Before I start this post some background is required:
About 4 years ago my dad got involved in yet another project, SCI, or Sustainable Communities International. The idea was to find an indigenous community living near a endangered species and teach this community to use the animal in a sustainable way so as to give value to the animal, and also enriched the quality of life of the surrounding indigenous community through monetary gain.
After much looking around, my dad found the cooperativa of La Payunia, in which the community lives in close contact with Guanacos, an endangered wild relative of the domesticated Llama. Most of the people in La Payunia subside on less that 2 dollars a day from goat and sheep farming. There are not schools, medical assistance, running water, roads, electricity, etc.
Very mean looking guanaco.. probably about to trample someone
Guanaco fiber is the finest in the world, and Guanacos are endangered partly because of illegal poaching as a result of demand for this hyper-luxury fabric in Italy and other parts of Europe. The idea was to find a way that the Guanacos could be caught and sheared humanely without killing or traumatizing them. The cooperativa has managed to find a way to trap them, an old Inca way called Jaku, which I will talk about more later, and while we were there they caught and sheared 85. Now their major problem is finding an export market so that they can begin to see benefit to the community in the form of medical assistance and education.
Moving on, La Payunia is a nature reserve 8 hours from any sort of serious civilization (Mendoza). The drive from Mendoza almost rivaled the plane ride from the US by its degree of unpleasantness. For the first 5 hours it is a paved two lane road, which in Argentina is really three lanes: two normal ones and then an imaginary one in the middle that is constantly used for passing. Most people don't even bother to drive in their side of the road at all, but instead prefer to keep one wheel in the "passing lane" at all times in case they need to jet out around a truck.
It is however, a very beautiful drive, being bordered on one side by the Andes
The last three hours are on a washboard that would be fine if you were in a camioneta, but in our wonderful rental Fiat it was quite a problem; Fancio* had to keep swerving to avoid rocks just a few inches off the ground so that we would not bottom out our car.
There is no cell service in La Payunia, and dad seemed pretty convinced that he could find the encampment in La Payunia, which is a place the size or Rhode island with no real roads. This seems to be the Mundt way - don't ask for direction or help of any kind...becasue obviously we can do it on our own... NOT.
Of course, we got lost. Pabluo had told my dad about a month before that if he had not seen us by 5 pm he would start driving around looking for us. With this reassuring thought we parked our car and prepared to wait for Pabulo, who at that moment had completely forgotten about this promise and didn't even have access to a truck. We eventually went searching for him again, after deciding who got which seats in the car if we had to sleep there...(we are three hours from civilization). We ended up finding the camp, but while lost we made this lovely sign in case Pabulo were to drive by in his, we were sure, frenzied and very concerned search for us.
Lost Mundts
Below is what it looked like when we got lost... barren wasteland..
At the Encampe:
My parents were staying in "cabanas" nearby, while had opted to share a tent with a girl from the co-operativia.. kind of a risk since although my parents speak very good spanish, I do not, especialy when I have not been in a spansh speaking country for more than a year. They peaced out pretty much immediately once we got there, leaving an exhausted me (we had flown from the US the night before) to trail around after Pabulo until midnight putting up netting on the Manga (trap), for 5 kilometers in the freezing wind. Very fun. After we all had a delicious dinner of meat stew (I ate peanut butter), and I pretty much passed out at the table.
Working on the fence at midnight...just to have it blown down by the wind and have to get up at 6 am then next morning when there was no wind to put it back up.. all 5 k of it.
Very tired workers eating diner
Payun Matru from a hill near the encampment
Horses saddled up for the roundup
Encampment in the morning
Payun Matru at first light..
Eating / socializing tent at the encampment
Wierd plants... the whole place looked like another planet. La Payunia has the most volcanos per sq k in the world, and also has the most cosmic rays, which has prompted the US to pump millions of dollars into all these stupid little huts in the middle of nowhere to measure them
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment