Don Jose

Climbing, crawling, shimmying, and sliding up and down slope picking our way through dense thickets of bamboo and brush, soft mossy near vertical footing, and monkey groping amongst branches. We're clearing a 100 X 100m transect in the cloud forest to check for mammal sign. A research project we are coordinating between the students and Foundacion Cordillera.

A few days previous we visited Colepato the nearby Kichwa community to look for Don Jose, a tracker we've used before in the past. Sunday, market day, socializing and drinking day, and soccer day on the dirt pan in the middle of the village. With some inquiries we found Don Jose, drunk on chicka with a crowd of other local farmers. Dipping cups full of chalky corn liquid out of a milk bucket. I think the last thing any of them expected on their Sunday afternoon off was to find a truckload of gringos show up. Don Jose unsurprisingly was a little at a loss of words. Conversations in broken Spanish and Kichwa across cultures and whole worlds. Funny grins, vacant recognitions, and curious amused bewildering looks. Rallying and recovering his senses back from the chicha he ran out to set up some work days though before we left the village and now here we are...

Bushwhacking, hacking, and pulling through the jungle with Don Jose. He's a jolly fine fellow and full of bush lore. Plants you can eat (like tasty bromeliad piths tasting of artichoke hearts!), medicinal plants, old trails and history, and of course mammal sign. Crazy local Kichwa names no one recognizes, piecing together identities with our trusty field guide photos. Coatimundis, racoons, agoutis, bears, and even the rarest of rare...We think we found mountain tapir tracks! Sangay National Park is one of the last refuges for mountain tapirs in all of Ecuador. Shy elusive "cows of the forest". Pony sized, elephant nosed, furry, and splay toed like something out of a fantasy book...