March 29, 2012

Since I last wrote, I have (perhaps not surprisingly) kept myself busy. In January, I got to accompany Matt on a trip to Barbados. He had a conference and I enjoyed a change of pace and scenery. I really enjoyed the trip. Barbados is a pleasant place to visit. The people are friendly and very well educated, the rum is tasty and the ocean is marvelous. I alternated work and snorkeling. The weather was perfectly pleasant and Matt’s conference setting - the Bellairs Research Station, located in a little unassuming place called “Holetown” - was adjacent to the best reef I have seen in a long time. Fantastic. We drank lots of “Banks” beer and rum punch, and were served some excellent food. At night I could hear waves lapping on the beach and was awakened by doves in the morning. One day we had a group snorkeling trip. We got to experience a congregation of green sea turtles and I saw a flying gurnard, which has to be one of the coolest fish I have ever seen. We then made our way to a recent wreck that was sunk to create fish habitat. There were chub everywhere and some magnificent coral. Unfortunately there was also a box jellyfish, which stung one of our group members. Matt and I did a fair amount of exploring. We hiked north along the coast towards Speightstown, wading in the water and walking along the beach. Unfortunately, I got hit by a wave and my beloved camera was killed. I was saddened to lose my camera. It has been on many trips with me. However, I also think that it was time to move on. I have found a new camera that is treating me very well. Check out the photos that I took in Trinidad.

Snorkeling was great. It felt so good to be back in the water. I really miss swimming in the ocean. Matt and I saw many fish, including a huge school of blue tang, very large trumpet fish, and moray eels. We also happened upon several large swarms jellyfish, but somehow we didn’t get stung. I wonder if these jellies were unable to sting. They were unusual. They were clear, lacked long tentacles, and appeared to have little patches of algal colonies within them. In terms of terrestrial wildlife, I was less impressed. We saw invasive giant African landsnails and grackles and we found a tiny frog in our shower. A small group of us journeyed over to the east side of the island to visit the Andromeda Botanical Gardens in Bathsheba. The east coast is dramatically different from the west. Large waves crashed against the rocky coastline. It was even too rough for the surfers. I was particularly fond of the large “mushroom” rocks that had been cut by the waves. At the botanical gardens we saw some really lovely and informative gardens, but the plants were all introduced. I had anticipated that we would see some native vegetation and wildlife, but really there was nothing. After asking several locals, I learned that there is just one small patch of native forest remaining in Barbados. Everything else has been human modified.

After Barbados, returning to Cincinnati was a bit harsh. Winter itself was not bad in this year. However, the winter term was a hectic one. I led a seminar, participated in five job searches, tried to woo a couple of prospective graduate students, submitted several grants, and worked on the course that I started teaching on monday. But I also made time for some fun. Matt and I have been exploring what Cincinnati has to offer. We watched our local hockey team (the Cyclones) play Kalamazoo. Our friends Annie and Esteban also took us to Schwartz Point, which is a very authentic local jazz club. In honor of Mardi Gras, Matt and I made it down to Covington in Northern Kentucky for the “Big Head Parade”. The parade was about 5 minutes long but definitely worth it. Next year I am hopeful that others might join us. We also got to experience Bock Fest, which is an annual tradition in Cincinnati. The festival starts with a parade led by a goat pulling a keg of beer. Then there’s a weekend of Bavarian polka, dancing, and lots of beer. My personal favorite was the slap dancing.

And just like that, the term ended, spring arrived, and I headed off to Trinidad to help teach a course about landscape evolution and environmental change on the island. The trip began with four of us arriving ahead of the students. It is my colleagues’ and my hope that we will be able to develop some long-term research projects on Trinidad. Accordingly, we met with some important contacts at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and got a lay of the land. We investigated the Chaguaramas region, which encompasses the northwest corner of the island, including the capital city, Port of Spain, the beautiful, secluded beaches along the northern coast, and some offshore islands. We even got to go diving one day.

We quickly learned that the roads and driving in Trinidad cannot be measured using US standards. In my opinion, most of the roads are only wide enough to accommodate one lane of traffic, but Trinidadians disagree. Giant trucks roar down on you and people passing on both sides. I also feel that there should be a shoulder to pull off on when one of these trucks approaches, but there’s not. Instead, there are usually deep ditches or precipitous canyons. We spent a lot of time on the road and I am both lucky and grateful that I did not have to drive. I did my best to be an excellent copilot for our teaching assistant, Jenny, who seemed to handle all of these problems with calm and collected finesse. In addition to the landscape, there were plenty of other sites to see. For example, I enjoyed noting all of the epiphytic air plants that are growing on electrical wires. We also found the road crews amusing. These typically involved a team of 8-10 people: 1 with a weed wacker, one with a shovel or a rake, 3-5 people holding up a cloth next to the road, and 1-3 people sitting under a tree.

