Goodbyes

Tonight is my last night in Mexico. Trying to get everything ready for the move back to the states as well as complete work down here (I spent this last week in the field) has been hectic enough that I've failed to update this blog for a month. Fortunately (or not?), I have a stash of stories yet and will continue to make updates for a while. Who knows -- maybe I'll even change the "Life in Mexico" part of the title and keep writing. We'll see.

This past spring while in Cancun, my friend Jackie asked me what I missed most about the US. My mom was sitting with us and chimed in with "Her dog!" While I miss my puppy wildly (thank you again Mom and Dad for taking care of him!!!), that was not the answer that was springing to my lips. Family and friends, while greatly missed, weren't my top item either. The number one thing I miss the most about the US: flushing toilet paper. It is so nice when it just goes away after you use it instead of letting it collect for a few days and then having to empty the trash. Unfortunately, Mexican plumbing (like that in much of the world) is unprepared to handle flushed paper. I think that flushing some TP might be my first act back in the US, shortly after crossing through Customs and Immigration. I don't care if I don't need to use the facilities; I will simply walk into a stall, rip off a square of toilet paper, and merrily flush it away. It will be good.

In honor of leaving Mexico, I wanted to make a quick list of things I've missed about the US and things that I will miss about my temporary homeland, Mexico. In no particular order:

Missing the US:

1) Flushing TP. Yup... still number one.

2) Friends/family/dog.

3) The freedom of having my own car again.

4) The stars. The light and air pollution here is such that you can't see them in Mexico City.

5) Road berries. My mom gagged when I mentioned this one to her, but it' snot nearly as revolting as it sounds. When I was visiting Michigan in July, I had a wonderful time picking and eating wild raspberries along the side of the road while I walked my dog. There were at least 3 varieties, and they were all delicious.

6) Really good desserts/chocolate. Most of the desserts/chocolate down here are very bland and end up tasting a lot like processed sugar. I have not seen a single fudgy/gooey/caramel-y/decadent dessert down here.

7) Buffalo wings! Watch out Duffs! I'm coming back!

Missing Mexico:

1) Friends down here. They've been great. The people as a whole have made the entire experience worthwhile.

2) Public transportation. It can be scary at times and quirky at others, but it can also be a lot of fun. At the very least, it's pretty empowering knowing that you can competently maneuver around this city on public transit. It's like, "If I can do this, I can handle anything. Bring it!" And then I wave my jazz hands.

3) The food. Oh, tortilla soup, pozole, tacos al pastor, pambazos, elote, esquite, etc, what will I do now that you won't be a food cart away???

4) That amazing sense of (self-indulgent) coolness that comes from living in a foreign country. It's pretty darn cool. This alone is enough to get me past the occasional melt-down day when I just wish everyone down here spoke English. It feels great to do something that feels so different, and to be doing it in a foreign language.

5) My garden. It is scary-easy to grow plants down here, and my lilies, impatiens, ivy, mums, bougainvillea, etc. are absolutely thriving under my diligent neglect. I actually feel like an accomplished gardener!

6) The complete surreality that exists down here. I can round a corner and find myself facing a 6 foot tall bush molded into the form of a duck. Or my bus might stop in the middle of a 5 lane road and all of the passengers have to do a Chinese fire drill and board the bus behind us. Or accidentally finding a tarantula in the wild. Every single day has some hidden gem down here.

7) Looking up on clear days and being surrounded by majestic volcanoes.

While I'm moving back to the US for a new job, I will always have a part of me in Mexico. I've got a conference down here in November, continuing field work in March, and every intention to continue to work with Mexican volcanoes in the future. They certainly haven't seen the last of me here! For now, though, I'm tired and ready to see Keating again. He's been in the US for the last couple of weeks sorting out our new apartment, job hunting, etc. This time tomorrow, I'll be asleep in our new place, catching a few hours rest between my midnight arrival and my 8 am job start. Nothing like cutting it down to the wire, huh? That said, I'm off now to catch a couple of hours of sleep before my early flight.

Hasta pronto.

