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The Arrival of Friends and the Making of Chocolate

by Sarah Faegre

Working with Blue-throated Macaws and learning to make chocolate from the abundant, ripe cacao fruits on the estancia--could a girl want anything more?

December 29th 2007

Last night at 7 pm (our daily radio contact hour) we finally were able to talk to Carmen…well, Marco talked to her because I couldn’t understand a thing through all the static. All I learned that Carmen is still in Trini. Still, I have no news of Steve, a friend from home who I have been expecting to arrive for more than a week now. Is he wandering, lost is Bolivia? Is he in Trini with Carmen? Is he still in the U.S.? I was asked to attend the radio today at 8 a.m., 12 noon, and 1 pm, to be sure to talk to her and arrange a meeting time at the river.

I anxiously awaited the specified 8 a.m. conference. And then again at noon…and one. As I should have expected there was no sign of Carmen or anyone at Veintiuno on the radio at any of the three times specified. Luz and Pedro are infuriatingly optimistic, saying after each failed attempt, “Oh well, I’m sure she’ll come through loud and clear at ___o’clock.” I am inclined to believe that I won’t hear from anyone at all and that she (with or without Steve) will eventually just show up at Tres Palmeras with loaned horses from Veintiuno. Marco said that he heard a plane arrive at Veintiuno around 7 a.m., but later admitted that he wasn’t sure after all, and that “who knows—maybe plans will change and they will arrive at Chiméra instead of Veintiuno.

It is tiring sometimes, being the lone “Parabera” (literally, Macaw-er) at the estancia, living with Marco, Luz, and their 2 and 4 year-old children and menagerie of barking dogs and yodeling roosters. Whoever thinks that roosters crow only in the morning has never lived on a farm!

I am sitting in the blind, watching the nest box. The BTM adults give their whiney, screeching call nearby and Nemo, the deformed chick, pokes his head out of the nest box, looking around contentedly from his penthouse suite (the nest box is huge for just one chick!). A single dark cloud is passing overhead, dumping rain on the little blind, but soon it will pass. There are lots of mosquitoes. I feel like I am getting sick.

9:30 pm
I am feeling much happier now—my sudden improvement as mysterious as my apparent illness. Or perhaps the mascora (cacao fruit) juice cured me. Between my bouts of stress-induced mania, yelling at the static on the radio, I had a wonderful time learning how to make chocolate from the mascora fruit (per instruction from Luz). I spent the morning opening 25 kilos of masorca (cacao fruit), removing the flesh-covered seeds, and wringing the flesh off the seeds after soaking them in water, to make a delicious juice and to prepare the seeds for the next step in the cacao-making process: baking in the sun for 2-4 days. The masorca juice is one of the most delicious juices I have ever tasted and after an hour and a half of work a huge pitcher was ready for the whole family to enjoy. So sweet and refreshing with an indescribably subtle, complex flavor that is unlike any other fruit. I must have drank about 3 liters of the refreshing “refresco” before I had to restrain myself, lest there be none left to have with dinner. Tomorrow morning I will get up early and do the 6:30 to 8:30 nest watch and then come back to harvest the abundant, ripe masorca with Luz to make more refresco and prepare more seeds for cacao. Since tomorrow is Sunday and there are no formal chores, Luz has proposed that we roast the cacao seeds that are currently sun baked and she will show me how to make the cacao paste, from which bars of pure chocolate can be formed.

The chocolate tree is a wonderful thing. I have my hammock strung up in an idyllic location, behind my tent, in the shade between two chocolate trees. As I lie in my hammock and look up, I see the large, star fruit-shaped, yellow and orange masorca fruits, hanging from branches above. And it is not uncommon to be able to get a close-up view of blue-fronted parrots that come to eat the fruits and fail to notice me, lying quietly in my green hammock below.

