Azapa valley - geoglyphs

I have arrived in Santiago! I´m staying in Marcos' and Angie´s house, and they are absolutely wonderful. I also get to play with their two boys Nico (3 yr) and Ben (1 yr), which is always fun. Yesterday Angie took me on a quick tour of some of the outskirts of the city, and now we are planning what to do in the next few days during times that she doesn´t have to work :)

One thing that we´ve decided upon so far is to try one local Italian icecream place a day (they have so many here) - I can agree with that plan - the stuff is absolutely heavenly!!

In the meantime, I will leave you with one last Arica post - exploring the Azapa valley, a green valley extending westwards from Arica. This valley has a lot of agriculture, so it was fun to see some of the local farms, and way of farming. The valley also has a museum about the local peoples and cultures from the past, past wars, and even several mummies. Also, on the hills along the valley, you can find geoglyphs - drawings made out of rocks on the sandy hills. There are very many of these geoglyphs, extending over a very large region (150,000 km2) in the Chilean Atacama Desert. They vary a lot in style (e.g. geometric shapes, and animal and human forms) and were believed to be built between 600 and 1500 AD, by cultures including the Inca and Tiwanaku. They are believed to have had multiple symbolic or ritual purposes, including cultic worship of mountains, expressions of devotion to Andean deities, and to store knowledge of safe pathways for llama caravans through the desert. From these images, people could know about location of salt flats, water sources and animal fodder, therefore forming a vital role in the transportation network connecting the great South American civilizations.

I probably won´t post much for a while - probably not till after I come home, or after we find out whether we are having a little boy or girl... 1 WEEK from TODAY!!!

Arica thoughts and observations - Part II

- All flights are DONE!! Today is a day for finishing up packing (most packing was done yesterday while I was on the flight), one last trip to town and that delicious ice cream place, and a late afternoon on the beach with my book. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Santiago, where I will be staying with relatives of Ben (Angie and Marcos and their family), and explore the area for a few days - I'm looking forward to that! Then, most exciting - thursday evening, I'll be headed home!! I can't believe it!!

- Yesterday, I looked at the date, and realized that next month is my birthday! I like birthdays :)

- The words and terms "drizzle" and "interesting microphysical gradient" have been the topic of far too many conversations these past 6 weeks.

-I've written before about all the stray dogs around. There is one dog, that hangs around the hotel and seems to live at the hotel, because she is well fed and looks pretty clean. I heard somewhere that her name is "negra". She loves to come cuddle you, sit on your lap en give you kisses, even though she's all scruffy from playing on the beach all day.

Even though negra has been an ok substitute, no puppy can replace my horse - Sage - can't wait to cuddle her again!

- The french research group has set a bet who can get the closest guess to the total number of cloud droplets counted in this field campaign with their cloud droplet counting instrument.

- On friday night, the british group had organized a bbq at their hotel to celebrate the end of the project. It was a very good time, however one (slightly intoxicated) Brit came up to me, and I guess felt the need to practise his pick up lines on this married, pregnant girl. What he said to me was the most dubious thing that's been said to me here, and I still don't know what to think about it: First, he asked if I wanted a drink. I said "no thank you, I am not drinking, I'm pregnant". He then got the same old shocked look on his face that I've been getting from most people here once they find out. However this is what he said next: "Ahh that explains things! We (a group of Brits he pointed to) were wondering why- we all thought you were pretty cute, but couldn't figure out why you seemed so relaxed about having your gut hang out like that. Most girls at least try to hide their tummy if they had one."

Huh? How would you react to that?

