Tues. 5/25/10: Day 3 Windhoek, Namibia

The trip to Namibia has been a long, uncomfortable journey. Tucson to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Johannesburg (overnight in hostel) to Windhoek. I remember reading about Ben Franklin traveling overseas to Britain for 4 or 6 months at a time. He made this trip several times in his life which would mean he spent years of his life in transit. He probably enjoyed the journey because how else could you handle sailing for that long? The same crew every hour of every day for months might drive me crazy. The plane was okay since not only did I have Scott to travel with, but also because we were able to sit in exit row seats with more leg room for most of the flights. Amsterdam to Jo burg was difficult in a regular seat and a Dutch guy taking up more room than necessary while reading his newspaper.

Jo burg had a lot of billboards getting ready for the World Cup but I didn't see much of the city. We just checked into our hostel and bought beers at a nearby Portuguese restaurant because it was the only place open.

Windhoek seems like a typical small city with lots of expensive tourist traps, street vendors selling trinkets, very few restaurants, and no bars that I saw. I ate at a tourist cafe with a fellow range student, Spencer, and Steve, who just finished a semester in Singapore. The tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich with garden fresh salad was a delicious masterpiece.

We camped at a campsite with an expensive restaurant that offered game animals like Kudu, Oryx, and Giraffe. Oryx seem abundant so I tried it and really enjoyed the fresh, juicy taste of the tender meat. It was very comparable to fillet mignon crossed by pork. The native woman who seemed to be in charge at the restaurant seemed burned out by tourists and was extremely rude and unhelpful. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt (especially when I feel like a visitor) but she was so rude it was comical. She consistently answered questions before they were asked with an unamused, "No!" We asked her how the giraffe tasted and she told us that it was very tough and we wouldn't like it.

Today we went to Daan Vintergult Reserve to get our first taste of southern African wildlife. We drove into the park and stopped on the side of a slope looking down at a large water hole. We first spotted a wildebeest, which seemed very cow-like as it stood still and stared at us unamused. It was probably 200 or 300 meters away. Actually we first spotted a zebra, which completely stunned me. I watched it walk up a grassy hill away from us with its beautiful black stripes perfectly lining the posterior of its body. It was a gorgeous animal. We saw the zebra again ten minutes later when it was bucking and standing on two legs in what appeared to be a playful gesture to another zebra. We also watched two oryx walk by with their straight horns rising up at a similar angle to their body.

A water hole less than 1km up the road displayed a group of wildebeest standing off to the side with baboons walking around and picking insects off each other near the water. A large, hump-backed animal with beautiful spiral horns walked toward the water accompanied by a female. This outstanding animal is called a Kudu.

We had lunch in the parking lot and then took a walk through a wash where we saw two skinks and lizards nearly a meter long with yellow and black heads! The lizards mostly sunned themselves but also interacted by bobbing their heads up and down and jumping to other rocks to perch on.

According to Dr. Wilson (Tom), we will see these animals and others up close at Etosha National Park. This was a thrilling day for me, getting a chance to watch the animals and see a landscape similar to the southwest really come alive with life. I noted to the other students in my vehicle that I have literally been waiting my whole life for this African experience.

The Gentle Giant

I am very glad to be writing this story for all of you myself rather than my lead instructor, Dr. Wilson, telling the story of my tragic death in Puros, Namibia. I think a first-hand account is better than a pieced together story anyway. So perhaps I made it out alive for the sake of this story.
At around 6am on Monday 6/28, our camp was awoken by the sound of an elephant eating the leaves from the Mustard trees that surrounded our campsite. The elephant slowly made his way through the campsite while everyone stayed in their tents quietly. A group of girls were sleeping under a tree about 3m from where the elephant entered the camp. As soon as the elephant was out of site behind one of our trucks I entered the camp and sat quietly with the girls to watch it eating. It was a really exciting way to start the day. The elephant soon left and everyone slowly emerged from their tents while I gathered my daypack together for my usual morning hike.

