Sorry to leave you all hanging for 10 days, but things have been crazy with the end of the Project and all. Went to Oyacachi last weekend for a dip in the hot springs. Amazing fun and a very yummy trout lunch! Finished up all my units (7 in total under my sole direction this year... one of which was a ridiculous 5x5 meter hell hole that was opened 3 days before the end of the project. Yup, just a bit isane. It did have a wall we found on gpr in it though, which may have made the crazy hectic speed digging worth it... maybe). Also finished all my paper work. Even dug an extra level of one of my units with less than 24hrs of the project left. Competely insane. Oh well, it's all done now with not too much wear and tear for it all...
Ended up getting to Quito on Friday night. Had our good-bye banquet at this cool little restaurant called Q. Said good-bye to a bunch of people, and headed down to Baños with a few project members yesterday.
Baños is really cool. Went horseback riding to water falls and cyclng to a volcano later on in the day. White water rafting is set for tomorrow morning and maybe some canyoning (repelling down waterfalls) afterwards. We'll see. All has been/should continue to be fun.
Then Tuesday I fly down to Cuzco with Easton to start work on his dissertation pilot project (yup, I'm actually going to Peru for 2 weeks! Yea!!!!) and 2 weeks later I'll head to Belize to work with the UMAP project for another few weeks until Aug. 23rd when I fly back to the states.
That's it for now.
Off to dinner.
Miss you all!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
GPR
Just a quick one today:
1) Hi mom and dad. I'm alive.
2) Got to use GPR (ground penetrating radar) for the first time ever up at Pukarito yesterday. Freakin amazing equipment. I want to learn more about it... maybe consider getting a masters in the topic?
3)In Cayambe right now just to bum around and stop at the grocery store. I'm getting sick of fruit and tuna for lunch. Time to jazz things up. Plus I've only been into town 2x now and that's unacceptable.
4)I miss you all.
5) I might only be in Belize for 2 weeks. I'm considering going with a friend down to Cuzco, Peru for 2 weeks before going home instead of staying in Belize for 4. Have yet to figure out pricing of flights and such... I'll keep you updated.
1) Hi mom and dad. I'm alive.
2) Got to use GPR (ground penetrating radar) for the first time ever up at Pukarito yesterday. Freakin amazing equipment. I want to learn more about it... maybe consider getting a masters in the topic?
3)In Cayambe right now just to bum around and stop at the grocery store. I'm getting sick of fruit and tuna for lunch. Time to jazz things up. Plus I've only been into town 2x now and that's unacceptable.
4)I miss you all.
5) I might only be in Belize for 2 weeks. I'm considering going with a friend down to Cuzco, Peru for 2 weeks before going home instead of staying in Belize for 4. Have yet to figure out pricing of flights and such... I'll keep you updated.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mindo and Pukarito
Spent the past week up at a site called Pukarito which is this really cool terraced, possibly pre-incan fortress site... or it's just a gigantic dirt pit. I haven't decided my interperation yet. Opened up 3 units by myself, only to get another staff member for 2 days and then lose his help as quickly as it came. All 3 units were beneath this terraced wall of clay, adobe brick (called cangahua soil, just like the name of the town I'm living in now) and had tons of melted wall fall which is a total pain in the bum to clean out. A top this puddle of melted hell was a secondary wall and possible a hearth, but they're much more recent than I'd like them to be and part of the wall and all of the non-existant internal flooring was plowed up over the years (because, oh yeah, we're digging in an agricultural field. Our bad. Whoops...) so yeah, the interpretation has been a serious hassel. Lots of mapping, lots of trowling through grit. Lots of stressed out students. At the same time though, I toally hve the dream team of kids (Marsha, Mike M., Cheese) and they've been trying their hardest to make good of an annoying situation. And so it goes... sometimes you get the good pits, sometimes yo don't. Has to happen. And they WERE promising at the beginning...
In other news, I went to Mindo this weekend on my free time. Mindo is this beautiful town up in the cloud forest (imagine lush rain forest covered in fog every now and then) with zip lining and waterfalls you can jump off of. Both of which I did. Didn't help that the waterfall I choose to fling myself from was 20meters high, thus resulting in a bad landing which chipped two of my teeth minorly, bruised the entire back of my left leg, and possibly chipped my tail bone. Really, minor details. I'm totally ok. I can walk and sit and function. Painfully, but still, everything works. Don't worry. Plus, I literally had the time of my life all weekend, so nobody gets to pity me. I even zip-lined upside-down with my feet in the air. Spent some time relaxing by the pool too and visited a butterfly sanctuary where the butterflies land all over you, thus resulting is wickedly awesome pictures. All in all a fantastic weekend, probably the best I've ever had in Ecuador out of both years. The company helped too. I'm making some really good friends here...