VOCALS - and Educational Outreach

So, now that I'm nearing the end of the 6 week project here in Chile, I figure I tell you a little bit about what we're doing :)

So the name of the project is VOCALS - Vamos Ocean Cloud Atmosphere Land Study. Vamos is the name of a previous research project carried out in these regions, and stands for Variability in the American Monsoon System. The overall goal of project VOCALS is to learn more about the climate of the South American Continent and the Southeast Pacific Ocean. This ranges from the small scale physics and chemistry of particles, gasses, clouds, and precipitation, to the dynamics and (climate) modeling of it all. As I've mentioned before, I'm studying the little aerosol particles in the atmosphere here, and investigate how well they are able to nucleate into cloud droplets (these particles are called CCN - Cloud Condensation Nuclei). Several scientists are also interested in things that go on below the ocean surface (a topic I know considerably less about), so there are a bunch of oceanographers involved as well. In total, there are about 150 scientists, engineers, and technicians from 40 universities and nine countries involved with this project!

Our official logo:

There's really no point in me telling more about it on my blog, because of course there is an official website set up with all the information there: http://www.eol.ucar.edu/projects/vocals/

Part of doing scientific research, and getting the funding for this research (which is a lot of money, trust me) is also to do educational outreach. So UCAR in Boulder has set up an even better/more fun website for the project (you can find everything you ever wanted to know on there :) ) http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/vocals/vocals_intro.html&portal=vocals, and is really aimed at school aged children. Every day, this page gets thousands of hits from kids all across the world, and therefore makes a great educational tool about science in the field (other research projects are also on this website). You can see that there are buttons for 'English' and 'Spanish', and also for 'Beginner', 'Intermedate', and 'Advanced', which makes the story more or less difficult depending on the age group of the child.

Before the project started, all the scientists involved were asked if they wanted to participate in this outreach project, and of course I said 'yes'. We provide a bio and picture, and during the project our job is to write "Postcards from the field" - a short story with a picture, describing what we do here in the field, so that kids can visit these virtual postcards on the internet.

On this site http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/vocals/people.html&portal=vocals you can find all the people that agreed to this, including me (scroll down). Then if you go to the "postcards" page, you can find all the post cards we've written :)

This is the nerdiest contribution I made :)

So, if you have/or know any school aged kids that love to browse the internet, send them the link!

Beach!

I can for sure get used to work days like these:


With our advisors all on the plane today, us girls thought it a perfect afternoon to hit the beach! hehe :)

I even finally went swimming too! It was kinda chilly though. The ocean goes down really deep really fast all along the coast here, and a lot of upwelling is associated with it, leaving the water not too balmy. But, coming from Wyoming, it would be a sin to spend 6 weeks at the ocean, and not go swimming in it.

I also tanned* the belly :) - every now and then, with the baby kicking I could see a little wobble! So cool! I took a picture of it, but I don't know if I'm comfortable posting it :)

(*though it didnt actually seem to have gotten any color haha)

[edit to add] - I'm 22 weeks today!

from babycenter.com:

"How your baby's growing: At 11 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash) and almost 1 pound, your baby is starting to look like a miniature newborn. His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and he's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums. His eyes have formed, but his irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment. If you could see inside your womb, you'd be able to spot the fine hair (lanugo) that covers his body and the deep wrinkles on his skin, which he'll sport until he adds a padding of fat to fill them in. Inside his belly, his pancreas — essential for the production of some important hormones — is developing steadily."

As I mentioned above, I can sometimes feel the baby's kicking on the outside now too! And, if it s strong enough, it causes a little wobble - so fun! I'm happy that by the time I get back home, Ben can actually feel the baby move too!

View from atop Al Morro - Arica and the harbor

An afternoon a few days ago, I walked up to Al Morro with my camera to take some pictures:

Up close.

The city of Arica! Note the endless dessert hills to the sides, but yet this very fertile valley, called the Azapa valley (more about exploring it later) in between them. They grow tomatoes, olives, citrus fruits, and much much more.

The coastline with the town square and fountain.

