Mid trip- Patagonia

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Excerpts from Journal and Field Journal

Jan 6th

"North towards Rio Ibanez from road. Began 500m apart and steered by GPS. Had to start line .61mi from my way point because of cliffs and stinging caterpillars. Worse than yesterday. Crossed road and headed up ridge number one. Many fallen trees. Top clear but the way down on the other side was very steep. "Marco" from valley bottom. Heard both Justin and Cami but saw only Justin. They are WAY off their line...Bottom very marshy. Hit another ridge, up, down, across, up again. Made it to my waypoint at about 2 pm. Beautiful spot. Open meadow. Waited 1.5 hours, no sign of anyone. Considering the previous encounters, I had little trust that they would make it here. Dropped down into valley and walked out towards river intot the other team's section. Valley opened into another meadow and there were Matt and Adam. Phew. Very hot. Very tired. Lithic site in meadow. Mostly in washouts. Justin made it out ahead of me. Nothiing herd from Cami, Bryan, Matt Walsh, or Carissa. We found Bryan, the last to make it out, at about 7:30 at the ranch where we started. Stupid day. Walked about 18km today. Ouch."

Jan 7th

"Rodeo in town and we're out. Hot and clear. Short day today to make up for yesterday. One possible rock shelter with no cultural evidence but good cover. Most shelters here face north, as opposed to our northern hemisphere's shelters which point south. Alero means rockshelter in Spanish."

Jan 8th

"Rain late in day. Cloudy. Surveyed south above Laguna Fontana. Lovely area. Fish jumping all over the place. Bandurias- an ibis looking bird native to Patagonia. Honking sound. Bryan and Justin both developed serious allergic reactions to something. Bryan can't stop snezing and Justin has hives. Hmmm. Recorded to sites today. Much of our hiking was vertical, so we were slow. Cami's ankles aren't strong, which worries me. I scouted above the cliff face, but neither Cami or Justin feel like climbing. Som deposition, rock fall, and animal disterbance in possible shelter. Found on red chert flake. We headed down when the rain picked up to avoid slipping too much. Only 8.5 km today."

Jan 9th

"Scattered showers with two heavy downpours. Deep woods, rock outcroppings/ridges and occasional meadows. Surveying between Lago Alto and Lago Verde. Small homestead close to road had cave/shleter with eleven handprints on the ceiling! Very cool. Cami screamed when we found them. Lots of nettles. Farther back another shelter with one print. Clambered across a huge fuschia thicket. Only touched the ground once and cam eout soaking wet. Not the best plan. Glad I have quick drying outdoor clothes. Ran into a herd of llamas and alpacas on the way back."

Jan 10th

"I'm much better at my field journal than I am at my personal one! We've had some long beautiful days here. I've got to try sketching a map of the area we have covered. It's massive, although our transects are often significantly larger than our actual paths...survey sections are full of cliffs and mountains. After the first day we split into three teams of survey. Had a slight communication problem on the 6th that became fairly stressful. Radios were few, teams were all over the place, and communication was poor. No one will admit that they were lost but several people were "misplaced," including myself. Thank god I came out of the canyon to find Matt and Adam. I would have been lost if they weren't there. I wasn't really lost until that point, but I wasn't found either. No final meeting point = BIG problem. We're much more careful now. Patagonia, or at least Rio Ibanez, is beautiful even in the rain, when cold and wet."

"Still raining at 5 this morning. Up early. Snow on the peaks. Supposed to survey but we traded our day off tomorrow for today, to see if the weather will lighten up. Visit to Pandera de los Manos today with Dr. Manuel Francisco Mena (Pancho). Big time hand print site. The whole site is technically owned by the feds but it has been developed and protected by the local government. All archaeological sites are technically national heritage sites, although apparently the laws here are more theoretical than practical, as education about them both in the public and in law enforcement is less than good. Ecosystem here is interesting. No big predators except for the puma, of which there are very very few left around here. Deer are apparently endangered, and the guanaco are very rare around here. Hmmm. Midway reports this evening. Lots of lithic sources found by the geo survey team. We have covered much of the survey area, more than the organizers had expected. I'd love to say that that's because we're awesome, but it's more likely because the terrain is rougher than they had planned on. Excavation is uncovering what they are pretty sure is a whole new lithic technology, which uses rock fall from the walls and ceiling of the shelter to fashion crude tools. Nice to be brought up to date with what everyone is doing. It's a wonderful change from Romania!"

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Photos

My survey team
For a few days anyway, minus one, who was too busy running around to get in the shot