Letters from the field 4: Dangers and Kidnapping

Dear Future Self,

Mexico is all over the American news right now, with two high profile assassinations and a 21-dead drug gang shootout all taking place this week. More disturbing than these reports, which really only focus on a small group of people in a small area, are the comments posted below them by readers. If I can believe the posts under CNN articles, it would appear that many Americans are taking the current Mexican violence to indicate that all Mexicans are violent and barbaric and that the US is better off coming up with a way to cut off all ties with our southern neighbor (not to mention expel all legal and illegal immigrants). To this mindset (who aren't reading this anyway, but whatever), I offer the following experience from field work:

The team had been driving 4WD "roads" in the rural hills beyond Lake Catemaco. The area there is sparsely populated, and ours was probably the first car to drive down that particular track in years. Needless to say, there are no road maps and no road signs -- why bother with road names when there are so few to bother naming? At one point, we spotted a small hut set back from the path and decided it would be worth asking directions. After a short conversation in which our team leader introduced us as a team of geologists from the university, the lady of the place loaned us two children to guide us. The boys, Fernando and Diego, were 10 and 8 years old, respectively and were best friends. Their families effectively live together following the death of Fernando's father 2 years ago, leaving him to be the man of the house. Wedging all 7 of us into the Jeep Wrangler, we set off in search of the path we were looking for.

The boys led us up hills with the enthusiasm and energy of kids who have not yet learned to look at the topography to gauge the easiest slope to climb. They taught us about the edible berries growing on the slopes. The berries, apparently called tejote, are shiny and black-ish blue, and taste a bit like overripe blueberries. Even more entertaining, the berries have an incredibly strong pigment that quickly stains one's mouth anywhere from deep purple to black depending on the number of berries eaten. Fernando and Diego told us about life on the ranch and how they milked the cows and helped to make cheese. Neither attended school, since their ranch is so remote that it would require a 2-3 hour hike each way to get to the nearest school; also, their help was needed to keep the ranch running. They were excited to be trusted with the important job of carrying rock samples (and we were relieved!), and they were absolutely euphoric when handed the rock hammer and entrusted with breaking up big rocks.

Diego and Fernando, our trusty guides.

About 6 hours after we took them, we returned them to their homes and thanked their mothers. Both Fernando and Diego happily joined us the next day as well, cracking jokes about the cow chips dissolving in the persistent rain. To thank them and their families, our team gave each family a bag of nonperishable foodstuffs that would otherwise require a long journey to the nearest store, as well as bags of candies and t-shirts for the boys ('cause no 10 year old boy is going to be excited about receiving dried beans). The families invited us in and served us coffee while we watched the end of the Mexico-France World Cup game.

Can you imagine a similar situation playing out in the US? Less than a year ago, it made news when concerned adults called authorities when they saw an 8-10 (?) year old boy walking the few blocks to his sports practice alone. Can you imagine parents giving their child (not to mention the neighbor kid) to complete strangers and watching them drive away?

Another example, this one not from the field exactly: Due to the impossibility of actually finding our street, we must ask taxis to pick us up on a street corner a couple blocks from our house. Normally this is not a problem, however, it is fairly eerie when we have to stand out there at 4 am to get a ride to the airport. We had to do that again last week when the Awesome Assistant took off to return to the US. Both times that I have been out there waiting for a taxi at that hour, someone from the area points out that hanging out on dark street corners isn't the safest move in a city, asks to make sure that we are OK, and offers to stay near us until the taxi comes. The first time, we were watched over by a taxi driver who we had already assured that we had previously called someone from another cab company to meet us. More recently, it was a car full of young men (about 20 years old, perhaps?), one of whom had clearly been studying his English and saw this as an amazing opportunity to practice the language and do a good deed at the same time. Both times, our guardians waited until our taxi arrived and could convince both us and them that he was our prearranged driver (passwords and such). Both times, our guardians were pretty much the only people that we saw out there.

Mexico is very sensitive to the real and perceived violence within its borders. While there are truly bad places to be (anyone remember Cabrini Green in Chicago?), for the most part Mexico is a country full of some of the most generous and hard-working people you will meet.

Hell, I basically kidnapped a cabbie last night while picking up a friend from the airport. Four hours, a traffic jam, two terminals (nowhere near each other), a delayed plane, and getting lost down a restricted hallway of the airport later, he was finally able to drop us off at my corner in front of the ice cream shop. He was gracious and entertaining the entire time, and it was great practice for my Spanish to spend those hours discussing geology, geography (he is working on his MS), sports, travel, etc. Thank you, Miguel. I'm glad I had enough money still on me at that point to give you the generous tip you deserved.