Sadly had to come back on sunday evening though. Came just in time to see the end of the bull fights, which always amaze me since the people who jump in the ring are barely ever sober. Then back to work on Monday at Pukarito where I closed up my units. Leaving us at today, where I was back up at Pukarito but this time mapping 3 profiles and a few plan maps for the groups that aren't as efficent as my dream team...
That's all for now. I miss you all. Only 5 or so more weeks till I get to come home and tell you all my stories in person. It's weird that I'm almost 1/2 way done... Oh well, I plan to have an even more amazing time with what time I have left!!!
In other news, I went to Mindo this weekend on my free time. Mindo is this beautiful town up in the cloud forest (imagine lush rain forest covered in fog every now and then) with zip lining and waterfalls you can jump off of. Both of which I did. Didn't help that the waterfall I choose to fling myself from was 20meters high, thus resulting in a bad landing which chipped two of my teeth minorly, bruised the entire back of my left leg, and possibly chipped my tail bone. Really, minor details. I'm totally ok. I can walk and sit and function. Painfully, but still, everything works. Don't worry. Plus, I literally had the time of my life all weekend, so nobody gets to pity me. I even zip-lined upside-down with my feet in the air. Spent some time relaxing by the pool too and visited a butterfly sanctuary where the butterflies land all over you, thus resulting is wickedly awesome pictures. All in all a fantastic weekend, probably the best I've ever had in Ecuador out of both years. The company helped too. I'm making some really good friends here...
Sadly had to come back on sunday evening though. Came just in time to see the end of the bull fights, which always amaze me since the people who jump in the ring are barely ever sober. Then back to work on Monday at Pukarito where I closed up my units. Leaving us at today, where I was back up at Pukarito but this time mapping 3 profiles and a few plan maps for the groups that aren't as efficent as my dream team...
That's all for now. I miss you all. Only 5 or so more weeks till I get to come home and tell you all my stories in person. It's weird that I'm almost 1/2 way done... Oh well, I plan to have an even more amazing time with what time I have left!!!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Pukarito, Lllamas, The Market, etc.
Haven't updated in a little bit, and I feel like a ton has happened!
Friday I went on survey again, this time leading a group of 4 kids with Easton. We lost one, Boone, early in the morning cause he had to get to the bank before it closed (which is pretty much noon around here) and he couldn´t find us once we got back. We lost a second student, Matt, an hour into our trek because he twisted his ankle jumping off a 20ft wall. That was almost me since I had to have somebody catch me as I jumped (I´m little, give me a break), and once I was sent down, I backed up and tripped on some roots, thus landing flat on my back. Score: Evil cliff 2, Survey Team 0.
Anyway, we sent Matt back to the road to take the bus home since we were just headed straight into more trecherous territory. Thus, left with only Scott and Marsha (the back bone of Team Awesome), your fearless leaders Kat and Easton treked across cabradas and sheer cliffs, under barbed wire, past rabid dogs (one of which bit scott, but only managed to rip a whole in his pants since his boots were high enough), and over agave hedged walls. Despite 3 agave spikes to Easton's arms and legs (on of which was lodged an inch and a half into his bicep till later that night), a butt full of cactus for the ever so clumsy Kat, and pure terror for our faithful students, we marched forth in our 20meter transects until we came upon possibly the coolest site ever surveyed. Boulea (sling stones), Incan Poly-chrome pottery, rims and feet were everywhere covering hundreds of meters of agricultural fields. We also had at least 6 terraces above the site that were just littered with artifacts! Essentially we hit the motherload. Only problem was that the land-owner lady wanted us to buzz off. "¡ES MIOS! ¡¡¡No excavar!!!! ¡ES MIOS!" So what would any team of gringo's do to rectify the situation? Flatter her like hell of course! ...and maybe we "rented her cows" for an hour with a quitely slipped $10. This is Ecuador, people; you do what you have to in order to gather evidence of your amazing finds. An hour later, we were off again, only this time weighed down with bags of pottery, survey forms and notebooks chalked full of accounts of our discovery, and super excited to brag once we got back to the Hacienda. After another 3 hrs of merciless treking, with no other site found of course, we arrived back at the hacienda!
...only to find out we had been tested. Our super cool "new" mecca-like site was a well known site the project has excaveted for the past 2 yrs. WTF?!?! Funny how I seem to be the only returning staff member who'd never gone up to Pukarito. Ugh. Apparently the directors wanted to make sure Easton, a new staf memeber, could lead a team and knowing I'm a competent surveyer, they sent me along for kicks. Can we talk about a slap in the face. All the sudden the survey day from hell went from totally rewarding to a joke for all the other staff members. So lame, I cannot even tell you.
