Safari to Ol Pejeda and Night Game Drive

6/14
Earlier this week we had the opportunity to do some cool trips with the UF students.  The first was a night game drive around Mpala using huge spotlights.  Mpala is unique compared to most game reserves and to all national parks in that you are allowed to be driving around after dark.  So this leads to some interesting night game drives as a lot of cool carnivores and other animals are nocturnal...cool things like ratels, anteaters, pangolins, several cats species, and several mustelid species.  On our drive we got lucky to see a cute little bushbaby (a nocturnal primate) jumping around through the tree as well as some genets and mongooses.  At a couple points during the drive, we stopped, turned off our lights and vehicles and Todd played recordings of different dieing animals to hopefully bring in the hyenas and lions.  We got lucky and in one place where we stopped, a large group of hyenas came in.

Elisha and I also had the opportunity to go to Ol Pejeda game reserve with the class.  This reserve is home to one of the largest densities of black rhinos and southern white rhinos in the world (both critically endangered species).  It is also home to 4 of the only 7 remaining northern white rhinos in the world.  Our trip here did not disappoint as we were able to see all 3 species, including a cute baby black rhino walking around with its parents.  In addition to the rhinos we saw huge herds of buffalo, elands, oryx, heartebeast, lots of cute little warthogs, and of course huge herds of gazelles, zebras, impala, and waterbuck.

On the trip we also visited a chimp sanctuary where we got to get up and close with chimps who were rescued from the pet trade.  The students had a lot of fun watching the chimps which of course did chimpy things like pick their noses and eat their boogers and throw dirt and poop at the students.  The funniest part was when the chimps (who are crazy strong) mock charged some of the girls and really scared them, even though they were separated by an electrical fence.  But it was also fun to hear the stories about the chimps who had devised clever ways to escape the electric fence using tools

The other highlight was getting to pet and fee Baraka, a blind rhino who they keep in captivity and to promote rhino conservation awareness.

The Ol Pejeda reserve is quite cool because it is doing an amazing job of protecting rhinos and other species while also working with locals to allow them to farm and graze and be not only sustainable, but make some money.  The reserve has also built corridors to allow animals from places like Mpala and Samburu NP to migrate in and out in order to promote genetic diversity.  It is a great example of successful conservation in action.

Some pictures below from our trip to Ol Pejeda as well as some photos around Mpala and the last one having some fun in our Land Rover with my field assistants on the way to our plots

lions and tigers and el shebab, oh my

6/5/14
Todd's field class has arrived.  They are staying at River Camp, which is an amazing place, about 15 mins drive from the research centre.  It's where I stayed on my field class to Kenya with Todd.

Elisha and I drove down last night to say hi to everyone.  Todd and Kat invited us over to their tent (safari style tent) for some drinks.  Tents at River Camp overlook the river and are shaded by the beautiful yellow-fever acacia trees.  They also invited us to eat dinner with them and then we met the students down at the fire-pit. 

The class had been a huge stress for Todd especially since the US issued a no-travel warning for Kenya.  But a couple of days before the class was to arrive, we got word that an El Shebab (the Somali terrorist group responsible for all the recent bombings in Kenya, including Westgate) vehicle was spotted outside of Nanyuki just 40 minutes from us.  The vehicle was an army land rover supposedly full of 6 camoflauged men.  This caused quite the stir at Mpala.  We all had to give the head of security our phone numbers, they doubled up security (which are basically just ascaris carrying sticks), and people reached varying levels of freaking out.  Kirsten looked like she may just pass out.  Kat was pretty scared and was carrying some large shears around.  Todd was joking a lot, but I knew he was nervous.  He didn't feel like his students would be at risk, but you can't take chances.  I was nervous and had some bad dreams that night about it, but I think Elisha wasn't concerned.  After leaving dinner that night, we had heard a lion roar quite close that caused us to turn around and then the 2nd roar caused us to run and get an ascari escort.  Elisha told me the next day, that it was the lion she has been thinking about.

The drama and El Shebab jokes/fear went on for another day.  Todd's group was set to leave in 5 hours and he was fretting on whether to cancel or not.  He had called UF, and they said, you're our man on the ground, you make the decision.  Then, a couple of hours before the deadline to pull the plug, after calling a bunch of higher up's, he finally found out what the whole thing was about.  It was all huge rumours.  Some guy had stolen a british army land rover and was trying to get it to Nairobi.  He had heard the police were after him, so he tried to bypass the road block at Nanyuki, which sent him on the back roads near to Mpala.  He was later apprehended in Nairobi.  So now of course the el shebab jokes are flying around.

Then as Todd's students were being driven from Nairobi to Mpala, there was a report that there was some guy at the market in Nanyuki with grenades on his belt, so Todd bypassed Nanyuki to get here.  Again, it turned out to be a hoax and total rumors.

But something that was not a rumor and was confirmed was that a villager outside of Nanyuki was attacked and killed by a hyena at night.  So I guess it goes to show, it's still the wild animals you have to fear most.  This is why we have the field guides to watch out for the most dangerous animals (during the day while in the field it's the buffaloes and elephants) and why our camp is surrounded by an electric fence.  The truth is, we are actually pretty secure if there was some threat from El shebab or something like that as we have a huge british army base right down the road and a former British SAS officer operates a fully weaponized Apache attack helicopter here (to go after poachers) to protect the rhinos and elephants in the reserves and ranches around here.

The real terrorists around here, as I'm sure Elisha would agree, are the little critters.  The invasion of the non-native big-headed ants has made life rougher around here.  These tiny little ants, not only wreak havoc on the ecosystem by attacking and eating anything in sight, but they also swarm all of our food.  If you leave any food out for even a few minutes, the big-headed ants find it.  This makes things difficult when you have to take out a field lunch and store your food.  Really the only safe place is in the one tiny refrigerator that all the researchers share.  And if the ants weren't enough, we have the rodents and hyraxes and superb starlings that can rip open sealed wrapping.  So you have to store packaged foods in sealed containers.  But then you have the vervet monkeys with their opposable thumbs who can get into most anything.  I've even had some problems with them getting into the lab and knocking down my pinning boxes.  Though, luckily, they haven't eaten any of the insects!  Inside the banda, I keep the mosquito net over my bed, not because of mosquitoes (there aren't really any of those around right now) but because of mice living up in the straw roof raining poop down onto the bed.  I also had a rock hyrax get in through the roof.  This little animal that appears be a rodent (a bit smaller than a marmot), but is actually most closely related to an elephant, is a great climber of rocks and trees.  During it's invasion of my banda, it pooped (it's pellets are similar to dear droppings) and peed on my floor and wall, and then another night it pooped in my sink and left some sort of bloody discharge in the sink.  Luckily I was able to chase it out of the banda and hopefully it won't return!

Pass the Honey

It's been a while since I posted b/c life has gotten crazy with the pollinators.  First off, the honey bees dropped off quite a sweet treat into Nairobi for my birthday.  Elisha arrived into Nairobi on my birthday, and I had arranged a ride for her with Karanja for the 4 hour journey to Nanyuki and then Mpala.  Little did she know, but I was planning to surprise her at the airport.  But as things go in Africa, I didn't quite get there.  The private vehicle to Nairobi costs about 80 bucks, and although Elisha is worth that, she would be angry at me for spending that much money.  So I hopped in the back of a lorry heading from Mpala to Nanyuki.  I then planned to catch a Matatu (6 bucks) to Nairobi and then the airport shuttle to the airport.  From Nanyuki it's about a 3.5 hour drive to Nairobi.  I got to Nanyuki at 9am and Elisha was set to arrive at 3pm plus an hours worth of customs and immigration, so I knew I had PLENTY of time.  However, Matatus don't leave until they are full, so I sat in the super hot matatu until 10....then 11...then 12...then 12:30, which was about my cutoff to make sure I met her, but then the Matatu was almost full, so I was thinking I could wait a bit more, but it was taking forever to fill that last seat.  Then all of a sudden it was 1:30 and it was filled.  I said, what the heck, I'm going to go for it.  So off we went.  I texted Karanja to ask for the number of the driver and then let Elisha's driver know I was on the way (but shhh...don't tell Elisha).  After her driver picked her up, I handed my phone over to the Matatu driver and they arranged for a place to drop me off so that I could surprise Elisha.  I got dropped off at a hwy exit that goes to the airport (you can bypass Nairobi to get to the airport).  It was this junky place with people selling wares and food.  I didn't have to wait too long before her van pulled around the roundabout.