While I was off on my hike, most people stayed arond the camp to eat breakfast and take showers. After a little while the people in the camp heard a loud trumpet in the distance. This spooked one of our professors, who quickly hurried back to camp while the others wondered what had caused the commotion. Shortly later, the answer came in the form of me staggering into camp with blood dripping from between my eyes and a distant look on my face.

This day I decided to expore the other parts of the campsite to see how many more elephants there were. I found a large bull feeding on a Mustard tree at the opposite end of our campsite. I slowly approached him and he stopped eating to check me out. I stayed a good distance away from him and sat down under the shade of a tree to write in my journal and watch him eat. He didnt' seem to mind because he went right back to eating. It was so cool to watch this enormous animal tear the branches of the tree with his trunk and shovel them into his mouth. I was so big, yet so slow and careful with how he ate. I heard a rustling in the distance to my left but I decided to ignore it while I wrote in my journal. After about 20 minutes I finished writing and decided to check out the noise to my left. The elephant in front of me was still happily eating and didn't notice me leave. I walked outside of the camp into a sandy area with sparse vegetation. I walked between a few shrubs and decided that whatever made the sounds that I heard had left so I turned around and began to walk to where I was sitting earlier with the elephant. As I came around a shrub, the elephant that I was watching was now moving towards me and he was only 30 meters away. I stayed close to the bush and didn't move, hoping he would just continue on his way and take no notice of me. He stepped to his left and then turned to face me, letting out an earth-vibrating trumpet and charged toward me a few meters. This freaked me out so I backed up with my hands to my side showing that I see he's upset and I'm moving out of the way. He wasn't satisfied with this so he let out another trumpet, waved his ears, and took off on a full charge directly at me. I immediately turned around and sprinted as fast as I could across the sand. My shoes sunk in with every step so I didn't take long strides, but rather quickly shuttled across the sand. Although, I blacked out for most of this, I remember thinking my only chance was to find cover in one of the dense patches of vegetation. The problem was that the closest one was about 50 meters away and to my side so the elephant would be able to close in on me easier. I had no other options so I ran in that direction. I dropped my camera while I was running and thought for a second to pick it up but I could feel the elephant's footsteps on the ground and in my chest so I let it go. The vibration in my chest grew harder and harder as I came to the edge of the bush and dove in head first. For those of you unaccustomed to the vegetation in the desert, I'll give you a description of just one of the trees in this "safety zone" that I found. The Acacia erioloba tree is like the Mesquite in the southwest, only it's thorns are about 2 inches long and they cover the entire tree from trunk to the tip of each branch. The bush I dove into was very similar - it had thorns in place of leaves. As soon as my head touched the bush, my had was ripped off my head and I didn't quite land on the ground. I scrambled and dug my hands into the sand and began scurrying through the branches and thorns. The image that I had in my head was of my being drug out of the bush by the elephant's trunk. After just a few seconds of struggling I made it far enough into the cover to a place where I felt safe enough to stop without the chance of the elephant charging through partway after me. This was the moment I regained my awareness of what was going on. My heart was pounding, my whole body trembling, and I was breathing so loud that I was afraid the monster would hear me and try to come in after me. A moment later, I watched the profile view of the elephant as he calmly walked in front of the bushes away. I waited for a few minutes and then slowly made my way out of the cover. I peered out of the bushes and listened but saw and heard nothing. I looked down at the ground and saw 4 enormous prints that slid into the edge of the bush. I was able to find my camera in the sand and it took several hours to get it working again. I was still shaken from the attack but wanted to get back to the safety of our camp so I hurried back, all the while looking over my shoulder for elephants preparing to ambush me.
It turns out that elephants are just plain assholes. If you get in their path, they use their size as an excuse for the right of way. Tourists are trampled every year by this mistake. Elephants will either charge or fake-charge but it is often difficult to decipher the two. I was fortunate to receive both from my elephant. It is possilbe to stand your ground and wave your arms, yelling and the elphant may back away but he may also continue charging. I don't think I had much of an option so maybe my next story will be of me standing beneath the trembling legs of a terrified elephant. Regardless, with any near-death experience you are rewarded with a new sense of life and I feel fortunate for this. Although this is not my first near-death experience, it is the closest I have ever felt to it. I felt the rays of the sun a little brighter that day and more appreciation for the company of my fellow travelers.

Live and Let Die

It has taken me a long time to understand why some people really admire the way that I live my life. I travel on the spur of the moment, I never seem to work a lot yet earn enough to get by, and I don't seem to think there is anything wrong with this. But why can't everyone do this? This is just what I choose to do. If I wake up and feel like working, I work. If I want to rest all day, I rest. If I want to on a backpacking trip, I go. What is happiness to you? Think deeply about it. And don't think in terms of only being happy if your children are happy. Of course you think that, so does everyone else. You reproduced because it is a natural thing to do. You want you children to succeed in life just like a mother bear wants her cubs to learn the necessary requirements in order to survive. I don't think people take enough responsibility in their lives. Do you know all of the ingredients in the food you eat? Do you know what Yellow5 is? Did you see Yellow 5 hanging off a tree before they added it to your drink? Do you know all of the chemicals that are present in the water you drink from your tap? Can you buy liquor on Sundays in all of the states? Can you prevent a deer from running out in front of your car? Most of the things in our lives are out of our control. So this means you are not free. Being happy to me means being free. Free to do whatever I feel like each day of my life. I was given a template of things to do in order to be happy but the path to happiness is difficult. My mind has a lot of resistance to work through but I like to think I'm making progress. If you want to be happy, just listen to what you want. You tell yourself what you want through your daily actions and thoughts. Just sit and listen. Grow your own food. You know exactly what is in your food if you grow and prepare it yourself. Once you start a garden, you will already start to feel happiness watching your plants grow. Don't work. If you don't like your job and don't want to work, then don't. You will sit around for a week or two and get bored. Then just go out and find a job that you feel like working. If you have no option but to continue working and put off these things that you want to do with your life, that is fine too. Just accept that this is what you are doing right now and stop letting your mind focus on what you would rather be doing. Every day is only as good as you make it. Each morning that you wake up you have the option of being happy or being miserable. Regardless of what happens to you each day, it is your choice how you want to handle the situations internally. Life doesn't have to be so planned out and serious. If you want to travel through Europe, go do it. What is physically holding you back? Just go and do it. It's time people stop dreaming of happiness or thinking when they die they will be happy in Heaven. Time is relative. You can't pass up this moment for something that may or may never happen in the future. You must do what you want right now. Listen to yourself and be happy.

