It is hard to believe that I have been in Ecuador for almost a month! But it has been one of the most exciting, fun, and adventurous months of my life. This week continued to live up to those standards and I had another great week of school, traveled to Andes Mountains and Paramo over the weekend, and celebrated my first Carnival.
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| Fruit at the market |
This week in school for Spanish we learned more grammar, but also learned about more cultural aspects of Ecuador. On Monday we took a field trip into Quito to go to a fruit and vegetable market. There, we all picked out at least one new food item, which we then had to share with our class the next day. The market was filled with tons of new fruits and also some interesting smelling fish, cow’s tongue, and octopus. I bought Pitahaya, otherwise known as Dragon Fruit, which is from the Coast of Ecuador and tastes super sweet and looks similar to a clear kiwi on the inside.
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| Cow's tongue |
In biology we continued to learn about population biology and then focused on methods of how to successfully conserve our ecosystems. We discussed a few different methods both ex-situ (off site), which is when you take the organism out of its native environment, like a zoo, and then also in-situ (on site) methods, which is when you preserve the ecosystem and the organism. While that method may seem like the clear choice, it is not always easy to preserve an ecosystem. For example, while it is easy to declare a national park on paper, it is much more difficult to actually provide the funding and enforcement for it. In 2014 alone, over 50 park rangers were killed, and over half of them were killed by poachers.
Many countries have initiated payment for ecosystem services to encourage landowners to protect their forests. For example, in Ecuador there is a policy called socio-bosque, which is the government’s innovative “payment for conservation” program that combines land and biodiversity conservation with social welfare. Communities and private landowners enrolled in the program obtain annual payments from the national government in return for conserving the forest on their lands for a minimum of 20 years. Currently, Socio Bosque makes over $7 million in annual payments to these communities and landowners to help them achieve their sustainable development goals and improve their community infrastructure. Although in theory this is a great policy, the government is currently bankrupt and there is little available money to pay people for socio-bosque. The government also heavily taxes these same land owners. These conservation issues will only continue to grow as the necessity of protecting the limited biodiverse ecosystems become even more eminent.
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| Some plants of the páramo |
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| Sponge Grass! |
On Friday we left for our trip to the Páramo. The Páramo is an area found in the northern Andes Mountains that is high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline. This weekend we visited two separate reserves both around 4200 m in the Paramo. To give some context for that elevation level, Quito is located around 2850 m and Wisconsin is around 1000 m in elevation. This was definitely a large altitude change and it even walking for a little while could make you out of breath. Luckily, the best medicine for altitude sickness is chocolate, which I definitely did not mind eating. The vegetation that grows in this area mainly consists of giant rosette plants, shrubs, and grasses because these are the plants that have the necessary adaptations to survive in the cold, dry, low Carbon dioxide and oxygen levels, and windy environment that make up the Paramo.
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| After I fell in a bog up to my waist |
On the first day we traveled to Cayambe Coca National Park. This is a national park, which has had relatively little grazing and is mostly preserved habitat. Here we looked around at all the different flora and fauna and then went for a four hour hike through the area. The hike was beautiful and we even saw two spectacled bears! (Don’t worry they are mostly herbivores and we were looking at them through our binoculars). One of the funniest parts of the hike came as I was walking, just enjoying my scenery and the day when I suddenly stepped forward and sank into the ground. While the area was much dryer than usual I successfully found a spot where a bog had been layered with grass and I sunk into the water up to my waist! Luckily I was not last in line and my friend and teacher pulled me up out of the water, leaving a bucket full of water in both of my boots. Following the hike, we stopped at a hot spring on our way home where we swam, relaxed, and enjoyed the hot water after a long and cold day.
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| Doing Research in the grass |
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| Antisana Volcano |
On Saturday we again returned to the Paramo, but this time to the other side of the Andes to Antisana National Park. This park is mucher newer than where we were the previous day and only recently prohibited grazing on the lands. Here we did research to compare between the previous day’s ecosystem and Antisana and found that, as expected, there was much more grass and less diversity because much of the land has been used for agriculture. Our luck also continued because it was a gorgeous day and we had a beautiful view of the Antisana volcano, which was covered in snow at the top blending in with the clouds. In Antisana we also did some bird watching and saw multiple condors, an endangered species which are vulchers with an average seven foot wingspan! Similar to many other areas, large parts of the Paramo have already been converted to pastures for agriculture and it is being deforested at unprecedented rates, where some of the trees have been there for thousands of years. It is essential to protect and preserve the Paramo because it is extremely important to Ecuador and the world. It is a main source of fresh water for Quito, has a high amount of biodiversity, and serves as a carbon sink.
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| My Host Family and I celebrating Carnival |
My weekend fun did not stop in the Paramo, however, because on Sunday we had a free day and Ecuador is currently celebrating Carnival . Carnival is one of the main festivals celebrated in Ecuador the week before ash Wednesday and basically goes from the weekend until Tuesday night. I can happily say I have now celebrated and experienced the full effects of Carnival in Ecuador. My host family invited me to go to lunch at one of their friend’s house. It started off like a typical Ecuadorian lunch: it was very slow, there was a lot of food, and a lot of talking. As we started to finish up lunch, the excitement began when my host brother David squirted me with colored foam typical of carnival. After that, all the adults also joined in by squirting foam, water, flour, eggs, sugar, coffee, red wine, and anything else they could find. It takes a water fight and food fight to a whole new level. While I am still working on getting the brown sugar out of my hair, it was definitely a great afternoon and experience!
My weekend finished with a little American tradition because a bunch of us from my program went to my friend’s house to watch the superbowl and eat chips and guacamole! It definitely had an Ecuadorian twist, however, because the announcers only spoke Spanish and we definitely had some different commercials! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week has in store!
Hasta Luego and happy Carnival!
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| Everyone on my program |
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