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Life on the Wing: Traveling Pole to Pole with the Arctic Tern
Quarterly Report 3
Dec 3, 2006 - March 3, 2007
Antarctica and South America Spring Passage:
Argentina, Ecuador, VenezuelaÂ
   I left Africa in December and returned to the Americas with an undeniable sigh of relief. While I had no pre-conceived notions or expectations of the South American countries I would be visiting, I did maintain the general feeling that anywhere I went would be more familiar and comfortable than Africa, without language barriers, with quieter issues of racism (or at least less muddled issues of class-ism), and, being majority Catholic, with a religion I was more familiar with. I left in my mind's image of South America on the flight from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires vast swaths of blank space to be filled in with great detail by the surprises and wonders I knew I would (and did) encounter, but felt confident in knowing how the edges would look and feel.Â
   Traveling through South America, I also refined and perfected the balance I began to discover and develop in South Africa between work - the project, writing, introspection even - and play - side trips, socializing, touring. I found my Spanish language skills returning quickly in Argentina, despite the unusual colloquialisms and the high speed of speech, and I practiced as often as I could. In that country and the subsequent places I visited, the ability to speak the language was, as is always the case, the key to the people, the culture, and for me, the successful completion of certain aspects of the project. Several major logistical failures must be noted during this stage of the project, as they caused the biology/ecology side of the project to suffer. I did manage to achieve, however, more than I had planned or expected in terms of the project's other foci, primarily the conservation analysis and photography aspects.
   I arrived in Ushuaia, the southern most city in Argentina and in the world, in early December with the plan to find a position as a volunteer employee or tourist on one of the large cruisers heading to Antarctica. Despite repeated attempts at communication, I had not received rejection notice from the National Science Foundation for my application to the Antarctic Artist and Writer's Program until mid-November, and thus arrived in Ushuaia having provided no boat companies or tour agencies with any advanced warning of my position. I had met at a braai (South African for BBQ) on one of my final days in South Africa a couple whose son had married an Argentine woman and was now living in Ushuaia. Even more unbelievable (not to me, but only to those unaccustomed to the bizarre, unconceivable coincidences that define any serious traveling adventure) was the fact that the Argentine wife of this South African man was working in association with the tour companies based in Ushuaia and knew all the Antarctic tour operators. I met Brian and Iris (pronounced EErees) for lunch (standard incredible and dirt-cheap Argentine steak and red wine) as soon as I arrived, and they put me in touch with everyone I would have needed to find passage on a boat to the South Pole. Despite more than a week, however, of distributing my resume, presenting my project, and discussing various volunteering options, the boat sailed (no pun intended) on getting out to the pack ice of Antarctica.
   Thus at the same time that the Arctic Terns began to circumnavigate the Antarctic ice pack, I was brought firmly to the resolution that Antarctica was a literal impossibility for me during the 2006 - 07 season. I prepared to leave Ushuaia and, after biking through Tierra del Fuego National Park and sledding down a glacier, I began to travel up the coast, leaving the terns behind. Failing to reach Antarctica was a major disappointment, as it left a huge gap in the concept of 'traveling pole to pole and back with a migratory bird'. My project was now 'traveling pole to almost pole and back with a migratory bird'. Missing Antarctica did allow me, however, to explore Argentina in greater depth and to investigate the state of the environmental consciousness of the Argentine people, a new goal not part of the original itinerary for that country. Overall, though, failing to reach Antarctica meant that I would be traveling ahead of the bird I was supposed to be moving with, or following at the very least. Because I had purchased all the airline tickets for 2007 in one go to take advantage of a less expensive rate, there was no way to wait in Argentina or Ecuador for the birds to arrive without undergoing the hassle and cost of changing the flights.