The Most Dangerous Road in the World

Yesterday, Megan and I woke up early and met with a tour group to ride bikes down the most dangerous road in the world. Or rather, the most dangerous pseudo road in the world. There is no longer any traffic on the road but it is still pretty intense. 18 people have flown over the edge to their death since they introduced bikes to the road. I wish I could leave you in suspense but the fact that I am typing this already lets you know we are okay. However, not everyone in our group made it down in one piece. We went with a total of 9 people in our group - 2 guys from Denmark that we made friends with when we booked the trip and 5 French guys. We were all piled into a minivan (along with all of Megan and my backpacks and stuff). Megan and I were the only ones that were staying in Coroico after the journey, everyone else planned to take the van back for 4 hours to la paz. So we drove to La Cumbre listening to a mix of 80´s music. It was great. Megan says they edit out all of the instrumental stuff in the music so you get about 1 minute long songs with just the catchy versus and choruses. Stevie Wonder´s "Part-time Lover" never sounded so good. There was ice on the ground and an amazing view of the cloud forest we were going to descend into at La Cumbre. We put on all of our gear and chose our bikes. Megan chose wrong and got a bike that wobbled the whole way down. Nobody was prepared for the first 10 minutes of the trip before breakfast. It was freezing cold out and we were speeding at 40mph through a cloud forest. By the time we got to our meeting point for breakfast, I was on the verge of tears because my hands hurt so bad. We ate a hardy breakfast of bread and hot water to get us ready for the trip. What a crock of shit. Anders, one of the Denmark guys, through a fit but the guides didn't do anything about it. Oh, I guess I could explain the itinerary. We were to bike for a total of 70KM or something like that. The first 2 hours was down a paved road, the next 2 hours would be down the unpaved most dangerous road, and the final hour would be flat and downhill until we reached a small town outside of Coroico. There were 3 guides. 1 would bike in front, 1 in the middle, and the final guide would drive the van with all of our bags inside. Everyone made it down the paved road okay. Once we got to the gravel part of the road with all the winding turns and 600 meter drop offs it got a little more difficult. I was racing down the road behind the two guys from Denmark but had to stop because the chain fell off my bike. I put the chain back on and road for maybe another minute or two before I came up to one of the guys laying on the ground holding his leg while the other was picking up pieces of a shattered helmet. The front brakes locked up on Peter´s bike and sent him head first into a rock wall. His helmet shattered on contact as the back of his head and back crashed into the wall. He had a gash on the back of his head and some nice cuts on his hand but otherwise seemed okay. Anders was riding behind him and saw the collision, which made him panic and bite it too. He landed on his hip and knee and suffered from the pain the rest of the way down the road. He was happy to pull down his pants to reveal his injury and speedo thong at any opportunity. It took a while for the van to finally make it down because the French guy riding in the back of the pack evidently bit it face first into the ground because he had a band aide covering a nasty gash from the side of his nose down through his upper lip. Those were really the only injuries from our group and I didn´t hear of any deaths from any other groups. The ride was so much fun and absolutely beautiful. We started out on the top of a dry, desolate mountain with el paca running around, rode through a cloud forest, under waterfalls, and ended up in a thick jungle. At the bottom, we all had drinks and returned the riding suits before leaving for Hotel Esmerelda in Coroico for our lunch buffet. This is also the hotel that Megan and I booked a honeymoon suite at so it all worked out well. Aside from the paper thin wall between the suite next to us, the room is amazing. Hotel Esmerelda is situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the camino muerte and jungle. We watched the clouds move over the mountains from our balcony last night. I can´t wait for the clouds to lift so we can see the glaciers in the distance. This is one of the few places we have stayed at that has had reliable hot water in the shower. i never realized how nice hot water is until being forced to take cold showers on this trip. I´ll send pictures as soon as I figure out how to get them on the computer or when I get home. Our next plan is to take a 14 hour bus up to Rurrenabacha to go on the pampas trip on a boat through the jungle. The Denmark guys did it and said they saw anacondas, monkeys, tons of birds, and swam with pink river dolphins. It´s going to be really touristy just like everything else but I`m looking forward to it.

Quick Email from Puno

This computer sucks so i am not going to bother fixing mistakes. So bare with me here... We are in Puno and just visited the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. interesting but terribly touristy and exploited. We are on our way to Copacabana in a few hours. Machu Picchu was an incredible trek. We hiked through glaciers and jungle and swam in hot springs. we hiked over 16K every day and it was quite difficult for the first couple of days. I would do the trek and forgot going to Aguas Calientes and Machu Piccu...terribly touristy but i guess the sight is worth looking at. I´ll talk more when i have a chance...maybe in a bus station. We slept surprisingly well on the bus to Puno last night but fell asleep o the boat back to Puno this morning. I´m also starving so we need to eat. My health is good as always and I have been purifying the water to save money and plastic. Megan has finally switched over to my method after using me as a guinea pig and seeing I didn´t get sick. She is finishing her giardia medication in a couple days and will hopefully start feeling normal again. News from Joe is he had giardia too, lol. Love to all 3 of you and I hope to talk to you soon.

