Part 2: Shearing and dancing the Quenka

The technique that was devised for trapping the Guanacos comes from the Inca form of hunting called Jaku. Incidentally, this is also the name of the hunting lodge that is our next door neighbor at the Buenaventura, but apparently Texans can't spell and so the lodge is called Jacu.

The Manga (trap) consists of two "arms" of trap that extend out 2.8 k and then funnel together at one end, effectively trapping the Guanacos in a small enough space to be manageable. The open end of the trap is approx 3 k across, wide enough that the guanacos do not notice they are being led to their demise. Roughly six gauchos herd the guanacos into the trap from the surrounding area, and then once in the Manga they close doors as they go to prevent the Guanacos from turning around and running back out.

Video of the lower end of the Manga with the different holding pens for the Guanacos

The Gauchos preparing to ride out to the roundup

Photo op with one of the kids

The Guanacos are then herded from the big holding chamber into a tiny partitioned off area that can hold only three of the animals to make it more manageable for the gauchos to bring the individual animals out to the shearing tables. The three guys doing this job were some of the biggest men I have ever seen in my life.. probably like 6'7 or 6'8 and just huge. One of them grabs the head and one the hind legs and then they carry it out to where another guy is waiting to put a mask on it. At the very end they decided it would be funny if they dragged me in there with them..which was kind of scary - being in a 4 foot enclose with something that could kill you if it kicked you the wrong way did make me a bit nervous.

Me helping carry the hind legs out while two men tie the legs and one other puts a mask over its head.

Me and one of the gauchos right before going into the enclosure, I was scared shitless so my hand was shaking so bad that he was able to feel it and he laughed at me.

Shearing...

Veterinarians taking measurements, blood samples etc. They put a tracking collar on each guanaco as well so they could monitor the population in the area. Below is a picture of four of the veterinarians.

Pabulo directing the shearing

All of the Cooperativa with my dad and Pabulo

playing some guitar by the fire at night

One of the nights at the encampment we celebrated three birthdays with cakes, wine, dancing and home brewed liqueur. Some of the gauchos brought out their guitars (all argentines seem to be able to play guitar), and we all danced traditional argentine dances till 2 or 3 am. I went to bed at this point but apparently the party kept going, and at 4 they started cooking chorizos and had an asado, not retiring to bed until 6 am.

The Quenka is one of the most famous dances originating in argentina and requires handkerchiefs and a lot of fancy footwork on the part of the guys. I love how as a girl al you have to do is know nothing and follow. Below is a video of the tail end of the quenka with only two couples.

On the Subject of Mate --

One of great cliches of Argentina, Mate, which has become trendy in the US in the past few years, is not just an old shrugged off tradition brought out and paraded before tourists - EVERYONE in Argentina actually drinks mate, all of the time. Each person has their individual cup and bag of mate and they rarely drink from their own gourd. Each person fills theirs and then passes it to someone else in the circle, so the gourd you drink out of is always someone different. Once you are done with the mate, you pass it back to the owner who refills it with water and then passes it on to another person.

Sitting around the fire at 7 am sharing mate

More pictures:

Wrestling Guanacos in La Payunia, part 1

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

Summer, condensed

I'm actualy writing this from Argentina, and would rather write about interesting things like wrestling Guanacos but I feel like I should give the summer some closure:

It has been six months since I last left the United States of West Coast & Canada. A long six months of attempting to work and save money - did not happen, learn spanish - did not happen, and learn how to cook - also did not happen - It seems there is a pattern in my life of none of my plans being carried to fruition, this may indicate a problem.

This was my first summer in seattle as a legal adult (the past two I have been out of the country) and it exceeded my expectations by probably being just about the best place ever, besides Haad Rhin on New Years smashing buckets. Growing up on Bainbridge you don't really see much of Seattle other than the occasional shopping trip or dinner. Going out in Seattle is hard to wrangle because you either need to have a place to stay in Seattle or have the coherence to catch the 1:35 home, a rare feat of mental collection after too much belgian ale at Brouwers.