We got right into the field work shortly after she arrived as Todd had also arrived the day before and had sorted out the nasty permit issues for me (turns out Todd of course had been correct and the Mpala director wrong).  We've been insanely busy on my project.  Getting up early, staying up late in the lab, but also throwing a couple of game drives in there as well (I can add 3 young cheetah brothers, jackals, greater kudus, and genet, and baboons to my list).  Basically, we get up early, head out into the field all day either doing floral abundance surveys or flower observations to catch pollinators visiting the flowers.  In the evening, we re-charge the killing jars, enter data, and pin the hundreds of insects that we catch amongst other logistical things.  Todd is teaching a field class, and he paid for this post-doc from UC-Davis, JC, to come help a bit with the class, but also to help me get started as JC has done pollination network stuff before.  So he's been helping us a lot, with ID'ing the local flowers here and with pinning techniques. Both he and Todd keep saying how my project is more like a PhD project wrapped up into a master's, so they are pretty happy with me.  But Todd, knowing that my workload is pretty intense, has had me hire 3 field assistants--Zachary, Julius, and Peter.  They are all really cool and very helpful.  But the most helpful and the most invaluable has been Elisha.  I am so lucky to have her here, and she is such a hard worker and makes sure the little things (like packing a field lunch) get done, which are the things I usually (wow! a cute little Genet just walked into the library to eat all the bugs that came out in this rain) put as a lower priority. 

Todd has also been awesome of course.  Super supportive and super positive, and I can tell he's happy with me.  Kat his girlfriend told me that Todd tells her a lot how happy he is with me and how he wished all grad students were like me.  That makes me feel really good because sometimes I feel like I am failing miserably at this grad school and research things!  The first night that Elisha arrived, Todd and Kat invited us into their banda for drinks (Todd is gluten free so he makes very tasty mixed drinks) and to just talk and laugh and tell stories.  Todd is so funny and always has the best stories. 

Last weekend (the field assistants get Sundays off, which means we can't go into the field b/c they are also our guides) Todd took Elisha and I into Nanyuki to do a bit of shopping and to take us out to eat at this super tasty Nyoma choma (grilled goat) place.  It was some of the best meat I have had in a while.  It's a local place.  To get to the tables you bypass several dead goats just hanging there.  You pick out the pieces you want and then they grill it up for you.  The waiter delivers it and cuts it up for you, and then the waiter takes a choice piece to eat in front of you to show it's not poisoned (tradition). 

Also last weekend Elisha got to experience her first sundowner.  The whole group went out to a rock outcropping to watch the sunset, eat popcorn, and pass beverages around.  I really like the group here.  Full of a lot of cool people.

Here are a few pics from the commute to work, visitors to the office (like the genet and vervet monkeys), and the view of Mt. Kenya we have at breakfast

Sun-downer

Since it was Sunday and I didn't have a field asst to help me today.  I went on a couple game drives with Tom, Kirsten and little Morgan.  We saw a giant dung beetle rolling a ball of dung.  Other new species I saw today were Hippos, heartebeast, bushbuck, and oryx (which are beautiful horned antelope)

The group of grad students went out on what they call a sundowner where they go to some sort of look-out rock and drink beer (Tusker Lager is the preferred) and talk.  I'm lucky b/c it's a very fun and nice group, and just the right size. Supposedly sometimes they do sunuppers at 5am and then drink mimosas, champagne, and bloody marys.

On our way to the sundowner we went buy a hyena den that had three little pups playing around and nursing on their mom.  Quite cute.  We also saw a slender mongoose slink by.

I wrote and email to Mom and E, so to save time, instead of re-writing in my blog, I'm just pasting here.

Hey Mom and Elisha,

Today is Sunday, which is kind of an off day for most people since the field assistants have off, but not necessarily for the grad students.  So we had a longer breakfast.

The talk was mostly of Todd.  He's sort of a celebrity and character here.  I think I am lucky to have him as my advisor!  Everyone just loves him and thinks he's so funny and nice.  They were trying to guess his age (I think mid 40's), especially since all the young girls here seem to think he's so hot.  I told him on ratemyprofessors.com he was listed as chili pepper hot by the students and they got a kick out of that.  But apparently he's the life of the party here.  Most the other professors stick to themselves at meals or don't even come to them and Todd sits at the grad table.  He also hosts the biggest parties (he usually has the nicest house here...Jenga House, though he might not this time b/c he'll be at river camp). It will be interesting to see how much he is around the Research Centre this time since he will be spending most of the time teaching.  They also said he leads a group called Todd's Bootcamp where he leads people in all sorts of physcal fitness stuff that apparently is quite tough.  And Kirsten said when he's here without students he goes on game drives most nights and will jump rope for an hour up on the old airfield where a lot of the animals are.

One of the best things about Todd here is that he seems to have a lot of clout and can get what he wants and needs.  There has been lots of issues with the permits for research in Kenya this year.  Mpala Research centre has been denying anyone to come who does not have a permit, so there are several researchers stuck in Nairobi or Nanyuki unable to come here.  Everyone is amazed that I was able to come without my permit in hand yet.  They all said Todd is really good at getting what he needs and bluffing until he has what they want.  I feel like Todd has been in Kenya long enough that he knows what's going on.

Everyone is excited that he is still with Kat, who he brought last year as they said Todd seems to have a new girlfriend everytime he comes, but they really liked Kat.  They told of a funny story back before their was internet here how he was having relationship issues with his girlfriend back at home.  He'd have to type up an email, save it on a floppy disk, send it to Nanyuki, where someone would wire it back to the states.  She'd then reply and they'd print out the response and send it back here, so everyone sort of knew what was going on b/c the guys bringing the letter back would read it.

I also found out, though he'd probably never tell me, that he pays for his field assistants' kids to go to school.  High school is not free in Kenya and is quite expensive, especially on a field assistant salary, so he does some special things for his employees' kids.

Anyways, people are pretty excited for Todd to come, and they all think he's just a cool guy.  So it kind of makes me feel good to know that my advisor is such a rockstar here.  And of course he's been super supportive in helping me deal with my stresses rightn ow.  Just like at UF, I am again feeling quite outclassed by the other grad students here.  They are here from some pretty big-named schools.  There are a couple from Yale, a few from Princeton, Stanford, the Smithsonian, Dartmouth, Columbia, and UC-Davis (Davis is probably the best ecology school in the country...it's where Todd did his PhD.).  Kirsten and her husband did their PhD's at Notre Dame.

There are a couple of people here who have a bit of a mountain west background though.  Jake has a few students here (he's a prof in Laramie), though they are from the east originally. 

Elisha, there is a gal here from CDA who I believe is going to the U of I, but not sure.  She is very excited to meet you b/c she can't wait to have someone who understands how awesome N. Idaho is.  She says people here give her a lot of crap for being from Idaho saying it's just potatoes, mormons, and neo-nazis.  Everyone here is excited to meet you, but I think she especially is excited.  I think I told you the girls here are big into watching Game of Thrones, and she's hoping you will like it so you can hang out with them when they watch it.


