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!!!