Not too surprisingly, I learned this evening (yes, the radio did function for once) that Carmen is still in Trini. I didn’t actually talk to Carmen, but the woman who attends the radio in Trini came on briefly to tell me that Carmen will be leaving Trini tomorrow at 9 a.m. and that I should attend the radio at 11 a.m. for the latest news. So, at 11 a.m. will I hear from Carmen? Probably not. In the mean time, I have chocolate and macaws to look after.


January 5th 2008

On the evening of the 30th I returned from my afternoon watch at the blind—Nemo still in the nest box. Adults nearby. Wondering more and more if Nemo will be able to fly when he does eventually try to leave the nest (note: he has a congenital spine deformation). I was feeling grumpy and slightly ill, looking forward to another long afternoon of waiting. And as I walked up to the house, my whole body feeling heavy, there was Steve. I couldn’t believe it—I was absolutely shocked. Steve and Carmen had arrived by foot with all their bags after being helped to the river with horses from Veintiuno. Steve had finally arrived. Not just in Trini with Carmen, or at Veintiuno…here, at Tres Palmeras. And so I was totally thrown for a loop and did not write a thing in my journal for 6 days.


January 8th 2008

A hot, mosquito-filled night. The great-horned owl fledglings are screeching breathily near by tent and two tropical screech owls are trilling from the forest. I have the rain fly off my tent but I am dripping sweat anyways. The stars are out. It’s a beautiful night, but hard to enjoy from anywhere except a well-ventilated tent. A potoo just wailed, joining the chorus of night songs. I just killed yet another “last mosquito” inside my tent.

Steve is next to me, writing in his own journal and flipping through the bird book. We walked to Isla Grande today to make use of our newly built blind. The goal: get photos of the faces of the adults. We constructed the new blind very close to the nest cavity with this goal in mind, and spend a lot of time camouflaging it so not to unduly alarm the parabas. With a full day in the blind, I was sure we would succeed in our mission…but alas, the adults didn’t ever enter the cavity. They arrived very nearby twice, but seemed nervous and shortly began screaming and left the area. Did they see us through our peep hole in the blind? Or is something wrong in the nest? We didn’t hear a peep out of Blecs for the entire 6 hours (Note: Blecs is the single BTM chick of the Isla Grande nest, named after Brent, using the locals’ pronunciation of his name). Could it be normal for him to be so quiet? We are all a little worried but only tomorrows nest check will tell. I think (and hope!) that chubby little Blecs is fine. He is so fat—maybe his parents decided to put him on a pre-fledging diet.


Above Photos: Left--Steve with Blecs. Right--Steve's photo of the Isla Grande male at the nest (taken from our blind)

In other news, we have mostly ruled out malaria as the cause of Carmen’s strange illness and are now suspecting that it’s just a little dengue fever. All of her joints have been aching for 3 weeks and she is tired and has lots of headaches. Poor Carmencita with her denguito. I am exhausted from so much walking during the past 2 days: to the Crowned Eagle nest and back on the 7th, then to Isla Grande. And with all the water flooding my Wellies and the sun beating down oppressively and the mud sucking and slurping at my 3-sizes too large boots…I am very, very tired.


January 9th 2008

It is a sunny, breezy afternoon and I am sitting comfortably in my hammock, rocking in the shade by the house. The family from Buena Hora is visiting and Don Cuto is yelling into the radio, trying to communicate through the static. Children are running around laughing and the guira cuckoo is moaning its melancholy lament from the top of the tamarind tree. Señora Teresa (from Buena Hora) and Señora Luz are sitting on the bench outside the door, talking quietly and Teresa’s two teenage girls alternately sit quietly with the women and play with their tiny, 5-year-old sister and Luz’s two kids. Cows are milling about on the other side of the fence and the herd of mares and yearlings have finally calmed down and are standing quietly in the shade, rather than charging around the yard like half-ton, headless chickens. Steve and Carmen are at Isla Grande with two of the tamer mares, checking on Blecs. They left around 10 a.m., planning just to climb and then come straight back, so they should be back any time now. Actually I am a little worried about them…maybe I should have gone along to help out in case something went wrong with the horses. The other day one of Marco’s mares reared up and flipped over backwards the after stepping on an caiman (small alligator) that was resting, hidden in the flooded savannah.