Hakuna Matata!

I'm a boss...

I hired my first field assistant ever today.  As I mentioned before, it was an interesting experience and ordeal.  I ended up choosing a guy named Zachary.  I think I was biased since he shares my brother’s name.  I think it was a good choice b/c he seems quite enthusiastic, smart, and seems to know his natural history quite well.  Aflred, Zachary, and I spent the day practicing some methods in the UHURU plots.  Alfred and Zachary are both very good with safety and were teaching me lots about how to make sure there are no animals in the area and what to do if we should see a buffalo or elephant up close while we’re away from the vehicle.  Alfred is amazing b/c he can smell elephants even when they are quite far off.  Alfred and I have bonded quite well, and I think he wishes he could work on my project.

Saw the usual animals today including a large heard of elephants.  New species included a family of warthogs, a plains Zebra, and a puff adder (very poisonous snake) on the way to dinner tonight.

Pretty much all the grad students and researchers went to Nanyuki today to go to trivia night and karaoke.  They’ll spend the night with some researchers who live there and then come back bright and early.  I would have liked to go, but I had a skype meeting with one of my collaborators, Kath, this evening, so I stayed here

Todd and Elisha are coming soon!  Very excited for that!

5-24

Went out this morning to practice more field methods with Zachary.  On the way back from the field station, I saw a couple new species:  cory bustard (largest flying bird in Africa), Grant's gazelles, Thompson's gazelles, gerenucks, and a male ostrich.

This afternoon, I accompanied Kirtsen and her husband Tom and their daughter Morgan down to Nanyuki to get some supplies.  They also took me out to eat at an Irish pub right smack dab on the Equator

Zoey and Kermit

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I got to take Zoey out for a spin today.  My first time!  She’s a bright orange Land Rover Defender, which has always been my dream car, but I figured I’d never get to drive one b/c they are so expensive.  She’s fun to drive on the rough roads here and a challenge with the steering wheel and stick shift being on the other side of the vehicle.  I’ll also probably be driving Kemit while I’m here as well.  Kermit is a neon green extended trunk land cruiser that Todd owned even way back when I was in the field with him in 2004.

I had to drive down to River camp in order to meet a potential field assistant in order to interview him.  River camp is where I stayed with Todd way back in 2004 and lots has changed.  When I was there, it was only a few army style tents, with a dining tent.  Now there are fancier tents, a fancier dining tent, and even some bandas.  They have also built an electric fence around the camp, which takes some of the fun out of it.  I remember having elephants walk through our camp and a lion brush up against my tent one night.

Down at River camp I met Jake Goheen, who was Todd’s post-doc back when I took the class.  He’s a really cool guy.  We’d stayed a bit in touch over the years, especially when I was a field assistant for Roger Baldwin the bear guy as they were grad students together.

I had my safety briefing today by the head ascari (guard).  They have guards that patrol 24/7, mainly for safety from wildlife that may get through the fence.  But I think the reserve also has guards stationed throughout to help prevent poaching too.  He gave an interesting piece of advice.  If all of a sudden you find yourself surrounded by elephants, don’t scream or make loud noises b/c the elephants that have been involved in poaching incidents and witnessed family members killed tend to react violently to loud noises as the guns the poachers use are loud and the poachers are often yelling as they try to coral the elephants.  Elephants have great memories, so they tend to remember things like that.  Elephants actually return to elephant graves to mourn the loss of their family members when they have died.

Kermit had been in Nanyuki being worked on but was returned today.  So stories about Kermit were being told today at lunch (tasty lunch with chapati, Moroccan style chicken and fresh passion fruit and mangoes) by Todd's post-doc and some people who have been here for a long time.  Kermit's been through quite a lot, and it's amazing how it's still going.  The exciting thing I remember about Kermit during my previous trip involved Elephants.  Todd was driving a group of us students back to River Camp going through a fairly narrow road due to trees on either side when we suddenly rounded a corner and were face to face with a bull elephant and his family.  Todd immediately flipped the car into reverse and did some amazing driving in reverse as the elephant charged at us.  But my story pales in comparison to its other stories.  Todd was driving Kermit quite fast one time in order to get to town for a deadline when he flipped it on the rough roads.  Another time, one of his post-docs got stuck in a river.  The guy tried to avoid telling Todd about it as he was driving it for his own personal use and not on research time, so he tried to get help elsewhere to pull it out.  But it was difficult to get help and before help could come (in a few days) a flash flood came through and carried poor Kermit downstream and covered it in 4 feet of sand.  Needless to say, the post-doc got fired for lack of communication and recklessness.  Most recently, one of Todd's field assistant flipped it.  His brother had just died, and he had been driving fast at night under the influence of alcohol.  Todd found out about this personally from the field assistant who called to tell Todd that Todd should fire him.  Todd has a big heart and is willing to forgive if people are up front and honest, so that guy still works for him to this day. 

I've been trying to find a field assistant to hire to help me...someone who will help out a lot, but more importantly functions as our guide and guard and lookout for wild animals.  It's been this drama filled project.  Two of Todd's field assistants (who are awesome) brought a guy along they said would be my field assistant.  But he hardly spoke english, didn't seem to know much about science, and looked to be about 17.  I said I would like to interview some other field assistants and it caused all this drama, b/c of course the original field assistant was a family member of one of Todd's assistants.  I interviewed a guy today, Zachary, who seemed like a pretty good options.  Good English, good science knowledge and experience.  But I got a text from him this afternoon that said, "don't allow anybody to interfere with our dealings b/c there are some people who are selfish to my position".  He also wanted to meet with me again to make sure I understood this, b/c there were other assistants who wanted their family or friends to get the job, so they will tell you bad things about the others.  I emailed Todd about this and his reply was funny "sweet..i'm super glad to hear about zachary-- that's awesome news. the text you mention is classic kenya. i love that stuff."

Kirsten's husband is visiting for a few days to pick up their daughter, cute little 2.5 year old Morgan.  So Kirsten took us on a game drive tonight in Kermit.  When we were leaving the research center, there were some kids playing on the soccer field outside of the electrical fence.  The fence where the cards drive through is lifted up with dangling electric wire coming down that scrapes the top of the cars as they go through, but keeps the elephants out.  Well, the little kids came running up to say hi to Morgan.  Kirsten stopped right under the fence so that the wires were draped down on the vehicle.  The kids came up to wave and say hi to Morgan, but one of them touched the car door, which was full of electrical current being that the fence was dangling onto Kermit, so the little girl that came to shake Morgan's hand got quite the shock.  Very sad, but she perked right up when Kirsten gave her some chocolates.

We got a late start on the game drive b/c of a big thunderstorm, but it was a pretty good one, nonetheless.  Besides the usual, we saw some Elands, which are pretty rare to see here.  We also saw a giant herd of buffalo with calves.  We passed by a herd of Elephants with several little ones on tow.  We also saw a herd of highly endangered Grevy's zebra on the airstrip.  The highlight was probably seeing a hyena den with a mom and a cute little pup

Mpala Research Centre

Mpala Research Centre is a pretty cool place.  Nice and laid back and with people who seem friendly.  There is a large (15 or so) group of undergrads, but other than that there are about 25 grad students/researchers.  Then there are the field assistants and staff.  I've had just 2 meals so far, but they were both tasty.  Lunch was a tasty local bean and corn stew with chapatis.  Dinner was a very tasty chicken stew with rice.  They also seem to always have a green salad (they made roses out of the tomatoes tonight for dinner) and fresh fruit.  There is chai (like Indian chai..milk tea), coffee, and milo available at all times.  And for dinner they even baked a chocolate cake.  They have ladies here who do your laundry (except your unmentionables) any day you want.  There is even hot water for shower as there is a guy who heats up the water by way of fire.