Well, to try and make things better, I ended up being put on Pukarito to lead my own dual units on Monday, which I have to say is pretty bad ass and a certainly rewarding. I feel like I can be trusted in the very least to not f-up the mega site. And being in charge of 2 units at a time just kind of reaffirms that assumption. I also got my dream team, with Marsha, Matt (Wisconsin), and Scott again, plus Grant who's a pretty cool guy. So this week has so far been all about two very kick-ass 2x2's atop this awesome fortress with strong-hold views of every other site and fortress for miles. Plus, my units are the first 2 units on the site to display actaul evidence of weapontry! We found a boulea and a sling stone, respectively, in the first 10cm of each pit. And to top it off, one unit seems to be exhibiting features of a hearth and the other has bisecting walls, an internal corner, and a featured internal floor. Apparently all the caches found at the site have been found in the corners of buildings, so my second unit has the potential to seriously kick ass. Can you tell how excited this makes me!!!!!???? So yeah, I'm definantly looking forward to going back and finding more ceremic, lithics, and bone tomorrow... and maybe the mythic golden lama just for kicks!
What else has happened (as if that all is not enough!)? Had a July 3rd BBQ at the hacienda on friday night with a very big bonfire. Lots of food. Generally a good time. Also this weekend on Saturday the students and staff took a trip to Odavolo (I can´t spell that name to save my life), which is essentially the biggest market place in Ecuador. Since I wasn´t souvineer hunting (I brought all of you stuff back last year :-P), I spent most of my time amongst the Ecuadorian part of the market where they sell car parts, veggies, and various other common household items. It's a much livelier/authetic part of the market, which I had't gotten to experience last year. My favorite part was being one of only 3 gringos inside the "food court," and I use that term lightly. I ate my chicken with platains, rice, and red cabbage as a women in the booth behind me butchered an entire pig, with meat pieces flying, and an afro-spanish evangalist yelled at the Ecuadorianos about killing the chickens they were currently consuming. it sounds grusome, but it was actually really cool. Ended up just getting a pair of earrings for myself, which one of my friends insisted on buying me, and made off only a few dollars poorer and very satisfied with life.
Saturday night the festivals continued, with a make-shift Fourth of July celabration for the gringo archaeologists. The project pays the town to buy us fireworks, and then the Ecuadorians set up a huge, fire-marshal's nightmare, scafold full of the things all connected to one fuze. Add to the fact that all of these things are hand rolled, with no regulations on the amount of gun powder used, and you've got yourself a very interesting, very amusing, and very dangerous fireworks display. Let's just say that 2 or 15 of the fireworks detached from the scafold during the 20min celebration and made their way directly into the crowd. Nobody was injured so everything was fine, but you couldn't have paid me a million dollars to get any closer to the scaffold than I already was... And the night ended with festive dancing.
Sunday we ended up going Cachesqui, a pre-cayambe archaeological site, with the new staff and all the students. I like the llams at the site so I decided to make a return trip from last year. The place is actaully really cool with lots of monumental architecture, specifically in the form of 8 or 9 T-shapped pyramids which the site guides claim have solar and lunar alignments. I don't know if I buy that much, but I can agree that they are serious monuments that took a lot of time to build, a lot of cooperation to construct, and generally must have been pretty important.
Ended up spending Sunday night at the Hacienda so that I could finally have a hot shower. Totally worth the money. Plus, the food was amazing, I got trout and my fellow staff member, who I got to come with me, got steak in this amazing lemon mustard sauce. I´m going to have to try to replicate the meal at some point. All in all, a very restful and much needed break.
Than it was back to work on Monday, and here I am now on Tuesday, very satisfied with my site and my time here.
I am now late to dinner though. So I must be goinhg. Miss you all muchly. Hope all is well in the states! Happy late 4th of July!!!
Friday I went on survey again, this time leading a group of 4 kids with Easton. We lost one, Boone, early in the morning cause he had to get to the bank before it closed (which is pretty much noon around here) and he couldn´t find us once we got back. We lost a second student, Matt, an hour into our trek because he twisted his ankle jumping off a 20ft wall. That was almost me since I had to have somebody catch me as I jumped (I´m little, give me a break), and once I was sent down, I backed up and tripped on some roots, thus landing flat on my back. Score: Evil cliff 2, Survey Team 0.
