Quebrada Honda field work

May 25-30, 2016

(I finally got to my Bolivia blogs! Here is the first post, so you can get back up to speed)

Once we finally got all our permits and permissions in order, we went to Quebrada Honda to set up base camp for field work.

Written in rocks on the hillside above the town

Coming into town

We had a food/cooking area at one end of empty building, used the rest of the building for sleeping space and luggage storage.

Beverly and Angeline on soup prep

The town consisted of about 10 buildings, a basketball court, and a small school. A couple of us slept in the school with the desks all pushed aside.

All of Quebrada Honda in one panorama. It's mostly on the right side...

And every morning after hot chocolate and oatmeal we'd pile into the trucks and head to the field site for the day. We had multiple sites to work at, and folks would choose their daily destination based on how much they had to do at a particular site.

Day 1: Rio Rosario
Our first day everyone went to the same site. A twisty turney road through canyons led us to a beautiful valley with cliffs along the edges.

We got busy measuring up the side of the hill, describing the lithologies, and sampling where appropriate. We got to a distinctive marker bed right at the end of the day to follow around the cliff the next day, to where going up would be easier.

We had a great view throughout the day

Second breakfast: cliff bar break!

Our view in the field

Day 2: Rio Rosario
The next day we started at a different place at Rio Rosario that was stratigraphically below the section we had started on the first day.

Basement rock, cool looking green mudstone

Once that section was measured and second breakfast was eaten, we went back to where we had been the day before and kept going up.

Aiming for the base of the cliff

Taryn found a fossil jaw along the way, which turned out to be an astrapothere, a sort of four footed hippo-rhino creature, and the first fossil of it they had found at the site.

We got a great sunset that night.

There was a bridge spanning the river from the center of town, it was pretty cool against the sky.

Day 3: Huayllajara
We went to a new section the third day (WHY-ya-HAR-uh), and sampled the ash layers that had already been described by another collaborator. It was a windy day, and a harder place to work.

We had a tuna lunch in a gully to block the wind.

And managed to complete our work despite it all.

There was a great view too.

Day 4: Pisa section
The second to last day we went to a new section they identified as maybe being good to work at. It was very cyclic, and Darin named it for the leaning tower of Pisa which had some of the same look to it.

We started by checking vicuñas off Wildlife Bingo

We climbed up the side, and then worked up and around to the top of the formation with Luis and Darin, describing and sampling.

Precarious walking

Back at camp, we were feeling pretty fly. Between no showers, all the dust and wind, and having a hat on most of the time, our field hair was getting pretty epic.

Taryn, Andy and I

Day 5: Rio Rosario
Back at Rio Rosario we measured and sampled up the last little bit of cliff.

Tusken Raider victory!

We finished our work fast enough to catch the early bus home, and rode back to Quebrada Honda at 2 rather than 5. Our plans took a left turn though, and we got word of road blockades going back into Tarija, truck drivers protesting taxes of some sort. Rather than risk missing flights, we called everyone in from the field, dumped everything in packs, and headed out in the trucks that night. Long story short, we ended up winding up and down old unused mountain roads trying to find a back way into Tarija that the blockades hadn't gotten to. We had to stop and turn around at least 3 times, and eventually found ourselves driving through a dry river bed. When we went under a bridge, I decided it wasn't just a really bad road. By now it's about 2am, Taryn and I are snuggled under a giant llama blanket in the back of the truck, warded against the chilly outside air. Eventually the riverbed turned into road again, and we managed to get into the city. We found space in a hotel, and fell asleep before a shower even happened.

The next morning discussing our options, we were informed that driving with the trucks back to Potosi and busing to Uyuni like we had planned was not going to work due to the blockades. Even if we made it to Potosi, there was no guarantee that we could leave again. So our only option was to fly from Tarija to Uyuni. We decided to take it, and three flights later landed in frigid Uyuni, just outside the largest salt flats in the world, now with two days to take a tour instead of just one.

Reynaldo, one of our guides, dropped us off at the airport.

We had to do some re-packing to balance out weight with all our rock samples.

Can't nothing stop this lady

We both ended up being really glad we had two days, and the cost of the extra plane ticket was forgotten. Up next are those photos and adventures!

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