   Thus I arrived in Rio Grande, slightly north of Ushuaia and still in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, feeling somewhat dejected and purposeless. It was there though that I had the fortune of meeting Luis Benegas and having a minor epiphany. A vastly knowledgeable but incredibly humble bird-bander, Luis informed me that Arctic Terns had been in the area in large numbers, that year and in years past. His observations led me remember an article I had read that had suggested that large numbers of the birds, particularly younger individuals up to age 5, may remain in the southern hemisphere without ever reaching Antarctica. I worked with Luis and a friend of his, Tim Barksdale (a bird photographer from the US) for several days, searching the area for the terns and other birds of interest before leaving Tierra del Fuego to continue searching for the young terns at other sites along the coast. By the time I reached Puerto Madryn, however, and the protected areas of Peninsula Valdez and Punta Tomba, I had still found no Arctic Terns, young or adult, and was beginning to grow frustrated as the perceived epiphany from Rio Grande began to dissolve.Â
   On December 25, Christmas came to Puerto Madryn, and so did my brother. After several more days of work in Madryn with my brother's assistance, I concluded that the terns might be found in Ecuador, but that there was no more reason to search in vain for them in Argentina. My brother and I traveled inland to Bariloche, land of lakes and mountains, then to Mendoza, wine (and vineyard tour) country, and finally on to Salta in the northwest corner of Argentina, the one region in that country where the majority of the people are of indigenous descent. While much of the country - its architecture, attitude, style, food, language, infrastructure, and influence - seems very European, especially Italian, Salta and the Jujuy province in the northwest have what I later came to realize is a distinctly South American feel. In the first week of January, my brother and I continued on to Buenos Aires, the most international and cosmopolitan of the Argentine urban centers, so that he could fly back to the US, and so that I could finalize the project in Argentina and prepare for my subsequent trip to Ecuador.
   I arrived in Ecuador refreshed from my 'vacation' (as if the rest of what I do is work) with my brother in Argentina and determined to find the terns and get the project back on track. Flying into Guayaquil, I immediately caught a bus to Salinas and hunted down Ben Haase for my first dinner in Ecuador. Ben, a Dutch man who has lived and studied seabirds on the coast of Ecuador for twenty years, wasted no time in confirming my darkest suspicions, namely that I was as expected too early for the major passage of terns on the Ecuadorian coast. He did, however, help me find several other species of terns passing through the area, and he also enlightened me on the conservation situation of Ecuador and the recent founding of several marine protected areas.
   Leaving Salinas, I traveled further along the coast to one of the aforementioned marine protected areas to speak to the park officials and to become intimately acquainted with the infamous Ecuadorian hammock. After I completed the work on the coast to my satisfaction, I visited Cuenca and Ba?os in the more mountainous region of the country and experienced the awe of the Ingapirca ruins and the Tungurahua Volcano. The final objective in the country was to reach the Galapagos Islands and research their place in the past and future of the Ecuadorian conservation situation. I left Ba?os behind to begin this process in Quito.
   My plan in Quito was to gain a research permit from the Ministries of Tourism and the Environment so as to avoid paying an obscene amount for a short tour that would heavily constrict my movement and work on the islands. After being denied, however, by the ministries, the Gaia Foundation, the University of San Francisco, and various tour companies, I gave up on visiting the Galapagos as part of my current project. My slew of meetings in Quito did produce a veritable wealth of information for the other aspects of my project, but failing to actually step foot on the igneous rock of the islands left me heartily disappointed (though not quite as much as missing out on Antarctica).
   I left Ecuador on February 24 and have been in Venezuela since that time. An unexpected email from family friends living and teaching in Caracas led me to change my plans and stay in the capital city for a number of days, where I was able to develop an important aspect of my project that has been only slightly elaborated to date. In the conception of my project, I wanted an education component to be an important facet of the work. When I reached Caracas, though, only a handful of teachers in the US were using my website to facilitate their lessons. At a dinner party on my first night in the city, however, I met several biology teachers who were excited about my work, and I spent the subsequent week presenting my project to their various classes. The talks were very well received and I hope to establish connections with other schools positioned along the remainder of my route where I can continue such presentations.
   Following a brief tour of los llanos (including piranha fishing with locals in a small village), the remainder of my time in Venezuela will involve following up with staff of the Phelps Ornithological Center and hopefully joining a crew of researchers traveling to the delta region on the eastern coast to conduct bird surveys at an offshore oil rig. The rig is in perfect position to observe any passing seabirds and terns and would be ideal place to situate myself when the terns finally catch me here (as I am almost certain they will). I will proceed from Venezuela to the Caribbean and then on to Canada where, in less than three months, I will finish my project. As the end becomes visible and tangible for the first time, mixed and unexpected emotions are forming and growing (though they will probably be of no surprise to you). I think I want the project to come to an end as much as I want it to never be completed, and that is a strange feeling to grapple with. Perhaps on the sunny beaches of the Caribbean, the scale will be tipped more definitely to one side or the other, but for now I'm in something of a state of limbo. Certainly I can see already that the biggest culture shock of all, of the whole year from Europe to Africa to South America, will come when I step foot in the United States again in what will be no more than the blink of an eye. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there, and for now I'll enjoy speaking Spanish and occasionally being mistaken for just another South American.
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