In short, three cheers for Mexico!

Cheers,

Shazta-of-the-present

Letters from the field 3: Yeah.

Dear Future Shazta,

I know that you haven't forgotten this field trip I just got back from. You really ever won't, short of a massive head injury. If that happens though, see if you can selectively forget the following things that I was unable to write about until now ('cause I kinda needed to calm down first):

1) This was the trip where you got a shock as to just how out of the loop you are with your team. After noticing some unusual bookkeeping practices, you started asking some pointed questions and found out that the grant was out of field money. No one had mentioned this to you before. Which means that for Year 1 of a field project, you have 2 weeks worth of field data to work with. Awesome. Especially since you didn't design your field work with this knowledge in mind. Associated with this, try to forget the extra beers and desserts purchased with the grant money, despite the lack of funding. Remember that you are not in the US, and there are different cultural norms at play here.

2) You also may have gotten into a standoff with one of your team members on a random Mexican hillside with competing GPS units, arguing over which way to go to find a pond you were searching for. For what it's worth, you were right (not difficult, since she insisted that you were standing IN the pond already, despite all evidence to the contrary). At any rate, you never did find the f-ing pond because, after the "debate," it was universally agreed upon to be too far away to hike to it while carrying an inflatable boat.

3) Ok, so to be honest, you may just want to completely block out all memories of that one colleague. She manages to get under your skin in ways that defy logic and leave you a frothing mess of resentment in the back seat of the truck (though you finally got to sit in the front seat a couple of times this trip. That's because she wasn't along on those days, having taken the other truck.). Just forget about her frequent use of "Chhh-chh-chhh" to get your attention the same way other people get the attention of their dogs (when they are misbehaving). Also forget about how hilarious she thought it was that a local boy said he couldn't understand your Spanish, and how she kept repeating the story over and over to everyone, despite the fact that you had been speaking English to your non-Spanish-speaking assistant and there is really no wonder that the little boy couldn't understand your "accent." Etc.

Oh well. Not every trip will be perfect. And you have heard from independent sources that your one colleague is fairly universally difficult to work with. Just take a deep breath and appreciate that her contract supposedly ends in one month. That, and learn how to do geochemistry really slowly so that it will fill up your time for a while.

Cheers,

Shazta

Notes from the field 2: advising

Dear Future Self,

As promised, I will now remind you of the awesome joys of advising. I know, it hasn't always gone well. There was that time that you kept catching your undergraduate advisee drinking out of a ditch. Or that time when you couldn't take their energy any more and challenged two advisees (including the ditch-drinker) to push the pickup truck down the dirt road and see if they could get above a specific speed. Or how about the time you asked a different undergrad advisee to make a graph that would illustrate results in a data set he had been working on, and he gave up and wrote an ode to dirt instead?

Never fear, Future Shazta! We are learning!

For the record, this advisement activity went well. Your student was bright, motivated, friendly, and enthusiastic. You handled it like a pro when the equipment broke and didn't even curse in front of her too much. Great job! Now, here are a couple of things to keep in your pocket for the future:

1) No matter how wonderful a student is, she will have her breaking point just like anyone else. Done with style, it can be fairly (sadistically) amusing to find this point. Consider it helping her to establish her own boundaries for the future. If she manages to get through pulling 7 ticks off of herself in a 5 minute period with only a minor freak-out, break out the big guns: without batting an eye, translate for her (without lying) that the muddy pond she is about to row onto with you in an inflatable children's raft is actually infested with alligators. The poor girl will be too terrified to bother looking terrified. Watch for all of the blood to instantaneously drain from her face. With any luck, Future Shazta, you will also be offered the use of a larger and sturdier boat that must be driven in by the ranch manager since he's worried you might get eaten in the inflatable. This will sooth the assistant considerably, making you feel like less of a jerk for accidentally terrifying her. I'm just bummed that we didn't get to see any alligators in the end.