In our exploring, we discovered that the street food is both inexpensive and VERY tasty (provided you like hot sauce, which I do). It’s an interesting mix of Indian and Caribbean food. Yum. As a vegetarian, I tried “Doubles” (two fried dough rolls filled with chick peas, “green sauce”, tamarind sauce, and hot sauce”), “Sahena” (A fried patty of a green leafy vegetable topped with the same sauces mentioned above), and Aloo Pie (rolled fried dough filled with curry potatoes and the above sauces). These things cost roughly 50 cents each. They are served in a piece of paper, so are incredibly messy, and generally they are wolfed down standing next to the vendor. I ate some baghi rice with callaloo (a green soupy dish poured on the rice) and coocoo (something akin to corn bread). I also tried “Bake and Shark”, but without the shark. This was fried bread filled with vegetables and hot sauce. We avoided the KFC and Pizza Hut chains, which were prolific.

  After a few days of exploring, we made our way over to the east coast and met the arriving students. We spent the next six days investigating the east and northern portions of the island. We stayed in Lower Manzanilla at a hotel called D’Coconut Cove, which sits on a secluded beach. We met fishermen who catch hammerhead sharks, drove along endless stretches of uninterrupted coastline, and enjoyed some stunning vistas. We visited portions of Nariva Swamp, which boasts some lovely mangroves and giant (i.e. 7 foot tall) herbaceous vegetation. We also drove through surreal coastal palm forest, which made me think of the Lorax. Each beach we visited on the island was slightly different. Some were covered in crabs, some were covered in multicolored clams, and some were covered with smooth pebbles that were perfect for skipping stones. The sand and the debris were different as well. One beach was covered in mounds of algae, one boasted bizarre purple dried up jellyfish, and one was full of bird bones. I was pleased that there was not too much garbage on the beaches. Perhaps this is because Trinidad sits outside of the large gyres that fling fishing waste onto remote beaches in other parts of the Caribbean.

Eventually, we ventured inland. For starters, we hiked up to a lovely little waterfall, called Rio Secco, in Matura National Park. This was followed by a much more rigorous journey to the Aripo Caves, which is the longest cave system in the Caribbean. We hiked through lush montane forest straight up a mountain. The setting was beautiful, but I didn’t get much time to appreciate it until we arrived at our destination, the mouth of Middle Aripo Cave. I had trouble keeping up with the rest of the group and I watched the ground warily. Numerous small sinkholes lined the path. I have no idea how deep these were and I did not want to accidentally find out. The Aripo caves are well known for their oilbird population. I was very excited to see and hear oilbirds, but I didn’t really know what to expect. They are described as wailing banshee devils but I actually found them to be rather comical sounding. Imagine the sound you make when you squeeze air through your cheeks. That’s what they sound like.

  We had one final hike awaiting us, a short trek up to the Tamana bat caves, which sit in an ancient uplifted coral reef near the center of the island. One of our Trinidad contacts, Mike Rutherford, volunteered to take us to the cave to see the roughly 1 million bats that exit the caves every evening. Of course we took him up on this offer. After the hike to the Aripo caves, I didn’t think I could get much dirtier and muddier, but I was wrong. Despite the fact that we visited Trinidad during the dry season, it rained nearly every day we were there. Consequently, all of the trails were very muddy, especially the trail to Tamana. The entire trail was literally a slippery mud pit. We made our way up the hill, slipping, sliding and falling, and then descended down into the cave to explore a bit before sunset. Both Aripo and Tamana caves are FILLED with guano. I can now say from personal experience that oilbird guano is far stinkier than bat guano, at least initially. However, if you crawl through bat guano and get peed on by bats, you still wind up smelling really bad. Mike guided us through a small hole filled with foul water at the base of the first room in the cave. We emerged in a deeper, darker chamber with a flat floor. All around us bats chittered, and looking up (with mouth closed, of course) we could see numerous clumps of bats from differing species. The floor was covered in a thick layer of guano, but there was a little stream running through it, and we proceeded to walk down this stream. We wound up standing underneath two natural skylights. This portion of the cave was filled with life. We found millipedes, tiny frogs, cane toads, giant cockroaches, a tarantula, and cave lizards.

