waiting for our laundry to finish, and then guess what came on??? My favorite show in the whole world, Pushing Daisies!!!! It was the most random thing ever, but I was so excited! So I took pictures of it on the tv!

Then after that we walked downtown and stopped to buy copies of the novel Martin Rivas(that our favorite soap opera is based on) to read and practice our spanish. Then when we got to the internet cafe that we always go to, they invited us to their 6-month celebration tomorrow! Good day!

Oh and last night we went back to the pizza place Tiramisu and I got Pizza Carbonara, which was a pizza with strips of bacon and a fried egg right in the middle. It was amazing! And even

better when I ate the leftovers for breakfast this morning!

Right now we are preparing to leave Santiago on Monday for another study site, Fray Jorge national park further north in Chile. We probably will have limited to no internet access while we are there for the next 2.5 weeks, so I probably won't be able to write another update until we get back.

6 July 2010

Hola amigos! We have been having so much fun here in Santiago! For the 4th of July we all went on a day trip into the Andes. We drove out of Santiago and through a Valley past San José de Maipo. Here is a live map of Santiago including where we live, where we work, and where we went hiking, generated using Google MyMaps and Gmap4 map viewer (Thanks Uncle Joe!).

The Andes were sooo awesome! I took about 250 pictures before my camera died, but I these are some of my favorites. Oh and I met a new puppy friend!

I also discovered a nifty tool on my computer that makes pictures into panoramic pictures, so I had some fun with that.

When we were hiking in the

mountains the snow was pretty icy in some spots so we went penguin sliding down the hills on our stomachs. Very fun!

After hiking we stopped at a super cute cafe on the way home called Luna Llena with small doors and awesome food! I had a cafe helado, basically coffee with a scoop of ice cream and then whip cream on top. Fantastic!

Yesterday we spent getting some work done, and then this morning as Tina, Rachel, and I were leaving the house we noticed a bus full of military band members outside next to some mounted police, so we hung out and got to watch the changing of the guards ceremony at La Moneda (the presidential offices close to our house). There was a parade with band right down our street! So cool!

Oh, and per suggestion, turkey degu!

30 June 2010

Wow its really time for an update! Well we have all been busy with fieldwork for the last week or so. At night we have usually just been tired and ate dinner at home, but on Monday we went to a great pizza place called Tiramisu. It was a big restaurant with lots of small tables with candles on them for light, and there were so many different kinds of pizza to choose from, at least 30! I ended up getting a ham and pepper pizza that was very good, and the pizzas are bigger than the plates! Awesome! Also, we have discovered a new awesome food here called papas duquesas, which are basically fried balls of mashed potatoes. So like a french fry on the outside and mashed potatoes on the inside. They are so great, I have no idea why we don't have them in the U.S.

Another thing that we have been occupying our time with is watching some television in Spanish. We only get one channel, so the selection is limited, but we have gotten into a soap opera that airs every week night called Martin Rivas, and it is a story about a law student in Santiago in the 1800's. It is based on a Chilean novel that most students read in school here. Anyways the show is pretty bad, but we are hooked now! And we found the website, so we have been able to follow along a bit better knowing who more of the characters are.For field work right now, we are tracking the degus with radiotelemetry, so we listen to the beeping sound from their radio collars to locate them. Some of the frequencies have other strange sounds that have led us to name some of the degus, and I also just discovered the new paint program on my computer so I have drawn their pictures! Ex:

Degu taxista (Taxicab driver degu)

Degu cortacesped (Lawnmower degu)

Degu extraterrestre (Alien degu)

and Degu fantasma (Ghost degu)

Sadly, this degu was recently eaten by the burrowing owl at our site, who we have named Oh chasquido! (Oh snap!)

Oh, and we got to see a degu up close too!