The area is cute and quaint with the little bandas and the small labs, library, and cafeteria.  There is a parking lot chock full of Land Rovers and Land Cruisers (btw, Subarus are super popular in Nairobi.  I found that interesting).  Todd has 3 vehicles.  A big green land cruiser named Kermit.  He had Kermit when I was here back in 2004.  Then he has Zooey, a bright orange Land Rover.  He also has Betsy, a bright blue toyota truck.  But she is getting repaired as she sunk into mud doing a river crossing.  Todd paints his vehicles bright colors so that you can easily find them in case you have to make a hasty escape due to a buffalo or elephant.  Though, mom, don't worry, Todd says no researchers have ever been injured by a wild animals.  But he just likes to be prepared with safey.  But I'll have a Masaai field assistant out there to help.  And he said there'd be no problem as long as I don't get lazy and monitor what animals are around.

There is a little ring road that goes around the camp that we can run on if we want (they have a gym too and Todd also has a bike trainer set up)  The road is just on the inside of the electric fence that protects the camp from the elephants and buffalo.  There is a soccer pitch on the dirt runway for tiny planes, which is outside the fence.  But it's open, so you could see if there were elephants around.  The fence doesn't keep the smaller animals out, so you see dik diks and monkeys around.  The leopard researcher said that she often sees on her gps that the leoapard walked through mpala.  But leopards are quite scared of humans and they only pass through when everyone is sleeping.

I am sharing my room with a guy from UC-Davis, a guy from Kenya, and a guy from Taiwan, so that's cool.  But they have all been here for a long time, so will be moving on by next month and will get a new set of roommates.

There is power in the bandas from 6am to 10am and 6pm to 10pm; however, the labs have power at all times.  They have wifi in the library and kinda sorta wifi in my office and labs

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5/20/14

Started the day off with breakfast.  They serve cereal and eggs for breakfast, which you eat outside and enjoy the view of giant Mount Kenya (17,057 ft. high) in the distance.  Today at breakfast, one of the girls wasn’t paying attention and a vervet monkey snuck up and stole her banana.  The funny thing is that the gal studying vervets can tell the difference between all the different vervets at the station and so could tell us the name of that one and that it has a tendency to misbehave.

Today Todd’s field assistants—Lemboi, James, and Alfred—took me out to show me the UHURU plots.  There is a south plot with higher rainfall just a 15 minute drive from the research centre, and then a north plot about an hours drive from the research center (all on 4WD type dirt roads through the acacia scrub land).  We were out all morning until tasty lunch at 1.  We checked out the plots and we walked around through them.  I am definitely stressed about this project.  Seems like there is so much I don’t know and, more importantly, that I just don’t have enough time to do it all and that I won’t do it right.  So, yea, just definitely feeling uber stressed.

I’ve been trying to make some connections to help Elisha get the chance to go out and do some cool things while she’s here so that she can have the opportunity to get out and see some of the awesome wildlife.  I’d really like her to have the chance to see the Maasai Mara (part of the Serengeti ecosystem) because that was my favorite part of Kenya.  Some of the field assistants talked about taking her on a Sunday to see this place called Sweetwater, which they said has some cool wildlife.  I talked with a guy, who is friend’s with my friend Isabelle from UF, who is studying Zebra/Lion population dynamics and he said that he could probably take her on some game drives and maybe even on some field days where they tranquilize the zebras and put tracking collars on them.

But she’ll get to see a lot of cool things just helping me with my field research.  Today I saw lots of wildlife on the way out to my sites: a herd of giraffes, a couple of solitary giraffes, lots of impala herds, a herd of elephants, a couple large leopard tortoises, a waterbuck and fawn, a bushbuck, and lots of dik diks.

While standing up peeing in the lab bathroom, I was looking out the glassless window when suddenly a vervet mom and her baby clinging to her stomach dropped right down to the window, inches from my face and watched me pee.  Pretty funny!

I've started to mingle  a bit with the other grad students/post docs/project managers.  They seem like a really cool group.  Very friendly, and they all have some very interesting stories and experiences and cool things they are studying.  They invited me today to watch the game of thrones which they watch weekly.  It seems like a fun group, and I will enjoy getting to know them and hanging out with them and hopefully making some connections.

Jambo Kenya

There wasn't anything overly exciting to blog about during the 1st year of grad school at the University of Florida, so the blog has been on a bit of a hiatus.  Okay, well, not entirely true, the main reason for not blogging is is complete lack of time.  A few highlights from the 1st year of grad school: Elisha moving down to Florida, snorkeling with Manatees, springbreak trip to the Everglades and Florida Keys, where we hung out on a sailboat that a friend from high school lives on and ate fresh fish, a couple gator football games, several gator basketball games and the gator run to the final 4, a couple trips to the beach at St. Augstine, a kayak trip to the keys on the gulf coast, a trip to Port St. Lucie to see Rick and Shannon, and a couple trips to Jacksonville.  Christmas break of course brought some good family fun and skiing on visits to Crested Butte and back home to EP.

I just got finished wit a 2 week break in Estes Park.  I got lucky and the Rockies treated me to several days of snow so that I got several backcountry ski days in with a couple feet of glorious fresh powder.

Now that I'm in Kenya, I might blog from time to time.  At the moment, I have a bit of time as I wait for some things to get organized.  But I am likely to not have time later on.  Though I'll be encouraging Elisha to keep up a blog like she did in Antarctica, so she might do that.

I started my trip in Denver, flew to Newark, and then on to Switzerland.  It was amazingly clear weather and you could see the glaciated alps even from Zurich airport.  On the flight from Zurich to Nairobi, we flew over the alps and the dolomites, which was pretty awesome as they were plastered with snow. 

When I got to Nairobi, Todd has arranged to have someone pick me up and take me to a hotel where I spent the night.

Today, I got up early for the 4 hour journey from Nairobi to Mpala via Nanyuki.  A hired driver drove me from Nairobi to Nanyuki and then Kirsten (Todd's post-doc) picked me up in Zooey, Todd's bright orange Land Cruiser.  The drive to Nanyuki was nice going from the very lush lands full of coffee, mangoes, bananas, and other fruits to the more arid land in the rain-shadow of Mt. Kenya.  Along the side of the road in the lush areas, everyone is selling various fruits and vegetables but in the dry areas they are herding goats and camels.  Right before Nanyuki is the Equator, and the driver stopped for me to take a photo and to see the demonstration of the Coriolis effect: water drains clockwise in the northern hemisphere, counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere, and straight down on the equator.
 
I am grateful to have Kirsten here as she knows the ropes and showed me around the place.  On our way into Mpala, I already saw several animals: Grevy's zebra, Impala, gazelle, and a couple of dik-dik's.  They have a little outdoor cafeteria where we had lunch and then she showed me our little lab space and our office.  I'm staying in a banda (thatched hut) with 3 other guys.  When Elisha gets here in a week, she will be staying in the dorms, which at the moment has a group of undergrad students.  The male-female ratio here in terms of researchers is 4 to 20, which is quite the shift from Antarctica!  Kirsten, since she has her young daughter here, has a very nice house.  It has an awesome view over Mt. Kenya, and she says she can often see giraffes.  The research center itself is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the Elephants and buffaloes (the two most dangerous animals here) out of the campus, but out my office window I have already seen a family of vervet monkeys (the infamous blue balled monkeys known for their bright blue genitalia) with a few babies and some rock hyraxes (a close relative to the elephant, even though they are about the size of a rabbit).  The research center is organized similar to McMurdo except on a much smaller scale, and of course everything is open air instead of in a heated, insulated building.  But there is a classroom, a couple labs, a library, and even an exercise room.  There are scheduled meals at the cafeteria, which will take some getting used to getting back to a set schedule of eating as opposed to being in school when I would eat whenever I got to a good stopping point in my studies.