If I choose to go to law school in seattle (UW or SU), I would definitely move into the city, for sheeezy. After spending a summer here I can honestly say this is where I think I would like to be, at least for the next four or five years, but none of my plans seem to work out that well...

What I learned this summer about Seattle:

- Seattle is the best city in the entire world.

- The ballroom is a meat market that Charles From Party frequents

- Everything is more fun when you wear a turban

- Dicks is worth leaving the bar early for

- Mr. Tyler Bradley-Hewitt has very comfortable couches and should probably charge me rent

- We are incredibly lucky to live near such good coffee.

- Hiking / Camping is awesome and I am going to marry an REI man

- Skeet Skeet is interchangeable with the word skedadle

- The name of the burger place in forks is Sullies, this is a good thing to bet about

- Seafair is somehow impossible for me to make it to no matter how hard I try

About life:

- Going back to school might actually not completely excruciating, hence law school

- Be careful who you hook up with in Vegas, they might work for the DEA

- Don't sleep on doorsteps or your friends will kick you thinking you are a bum

- I am "impossible" .... I don't even know, but its funny

- Nannying is hard work... imagine if they were actually yours ... holy hell

- Sunroofs on cars periodically shatter, stay calm and don't touch any of the glass

-I am someone who needs a home, traveling forever is not going to be it for me

Ok.... now that I am done with that we can start talking about rounding up Guanacos!

Pictures:
Vegas with the Big Donz and Amir

Klehane Ridge hike with Natface and Corrine

Explaining a shotgun - I feel like most people have figured this out freshman year of college

Bay-Rut

Beach out at the ocean

Klehane Ridge Trail - Hurricane Ridge

Hurricane Ridge Visitors Center

Little trees in the Hoh Rainforest

Marmot Pass trail

Beach Salmon Bake

Prideaux Haven, BC

La Push or Bust!!

Soo, I finally caved and checked out the first twilight book form the library with the result of me becoming:

a. obsessed with twilight

b. obsessed with vampires and wanting a vampire boyfriend

c. reading all four books in under 48 hours

d. going to forks with Natalie on a spur-of-the-moment trip

Unfortunately for us they had closed the bridge, FML, so we had to drive all the way around...I don't understand how they can just close the ONE FUCKING BRIDGE TO THE PENINSULA!! seriously, how are we supposed to hike.

First sign for forks!!! notice that the nearest "town" is a hundred miles AWAY.. ponder that

We made it!!

Basicaly Forks is the shittiest town ever, even when its not raining, and is way to flat and farmy to be the setting for twilight, unfortunately there isn't any other life on the peninsula so they didn't have much choice. I've driven through Forks countless times on my way to the ocean and didn't even remember it so that shows you just how forgettable it is, and PS hollywood, they definitely don't have black or asian people there, just a lot of hicks. They do however, have awesome burgers at the burger place as you drive into town...like 15 different ones you can get, including a bella burger!!! The town marketing was a bit overexcited to have the sudden inflow of tourism with twilight themed signs everywhere:

We camped at LaPush and tried to find attractive indians (a la Jacob) or any indians for that matter - its amazingly hard to find indians on a reservation..which is incredible since it is a reservation... since we couldn't find ANYONE to hang out with since the bridge closure has cut the volume of campers by at least 90 percent, we just got in touch with nature instead and had a nice meal on our rock plates eating with out beach spoons we had found earlier in the day.

La Push is pretty awesome, rugged coastline with lots of seastacks poking up in the bays. It also has the best surf out at the coast so we got to watch some miserable looking surfers battle with hypothermia. These surfers later came into the burger joint where we were happily consuming our salmon and jalepeno burgers, gave us a bouquet of wildflowers they had picked and told us that they would "love to stay and flirt, but had to get going". Anyone who surfs the WA coast is either completely crazy of a huge badass so its too bad they couldn't stay and flirt, either way it would have been fun.

Nat getting pulled over by the tribal police...for doing 10 over. SERIOUSLY???!!!?!