Arrival in Cusco

My flights were "uneventful" as you would say, Mom. Everything was on time and the layovers weren't too bad, although I did spend 4 hours on the floor in the Lima airport. I made some friends in Panama as well as in Lima when I was waiting around to check in for my flight. I arrived in Cusco at 7am yesterday. There was a small, local flute band playing music in the baggage claim area. The airport was tiny and the music just added to the feel of the place. Cusco is sooo beautiful. It's pretty small in comparison to Lima and has mountains and glaciers in the distance surrounding the city. Megan was outside standing in a huge crowd waiting for me. I, of course, didn't see her so she had to yell at me and then ran over to greet me. I can't even tell you how pretty she looked. She was wearing a little black fleece with a white scarf and had a huge smile on her face. We had breakfast at a restaurant catered to western tastes that her Pro Peru colleagues recommended. I'm in Irish heaven here because they have over 250 different types of potatoes. I've only heard of papas and papasitas. As we walked by an alley that smelled like a port-o-potty, Megan told me that people just relieve themselves in the streets. She has seen so many Peruvian penises (peni?) that it doesn't even faze her anymore. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't type it that way. We went to Sacsaywaman (pronounced "sexy woman") and saw old Incan ruins and we sat below a large Jesus statue that overlooks the city (much like the one in Buenos Aires only smaller). We were supposed to meet Megan's Peruvian family that she has been living with at 2:30 for lunch so we rushed to find a cambio (van transport) to take us to Urubamba. The drive to Urubamba was amazing. We passed through small farm after small farm, all set up on the sides of rolling hills and a few rivers. It was nothing like our farmland in Iowa where it's all flat and 98% of the natural landscape is gone. Urubamba is situated in the foothills of the large mountain range and glaciers that I could see from Cusco. It is at about 9,000 feet elevation, a few thousand feet lower than Cusco. I had a little trouble breathing in Cusco because of the elevation and the coca tea was able to help. I have felt fine since I have been in Urubamba. We were almost an hour late for lunch and Megan got yelled at by her mom, Erma. Only one of the children was there and Megan's roommate from Pro Peru was out. We promised we would be back on time for dinner at 6:30. We packed Megan's stuff up and moved to a hostel a couple of blocks away. We got a room with a private bathroom for 35 soles or about $13. The room smelled funny and there were tangles of hair and pubic hair all over the bed. There was hot water so a nice, hot shower felt fantastic. I forgot to mention that it was freezing when I arrived in Cusco...probably about 40 degrees. Urubamba is much warmer because of the elevation difference. We went back for dinner with Megan's family at a little after 6:30. Megan said it would be okay because her mom's watch was set 10 minutes fast, lol. Dinner was more like dessert. We had something that was like a cross between Indian fry bread and a donut covered in maple syrup. It was pretty tasty. We also had purple corn mashed up into syrup called chicha morada. After dinner, we handed out all of the gifts that I purchased in the U.S. for the kids. I just got them some squirt guns, playdoh, crayons, and various kids stuff. The 13 year old girl is obsessed with My High School Musical so I got her some nail painting set or something. I didn't know what it was when I got it but she seemed to like it. We played with the kids for a little while and then said our goodbyes. For the rest of the night we wandered around Urubamba running into people that Megan has volunteered with so she could say goodbye. I cut out a little early because I was exhausted from being up all night the previous night.
Today, I think we're going to more ruins around Ollantaytambo and then to Cusco for the night. Friday, we are getting up at 4:30am to begin the Salkantay trail to Machu Picchu. We are going with another girl that Megan worked with and anywhere from 8-10 other people that will be added to our group. We hike 10K per day up a few thousand feet of elevation for a total of 5 days. I'm not really adjusted to the altitude yet so it's going to be a little struggle. And Megan has a beautiful combination of a UTI and giardia. So wish us luck and I'll send an email when I find time after we return from MP. We will probably stay in Cusco the Wednesday we get back from there and then leave for Copacabana on Lake Titicaca the following day.

Week One in Biosphere 2

Let me start out by saying that I am basically living IN the biosphere. I have spent most of my time inside the sealed structure since first arriving on Sunday. Today, I received a proximity card reader and radio to access all parts of the biosphere and document who enters and exits each area with me. The professors that are running the trip stranded me here in the middle of nowhere with Melanie, the hydrology grad student that is helping to mentor/chaperone the high school kids. We are in charge of herding the kids into the biosphere to sample different quadrants within sections of the biosphere. We are also in charge of keeping them fed, including taking them out to dinner wherever they choose and we agree to. Fun, right?

I am working at the biosphere with an organization called Arizona Rivers. As I understand it, the organization was put together by 2 professors from the SAHRA dept. and UA to educate students and teachers on the value of riparian areas in Arizona that we are losing as our population grows and consumes more water. The organization provides grants and training to teachers to provide them with the funding and knowledge of how to conduct field trips and classroom projects to demonstrate the importance of this rising concern to the students. The workshop serves this purpose as well as giving the students and teachers a basic understanding of each part of these riparian areas, including water quality testing, study of macro invertebrates, animals, insects, birds, and plants. The workshop only goes for 3 days and then the students go on a tour of different riparian areas in Arizona. This part of the program is called the Riparian Research Experiment, where the students will get to implement and use everything they learned in the workshop on their own in the field. It really is a fantastic organization and I am so glad to be a part of it (at least for the next 2 weeks).

Early Sunday morning I was picked up at my house to meet up with all 3 professors and Melanie at Bashas so we could get food to last us through breakfast and lunch for the entire week. The food we bought only lasted one day. A few kids dropped out of the program and didn’t show up at the biosphere orientation so we began the program with just 3 boys and 1 girl. A dozen teachers also arrived to attend the workshop. The living arrangements for the workshop were set up in the village of “casitas” that was built originally for the grad students that were studying the biosphere with Columbia. Now, they are used for organizations such as ours as well as grad students from UA conducting research. The casitas are only a few years old and really nice. The casita I am staying in has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, and living room. I am in a room with a full bed while two of the students have to share a room and the other gets a single. We rented one casita to serve as our meeting place for meals and entertainment. After everyone checked into their casitas, we went over to the biosphere to go over the purpose of Arizona Rivers and for an in-depth tour of the biosphere. It seems everyone knows something different about the biosphere. This was the second of I don’t know how many tours I was able to go on. I have been in almost all areas of the biosphere, including the upper rainforest where almost nobody is able to go. We climbed to the top of the rainforest and spent a few almost unbearable minutes in the extremely humid heat. We were near the top of the glass and it was covered in fog and haze as the sun tried to penetrate the thick air. After we quickly ascended, we were all dripping in sweat and feeling disgusting. You should try it sometime. We also got to go to the library - another extremely hot area. The biospherans spent almost no time here because of the heat and it took so much energy to climb all the steps to get to it (it is that circular shaped building in the biosphere picture at the top of the page).

The biosphere 2 really is an amazing artificial world complete with all the major ecosystems on earth including desert, Sahara, rainforest, and a 700,000 gallon ocean. The first biosphere project was funded by a private investor who basically wrote the biospherans a blank check for whatever they needed. I was amazed at some of the attention to detail and foresight that was used in this building that was built 20 years ago. The original carpet was 100% natural and biodegradable, handmade of mostly wool. They wanted everything to be natural and chemical free so that they wouldn’t release the chemicals into their atmosphere and have to breathe them in. They also didn’t use toilet paper because they didn’t want it to contaminate their water supply. The original plan was for a total of 50 sets of people to live in the biosphere for 2 years each. I think they should have known the first experiment wouldn’t work flawlessly as they had hoped. They went in anyway and soon ran out of oxygen because they didn’t take into account the massive amount of concrete that was used. As the concrete began to cure, it released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and threatened to end the project. They decided to correct this by pumping in extra oxygen. The whole point of the biosphere was to be self-sustaining so this really meant a failure for the project. The whole structure is sealed and airtight and can literally be picked up and moved anywhere (hence the idea for a station on Mars). This failure also caused the 8 biospherans to split up into two groups – 1 that was still for the mission and 1 that accepted it as a failure. The fighting lasted the remainder of the project and the people went so far as to spit in each others faces as they walked by in the hallways. One of the biospherans said their main regret of the project was the reality of human behavior. One interesting success of the project was the fact that they were able to cycle all of the original water throughout the biosphere and never have a shortage or problem with water.