There are of course researchers doing some very interesting things here.  At lunch I met a gal studying the highly endangered wild dogs, and another who is studying baboons, vervets, and leopards.  She has gps and radio collars on some of them, so she goes around tracking them.  Hopefully, I can go out on occasion.  Kirsten says that the group often goes out for evening game drives or out to certain lookouts, so I am excited for that.

I mostly spent the day unpacking, setting up my office, and getting organized.  Tomorrow, I will probably be heading out to UHURU where my research site is to take a look around.  A couple of Todd's Kenyan research assistants will be taking me.  A vervet monkey just tried to get into the office, and I had to shoo him away...looks like it could be quite the interesting office!

I am definitely feeling overwhelmed and unprepared for what I have to do, but I guess that's part of grad school and field research.  So we'll see how it goes!  Super grateful that Elisha will be here in a week (arriving on my birthday..a great birthday gift!) to help and give me support.  Todd and his girlfriend, Kat, will also be arriving about the same time as Elisha, so he should be able to help me get on my feet as well.

Last Days in the Beautiful Cordillera Blanca and Huaraz

6-25

Today I took a tour to Pastoruri Glacier.  We drove up to 5000m (16,400ft) where the glaciers used to be located 10 years ago.  Now it is a 45 minute walk (for me) up to the foot of the glacier at 5220m (17,122ft).  It was a nice view with a huge glacial face that dropped straight into a frozen lake.  Behind us there were also very nice views of some glaciated peaks.  Next  weekend there will be an ice festival up here complete with ski and snowboard races.  I really wish I could be there for that!  Maybe I would join with my old junky rental skis...  I had a lot of time to explore up at the glacier as it took most people a long time to make it up to the foot of the glacier at that altitude and several were holding their heads in pain.

On the way back down we made a couple of stops.  The first stop was at an overhanging wall that had some ancient wall paintings.  We then stopped at a soda spring where water was bubbling up and the water in the lake it fed was water with gas.  Our last stop was to check out some Puya Raimondi plants.  They were incredibly cool!  They look like a giant yucca and have a flower that grows straight up over 30 feet!! in the air.  It is apparently the largest non-tree plant according to our guide.  They are endangered and only found in a couple places in Peru and a couple places in Bolivia.  They live at a range of 3200m to 4800m..

Back in Huaraz I went to the market to load up on cheap food as soon I will not have that option as I will be in the US before I know it.  On the streets the locals had set up volleyball nets and were playing.  Volleyball is pretty big here and you often see people playing it, even in the small villages.

There has been a sort of festival thing happening in Huaraz the last couple of days.  A few days ago there was a fashion show, then a parade.  Tonight there was some good live music at the Plaza de Armas, so I went to my favorite burger joint and also got a couple of churros and went to listen to the lively music.

In the night I made this tasty cinammon chocolate where you melt a big Inca bar in a liter of milk and watched a movie with my everlasting hot drink

6-26

I got up early to take a collective to Campo Santo.   Elisha and I had visited this place before.  It is the memorial for the 20,000 people that died when an avalanche from Huascaran (Peru's highest peak) came rushing down to the town of Yungay.  When we had visited before, Huascuran was obscured by clouds, so that is why I visited today.   Today I had a very clear view of Huascaran as well as a cool view of the nearly full moon rising over the giant statue of Jesus that is looking over the area where the avalanche ocurred.

From the memorial, I could see a little mountain that I knew would have awesome views of Huascaran and Huandoy.  I could see agricultural fields up there, so I figured there was a road going up and thus likely collectivos.  I asked around and found out that the little village on top was called Atma and that indeed they had some collectivo cars that would go up.  So I piled into a car: we had 9 people and goods in the car the size of my subaru.  It was all local women besides me and the driver.  I am pretty sure tourists don't really ever go up to Atma bc it is not on any map nor advertised.  The women certainly got a kick out of me there and were laughing and chattering away.  They all speak Quechua (the Incan language) amongst themselves; however, the word Gringo is used both in Quechua and Castellano (what they call spanish here), and they were saying it a lot and laughing.
Myself and a young girl were squeezed into the front seat and she started talking to me in Spanish.  At the top at Atma (which indeed had great views of giant Huascuran and crazy looking pointed Huandoy) she wanted to show me her house.  It was perched on the edge of the mountain and had amazing views of the mountains and down a valley.  Sorry mom and dad, but I think her view beats yours.  She then showed me all her fat and healthy pigs, her burros, her cuys (guinea pigs), and her fields of kiwicha and maiz, and then she asked if I would marry her!!  All of her farm animals and her views and her sweetness were very tempting, but I had to tell her that I had a very nice novia (girlfriend) back home and it wouldn't be right to marry her.  But I told her that I have a very handsome single brother who also loves the mountains.  I didn't think of it then, but since Peru is so big in volleyball, maybe her and Elisha should have had a volleyball-off.

After checking out the views, I took another crowded car full of laughing, gringo intrigued women, back down to Yungay.  Yungay was happening as Wednesday is market day in Yungay when the villagers living way up high in the mountains come down to buy and sell their wares.

I had to be back to Huaraz by noon to check out from my hostel.  After packing and checking out, I headed out to the main square where the festivities were still happening.  There was a demonstration type parade stopping all traffic on the main street and in the main square they were having some sort of agricultural expo highlighting foods and products from the Ancash Region, of which Huaraz is a part.  It was a whole lot of Quinua, Kiwicha, Maiz, Miel (honey), and Potato products.  It is amazing all the different ways they use Quinua: chinese rice type things, quinua balls, quinua soups, quinua icecream, quinua drinks, etc.  One of the funniest parts of the day was when I bought a potato dish with a nice spicy sauce, the lady dropped my change into the sauce bowl.  It didn't phase her,she gave me new change and then just kept dishing out sauce from the bowl.

The best part of the expo was the cuy area.  There were cuys from all over the country.  Different breeds and different sizes.  Some even with long and curly hair.  Of course people were eating cuy all over just like fried chicken.  And the best part was that they had a cuy fashion show.  I saw the best dressed cuy in a cute costume with a gold medal around its neck.

I also stopped by the public library where they had an exhibit on the deglaciation of the glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca.  It was pretty shocking to see the extent of it and the before and current pictures.  Even to see how much it has changed since photos in 1995 and 2000.  I have heard that glaciers in the tropics are receeding the fastest of all.

Tonight I will go have my last meal in Peru (likely chifa) and then I have a night bus to Lima.  I will arrive around 5:30 am and then I have a 8:45 flight to Toronto.  A bit of a layover there and then a flight on to Seattle where I will get to hang out with the Jovial Bison and company as well as my aunt Dianne for 4 or 5 days before my flight to Spokane so that I can be back in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho and then more or less officially kind of home.

6-28  I arrived into Seattle last night after a couple long flights.  Was picked up by the Jovial Bison at the airport!  Great to see him.  Looking forward to hanging out with him and his family for the next couple of days.