2) There is some inherent humor in taking a Mormon field assistant to Mexico. She was wonderfully chill with the tobacco (we were working in a major tobacco producing area that even exports to Cuba) and alcohol ('cause your Mexican colleagues don't think lunch in the field is quite right without a beer). It was the coffee that did her in. Apparently, Mormons can't drink coffee or tea for religious reasons. This only became awkward when we were being hosted by a family whose children we had stolen for the field (more on that another time) and who wanted to show us their hospitality by serving us boiled milk from on of their own cows, mixed with Nescafe. Rule of politeness dictate that we consume whatever our hosts graciously provide, so we settled in on wooden benches to drink our milk-cafe and watch the final minutes of the Mexico-France World Cup game on a 6 inch black and white TV that was the only indication of electricity in the area. I am not a milk drinker since I don't really like the taste and it tends to cause phlegm problems (I know you wanted to hear that!) and I'm not a coffee drinker due to mild caffeine intolerance (I'm assuming the rest of the world doesn't drink coffee because they like the feeling of their heart racing and their stomach churning, but I could be wrong. Is that what it's supposed to do??), but I manned up and drank my mug. I had totally forgotten about the Mormon coffee thing, and while I sincerely doubt that Nescafe can actually be classified as coffee it was causing an issue for my poor, sweet assistant. Whispering through clenched teeth and a smile, she told me that she couldn't do it. Being the awesome person that I am, I casually switched mugs with her and told her to keep sipping out of the now-empty mug in her hand. Two mugs of the stuff later, I felt mildly ill but very proud of myself for watching out for my assistant. Then we got back in the Jeep to drive back down one of the worst dirt roads in Mexico. I am proud to report that I did not actually vomit.

3) Being responsible for an undergraduate field assistant means making sure that they are reasonably safe. Even from those alligators. While it was a bit crowded when we wedged 5 adults into a Jeep Wrangler to travel hideous dirt roads, at least everyone had a seatbelt. My assistant was further stabilized and padded/protected when we stole those two Mexican boys, ages 8 and 10, and managed to fit all 7 of us into the Wrangler. One of them was even sitting on her lap, helping to prevent her from flying up and cracking her head on the ceiling during bad bumps. See? Safety first!

We didn't once have to pull her out of a ditch and explain that the green chunky stuff in the water she was drinking did not count towards her vegetables for the day. Nor did we have to worry about her chasing bears or accidentally destroying 20% of the data set by writing the numbers in the wrong order. These accomplishments may have had more to do with her general awesomeness and less to do with our magical advances in advising skills, but we will take what we can get.

In my next letter to you, Future Shazta, I will remind you of the proper way to kidnap children in the field, eating wild berries, and creative accounting.

Cheers,

Shazta (June 2010)

I'm back!

It's official: I can truly call myself a blogger. How do I know that I have officially joined the dubious ranks? Complaints! See the following email, copied in its entirety, from my brother:

Hey, you need to keep up with your blog better. Some of us want to hear about what is going on down there in little people land.

That said, let me quickly review what was going on during my absence. (You know, happening to me. Not like a recap of real news or anything!)

Right after my last posts, Keating and I ran away to Cancun for a belated Holy Week holiday with my parents and their friends Darrel and Jackie. Despite my fears that Keating would be "accidentally" fed to sharks by Dad and Darrel while the boys were scuba diving (boys!), he came home each time with happy tails of undersea life. That's not to say that there wasn't any good natured hazing: turns out that Keating is now affectionately known in some circles as "Chumly" since he vomited just about every time he set foot on the scuba boat. Since I really dislike fish, I enjoyed lots of time poolside with the girls. On the day that we all went to Xel-ha (an incredible natural aquarium. If you get the chance, visit it!), Keating and I worked out a brilliant strategy by which I lounged on top of an inner tube and held on to the (unfastened) between-leg strap from Keating's required lifejacket as he snorkeled -- it was like getting my very own custom lazy-river tour! Keating would occasionally point out interesting fish or rays, while I would point out the cool birds, lizards, etc, to him... and all without me having to actually get too close to the icky fishies. The six of us also enjoyed a trip to see the pyramids and Chichen Itza. In all, we had a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, Keating and I are both camera-impaired and the only photo from the entire trip the features people has us all so small that we're not really recognizable. At least the pyramid looks good! (We're the couple on the right, Mom and Dad are in the middle, and Darrel and Jackie are on the left.)