Okay, now it’s an hour later and Carmen and Steve are back. Of course everything is fine—with the horses and with Blecs too—todo bien. Carmen says Blecs is as fat as ever, so I guess he’s just a quieter chick than the ones I’m used to.


January 10th 2008

A dark, windy day. The first drops of the rainstorm beginning to fall. Me in my hammock, strung between two Cacao trees, feet dangling. A lazy day and finally, for the moment a bit of peace and quiet—the children are not screaming and running in circles anymore, thank God. My hammock has been hanging next to the house, under the overhang roof, but the screaming children drove me so insane as I was trying to read that I moved my hammock to the far corner of the yard to get a bit of peace. Now it looks like the rain might run me right back to the house. I love the sound of the wind in the trees, the parrots chirping and screeching, the monkeys snorting and roaring…but the children and the dogs make me insane sometimes. Why is it the screeching parrots are music to my ears, but howling children not so much….? The family here at Palmeras is wonderful, but sometimes I miss the peace of the campamento.

Bird notes: Isla Grande January 11th
Sunbittern: Soft, melodious trill, 1-2 seconds, all one note?

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 07/21 at 06:56 PM
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A New Chapter in my Work with the Blue-throats

by Sarah Faegre

With the Isla 2 chicks, Goliath and Manu, successfully getting around on their own, it is time to deconstruct our field camp and move on to a new group of Blue-throats.

Above photos: Proud Isla 2 Blue-throat parents and a beautiful sunset seen from the campamento

December 27th 2007

And so begins a new chapter in the adventure: I am now at the estancia Trés Palmeras, sitting at this moment in blind at the nest box near the house, where three large chicks should fledge any day now. Actually, I only know for sure that one of three is still there, as he is poking his head out as I write.



It is hot and humid and very still. Dark clouds are gathering and it looks like its getting ready to rain…a lot. I wonder when Steve and Carmen will arrive at Veintiuno. If it rains, they will be majorly delayed. They were supposed to arrive today or tomorrow, last I heard (on the 24th) but plans change so much that I really have no expectations—except that I expect for nothing to go as planned. Steve was scheduled to arrive in Trini on the 26th, so probably he will arrive on the 27th, meaning that Carmen would want to travel from Trini to Veintiuno on the 28th (tomorrow), but if it rains tonight…It could really be up to a week before they are able to safely land at Veintiuno.

The final day in camp turned out to be quite an ordeal. It was fraught with misunderstandings, complications, and general stress and disorganization that would accompany any such move of large amounts of stuff through flooded savannahs of Bolivia, using the neighbors’ ox cart. I did my own fair share of adding to the complications and changed my own plans at the last minute, in my stress and despair at so suddenly having to leave the campamento: Just as Vicente was about to grab my huge, 60 lb. backpack and heave it onto the ox cart with the rest of the camp equipment, I said, “Or I could walk to Tres Palmeras.” (Note that Palmeras was to be my ultimate destination after the plane bringing Steve and Carmen arrived).

“But you will have no one to come get you with the horses at the other side of the river,” he said.

“I know,” I replied. “But since it’s just the one backpack I can carry it all the way by myself. Vicente, in his stress at hurrying to pack up everything and not make the Veintiuno folks wait on us any longer, agreed that it was a good idea because that way I could stay and do an extra clean-up of camp (i.e. remove any remaining signs that we had lived there and leave Isla Chiquita as pristine as we had found it). So we said a hurried goodbye and off he rushed to the ox cart.

I was alone in the empty camp I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I would be able to leave the camp just as clean as I felt it should be and take my time to say goodbye to my home of the past month and a half, to which I have become deeply attached. I could also finally rest a bit from my earlier 3-hour trek/swim to the river, across the river, and back, to hand off some of my stuff to Marco, who was supposed to bring John to the river from Tres Palmeras. John would continue to the camp and then to Veintiuno with the oxcart, where he (and Vicente) would await the plane to Trini.