Skiing in the Tropics!! And moonlit ascent of 18,650ft high Vallunaraju

By the way, I looked up how long the Huayhuash trek was and I read that it is approximately 165km ( 102 miles).  During the trek there wasn't tons of food.  Partly bc it is even hard for the burros to carry everything.  In truth, the amount of food we got each day was less than how much I would eat if I was doing nothing.  So when you combine this with all that hard trekking and your body working to keep itself warm, you definitely lose a lot of weight.  People on are trek were guessing we lost 5 to 10 pounds.  I did notice that none of my pants, my money belt, and even my underwear sagged when I got back.  Not to worry, as I am spending a lot of my free time in Huaraz filling up on greasy street food and icecream.

6-22

I had been expecting to re-do the Santa Cruz trek after I got back from the Huayhuash.  I was going to take one day "off" by visiting Pastoriri glacier then go on the the 24th, 25th, and 26th to arrive back on the 26th in time to take the 10:30pm night bus to Lima to catch my 8:30 am flight the next day.  I was wanting to have another go at the Santa Cruz trek bc it is supposed to be uber pretty, one of the supposed best treks in the world (according to Nat Geo).  When Elisha, Dacre, Kimmy, and I did it, we had so much snow and rain that we really didn't see much sadly.  Before the Huayhuash trek, I had actually gone out and bought all the food I would need for the trek, my fuel for the stove, etc. so that I wouldn't have to do all that when I returned.

However, things change...

During the Huayhuash trek, Scott and Leo started talking about maybe climbing a peak in the Cordillera Blanca.  I thought this was an excellent idea and I hadn't known there were some 2 and 3 day peak climbs one could do.  Considering my amazing amount of acclimitization after doing Santa Cruz, several day trips above 4500m and a 10 day trek where everynight we slept above 4000m and almost everyday when above 4700m,  I felt that I shouldn't "waste" this acclimitization by not climbing a peak.

So Scott, Leo, and I decided we would try for a 2 or 3 day peak.  The guy at the agency we had done the Huayhuash trek with said there were about 3 or 4 decent ones.  The two highlights being Pisco and Vallunaraju.  Pisco takes 3 days usually, though he thought Leo and I could do it in 2.  The issue we had was that Scott and Leo only had 3 days left before flying home, so with a rest day, that meant we could only do a 2 day peak.  We were going to meet at dinner to decide which peak to do, but when we reconveined over Chifa, we found out that Leo only had 2 days left as he had not remembered his actual flight date.  So that pretty much meant he couldn't go unless he left the next day, without a rest, for the climb.  So it was going to be me and Scott deciding on it.  But then Scott was being kind of iffy, saying he was tired and his feet hurt and maybe he didn't want to do it.  Well, you need two people to form a group and I really wanted to climb a peak now, but now it looked like I didn't have a second person.  When we went back to the agency to say this and for me to ask if there were any other solo people (which generally isn't the best thing bc you kind of want to know and trust your partner on the glacier, plus you want to make sure you have one that you know is in shape and can do it bc often if one turns back, both have to turn back), the guy was like "Leo, why not skip the rest day and just leave tomorrow as we have a group of 2 leaving tomorrow".  Keep in mind this was about 9:30pm.  Well if Leo was going to go, then I sure in heck was going to go, bc I trusted Leo and knew for sure he could make the summit.  So at 9:30pm that night, Leo and I decided to leave tomorrow to go to base camp of 5686m/18650ft. Vallunaraju for an attempt of the summit early that next morning.  So long Santa Cruz Trek, hello big mountain climb.  Plus this mountain had the added bonus that I would be able to SKI down it!

6-23

I went early in the morning to the agency to get all my equipment.  As per usual, they had no ski boots close to my size.  They actually had a couple decent pairs of skis, but no ski boots to go with them.  Instead I went with a short and skinny pair of skis from the 70s that had a type of AT binding on them that could fit the plastic mountaineering boots that I would be wearing.  We had to do some adjustments on the bindings to make my plastic boots fit in them, and I was a bit apprehensive about how they would hold doing sharp turns, but they were my only choice, so I went with them.

We started the day by driving up Cocuy canyon to the trailhead for the high camp.  We got dropped off at about 4300m (14,104ft).  The trailhead was near Laguna Llaca which we would see as we gained elevation on the hike.  We had stunning views of an incredible steep snow peak the whole hike up to high camp.  The trail, if you could call it that, was super steep, and it was definitely a huff carrying up our packs.  We didn't have donkeys for this trip and with all the warm clothes, tents, 4 liters of water, food, crampons, harnesses, plastic boots, ice ax, skis, etc, I would guess my pack weighed about 70 pounds.  There were two other people in the group: a japanese guy and an israeli.  Leo and I arrived up to Moraine High Camp (4960m/16,269ft) about an hour before the other 2.  The japanese guy, who was going to try and snowboard, had to have one of the guides go back down and carry his pack up.  The view from our camp was stunning with that same peak.  In fact, from my tent, all I had to do was unzip the door and the mountain was right in front of me!  We had a filling dinner in the rocks of the camp and then watched the sunset glow on the peak.  As it was a full moon, at night you could still see the peak illuminated beautifully by the full moon.

6-24.

Leo and I got up at 2:30 and left at 3:30am for the summit bid.  Our guide had wanted to wake up at 1:30am, but I convinced him that Leo and I would reach the summit far before sunrise if that was the case.  The other 2 with their guide did leave early as planned.  It was a 30 minute scramble over rocks to reach the glacier where we donned our crampons, mountaineering boots, and harnesses.  The japanese guy had already turned back having only gone about 200 meters up the glacier and the cook was there to take him back down to camp.

We didn't need to use headlamps because the full moon was so bright.  You could have read the paper with the moon way up at that altitude in the clear air.  And of course the glacial snow increased the luminescence.  In fact, as I told Leo, I thought I would need by sunglasses!  But it was just gorgeous how it lit up the glacier and surrounding mountains!  It was only our group of 4 that was attempting the mountain this night, so that was cool.

After what we thought was a fairly easy climb (we were well acclimated--I think we could easily scale at 6500m peak in our current state-- and we didn't even huff and puff or really need to rest), Leo and reached the summit of Nevado Vallunaraju (5686m/18,650 feet) at 5:45am, still well before sunrise.  Leo and I stayed up on the summit for over an hour enjoying the incredible views and waiting for the sunrise that we knew would light up the peaks.  The Israeli guy made it up around 6:30am.

On the way back down, after descending the tricky summit ridge and initial crevasse field, I skied down on my old skies.  I skied conservatively and tentatively because I didn't know about how the bindings would hold up, but it was quite fun!  The guides got a huge kick out of it and both wanted to video and take pictures of me.  They thought it was so cool.

I spent the afternoon doing some internetting and also sitting on the rooftop terrace of my hostel reading and journalling where I had a very nice view of the peak I had just climbed and skied down.  It is crazy to see this huge mountain way up there that I had just been on top of earlier that morning

In the evening Leo and I met up for celebratory Pisco Sours and then our favorite street hamburger joint which serves a burger with an egg with hot dog mixed into it and french fries in the burger for about 85 cents.  And it is truly amazing how this guy is able to get so many fries, so many hot dog pieces and the burger and egg into between the buns.  He has about 7 condiments to choose from (from mustard to mayo to catsup to chili sauce to spicy sauce to plus sauce) and you have to choose one I think or he won't be able to glue it all together.

10 Day Cordillera Huayhuash Trek

I have been wanting to do the Cordillera Huayhuash trek for a long time.  It is listed as being the best mountain trek outside of Nepal.  Last year I had hoped to do it, but I ran out of time because I got a WinFly contract for Antarctica..

6-13  Day 1.