After Cancun, Keating and I had a little under a week to prepare for our next excitement: Keating's parents came to visit us for a long weekend. They were our first official house guests (Sorry Mom and Dad, but you stayed in a hotel!). My FIL's knee was acting up, so we opted to not do a repeat performance of the borderline elder abuse we committed against my parents by dragging them everywhere on crowded public transportation and taking them on the occasional mini death march dodging traffic frogger-style. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend in which we took a boat tour of the famous gardens of Xochimilco and took in a performance of Carmina Burana. Unfortunately, I had to disappear on occasion for work and even left town the day before my in-laws; I was scheduled to return to the field. (Note: if you are reading my mind properly, the words "I was scheduled to return to the field" should have been read melodramatically, with building dread, and underscored by an ominous soundtrack. If you didn't get that the first time, please try again.)

My previous field trip was not successful. At all. So I had alternately astronomical and mediocre expectation for this field work. Mostly, I just desperately wanted to get data points this time and not be crippled by a horse. Fortunately, both of these goals were met. Since actual research data is fairly boring, and outside the theme of this blog, let me just share with you some of the highlights from the trip:

1. The field vehicle we ended up with this time did not have AC or a radio. It turns out that that wasn't too bad, despite it being 95 F and 98% humidity. It meant that we could all roll down the windows and plug into our respective ipods for the long car rides, thus saving me from Barry Manilow.
2. Technologically speaking, I have fallen so very, very far. During my PhD, I was writing programs for Beowulf clusters (supercomputers). For this project, I was rowing to the center of ponds in an inflatable raft (labelled a children's toy, for use only in pools and under adult supervision) and dropping a rock tied to a rope overboard to measure water depth (the sonar depth-finder was broken).
3. I got to see a gigantic iguana chillin' in the wild under a mango tree.
4. I got a tadpole stuck between the two smallest toes on my left foot. Think about my love for fish, and then imagine the screaming and foot-shaking that ensued. Honestly, I still shudder thinking about it. Not cool.
5. My boss would argue that this one is worse that the tadpole, but I'm unconvinced. We had just walked down a steep trail to get to another of the ponds and had shouted out to the man net fishing from a "skiff" (really just a few logs tied together Robinson Crusoe-style) if it would be okay if we dragged our inflatable down the hill and took some measurements in the pond. He replied that we were welcome to it and would not disturb us at all. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we should watch out for the crocodiles. At those words, we notice a 4 foot croc slither off the bank 25 feet to our right and skulk away through the murky water. The man on the raft assured us that that one was just a baby and that many of the crocs in that particular pond were closer to 9 feet long. Shuddering, my boss paid the man on the raft to collect our measurements for us.
6. Ticks and other biting bugs. Apparently, this is the season. On the final day in the field, I removed 9-10 ticks from my clothes and 3 from where they were busy biting me. On the plus side, I have been assured that the ticks in that area are merely gross and not dangerous like our wonderful lyme disease carriers in the US. On the minus side, I came back from the field looking suspiciously like I had chicken pox. Fortunately, Keating believed me that they were bug bites and still gave me a welcome home kiss.
7. Ugh!!!! Seriously! A F-ing tadpole between my toes!!!!!!!!
8. We also managed to get the truck stuck, bottomed out on a broken concrete pipe sticking up through a dirt road. I hereby curse you, Nissan, for building a pickup truck with the power of a VW Beetle (original style) and the clearance of a Chrylser PT Cruiser. What the hell were you thinking???!?
9. Accommodations in San Martín Tuxtla were lovely, as before. Unfortunately, they didn't have any availability for some of our nights. Do not stay in Lerdo de Tejada. The hotel was... yeah. There were dead bugs already squashed into the shower walls, greasy head prints on the mirrored headboards, and the bathroom windows all opened into the "lobby."
10. Did I remember to mention that I actually got some data points???? And I wasn't even crippled by a horse! Nor did I vomit even once! Therefore, despite tadpoles, crocodiles, ticks, and car trouble, this field trip was definitely an improvement over the previous one!

Now I'm back in Mexico City and back at my office desk. Keating and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a splash of tequila in our iced tea (aside from school children and union employees, it isn't a celebrated holiday here. They kind of equate it with Columbus Day.).

(I'll try to add more photos later. I forgot to bring my camera in so that I could download my photos.)

The Field

Evidence A for why my job is better than yours: I got paid to ride a horse through the rainforest, up a volcano.