One night last week Rachel and I were walking back to our apartment after buying groceries and there were a bunch of people standing outside. At first we thought maybe there was a fire alarm but when we got closer, we could see that people were taking pictures of someone. So I took out my camera and tried to take a picture of the guy too, who we learned later was Mark Lanegan, the singer from Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age. Sadly I didn't get a good photo, but apparently there is a concert venue behind our apartment building, so maybe next time!

Oh and one day last week I got a sandwich the size of my head! But you will have to check out Rachel's blog for the photo! And I still love all the dogs here! We have a new favorite we call perro con manoplas or mitten dog. His feet are so furry it looks like he is wearing mittens, and it is awesome!

20 June 2010

Today we saw degus!!!! All of us new kids got to go out to the field site today and check it out. It was super awesome! The field site is at Rinconada, just outside of Santiago in the hills. The views of the Andes are pretty awesome from further up. We hiked around the study site for a while and got the idea of how the degus live, and we practiced tracking with radiotelemetry for a while. We saw a bunch of degus running around, lots of birds, a fox, and a burrowing owl! Yeah! Tomorrow Chile plays again in the World Cup, so we will be starting real field work on Tuesday.

Yesterday after getting some of the equipment ready we all went up San Cristobal, the large park in the center of the city that is a large hill overlooking downtown. We rode the funicular up the hill and the views of the city were awesome! At the top there is a large statue and sanctuary for the Virgin Mary and a gift shop and restaurant. And we wanted to ride the teleferico down (basically like a sky ride) but it was closed for maintenance, so we are already planning on going back! And I just have to include a picture of the cutest puppy I have ever seen that was laying on the sidewalk yesterday. Pretty much the hardest thing ever to not adopt it right there.

Look how cute!!!!

16 June 2010

Hola otra vez! I think we are all getting more accustomed to hearing and speaking in Spanish here. After a few days of being surrounded by so much Spanish we feel like we are understanding more of what is said in conversations and on the news etc.

Probably watching so much World Cup (Copa Mundial) and late night television is helping with that too. We watched Chile play their first game of the world cup this morning at the Universidad Catolica campus downtown, and it was a lot of fun! The excitement of the crowd there was contagious, so we were all pumped when Chile won 1-0 against Honduras. After the game the streets downtown were crowded with excited fans cheering and cars honking for the Chilean team (La Roja!). So to avoid most of the crowds, we are spending the afternoon at an internet cafe doing some research and watching another World Cup game. Also, I just have to share some pictures of the cute dogs!!! Why can't I have one???

This one laid down on my foot!

15 June 2010

HOLA! I am in Chile (obviously). It has been sooo much fun so far. For the last few days since we got here we have been able to explore the city and the culture here. It is very similar to the U.S. in many ways but lots of things are different too. Santiago is a very big city so it is a lot different than living in Moorhead or Andover. I got to ride the subway a few times already, which was really fun, even though we can walk to most places. And yesterday morning we went to a grocery store that was underground! We had to take an escalator from the street level to the store which was under a plaza-like area. The food here is really interesting, I have been taking pictures of my more interesting meals. The first day I had a completo italiano for lunch, basically a hot dog with tomatoes, guacamole, and mayo. And Saturday for lunch I had a sandwich with meat and tomatoes and tons of green beans! In the afternoon we watched the World Cup U.S. vs. England game, which was really fun. They are crazy about the world cup down here! Chile plays their first game tomorrow morning so that should be interesting! Yesterday we watched Germany beat Australia pretty bad, and then we climbed up Santa Lucia, which is a rocky hill in the middle of the city. The views from the top were amazing! There is a larger hill, San Cristobal, which we might go up on another day. It had just rained when we went up Santa Lucia so most of the smog that is usually around the city was gone. The Andes are so cool! And it seems like they are surrounding the whole city! Way different than Moorhead for sure! Oh and my favorite thing about Santiago so far is all of the stray dogs, they are everywhere! And they are all so friendly and cute!!! I am pretty sure if I lived here for real I would have a pet dog in about 3 seconds. Ok more updates later, this week we are going into the field and I will get to see a degu!! I can't wait!