One day I organized a trip to Asa Wright Nature Reserve, which is a world-famous bird sanctuary. I was hopeful that in addition to seeing birds, we would also learn a bit about other fauna and the island’s vegetation. The trip did not disappoint. The reserve is beautiful. Its 1000 acres sit in the Arima Valley in the Northern Range. In our three-hour visit, we saw more wildlife than we had seen during the entire visit up to that point. In addition to seeing many birds (my favorite was the crested oropendola, which has a call that sounds like a video game), we saw some very tame tegu lizards and a couple of agouti. I thought to myself, finally, a native animal! Additionally, many people in our group tried eating termites. Apparently they taste like carrots, but I can’t verify if this is true because I couldn’t bring myself to try one. I asked our patient and knowledgeable guide a host of questions about the island’s animals and learned some rather alarming statistics about hunting. I do not think anyone knows what the status of most mammal species is on the island. There is an open hunting season for four months every year and nobody has done a survey to get a sense of population sizes in a long time. During our trip, everyone I asked would tell me “yes, we used to have monkeys here, but they have all been shot” or “I still see agouti in my yard, but they run away”, or “not many people eat brocket deer anymore because they are hard to find”. Interesting.

The final portion of our trip was spent down in the southwestern corner of the island. We moved our group down to the bustling city of San Fernando, and established a new base camp at the Royal Hotel. It was interesting moving from a very remote hotel to a hotel in the middle of a city. I think that the students appreciated being in a more urban setting because they were able to find more food options. I was impressed by the similarities between San Fernando and Antananarivo in Madagascar. They have similar architecture and vendors. Plus, they are both built on a hill so the roads are similar.

We were privileged enough to meet Peter Harris, a local archaeologist. Peter took us out to Banwari Trace, home of the oldest archaeological site on the island. It is thought to be about 7,000 years old. My colleagues and I are very interested in this and other archaeological sites. There is much work that could be done, including verifying the age of Banwari and its human remains. While in the SW we also got to visit Pitch Lake, which is similar to the La Brea tar pits. The pitch in this lake has been mined, refined, and sent around the world to create asphalt roads since 1888. Supposedly enough pitch remains for 400 more years of mining. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect at the lake. I thought it would likely be gooey, hot, and smelly. Unsurprisingly, the lake smelled like a hot asphalt road. However, the pitch was much more solid than I had anticipated. Aside from patches of soft pitch, which are called “the mother of the lake” by locals, the pitch was relatively cool and sturdy and we were able to walk out on the lake. Some students played with the soft pitch, but they were quickly covered in a sticky mess so I decided to steer clear. It was very neat to get to stand on the pitch and watch methane bubble out of the puddles of water on its surface.

From Pitch Lake, we drove down to the southwestern tip of the island. We ate lunch on a beautiful beach in Bonasse, wound our way through a huge coconut plantation, and ended up on Icacos, which looks out at Venezuela. It was a cloudy day but we could just make out the outline of land on the other side of the channel. Very cool. The fishermen on this beach were decidedly unfriendly. We joked that perhaps this was because they were bringing something other than fish onto the island. Who knows? We then moved over to Columbus Bay, which is just north of Icacos. This is where Columbus landed in 1498, during his third voyage. Today no evidence remains of the Spanish ships that once set anchor on this deserted beach.

After a very full trip, our last day in Trinidad arrived. First we visited the Trinidad Wildfowl Trust, which is located in the heart of a large Petroleum Company’s property. The Trust is devoted to conservation and education. They have a breeding program for some of the island’s most endangered species. I was impressed with their setup and their credo and I’m glad we paid them a visit. We saw some very cute black-bellied whistling tree ducks, an Anhinga (a.k.a. snake bird) and some beautiful blue and gold macaws. We then headed North to Caroni Swamp, where we spent three hours in a boat among the mangroves. It was beautiful. We saw a number of birds, including hundreds, if not thousands of scarlet ibis (Trinidad’s national bird). We also finally saw a mammal in the wild. We saw two little silky/pygmy anteaters. My photos of these just look like balls of fur. I believe that they curl up when they sleep during the day. I was thrilled. We also saw two Cook’s Tree Boas. I have no idea how our guide was able to pick any of these animals out of the foliage. I was only able to pick them out with some trouble when the boat was stopped and my gaze was guided by a laser pointer. We ended the day by watching huge flocks of egrets and ibis roost on a mangrove island at sunset. What a great way to end the trip.

  Looking back on the trip, it is hard to believe that we actually accomplished everything we did. None of us had previously been to Trinidad. I am proud of our group. Considering I had planned to see many mammals on our trip, I was both surprised and disappointed that we only saw two native mammals: the agouti at Asa Wright and the pygmy anteater at Caroni Swamp. Additionally, everywhere we went, we saw dogs and black vultures. Trinidad is renowned for its bird diversity, so I was a bit surprised that we only saw real bird diversity at the bird sanctuaries. Unlike Madagascar, this is an island with money, good education, and a substantial amount of native vegetation left. I am very excited about the contacts that we made. I believe that developing future research projects in Trinidad is very promising and I am feeling quite positive as I start the last term of my first year as an assistant professor.

I hope that spring has been treating you as well as it has been treating me.

Take care,

Brooke