To the field...

To get out to our field sites, we use some interesting landmarks. This morning, for instance, we went to our sites located south of La Corona. To get there, you must drive down the hill, making a left through the first cattle guard just past the shop where the gauchos and their dogs live.

Then you follow the road through several more cattle guards. At the one at the top of a hill with a white metal gate attached, you take the shortcut to catch the other secondary road to the left. Here you typically pass through a herd of sheep.

Farther down the road, and at the top of a hill to the left, you’ll pass a rural school. Students commute here by horseback or by foot. You’ll also pass through a herd of cattle.

After the school, you’ll see an old church building to the left. Juliana called this an iglesia de la muerta, and we assume this is a crypt or some kind of holy place for honoring the dead. It looks fairly abandoned, and upon closer inspection it turned out that a humungous hive of bees has now claimed this as their own.

Now you’re about halfway there, and if you’re lucky you have a four wheel drive vehicle or have somehow avoided getting stuck in the road. The heavy rains lately have made driving even more entertaining.

Stay tuned for the second half of our commute, where you encounter a family of cattle and a herd of dirty-butt sheep in between a labyrinth of fencing. Finding the last road to the site, which is nothing more than a wider spacing between the pine trees, is like finding the secret passageway. Well, maybe not that exciting, but still a success.