Loja, Ecuador (2008)

I visited the Ecuadorian Andes (nearest city was Loja) after my field work in Peru in July 2008. A number of German institutions are working along a similar elevational gradient as is our group in the Peruvian Andes. I was sent to Ecuador to visit with them, find out what they were doing, and develop connections and collaborations between their group and ours. I felt a bit like Marco Polo trying to create trading routes in new and exciting places. I brought along my Peruvian colleague, Israel. We were there for 5 days, 3 of which were full working days. Two nights we partied hard including the last night when we simply did not sleep, and partied until we had to catch our 7am bus out of Ecuador.

The border between Peru and Ecuador.

Another way of getting past the border.

Even the Peruvian clouds had issues entering Ecuador.

The gates to the city of Loja (photo from Wikipedia – we actually didn’t do anything touristy around Loja).

All the work is within reach of Estacion San Francisco.

The field station is great – it has electricity and internet!

Electricity means that the lab setups are a lot more advanced and you can do a lot more analysis on site.

We stayed in room “Alnus” which is appropriate because Alnus is a nitrogen fixer.

The central area of the station is very communal and welcoming.

Let’s start at the top, where this seedling experiment was being conducted at the base of the 3000 m forest.

At the top of the 3000 m site.

A view of Loja from above.

Panoramic view from atop the 3000 m site.

Fog collector.

Into the forest. The 3000 m site in Ecuador resembled our 3000 m site in Peru, but the trees were shorter so there was more light and vegetation in the understory.

Reiner, Baerbel and Viviana checking up on some equipment.

Giant root nodules fixing nitrogen for the forest.

Checking us out checking it out.

Bromeliads were abundant.

As were lots of flowers.

Including a huge variety of orchids.

Teeny tiny orchid.

I took a bunch of orchid photos because my friend/colleague, Rosa, was working on an orchid project in Peru.

Delicate and beautiful.

The hills are burning with this fiery orchid.

An artsy version of the photo above.

Moving to the 1500 m site near to the Estacion SF—the sites are just along the ridge.

Crossing the river by pulley.

Now on the other side of the river.

And finally into the fertilization experiment in the forest with Guntars, who will be the first to join the bridge between the Ecuador sites and the Peru sites. The 1500 m site in Ecuador resembled one of our sites along the Trocha Union on Peru – both extremely biodiverse.

Israel is excited about the soil trench.

We are now in the 1000 m site, which is still very Andean in nature unlike our 1000 m site in Peru, which is more Amazonian.

Andean by nature, this site was a lot steeper than our flat 1000 m site.

The waterfall at the bottom of the 1000 m site.

It was the end of our last day from all our work in Peru and Ecuador, so Israel and I “accidentally” jumped into the waterfall.

Splish splash!

Drenched in “sweat” from all our hard “work”.

Good-bye Ecuador!