Now, it might seem like I'm gloating or rubbing your noses in it. To be fair, I admit that I am. At the same time, however, I'll let you in on this little secret: while Evidence A is pretty darn awesome, I'm only gloating about it because the rest of the week in the field sucked. Really, truly, sucked.

To start off with, it's important to note that I have problems with motion sickness. I turn green and achy, and my best course of action is typically to just fall asleep. It turns out that it isn't easy to sleep in the back seat of a manual transmission pickup truck being driven Mexican-style on Mexican roads. Mexican drivers are very different from the American drivers that I'm used to, and really, they have to be. The roads here can be a wild collection of pits and speed bumps, and that's when they're paved. Survival driving in Mexico reminds me of what you might get from a 13 year old boy, hopped up on Mountain Dew, played Grand Theft Auto at 3 am (but without GTA's extra violence. Duh.). I bruised my right elbow from being bounced off of the door so many times during high-speed swerving maneuvers and bumps. The wildness of the ride was emphasized by the contrasting soundtrack: Barry Manilow and Manilow-wannabes, with a few forays into "It's not easy being green" by Kermit The Frog and "She-boom" by some bubblegum pop group from the past that left me wondering just how long the fall would be if we drive off of the next cliff. I had thought that my years of driving for Field Camp had fairly well inoculated me to hours spent listening to questionable music mixes; I was wrong.

Barry Manilow. He writes the songs. Would you road trip with this man?

I had 2 academic goals for the week in the field, and 2 non-academic goals. On the academic side, I wanted to look for some specific features on top of the main volcano and get some samples from a set of cones on the other side of the volcanic field. Non-academically, I wanted to swim in the hotel pool and ride a horse up a volcano. Of these 4 goals, you already know which one happened.

Academic goal 2 was undone by heavy fog that prevented us from even finding the sample sites. Non-academic goal 1 was undone by cold weather and a nasty bout of food poisoning that left me confined to the hotel for a day and prevented us from going down to Veracruz. The other two goals are related to one another and deserve a slightly longer telling.

I was ecstatic when I learned that we would be going up the main volcano on horseback, firstly because horses are just plain cool and secondly because I didn't really want to walk all that way. Previously, the team has rented horses from Don Tomás, a rancher up in the hills. Don Tomás didn't think he'd be able to help us this time, so he suggested we make arrangements with Don Guido. Don Guido has the ranch neighboring Don Tomás', but was down in the town below. Somewhere. As such, we spent a evening driving the back streets of the town (in the dark, of course!) asking people on the street if they knew how to find Don Guido.

Us: Excuse me, do you know where we can find Don Guido?

Man: Huh?

Woman: (just walking up to Man) Ah, Don Guido! He lives up in the mountains. Drive up this street until it curves right. Then look for the Corona sign. Or is it a Coke sign? I don't remember. Anyway, ask around for Señora Margarita. She'll know how to find Don Guido.

Us: Um... thanks!

With those detailed directions, we set off along unpaved back roads in the pitch black you get in an area where electricity is enough of a luxury that no one would dream of putting up streetlights. Miraculously, we not only found the correct curve in the road, but Don Guido happened to be there. He agreed to guide us up the mountain on horseback three days later, on Friday.

When Friday arrived, however, Don Guido had to back out of the plan due to an arthritis flare-up in his knees. Don Tomás, feeling bad for us, agreed to lead us up the volcano after all. He quickly rigged together enough equipment to saddle up four horses, and we started the ascent.

Me on Baya, just before we started the ascent. JM, my boss, is on the horse on the right. I only got to sit up this straight when we were stopped, thanks to the short reins.

As excited as I was to be riding a horse, I was also a bit nervous. I'm not a real rider, so I figured that I would have a very sore bum afterwards. I was also a little apprehensive about my horse, Baya, since I'd been warned that she had a habit of biting the tails of the other horses and pissing them off. Fortunately, Baya was very docile, particularly compared to the freckled horse given to Araceli (the other postdoc); that horse tried to rip down a small tree when Don Tomás saddled her. Within minutes of starting the ride, it was apparent that I would have an unexpected challenge in the saddle: my jury-rigged equipment included reins that were far too small. In order to let Baya walk, I had to lean forward across the pommel of the saddle and hold the reins with only 2 fingers. Since I was also wearing a backpack, this was doubly uncomfortable. All was going well, though, until Baya tried to walk between 2 very close trees and brushed against a branch on the right side. Slightly spooked, she danced sideways and bashed my knee into the left tree. The whole group got to pause while I cursed in a few languages and Baya shot me looks over her shoulder that easily translated as, "That's what you get for being a lousy rider. I have no desire to go up this mountain. I could have been back at home enjoying some nice grass." Shortly after that, JM's horse got skittish about stepping over a fallen log, backed up into Araceli's horse, panicked, and started kicking. Based on the muddy print left on her horse, Araceli came within a couple of inches of having been kicked in her own leg.

