Ms. Steele's Journals


National Herbarium of Bolivia   ( Jan. 7, 2008 )
I haven?t gotten out into the rainforest yet. Today I met with a Bolivian student named Oscar that is going to help guide me through the cities, out into ?the field? (which is just a generic name for where one is doing his/her research outdoors), and help me find Psiguria plants. We met at the National Herbarium of Bolivia. Remember, a herbarium is a place where dried samples of thousands or millions of plants are stored for researchers to use in their studies. We looked through their collections of Psiguria. We made notes about where these specimens were collected, and Oscar studied the map so that we can be efficient and look in the most likely places to find the plants. He doesn?t speak English, so it?s a lot of work for me to have a conversation, but I?m getting better at it.

Originally I was planning to drive to Santa Cruz or take a bus, but it turns out that it?s too dangerous to drive myself because of frequent mudslides this time of year, and it would take over 12 hours to get there. The bus is not any safer. So, we had to go buy airplane tickets to Santa Cruz. I didn?t have that in the budget, but I?ll have to make it up somewhere else.

While we were downtown, I had to exchange some traveler?s checks at the bank. Oddly, many of the businesses down here don?t take American Express. Go figure. Oscar also showed me the Palacio where government offices are. La Paz, don?t forget, is the capital of Bolivia. Well, actually, Bolivia has two capitals. The other one is Sucre, southeast of here. I have no idea why this country has two capitals. Maybe someone can look into it and let me know when I get back.

We ate lunch downtown. I was not very adventurous; I just had a cheeseburger, but here they call it a chess burger, and French fries (called papas fritas). It was pretty good.

Tomorrow we travel to Santa Cruz!