San Vicente de Chucuri!

Well now I´m here in Guayaquil, Ecuador, waiting on my friend Rogelio. But meanwhile, I´ll talk a little about our time in San Vicente. What a lovely little town!

The first half of the conference was in Bogota. We did all of our actual work stuff then, meetings, working groups, presentations, etc. Then we flew to the city of Bucaramanga and took a three hour bus ride to the town of San Vicente de Chucuri, way out in the middle of nowhere in the beautiful Andes mountains. It´s not actually all that far from Bucaramanga as the crow flies, but the roads are so bad, it takes forever to get there.

So we got there on Friday afternoon and had a celebrity´s reception! I´ve never experienced such an excited reception from anybody in Latin America, it was amazing! That day they were celebrating their 5th annual migratory birds festival, and they all were so excited that we were there to celebrate it with them! All the school kids for miles around were there, and they had a lovely parade!! Their two focal species are the Cerulean Warbler (CERW) and Golden-winged Warbler (GWWA) because they both spend the winter there. So there were children dressed up as CERW´s and GWWA´s, flapping their wings, it was so precious! Some wore hats with beautifully painted CERW´s and GWWA´s, others carried flowers, butterflies, trees, etc on little sticks that they waved in the air. There was a marching band and baton girls, and the Loro bus! ProAves is the NGO that has started all this stuff, and it is amazing to see how far they have come in like 5 or 6 years. The Loro (parrot) bus is an educational school bus that´s painted all sorts of colors, and that has educational stuff inside for kids and adults alike. They travel all over Colombia teaching people about conservation and bird ecology. It´s so awesome! And there was a kid dressed up as a Golden-cheeked parrot, he must have been so hot!

After the parade, everybody assembled in the town square to watch the mayor and several of our group leaders give speeches about conservation, etc. The kids were all so excited that we were there though, that they didn´t pay much attention and kept asking us questions and wanted to take pictures with us and stuff. I did a ton of translating, hehe.

After that, we all walked down to a park that´s right in town, and it is beautiful! There´s a lovely suspension foot bridge across a rushing creek, parrotlets and parakeets flying all over the place, hummingbirds buzzing your head, and every kind of fruit tree you can imagine growing naturally - I was especially excited about the avocado trees!!

The kids and people swamped us and asked to use our binoculars - they were so excited to show us their park...which up until only 6 years ago was a guerrilla camp. Things are really improving there, thank goodness. I made friends with two boys, Fabian and Hector, who both already know most of the birds by their scientific names, I was so impressed! ProAves is really doing a great work there by taking those kids under their wing. We´re going to send some binoculars to Fabian and Hector - you should have seen how their faces lit up when I told them that!

That night they held a music and cultural festival in the town square just for us - the extranjeros. They had kids dressed up in the traditional outfits, playing drums and other indigenous instruments, with lovely dancers. They got us up dancing with them, it was so great! They also had their municipal band play, tubas and all, and a violin group, and some other things. I got to dance my socks off - we were all exhausted after having gotten up at like 3:30 that morning to leave from Bogota, but it was so wonderful. After that I went out dancing at a discoteca for a little while with a guy named Orion from our group and some locals. They were teaching me salsa because I dance too much like a gringa, haha.

Then it was birding all day the next day at a coffee farm that is part of the Cerulean warbler reserve, and birding up at the reserve, which is on the ridge above the town. We saw so many new species, it was amazing!! We birded all day sunday in the reserve too (Dr. Buehler, Than, and me), and in the town park again on Monday morning. By yesterday morning, we were absolutely exhausted, but happy with all we´d seen. We saw some Ceruleans, yay!! It´s so cool to see them hanging out down here...just think of how far they just flew.

We were so grateful for all the people there did for us. The lady mayor came up to the reserve on Saturday afternoon, with her video camera dude following her around. They snagged me for an interview with a microphone b-c I was one of the few gringos who could speak Spanish, hehe. I made sure to say how thankful we were for the kindness of the people of San Vicente. I wish I could have been there longer!

Okay, this is ridiculously long, but I hope it at least captures what it was like there. Sorry, I don´t have my camera with me, so no pictures yet. Soon I promise!!

I hope you are all well and aprovechar-ing. :)