The forest around us was beautiful and eerie. It was the sort of place to make one believe in fairies and wood sprites, with curls of mist snaking between enormous trees and vines and Spanish moss dangling from branches. It was also strangely quiet, with little sound other than that of the horses steps as they climbed.

Finally, we reached as high as the horses would go. Don Tomás tethered them and then began leading us by foot up the trail. I am not a fast hiker, nor have I ever been, but I managed to leave my fellow academics in the dust. Don Tomás and I would forge ahead, then wait while the others caught up. This success for me became a little less impressive when I thought about it a little more: Araceli has a small child and JM is over 60. Plus, it turns out that JM was happily collecting orchids. And our guide, who I was so happy to be keeping up with as he used his machete to hack a path through the jungle, is well into his 70's and awaiting knee surgery. (But I am still cool!!!) Don Tomás kept reassuring us that we were very close, only 20 minutes, from the top. A couple of hours later when we stopped for lunch, the jungle was still tick around us and streams running down past us were a pretty good indication that the summit was still a ways away.

I finished my lunch (a tin of shredded turkey and vegetables, with a large roll) and looked around. The fog was closing in again, and the next part of the "path" looked nearly impassable. Despairing, I asked JM how on earth a particular naturalist had managed to climb the mountain in the 1700's during an eruption.

JM looked back at me a little confused and said, " Well, he went up the mule path on the other side of the volcano. It's a wide, smooth path that used to be trafficked a lot before they built the roads out here."

Incredulous, I gasped, " Then what are we doing over here???"

Looking even more confused, he answered, "I've already been up the other side before. I wanted to see what it looked like from this side."

That was as high as we got up the volcano. Despite Don Tomás' urgings that we were only another 20 minutes from the top, we decided that we had to start back down if we were going to reach the ranch again by nightfall. On the hike back to the horses, we discovered that the misting rain combined with our previous passage to reduce the trail to a steep mudslick. Where we had scrambled up slopes on the way up, we now were left clinging to vines and wild sugar cane to control our slide downhill. For comparison, imagine the scene from Avatar, where the characters use the huge leaves to bounce their way down from the treetops... now cover everything with mud and slime, and make it far less graceful. By the time we reached the horses, our legs were quivering from the effort of trying to control the slide down the muddy slopes.

We climbed back up on the horses and rode back ploddingly to the ranch. For the final hour, all I could think about was how badly I ached from being on the horse. My back and shoulders ached from leaning forward for the reins, and my armpits were clearly bruised from trying to lean through my backpack straps. My butt was sore. More than anything, though, my knees felt like they were on fire. They hurt so badly that I was unable to tap Baya with my heels to convince her to keep moving when she decided to gaze at flowers. I'm normally a bit knock-kneed, but I swear I was bow-legged by the time I got off of Baya back at the ranch.

The next morning, we started the drive back to Mexico City. For the next 8 hours or so, I had time to reflect on the week in the field while my aching body was bounced off of the door, Barry Manilow crooned, and I turned green. I had gotten food poisoning and was black from bruises, but I didn't have a single data point to show for the entire week in the field. When we finally arrived back at my apartment, all I wanted to do was collapse into Keating's arms and take a week-long nap.

Keating, my wonderful husband, had been busy while I was away. He happily told me how he'd worked things out with our friend Monica to visit the butterfly sanctuary the next day. I had known about the plans when I left, so I was glad to know that everything had been finalized. Except that we would be getting up at 5 am. And we would be going horseback riding.

To be continued....