For Perriface

Quality:

Andy Samberg montage for Perriface since she lives under a rock.  Or for anyone else who wants a nice compiled list of the greatest SNL videos ever...esp for people in countries not fortunate enough to have SNL...but then you probably don't have Hulu either so you won't be able to view them.. I don't think china likes that either.. subversive material 

Talk to corporate, LIKE A BOSS, Hit on deborah, LIKE A BOSS, Bomb the Russians, LIKE A BOSS.......Soo..thats a normal day for you then?   No Doubt.   You chop your balls off and die?  Hell yes,.... I'm the boss..

Im On A Boat

Iran so Far

Jizz in My Pants

Dick in a Box

Mother Lover

Like A Boss

Lazy Sunday

I think I love him...mmm...

oh and two others for good measure...

Morgan Stanley..taking care of your family

Fix It!!!!!

oops I actually meant this one:

FIX ITTTTTT!!!

Wear it Chief

In the last 24 hours I:

1. Spent an hour trying to decode the pictograms on the Ranier caps, a legit drinking activity

2. Rear ended a taxi

3. Made delicious mexican at 3 am and did not burn anything down

5. Shot two consecutive bulls eyes while simultaneously playing pool

6. Laughed at Teebs trying to hit on his supervisor

7. Wore it

8. Left my boots on the bus, then ran after the bus yelling till it stopped causing a scene

9. Spent the equivalent of four hours of wages on cheese at pike place

10. Got a job

11. Applied to teach in spain for a year

Sincerely,

Mundtface

For clarification... I didn't rear end the car, Derek did

VegAAS

VegASS...from a really long time ago...

My time at CMC before we drove out was basically a repeat of a typical college day: got into the airport, was picked up by Yohei, went to Ralphs, Purchased alcohol, grilled and drank on green beach, went to the apartments, blacked out, woke up on a couch (I think it was Kauhrana's) to Abby calling me at five am, stumbled back to Abby's, drove to vegas while drinking to keep my buzz at a non-hangover level.

The highlights of vegas were definitely Rehab, Bare and then the night we went out. oh and I didn't mention the MOST IMPORTANT HIGHLIGHT. wait for it....I got to eat In-n-out. NEI LEPSHI

Rehab: we got a Cabana since there were 8 of us, about 70 each, which was the way to go for sure since all of that 70 goes towards drinks and then you don't have to pay cover. We made friends with our neighbors who were very liberal with their Dom, and had awesome stories about getting kidnapped by MILF in the Philippines (thats the rebel group not the normal abbreviation). My not-ever-sobering-up plan didn't work so well since it made me more prone to passing out, which I did three times. It just looked like I was sunbathing though so it took them quite a while for the rest to figure out that I was asleep. Afterward I drunkenly ordered Ali to drive us to In-N-Out, which was the greatest experience of my life to this date. Better than the time when I found 3 grand.

Where: Hard Rock Hotel (off the Strip) $ 15-25 cover, $ 500 cabanas

The mothership of fun

me "tanning" at Rehab

Bare: Bare is the swanky "adult" pool in the Mirage; there's a daily person limit so on crowded days you either have to be hot as a girl or have enough money to pay the exorbitant 50 dollar cover for guys. We again got a day bed since we're pimps. The place got a bit over crowded since it was a saturday but it was pretty fun people watching since there were lots of trashy girls with their tops off making out with people. This one girl went through five different guys, and then the attendant told her she had to leave...it was hilarious.

Where: Bare at the Mirage, on the strip. $100 for chairs, 600 for day bed, 2,000 for cabana

Pure: Had a slight bit of trouble getting into Pure since the line was uber long and Perriface and I don't deal well with lines, but we luckily got behind a group that was getting ushered in VIP and just went with them. Pure is kinda a bitch to get in unless you have reservations or a table, or you are wiley like us. Wandered around for a while then found a table on the roof bar with a few cool canadian guys down from Winnipeg. Well, two of them were cool, but the one I got stuck talking to was an Emo, luckily he could take a hint and wandered off sloppily to find another girl who might possibly like his heavily manicured and highlighted hair, if there is such a girl, I doubt it. We all called him highlights the rest of the night..even his friends, I'm thinking the name might stick even after they go home.

Canadians

View of the Strip from our table

In the Jungle outside of Jet