Ms. Steele's Journals


Photos! Photos!   ( Jan. 12, 2008 )
I just uploaded a bunch of photos. Following, I describe each one in order from left to right and top to bottom. If you can?t see the photo very well, I think you can click on it to enlarge it.

1. This is me checking in at American Airlines. I have two suitcases to check and a backpack. Yes, I cut about 6 inches off my hair. It is easier to keep clean and dry in the rainforest. (I can still put it up into a little ponytail, though.)

2. This is a photo taken at the herbarium in La Paz. The cabinets in the background hold all the specimens. I pulled out the specimens of Psiguria that you can see on the table in the foreground.

3. As I mentioned in one of the answers to a question, most of the people in Bolivia dress just like we do (clothes made in China). But the descendents of the Incas, part of a culture called Aymara, dress as the lady in this photo. There are lots of variations of bright colors, but the hat that sits on top of the head is consistent ? So cute!

4. I?m standing in front of the Palacio in the center of La Paz.

5. This is the airplane that took us (Oscar and me) from La Paz to Santa Cruz on the airline Transporte Aereo Militar (TAM). We stopped briefly in Cochabamba to drop off and pick up passengers. They were smooth flights.

6. This is the first Psiguria that I found. I?m not certain which species it is because there were no flowers, only fruits, but I was very excited to find this individual on the first day at our first stop!

7. This is me holding that specimen. We did not find any other individuals of Psiguria at that location or later that day (Wednesday). Talk about searching for a needle in a hay stack! That?s how rare the plants are!

8. Later on Wednesday we stopped at a botanical garden near Cotoca to see if they had any Psiguria. During the visit we saw this Capybara (Carpincho in Spanish). It is the largest rodent in the world. I don?t care if it is relataed to rats, I think he?s cute!

9. We stopped in a small town for lunch (well, I don?t eat the food off the streets, so I just ate a protein bar, but the guide and the driver ate lunch). This lady was making coffe and some sort of pancake from corn.

10. On Thursday, we found this Psiguria ternata specimen on our first stop of the day. Again, I got lucky! This vine was growing in and around a dead shrub. It was covered with butterflies and bees. You can see in this photo that the flowers are pink, they are clustered together, and only one flower opens at a time and stays open for one day only.

11. Showing the same individual ? leaves, flowers, butterflies.

12. Yep, that?s me posing next to it.

13. Another photo of me with a different individual. We drove west from that last stop, along the highway and through the mountains. There was a mountain rising up a couple thousand feet on our right, and a drop of a couple thousand feet to our left. As we were going about 50 mph, I saw this Psiguria ternata on the right. We stopped and collected it. Fortunately, there weren?t too many cars to make it really dangerous.

14. Close-up view of the flower from below.

15. This is what the landscape looked like.

16. Since I had collected enough of the Psiguria ternata species, we were looking out for the other species that has orange flowers. After we went as far west as we were planning to go, we turned back to return to Santa Cruz. The driver?s wife came with us that day, and she saw this individual with orange flowers. It was hanging rather high up, but my guide, Oscar, climbed up to get it. This is not Psiguria, but it is a species in the sister genus, Gurania.

17. Zoomed in on the Gurania.

18. Close-up of the Gurania flowers. Do you see some differences between Gurania and Psiguria flowers? The Gurania flowers have big, orange sepals and tiny yellow petals that you can barely see. The Psiguria flowers have green, small sepals and larger, pink (or orange or red) petals.

19. This is Lucia (the driver?s wife) holding the cut portion of the Gurania plant that we will preserve for the herbarium. Look how big the leaves are! Another obvious difference between Gurania and Psiguria is that Gurania has leaves with trichomes (hairs), so they feel soft and fuzzy. Psiguria has thicker, more durable leaves that are smooth and shiny.

20. On Friday we were planning to drive to some areas where there aren?t any towns, so we stopped at this Hipermaxi grocery store for snacks and water to carry with us. There are no businesses in Bolivia that are in the US ? no HEB, no Wal-Mart, etc. This is the largest store I saw. Most things are sold on the street (like diapers, food, clothes, toilet paper, hardware tools, etc.). It is VERY different than what we have in the US.

21. We didn?t have any luck finding Psiguria on Friday, but along the side of the road, we saw this nice-looking snake. It was dead. I think it is a hog-nose viper.

22. Oscar decided to take it back to La Paz with him so he put it in a water bottle. He carried it back on the plane, and I couldn?t help but think of that recent movie . . . That is the driver, Pablo, in the background.

I will try to post more photos later in the week. Let me know if you have any questions.