Running behind

I've been back form the field for 5 days now, and I have not yet posted about it. This is not because there was nothing to post about. In fact, there are enough stories to tell that I don't have time to do it now, either. This week has been busy for me. Keating and I are making arrangements to move closer to school (a 20 minute tour turned into 2 hours of surreality plus a little bit o' getting lost at night in the city), we've been trying to prepare for our first houseguests here in Mexico (my parents arrive tomorrow evening. Yay!! They're staying in a hotel, though, so I guess they're not really houseguests. Who wants to be the first real houseguest??? Our new place will actually feature a second bedroom with a full size bed as opposed to the miniature sofa-sleeper in our current living room.), and my brother has been very ill (and yes, it is both frustrating and unnerving to receive a trickle of limited information when I'm so far away that I can't even just pick up the phone and call).

That said, I hope that you are all doing great up there (or down, as applies to Craig in Australia). To tide you over, enjoy a couple of pictures form the field:

Don Tomás, the man who kicked my a$$ up a volcano last week. He is due for knee surgery

soon, and was only really slowed down by needing to use his machete to clear the path for us through the jungle. On the plus side, I was the only member of the team who managed to almost keep up with him.

A spectacular view of the volcano. I swear, San Martín Tuxtla is back there somewhere. This is as much as I saw of it, or just about anything else, last week.

And, since I feel bad without giving you a real volcano, enjoy Pico de Orizaba. This volcano is not in my field area, but we drove past it on our way there from Mexico City. That's kind of like saying I get to play a volcanologist on TV. This photo was taken from the shoulder of the interstate, 'cause geologists are way too cool to actually try to avoid being hit by passing cars.

Credit: These photos were all taken by Lourdes, my fabulous colleague and landlady. I'll see about posting mine when I find new batteries for my camera.

Off to the field

I am so excited. I'm finally getting to head out to the field and get some "real" work done. (So far, I've been doing plenty of statistics and data collection from aerial photos and digital elevation models). The team leaves Monday, and it sounds as though we will have a grueling week. So far, the plan involves staying at a hotel with a pool in Veracruz and renting horses to go up the mountain. Not bad!

In truth, no field work ever goes quite as planned. In 2007, I had to sew my backpack back together after it was partially gutted by a bear who found the apple I had forgotten from the previous day's lunch; I also got locked out of the field vehicle miles from the nearest paved road, and my PhD advisor had to smash out one of the back windows with a sledgehammer that just happened to be conveniently sitting in the truck bed. In 2008, my adviser and I ended up stuck on a small island in California without any means of making fire, one bowl, a fork, and a whole lot of soup and rice packets -- then the winds really kicked up and it looked as though we wouldn't be able to get off the island in time to catch our flight home. 2009 was the year of the black free-range cow on a moonless night. I'm glad that a) I wasn't driving lead van just then and b) I didn't have to explain to the insurance company why they were going to be buying a cow. In short: I have no idea yet what will go wrong on this field trip, but I'm waiting to be impressed.

Trapped on Negit Island, 2008. There weren't any bears, but the whole island is infested with mice or, according to my adviser, "evil robo-hamsters."

Keating, meanwhile, will be here in Mexico City. Despite being invited along (Have you seen him??? He can carry LOTS of rocks!!!), he opted to stay behind. He felt bad about leaving his students to a substitute so soon after starting teaching and worried about how it would look to his employers. For the record, when they found out about the field work his employers told him he was crazy to be staying behind and promised to find subs for him next time (he only mentioned it to them during his meeting on Friday, so there wasn't enough time to find subs for this trip).

Completely unrelated, unless I decide to interpret it as an omen: I noticed my first earthquake today. That was before I read the news about Chile and my paranoia level jumped by a few levels. My earthquake was nothing like theirs: I didn't even feel it, I just noticed that the clothes in the closet were swaying in the nonexistent breeze. To be fair, I suppose it could have just been a ghost. We have daily quakes here in Mexico City, as I recently discovered when I finally asked my boss what the obnoxious alarm sound over the building intercom was. It goes off at least once a day and sounds a bit like the high-pitched tone that immediately preceded all intercom announcements in elementary school, but everyone pointedly ignores it. It turns out that it's an alarm that sounds every time the in-building seismometers record an earthquake and serves to signal the seismologists on the floor above us that they should go check their machines. I'm giving myself another month to either a) adjust to the horrible noise or b) start a petition begging them to use an email announcement system or use a Lady Gaga ringtone instead of that beep. She's been stuck in my head for the last two weeks, anyway.