Anyway, we sent Matt back to the road to take the bus home since we were just headed straight into more trecherous territory. Thus, left with only Scott and Marsha (the back bone of Team Awesome), your fearless leaders Kat and Easton treked across cabradas and sheer cliffs, under barbed wire, past rabid dogs (one of which bit scott, but only managed to rip a whole in his pants since his boots were high enough), and over agave hedged walls. Despite 3 agave spikes to Easton's arms and legs (on of which was lodged an inch and a half into his bicep till later that night), a butt full of cactus for the ever so clumsy Kat, and pure terror for our faithful students, we marched forth in our 20meter transects until we came upon possibly the coolest site ever surveyed. Boulea (sling stones), Incan Poly-chrome pottery, rims and feet were everywhere covering hundreds of meters of agricultural fields. We also had at least 6 terraces above the site that were just littered with artifacts! Essentially we hit the motherload. Only problem was that the land-owner lady wanted us to buzz off. "¡ES MIOS! ¡¡¡No excavar!!!! ¡ES MIOS!" So what would any team of gringo's do to rectify the situation? Flatter her like hell of course! ...and maybe we "rented her cows" for an hour with a quitely slipped $10. This is Ecuador, people; you do what you have to in order to gather evidence of your amazing finds. An hour later, we were off again, only this time weighed down with bags of pottery, survey forms and notebooks chalked full of accounts of our discovery, and super excited to brag once we got back to the Hacienda. After another 3 hrs of merciless treking, with no other site found of course, we arrived back at the hacienda!
...only to find out we had been tested. Our super cool "new" mecca-like site was a well known site the project has excaveted for the past 2 yrs. WTF?!?! Funny how I seem to be the only returning staff member who'd never gone up to Pukarito. Ugh. Apparently the directors wanted to make sure Easton, a new staf memeber, could lead a team and knowing I'm a competent surveyer, they sent me along for kicks. Can we talk about a slap in the face. All the sudden the survey day from hell went from totally rewarding to a joke for all the other staff members. So lame, I cannot even tell you.
Well, to try and make things better, I ended up being put on Pukarito to lead my own dual units on Monday, which I have to say is pretty bad ass and a certainly rewarding. I feel like I can be trusted in the very least to not f-up the mega site. And being in charge of 2 units at a time just kind of reaffirms that assumption. I also got my dream team, with Marsha, Matt (Wisconsin), and Scott again, plus Grant who's a pretty cool guy. So this week has so far been all about two very kick-ass 2x2's atop this awesome fortress with strong-hold views of every other site and fortress for miles. Plus, my units are the first 2 units on the site to display actaul evidence of weapontry! We found a boulea and a sling stone, respectively, in the first 10cm of each pit. And to top it off, one unit seems to be exhibiting features of a hearth and the other has bisecting walls, an internal corner, and a featured internal floor. Apparently all the caches found at the site have been found in the corners of buildings, so my second unit has the potential to seriously kick ass. Can you tell how excited this makes me!!!!!???? So yeah, I'm definantly looking forward to going back and finding more ceremic, lithics, and bone tomorrow... and maybe the mythic golden lama just for kicks!
What else has happened (as if that all is not enough!)? Had a July 3rd BBQ at the hacienda on friday night with a very big bonfire. Lots of food. Generally a good time. Also this weekend on Saturday the students and staff took a trip to Odavolo (I can´t spell that name to save my life), which is essentially the biggest market place in Ecuador. Since I wasn´t souvineer hunting (I brought all of you stuff back last year :-P), I spent most of my time amongst the Ecuadorian part of the market where they sell car parts, veggies, and various other common household items. It's a much livelier/authetic part of the market, which I had't gotten to experience last year. My favorite part was being one of only 3 gringos inside the "food court," and I use that term lightly. I ate my chicken with platains, rice, and red cabbage as a women in the booth behind me butchered an entire pig, with meat pieces flying, and an afro-spanish evangalist yelled at the Ecuadorianos about killing the chickens they were currently consuming. it sounds grusome, but it was actually really cool. Ended up just getting a pair of earrings for myself, which one of my friends insisted on buying me, and made off only a few dollars poorer and very satisfied with life.
Saturday night the festivals continued, with a make-shift Fourth of July celabration for the gringo archaeologists. The project pays the town to buy us fireworks, and then the Ecuadorians set up a huge, fire-marshal's nightmare, scafold full of the things all connected to one fuze. Add to the fact that all of these things are hand rolled, with no regulations on the amount of gun powder used, and you've got yourself a very interesting, very amusing, and very dangerous fireworks display. Let's just say that 2 or 15 of the fireworks detached from the scafold during the 20min celebration and made their way directly into the crowd. Nobody was injured so everything was fine, but you couldn't have paid me a million dollars to get any closer to the scaffold than I already was... And the night ended with festive dancing.
