Sueños de Chile

It's been almost a year since I finished up my degu work in Chile, and I was feeling nostalgic the other day.  Luckily, I was able to catch up with both Tina and Morgan and reminisce about our giant bag of mustard, silly names for all the street dogs, coffee and ice cream obsessions, and general sense of wonder that pervaded those 5 months.  I found the blogs written by the current students in Chile who are on the same grant that we got to participate in last year.  Most of their posts are actually about their projects and scientific theory and all that "appropriate" stuff.  While Tina and I do (honestly) plan on finishing up and publishing our projects, it was the Chilean experiences- with some amazing kindred spirits- that will always give me a warm fuzzy feeling... and a simultaneous twinge in my heart.

Little daily reminders in my room: the Chilean flag from a fonda, mug from Pablo Neruda's house, and of course, Slothsicle; Valparaíso degu. 

*** Oh dear. I never actually finished writing about my trip to Southern Chile after finishing degu work.  It took me all the way down to Patagonia (the region, not the store) and in the town of Puerto Natales there is a cave where they found fossils of a giant ground sloth (milodon) and have a fantastic statue I wanted to pose with.  On the last day I was doing some souvenir shopping and found a woman who made little clay figures on top of pencils.  The best was obviously the milodon, but she had just finished painting them and couldn't put it in a bag.  Instead she wrapped a paper bag around the pencil part (for what reason was lost in translation) and promised it would dry shortly if I let it air.  So we walked around for the rest of the day holding a sloth pencil like a popsicle- which, incidentally, is what my hand felt like since it was freezing outside and I couldn't keep it in my pocket.  That's a lot of background, but I can't remember laughing so much that my eyelashes froze since :)