A Successful Day in Carnachique

By Lucy Levenson

August 18th, 2022

Another successful day of assessment! Up bright and early, we ate breakfast and finished our second bunch of small bananas, which are at this point a team staple. We then packed into the combi and set out for Carnachique.

Upon arriving at the beginning of the canal we found that the system had been in use since we had last seen it yesterday and there was evidence of water reaching much further than previously. We set out towards the end of the canal with two tasks: identifying where the water had reached before drying up, and getting pictures with our gear to provide to Custom Ink, who kindly sponsored our hats, t-shirts, and pullovers.

The team in our Custom Ink gear

process was a bit messy, involving wetting our samples to become “moist putty,” squeezing the sample to form a ribbon, “excessively” wetting the soil, and finally, asking ourselves the age-old question: “does gritty feeling predominate?” Generally, it did. With our muddy hands we identified a diverse range of soil types including loamy sand, sandy loam, sandy clay, sandy clay loam (deemed “flaky and unstable” by Scott :( ), loamy sand, and silty clay that was closer to clay than silt. As you can imagine, each soil type was exponentially more exciting than the last and it was a real treat to put our high school AP Environmental Science expertise to use. By necessity, we also developed a regimented hand washing process, patent pending.

Ellen demonstrating the soil identification process

For lunch we all had lomo saltado and tried chicha morada, a deeply purple drink made of corn. We made the unsettling decision to plan to try cuy (guinea pig) tomorrow for lunch, minus Arielle who will be sticking with lomo saltado. After lunch the team rested up while Bryan and Arielle met with Julio to discuss the details of our upcoming meeting with the Carnachique community on Friday. We then reconvened as a group to plan our roles and talking points.

Around six we set out again for dinner where our tastebuds took a trip back to the United States during a visit to PizzaBurger “La Huerta,” a recommendation from a previous travel team. Daniel, Bryan, and Scott ordered the Extreme Burger, which included a good three types of meat and required an employee to double check that all the many ingredients were readily available. The pizza was a new take on the concept of pizza, but for sure involved most of the ingredients pizza normally has. Overall, it may not have cured any homesickness, but was fun to try.

Scott, Daniel, and Bryan with their Extreme Burgers

After purchasing 24 eggs loose in a plastic bag, we returned to the Marianistas house to rest up and prepare for our meeting with the residents of Carnachique. We are all pumped to officially meet the members of the community tomorrow!

Until next time,

Lucy

Prompt: favorite soil?

Arielle - sandy clay

Scott - loamy sand

Ellen - silty clay 

Daniel - loamy sand

Vivian - silty clay

Lucy - sandy loam

Bryan - silty clay