The harbor


Another view of the harbor. What's actually funny - during one of my first weekends here at the hotel, at breakfast I heard these three guys speaking Dutch! Of course I had to go up to them to say hi. Ben always thinks it is unbelievable that you will find Dutch people everywhere, and I have to say I was a little stunned too. So I went over to their table - and we chatted for a while. Apparently the city of Arica hired them (a Dutch company) to dig out the harbor! Leave it to the Dutch and their knowledge of the ocean and keeping out the ocean to get hired from all the way across the world! Turns out though that they were equally stunned to find someone like me here as well, that I am also here with work, not on vacation :)

The pier. This one is close to the hotel. I like to come here for a walk - it makes a nice little loop, and it's a nice point to watch the waves crash onto the rocks. There's usually always a bunch of people looking for mussels out here, or sea fishing, or surfing. There's also the little marina, with some recreational boats.

That little green patch there is our hotel!

One before last flight

Yesterday, I flew my one-before-last flight! Another one down, wohoo!
This was a day flight, and boy - it was SO much nicer on my system than those night flights!

This flight's mission was a 30 degree South pollution survey - basically flying south along the Chilean coastline, up and down in the atmosphere, to sample varying layers of pollution (including those from cities, and from the various copper smelters in Chile) - and associated cloud particles - in the atmosphere. Part of the mission was also another intercomparison with the Ron Brown - the research ship that is out at sea again. This is especially fun, as we fly really low (100 ft. = ~35 m.!!) over the ocean for about 20 minutes, and fly right by the ship to that we sample some of the same air, and can therefore intercompare measurments made on the ship and aircraft.

Ron Brown from the C-130. Looks a little rusty I think!
(Image courtesy of Cam McNaughton)


Again ship viewed from the C-130, this time with part of the prop in view.
(Image courtesy of Cam McNaughton)


And, vice versa, someone from the Ron Brown was nice enough to send us an image of what we looked like up in the air! Look closely, and you might see me peeping from the tail window! Haha
(Image courtesy of Paquita Zuidema)

In a previous post, I told about one of my instruments crashing. Well - we had taken it out of the airplane, trouble shoot it, and found out that one of the thermo-coolers that controls 'how humid' it is in the particle chamber, had died. This of course is a part that you cannot simply buy in a local store here, so we had to get someone back home to buy one, and ship it over here. However, others that have had instrument issues have had to wait long times for the Chilean 'overnight' shipping, so we had to come up with another plan.
Luckily, one of the guys in our group was leaving this past monday to meet his wife in Santiago for a vacation. We arranged that his wife would take the part with her from Laramie to Santiago, and then arrange airport-to-airport desk shipping so that we would get the part up here in Arica on monday evening. The flight with the part on it didn't actually come in till early early tuesday morning 1 am, so my professor went out to the airport that night to pick up the part, and then spent most of the night re-installing it into the instrument to fix it, trying to get it ready in time for the flight. That morning I then also got up early, we headed out to the airport, re-installed the now fixed instrument back into the aircraft rack, and ready for the flight I was! It made for a very long work day, but again some very interesting data was collected.

Also fun - this flight actually had 4 females on it! Wohoo! During fueling, we all sat in the back, chatting typical girl talk - it was so fun! I think the men didn't really know what to think haha! Of course this moment had to be captured:

F.l.t.r: Me, Lindsey, Cynthia (Cindy), and Katie. Lindsey is a grad student at the University of Hawaii, Katie a grad student at CSU, and Cindy a research professor at Oregon State University.

Told you not to come back!

Oh where's my husband when I need him??

I just almost threw up - I came home from dinner, headed to the bathroom (as always these days it seems), and almost stepped on this guy here! Eeeewwww!
I've been told cockroaches aren't necessarily dirty, nor will they harm or bite me, but for some reason I just REALLY REALLY REALLY DO NOT want them in my room! After the first one visited that first time, he actually came back twice, again through my shower drain hole, but both those times with a friend. I had my same female freak-out moment, and instead of killing them then, I just turned on my shower, and flushed them down for a good few minutes (least possible interaction).
Not today though! This guy had actually made it out of the shower, and was out in the room!
That action has a definite death sentence!!

Same sentence for his friend, who was still hanging out in the shower.

Then however I found myself in a predicament, because I then had two squished cockroaches, and no-one but myself to clean them up! Ewww! It still makes my stomach churn :(