After the tour, we had a large dinner of lasagna and then everyone hung around outside and got to know each other until we retired to sleep.

The workshop began on Monday in a cool room used for presentations in the biosphere. Melanie and my main purpose during the workshop was to assist in the activities and direct people with what to do and where to go. After about 4 hours of lecture, we took a break for lunch and then returned for the section on insects. A grad student from UA, Michelle, was brought in as the local expert. I will say this right now, Michelle loves her bugs (notice the picture of her "sucking" the bugs into a tube). She started off her presentation with a slideshow of insects she has photographed. She was super excited and kept pointing out how cute all of the insects were. It was really neat to see someone so passionate about what they do. I really liked her and her unending enthusiasm for bugs. Her main area of study was ants but she knew a lot more about insects than just ants. I learned that Arizona has more insects than anywhere else in the country. The total number of different species was estimated by one of her colleagues at over 30,000. That night, she set up a special bug light and white sheet so we could view the insects that lived around the biosphere. She told us that she regularly attends “bug parties” with her fellow grad students near Madera Canyon to set up this type of display and look at insects all night. She also let it slip that they sometimes dare each other to eat the bugs. I tried to get her to eat a moth but she said they taste awful. We were able to see a large tarantula, praying mantis, moths, bees, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. By the end of the night the ants took over and were killing and carrying off all the other insects. This may be a good area to note that “crazy ants” are the top predator of biosphere 2. These ants were mistakenly introduced to the biosphere with some of the trees they brought in. The ants killed off almost every other insect in the biosphere and we are currently trying to get a number on just how many may be in the structure. So far we have counted over 2,000 in some meter square areas.

Kendall from the Audubon Society in Tucson came in after Michelle to teach us about the birds of Arizona. Once again, we have one of the largest diversities in the country with almost 500 different species making an appearance. Kendall wasn’t as excited as Michelle but he was pretty good at naming birds and their calls. He taught us that naming the bird is just part of the bird watching experience. Most bird watchers also examine the behavior and sounds to figure out what they are doing. We woke up at 6am on Tuesday to go bird watching with Kendall on a cow trail near the biosphere. We were able to see 2 Great Horned Owls, which was pretty amazing. At one point, one of the owls landed on a tree that apparently belonged to a small finch because the finch went crazy flying around the owl, screeching in its face trying to get it to leave. We also saw a couple Harris’ Hawks, a ton of Mourning Doves, and a bunch of other birds normally seen in the area. Another highlight was watching a Killdeer pretend to have a broken wing to try to lure us away from its nest. They do this so that the predator will follow the Killdeer with the broken wing until it is far enough from the nest, then the bird will fly away.

Every evening, a group of deer venture down to the grassy area just outside the biosphere to munch on the grass. This has become my spot. I have been checking on them every night while they graze away on the grass. Melanie claims she saw them running around the field, playing games together one night. I dismissed this as mere speculation since I wasn’t present. One night I was able to witness an extraordinary event that I have been waiting for since I began hiking in Tucson. I was watching the deer as the sun was setting over the ridgeline just above them when I saw something move. I focused in on the object with my binoculars, thinking it was a coyote. As the image moved, the profile view of its entire body became visible and I saw a nub tail and tufted ears – the outline of a bobcat! It was a beautiful sight. I could make out the perfect silhouette of the animal pasted on the strawberry background of the sky.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday night I had to depart the biosphere. I had to take a 3 hour HOV (high occupant vehicle) training course early Wednesday morning so I could drive the 15 passenger vans. I really did not want to go back to Tucson and felt strange as I entered t he sprawling city. My feeling of inner peace that I was accustomed to from my short stay at the biosphere was immediately swept away. I was able to eat my usual healthy diet at my home so that was a nice perk of this inconvenience. The class was terrifying. It taught me that I was going to be driving a death chamber on wheels. 15 passenger vans filled to capacity are one of the most dangerous vehicles on the road and there are millions of them in America. The design of them is pitiful and they will tip over and roll if you try to turn at a speed above 35mph. This may be my last blog entry so savor every word.