Left in the mornin by van to the Village of Llamac.  I was a 4 hour drive.  For the first 2 hours, we drove parallel with the Cordillera Blanca which afforded nice views of some huge white peaks.  We then left the Cordillera Blanca and descended down a crazy deep and beautiful canyo.  It was an extremely windy road with snowcapped peaks (mostly covered in clouds) in the distance.  When we got into the canyon, we drove upstream on a very narrow road.  We were definitely in the boonies.  We had trouble passing a group of cows because the road was so narrow.  We also had trouble passing a bulldozer that was clearing a landslide.  Once we reached Llamac, we continued going up for a bit.  The van dropped us off and we just had a little bit of a hike to get to camp.  From the camp we did a short huke up a ridge (4510m/14,793) which had really nice views of two sharp snow-capped peaks and the green valley where we were camping in that was covered in little sheep and cow rock corrals.

I have done 10 day treks before where I have carried all of my equipment and been self-sufficient.  However, here, because of the low price and the fact that the agencies knew some good unmarked routes, I chose to go with a group.  This means that I would have a burro (donkey) carrying my sleeping bag, tent, and clothes, which would lighten my load a lot.  With the group, you get a guide, usually a cook (we didn´t have one, so the guide was a cook), and a donkey driver.  They wake you up in the morning in your tent with coca tea.  They then cook you breakfast, give you a sack lunch, and you set out.  When you arrive at camp, your tent is already set up and you have tea and a snack.  They then cook dinner at night.  They also set up a little dining tent which is nice because it can be quite cold and windy.

I had a nice little group and we all got a long really well and had a lot of fun.  Our guide´s name was Eric.  The Donkey driver, well Eric never knew his name (which we laughed a lot about bc they worked closely together for 10 days) and we hadn´t caught it, but everyone called him Primo (means cousin in Español).  On the trip was Scott who attended Princeton and lives in NY; however, he is living in Sao Paulo for a year because his girlfriend got a one year gig there.  There was Leo from Holland (who couldn´t believe Elisha and I had summited cotopaxi bc everyone he had met (including himself) had failed to reach the summit).  There was Asaf from Israel and EV from Bulgaria though she moved shortly to California, so for all intensive purposes she is American.  EV and Asaf met in Brazil and are now in love.

6-14  Day 2.

The morning was nice and clear and we had good views of the same 2 snowcapped peaks.  We hiked up to Cacanong Pass (4695m/15,399ft) where we some condors and had nice views from the valley that we had come up as well as nice views to the valley that we would be going.  There was lots of giant granite faces and mountains here...very similar to parts of the high Rockies.  This also happened to be the continental divide with one side flowing to the Pacific and one side flowing to the Amazon.  From the pass we hiked down with some nice views of the very folded granite mountains.  We also had some views of 4 snowcapped peaks, one of which was Yurapaja grande, the tallest peak in the Huayhuash range, though its summit was mostly covered.  We eventually arrived down at a lake: Mitucocha (4270m/14,006ft) with nice views of those glaciated peaks.  Very beautiful!.  We camped at a nice place called Janca (4240m/13,07ft) with a little stream running right through it.

6-15  Day 3.

I woke up before everyone else and walked back to Mitucocha lake.  The clouds had all cleared overnight, so all the peaks, including Yurapaja were shimmering gloriously in the morning sun!  As there was no wind yet, the peaks were also reflecting nicely in the still water.  I then headed back to camp to meet the others for breakfast.

On this day, we went off the trail and hiked up a big ridge (4770m/15,645ft) where there were absolutely stunning views of some big snowy mountains, the valley below, lake Mitucocha and another lake.  We could also see some really cool geologic formations including some sweet folds and huge granite spines.  We then hiked over a pass (4860m/15,941ft) where there were a couple of tarns.  In the shale (I think) around the tarns, we found some seashell fossils. We then descended a bit down to Laugna Alcaycocha (4670m/15,318ft) which sits at the foot of a red mountaint with a bit of snow on it.  We then descended into a deep valley, past some thatched roof buildings, went around a corner, and BOOM!  Right in front of us were 4 huge peaks with huge glaciers that had created a giant cirque in which a large turqoise lake (Carhuacocha) sat shimmering in the bottom.  That afternoon the clouds obscured the tops of the peaks, but the view was still stunning.  Our camp (Incahuain  4138m/13,572ft) was in a gorgeous spot overlooking the lake and with views of the big mountains.  Around sunset, the clouds cleared a bit and the light on the peaks from our camp was magnificent.  In the evening as we sat reading in our wamr sleeping bags in our tents, we could hear lots of avalanches roaring down the peaks.  One of the peaks we could see was Nevado Siula Grande which is the mountain the climbers were scaling in the book Touching the Void.  If you are not a reader, there is now a movie out about this crazy climbing survival story.  I have read the book, but not seen the movie, so I don´t know if the movie is good.

6-16  Day 4  Dia de los Padres

I woke up early to a beautiful sunrise and a clear day!  The views of the mountains and lake with the sunrise was awe-inspiring.  The rising sun set fire to the giant snow-capped peaks (Yerupaja grande, Yerupaja chico, Jirishanca, Siula Grande) that overlooked us and Laguna Carhuacocha.  I set out early before everyone else and went at a very fast pace up the pass as I knew the clouds would be coming in.  I first stopped at the outlet of Carhuacocha where I could see the big peaks reflected nicely in the water.  From the lake, the hike was through a steep valley with towering peaks and glaciers tumbling down.  Along the way, I passed by 3 glacial lakes: Laugna Gangrajanca (4245m/13,924ft), Laguna Siula (4290m/14,071ft), and Laguna Quesillococha (4332m/14,209ft).  After passing by the lakes, the trail climbed steeply so that I had a spectacular view down the valley of the 3 turquoise lakes and the towering snow-draped peaks.  I enjoyed the views for a while from a viewpoint (one of the classice Huayhuash viewpoints), then I hiked up to Siula Pass (4910m/16,105ft) from where there was pretty decent views of the big mountains; however, they were mostly covered in clouds by then.  From the ridge on the pass, you could look down and see Laguna Cojoncocha on the left and Laguna Pucacocha on the right.  I waited a couple of hours on the pass until the group arrived, and then we descended down to Laguna Quesillococha (4435m/14,547ft) that had some nice mountains views with fairly low glaciers.  From here we walked for a bit on an old Inca Trail that connected this portion of the mountains with the coast.  We took the Inca Trail as it descended to our campsite (called Huayhuash, 4350m/14,268) in a nice little valley.  That night it rained pretty hard.

Today was father´s day and as I was in the middle of the Andes, I had no way to get in touch with him.  However, as I was hiking up the pass,  I was thinking of him and thinking how he was one of the big influences on me that caused me to develop a love of the mountains, the outdoors, and hiking.  I am also reading James Michener´s "Centennial" right now, which he gave me, and everytime I open it up, it reminds me of him because he loves the wild west and the cowboys and open country and all that.

6-17  Day 5

It was quite foggy in the morning as we climbed up Ararag pass (4750m/ 15,580 ft.).  Going up in the fog had a unique mystifying feel to it and at times we would catch a glimpse of the the snowcapped peaks through a break in the fog.  It was cold on the top of the pass with even a bit of residual snow on top from the night before.  As we headed down the other side, the fog cleared and we could see some of the heavily glaciated peaks of the Cordillera Raura.  There was also nice views down the valley to Laguna Viconga.  On the walk from the lake to camp, there was a little range of beautiful jagged peaks.  We then arrived at our campsite--Guñog (4360m/14,301ft)--which had hot springs!!  Very nice enjoyable soak as we were of course very dirty and we had spent a lot of time in the cold high altitude air.  It was Asaf´s birthday, so we had boxed Gato wine that they had brought.  At dinner EV brought out a cake with firework candles that she had carried and we all sang happy birthday.

