Living in the Tropics

I’m a couple months into my new life in Paraguay and things are going as to be expected. Life living in a city in Paraguay is certainly easier than when we were based at the field site in the arse end of nowhere but there are still limitations to living in a developing country. A challenge to be speaking Spanish as soon as possible is on; I am getting slightly embarrassed having to hide whenever I see someone approaching me, or hiding under a table because someone rung the doorbell and I was the only one in! Repeating the phrase “ me habla poko Español” is a complete lie as I speak virtually zero Spanish! On a plus point my charades is improving.

The new house is situated in the Ñeembucú district of Paraguay and is a lot wetter that other states. The drive in from Asunción (6 hours, all bus journeys seem to end up being 6 hours!) is one of wonderment. At first it looks like vast grasslands but then you see a horse or cow waist deep in water before realizing that the vastness is wetlands. In the more remote sections large wading birds including Spoonbills, Jabiru, Limpkins, Screamers and various species of stalks wade freely gathering the nutrient soup in their beaks. Snail kites and various other falcons dot along the fencepost on sentry duties, it’s a birders heaven.

Daily life is pretty similar to Lagaua Blannca, the interns go out during the day to do there research projects whilst I am in the lab preparing specimens and maintaining the collection. I occasionally go out to dabble in a bit of exploration and fieldwork but I have realized that I am not a hard-core field scientist. We have 2 ladies that do cooking and cleaning for us Monday to Saturday but we have the addition of going for pizza buffet on Tuesday nights at one of the local restaurants. All you can eat and a drink for £2.70, cant say no to that. There is a constant challenge as to who can eat the most slices; the current record is 21 slices, somewhere where I will never reach!

In previous blogs I talked about the joys of living on a filed site and the additional unwelcomed houseguests namely the snakes and insects. Well thankfully there is an improvement but not perfection yet. On further investigation a strange mouse poo/larvae looking thing found in my bed turned out to be a gecko poo which explained the halo of dead insects on my pillow that I wake up to each morning. We have actually become firm fiends since and he even allowed me to pick him up, but I would prefer him to dine somewhere else. There is a freaky largish flat spider that had has a habit of jumping out on me from the light switch hidden behind a cupboard, on the plus he does eat the mosquitos.

The city of Pilar is a small city that is situated next to the Rio Paraguay River with Argentina a stone throw away across the river. Daily walks along a stretch of the river with Lobo has rewarded me with sightings of the Urban howler monkeys, otters tumbling down rivers banks to the water, toucans calling from the tree tops and Cara cara feeding on the remains of fish on the river bank. The people are friendly and often say hello as you walk past but they do think we are crazy people when hey see us out watching monkeys and birds. It feels like there is more wealth here compared to other districts in Paraguay but it is still far from western standards.

I’m never far from my vet nursing roots and never more so living in a house with a dog and 4 cats. So far I have treated a vomiting cat, various cuts and scrapes, parasite prevention, skin scrapes on bald ears and foot training. The vet is also getting a roaring trade from us when I’ve got to the end of my abilities of care. I hope they appreciate it but I don’t think they do but I am usually forgiven fairly quickly with a treat of a cuddle. I have as usual become a fan of several of the street dogs around the city and if I could I would bring them home with me, but there are also some savages of dogs that try and bite at the back of your leg while you are just walking down the road. I swift kiss of the lips is the sound needed to avoid such advances but a stick may become a necessary walking companion (although I would never be able to actually use it on a dog).

A couple of weeks into my arrival I meet an American couple whilst waking lobo, they have moved back to family roots and plan to open a sandwich shop and Texan BBQ restaurant which will go down well with us I’m sure. The family owns an estância outside the city and was only too happy for us to go and explore for possible new filed sites. It has been the rainy season since my arrival and it has definitely been wet. Our adventure to the estância resulted in me becoming very muddy and sweaty digging and pushing the truck out of the mud roads. The site was very rewarding though so worth the pain. The owner kindly lent us one of his farm workers and a tracker to tow us back out of the worse of the mud. Being invited into have lunch was somewhat embarrassing, covered in mud but the hosts were gracious enough to not bat an eyelash.

The last entry for this blog is about visiting Pro Cosara in San Rafael a district in the Itapúa department. Pro cosara is a private reserve owned by an Austrian couple Hans and Christine Hostettler and is a beautiful patch of pristine Atlantic forest. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most vulnerable and biologically diverse ecosystems on earth. While the forest once covered nearly 2 million km², today a mere seven percent remains. The San Rafael Nature Reserve is one of the last and largest remnants of Atlantic Forest. Becca our primatologist is doing her research on the capuchin monkeys here and is currently spending her time habituating them. We visited with a photographer who was documenting what we do at PLT to help us with our promotional work and our website. To be in a piece of forest that is so undisturbed is a place I love to be; The sounds, smells and site fill me with joy. We were lucky and saw the Capuchins and lots of amazing birds such as toucanets, nightjars, Guans, and lots of small passerines. Jeremy was also lucky to see a Puma. However with such highs comes the lows, coming back from the forest we were confronted by an mob of very angry cows (it turns out they might of just wanted food) who chased us to a fence that firstly I fell through on to my arse when my foot got caught on the wire and then Karina got electrocuted across her back when attempting to cameo crawl under said fencing to keep the cattle in! It was enough to keep us laughing for a while though.

All in all I am enjoying my time back in Paraguay. The next instalment will feature my attempts of border crossings and continuations of field work in Paraguay.