Sunday we ended up going Cachesqui, a pre-cayambe archaeological site, with the new staff and all the students. I like the llams at the site so I decided to make a return trip from last year. The place is actaully really cool with lots of monumental architecture, specifically in the form of 8 or 9 T-shapped pyramids which the site guides claim have solar and lunar alignments. I don't know if I buy that much, but I can agree that they are serious monuments that took a lot of time to build, a lot of cooperation to construct, and generally must have been pretty important.
Ended up spending Sunday night at the Hacienda so that I could finally have a hot shower. Totally worth the money. Plus, the food was amazing, I got trout and my fellow staff member, who I got to come with me, got steak in this amazing lemon mustard sauce. I´m going to have to try to replicate the meal at some point. All in all, a very restful and much needed break.
Than it was back to work on Monday, and here I am now on Tuesday, very satisfied with my site and my time here.
I am now late to dinner though. So I must be goinhg. Miss you all muchly. Hope all is well in the states! Happy late 4th of July!!!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Survey is F-U-N
Sorry for not writing so soon, all... things here have been shockingly busy!
The festivals have been going all weekend, and the Foothill kids showed up around the same time. Thus the casa communal has suddenly gotten very crowded and very busy. In general though, all the kids seem cool; we've talked to them about not partying too hearty, and everyone seems to be having a good time, except for one girl who has never left home and wants to leave already. Maybe Ecuador wasn't the best place to try leaving the nest to? Oh well, hopefully she sticks things out and enjoys her time here.
In terms of Archaeology, things are going really well. Finished up my main unit on Molinaloma on Saturday and opened up 2 units at the outskirts of the site in an attempt to make sure we'd found the boundries. Guess what?!? We had! So we kinda wasted Monday chucking through hard clay cangahua (bed-rock) for 10 cm, only to have a hole with nothing in it. But that's what we wanted so I can't really say I didn't expect to be a little board. On Tuesday I started surveying between the town of Cangahua and the hacienda with a pretty quality team lead by Myself, Eric D., Oscar, and Easton. I really get along with a lot of the people in the group, specifically some, and the days have been pretty fun. We even repelled down a 98degree slope tht measured 3football fields longs! And then had to hike up the other side... Talk about crazy archaeologist adventures. Thought we might loose some kids along the way, but everyone's been pulling their own, so I can't complain. Wé've also found a ton of sites, so our job is getting done despite our Indiana Jone's- like disasters...
Anyway, this weekend we have a trip to Odavualo (spelling?), a very large outdoor market, on Saturday and bull fights on Sunday. Should be fun. Might bring Easton and some others into Cayambe and find the old argentinian steak place from last year too. Should be a fun. A little more relaxed than last weekend with all the new arrivals and crazy big festival? I hope so at least!
That´s it for now. Hope all is well in the states.
The festivals have been going all weekend, and the Foothill kids showed up around the same time. Thus the casa communal has suddenly gotten very crowded and very busy. In general though, all the kids seem cool; we've talked to them about not partying too hearty, and everyone seems to be having a good time, except for one girl who has never left home and wants to leave already. Maybe Ecuador wasn't the best place to try leaving the nest to? Oh well, hopefully she sticks things out and enjoys her time here.
In terms of Archaeology, things are going really well. Finished up my main unit on Molinaloma on Saturday and opened up 2 units at the outskirts of the site in an attempt to make sure we'd found the boundries. Guess what?!? We had! So we kinda wasted Monday chucking through hard clay cangahua (bed-rock) for 10 cm, only to have a hole with nothing in it. But that's what we wanted so I can't really say I didn't expect to be a little board. On Tuesday I started surveying between the town of Cangahua and the hacienda with a pretty quality team lead by Myself, Eric D., Oscar, and Easton. I really get along with a lot of the people in the group, specifically some, and the days have been pretty fun. We even repelled down a 98degree slope tht measured 3football fields longs! And then had to hike up the other side... Talk about crazy archaeologist adventures. Thought we might loose some kids along the way, but everyone's been pulling their own, so I can't complain. Wé've also found a ton of sites, so our job is getting done despite our Indiana Jone's- like disasters...
Anyway, this weekend we have a trip to Odavualo (spelling?), a very large outdoor market, on Saturday and bull fights on Sunday. Should be fun. Might bring Easton and some others into Cayambe and find the old argentinian steak place from last year too. Should be a fun. A little more relaxed than last weekend with all the new arrivals and crazy big festival? I hope so at least!
That´s it for now. Hope all is well in the states.
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