6-18  Day 6

We woke up in the morning to a hard frost but clear skies.  We hiked up to Cuyoc Pass (5070m/16,630ft), which had really nice views of some jagged peaks as we went up and to our backs were nice and clear views of the pretty Cordillera Raura.  From the top where nearly 360 degree views.  Sweepoing views of the Cordillera Raura and the valley and a couple of lakes from which we had just come from.  To the front right were the impossibly steep and incredibly big mountains of the Cordillera Huayhuash.  To the front was a huge valley with snowcapped peaks in the back.  To the left were some dry peaks and to the right was a glacieated mountain with a large glacier descending to a lower point than where we were standing on the pass.  While I waited for the others (I had to wait over 2 hours), I climbed up to a ridge (about 5120m/16,794ft) which afforded even better views of the Huayhuahs mountains and some beautiful emerals lakes shimmering below.  I also saw two Vicuñas (wild relative to the llama) grazing up there.  From the pass it was downhill to a big valley where we camped at Cuyoc Pampa (4492m/14,734ft)

Sometimes I guess I am a little crazy when it comes to seeing the mountains.  Tomorrow we would be going up San Antonio Pass which is supposed to be one of the top views of the trek.  Since it was a good weather day and you never know about the weather the next day, I thought about going up the pass and then back down to camp.  The donkey driver said (the guide wasn't down yet as he was still with Asaf and EV) it would take 3 hours to go up and a bit over an hour to come down, so I would just be coming back in the dark.  I was able to convince Leo to go with me.  In the end, I was able to do the pass in 50 minutes (I was cruising in case the afternoon weather changed) and Leo in 1 hr 10 mins.  The view from San Antonio Pas (5085m/16,679ft. was indeed stunning.  The very high, super steep and snow plastered Huayhuash towered straight ahead with a couple of glowing turquoise lakes (Lagunas Juraucocha and Sarapococha) at their base which huge glaciers flowed into.  We hiked up to a higher viewpoint from where we could see the village where we would be hiking to on the next day.  The Huayhuash was in front and behind us was the pretty valley with red and yellow mountains behind it.  After soaking up the view, we were able to descend back to camp in time to make the afternoon snack.

6-19 Day 7

We woke up to another hard frost and the exciting news (for Leo and me) that we would be taking an adjacent pass (off the main trail) to the one Leo and I had done before; thus, we would be getting different views.  I speedily made it up to this pass (5086m/16,682ft), so that I had lots of time to sit and enjoy the incredible views.  The giant white mountains stood out against the blue sky with a surreal turquoise lake sparkling below: Laguna Juraucocha.  We could also see Laguna Sarapococha at the base of a huge glacier.  We hung around for a while enjoying the views before descending quite steeply down to gorgeous turquoise Laguna Juraucocha (4343m/14,245ft).  On the way down we also passed a glacial green lake.  The views from Juraucocha were stunning with the completely snowcovered peaks behind and the beautifully colored water in front.  We had lunch at the lake, and I soaked my feet in the icy waters.

From there we had a long walk down a gentle valley that was covered by purple flowers that were head high with a sprinkling of yellow flowers interspersed between them.  Before the valley curved too much, we could see the big peaks behind us.  At one point we passed a waterfall with 10 different tiers. 

Eventually we came to the village of Huayllapa (3490m/11,447ft), a very small traditional villagle where we camped.  The villages was composed of about 300 families all wearing traditional dress.  There were lots of women knitting and also making yarn from sheep wool.  We loaded up on snacks (Sublime bars..yum!) at the little store, checkd out the center plaza, watched a gym class learn volleyball, and were asked some English questions by kids doing their English homework.  The village was very traditional with some houses having thatched roofs and most being made out of mud bricks.  There were no cars and the streets were very narrow. 

Today Leo told me "I am always the fastest in the mountains, but you are much faster th an me!.  Have you ever met anyone faster than you?"  My answer was, "no, except for my brother, especially when he has mono".  I later overheard Leo telling the rest of the group about how he had never seen anyone so fast.  This made me feel pretty good, especially being that I was the oldest in our trekking group. 

6-20  Day 8

We slept in at the village bc the guide and the donkey driver had gone out and there wasn't supposed to be any spectacular views to beat the clouds to.  Our campsite was on a soccer field.  When we had arrived the night before, kids were playing soccer.  In the morning as we were packing up, there was a gym class playing hula hoop games. 

Today was a big uphill day in terms of elevation gain.  We walked up a beautiful canyon with flowers and a nice river.  It eventually opened up to some broader valleys with views of a couple of glaciated peaks and back towards the red canyon and dry mountains behind.  At the top of Tapush Pass (4796m/15,731ft), I waited 30 minutes for Leo and then over and hour more for Scott so that Leo and I were pretty cold on top of the chilly and windy pass by the time Scott arrived.  But we had bought "summit beers" in the village, so we pulled them out, toasted to a good trek and then downed our ice cold beers.  Then it was a s hort walk, passed a small lake, down to our camp: Angocancha (4480m/14,694 ft).  At the camp there were some trees; the first we had seen since we left Huaraz.  In the evening we had a bit of hail.

6-21 Day 9

Hiked up over Llaucha pass (4853m/15,918ft).  Then leo and I hiked up a small peak (5007m/16,423 ft) to try and get a more panoramic view.  It didn't do too much good, unfortunately, because the high mountains were all shrouded in clouds, including the highest mountain in the Cordillera Huayhuash: Nevado Yerupaja (6617m/21,704ft).  Once the rest of the group joined, guide Eric took us off the trail.  We walked along a ridge that would have provided spectacular views if the skies had been cloud free.  On the left you could see some mountains of the Cordillera Blanca in the far distance.  In front of us was a nice looking red mountain.  Behind us was the pass and a few smaller snowcapped peaks.  To our right stood towering some of the highest peaks in the Huayhuash-- Yerupaja, Jirishanca, Yerupaja chico, and Rondoy-- their peaks shrouded by clouds.  But we could still see their steep faces and the glaciers tumbling down.  We reached the end of the ridge where we climbed to the top of Cerro Huacrish (4750m/15,580ft) from where we could see two lakes (Lagunas Jahuacocha and Solteracocha)--Laguna Solteracocah having a stunning turquoise color--at the foot of these mountains.  From there, we walked straight (and I mean straight) dowhnill with views all the time and tons of purple flowers until we reached Laguna Jahuacocha (4050m/13,284) where we would camp.  After lunch and a rest, the mountains towering over the lake and camp cleared quite a bit, and we could even see a few summits.  In the afternoon we hiked to the turquoise Laguna Solteracocha (4120m/13,513ft) which had a glacier tumbling right into it.  Back at camp, we saw some nice glows on the mountains as the sun set; however, the best part was seeing the near full moon rise over one of the glowing peaks!  Quite the incredible sights to see!

6-22 Day 10

I got up before the sun was up with plans to go hike back up to the viewpoint for sunrise and see the whole range cloud free, but sadly, it was cloudy.

On this day, we hiked from the camp to the village of Llamac (3250m/ 10,660 ft).  The first 10km were a flat grade.  The trail was high up on a steep and deep canyon with desert type vegetation.  Very scenic.  And as we looked back, the mountains started to clear up, and we had some very nice view of Yerupaja.  We then descended steeply down to Llamac where I had a couple of celebratory icecreams (Leo and I explored the whole town before the others arrived, walking every street before we could find an open store with icecream as we had arrived during siesta time on a Saturday). 

We then had the same scenic ride back to Huaraz.  First the beautiful canyon and then the road roading parallel to the Cordillera Blanca.

Back in Huaraz I made sure to have lots of icecream and a big serving of tasty Chifa!