It felt good to get back to the biosphere on Wednesday to say goodbye to the teachers because the workshop ended just as I got back. The following day we loaded the van full of kids and water and took off for Aravaipa Canyon. We hiked 13K through the canyon and crossed over the creek over a dozen times. It was amazing to see that there was water flowing here year round! To start the hike off well, we spotted a black and orange gila monster. We took as many photos of it as we could before the fat, slow creature disappeared into the brush. We spotted many different birds, fish, and deer along the hike. The most beautiful bird was the Vermillion Fly Catcher. It had a bright red head and black body. I’d post a picture of it but it was too fast for my 3x zoom to capture a decent picture. The hike was long and tiring and I kept a close eye on my GPS unit the whole way back wondering how much further we had to go. I know this is bad but I really enjoyed the first half of the hike and didn’t think once about time. I like to think that cancels out my impatience. It was hot and you would have done the same. I decided that all of my summer hikes will need to take place at a spot that has water so I can take a dip every once in a while. Splashing around with the high school kids made it so much more fun and tolerable with the heat. At one point, I bent over to splash water on my face and my camera flew out of my backpack and into the water in front of me. I grabbed it as quickly as I could but it got completely submerged. The water must not have had enough time to soak into the camera because I let it air dry over night and it works fine now. It was quite a scare. By the time we reached the van, everyone was wiped out. The professors both left to go home as soon as we got back to the casitas, leaving Melanie and me alone with the high school students. We ordered in from a nice Italian restaurant and watched a movie. My eyes were sore from looking around all day at the canyon so I didn’t pay much attention to the movie. Plus, Megan called me from Peru just as I opened my eggplant parmesian. I figured since it was an international call I should take it. I’m kidding, of course. I was excited to talk to her.

So that brings us to where we are now. Actually, I started this blog on Friday and now it’s Sunday. Melanie and I were relieved of our babysitting duties last night when John (a professor) came back. Melanie and I also had to return our backstage passes to the biosphere. It was pretty cool to work in the actually wilderness of the biosphere, off the visitors path. We had to scan our cards to open the air-tight doors and then speak into the radio and say how many people we were bringing in/out. Today, we went to a Nature Conservancy outside of Mammoth. On a side note, Myron just came in to show me his roommate’s sandal frozen in a block of ice. He is showing the kid his sandal right now and taking pictures of his reaction. Anyway, the conservancy was a career eye opener for me – or at least that is how I feel at the moment. The watershed manager, Rob, that looks over the 6,000 acre plot of land took us on a tour of the property and showed us a beaver’s den on the lower San Pedro River. He told us the story of how humans killed off tens of thousands of beavers in an effort to rid the area of mosquitoes. Genius, right? He explained the real reason for the mosquito problem was due to stocking ponds with fish. It’s really an elementary school problem that they tried to solve by killing beavers. You see, by stocking the ponds with large fish, all the small fish were eaten. Since all the small fish were eaten, there was nothing left to eat the mosquitoes. You know, the way the food chain works? I honestly question why I live in the realms of society sometimes. Anyway, Rob was a really interesting guy. He has a PhD in a marine something or other. He explained how he got to where he is today at the Nature Conservancy but his background has little to do with any of it. He has worked on many different projects since he started his schooling when he was 27. I have been having problems thinking of one area I would like to study because I am interested in so much and feel like I would be missing out and bored with one area of study. This gave me hope that there is a career path for me. I can just work on a project for a few years until it is resolved, a qualified individual can take over, or I just can’t handle the politics and move on. I can’t really explain the vision I have but don’t worry, you’ll see. I may even go back to school, who knows.

We leave for our field studies tomorrow and return next Monday. It is going to be hot and unhealthy. I haven’t even touched on the food of this trip. Before I came on this trip, my diet consisted of primarily local, organic foods. Now, I am eating almost all processed foods from who knows where. I picked up a few healthy foods to last me through breakfast and lunch for a few days while I was in Tucson.