Of course, the hand-off of my stuff didn’t go as planned either, because nothing ever does. Vicente had asked John by radio if Marco
would bring be bringing John to the river by horse, because if he was then I would meet them at the river with some of my stuff so as not to have so much with me at Veintiuno, when my ultimate destination was Tres Palmeras anyways. Somehow, John thought that I was coming to the river with all my stuff and heading straight back to Tres Palmeras, so he came alone with one extra horse. Marco was sick and could not accompany him anyways, he explained.

Upon explaining that I had not brought all my stuff and did not intend to go to Tres Palmeras, I swam across the river, gave him my bag and took his bag and swam back across the river with his sinking, lead-weight bag and then walked the hour back to the camp to tell Vicente that John had to go back to Palmeras with my bag and the horses and would then try to convince the very ill Marco to take him to the river so that he could arrive at the camp before too long and catch the oxcart to Veintiuno. Of course, just then, as I was about to take a break and eat something, thinking that since the oxcart was supposed to come that day, then it surely wouldn’t come until tomorrow…here comes the cart and a guy on a horse. And here we are, only half prepared, with 5 months of camp life strewn about in piles, and I haven’t even begun to prepare any of my own stuff, which is exploded in my tent and strewn around camp. The mad rush began.

The hours of the day went like this: 6:30-10:00 I hike to the river with a small but heavy backpack, swim across and back, and then hike back to camp. 10:05—here comes the oxcart, Vicente and I become super stressed and there is no time to eat or relax. 11:40—everything is packed but garbage has not been dealt with and John still has not arrived. I decide to stay. The oxcart begins to head back to Veintiuno and 2 minutes later John arrives and then goes running to catch up with them after listening with a very puzzled look on his face while I tell him that I’ve decided to go to Tres Palmeras after all. Finally I am alone and happy to relax for a bit. But I am also sad. I wish I could spend one last night here—just me, alone, listening to the howl of the rare-maned wolf, rocking in my hammock under the gibbous moon, finding Goliath and Manu one last time. But realistically, since I need to reach Palmeras before 7:00 pm so I can communicate by radio, I have only a few hours in which I will clean up and say goodbye to my home on Isla Chiquita. I plan out the rest of my day: Noon to 2:00 pm—clean up camp. Two to 6:00 pm—hike/swim to Tres Palmeras.



Changuito, the armadillo, comes trotting past me on his way to a new excavation site. Madidi, the aplomado falcon, flies twisting and swooping through the palm trees and lands on her favorite perch. I walk to Isla 2 to say goodbye to Manu who, on the night on the 25th, was still in the tree where Vicente had placed him. But now, on the afternoon of the 26th he is gone, presumably getting stronger and braver and moving about on his own. When I finally heave the bulky, 60 lb. pack onto my back and walk into the savannah, I feel alright about leaving the campamento.

The 4-hour hike to Tres Palmeras was incredibly difficult, but actually not quite as bad as I had expected. The worst of it was trying to carry my backpack all wrapped up in the poncho for 10 minutes through the swamp on either side of the river. I could barely lift the hulking thing over the barbwire fence, let along walk through the mud, carrying it in my arms. In the end, I tied up the poncho, ready for the river-crossing, and then dragged the huge bundle with a rope through the mud and knee-deep swamp on either side on the river. Swimming was great—for 3 minutes I was freed from the crushing death-grip of a backpack half my weight.


December 28th

So, the poor, deformed Nemo is the only chick left in the box nest—I climbed just now to check because after the nest watch yesterday I suspected there were no longer 3 chicks in the nest. And when I looked into the box, there was poor, crooked little Nemo, lying on his back, screeching at me. But his parents aren’t neglecting him at least because he isn’t too skinny and he can waddle around the nest box well enough to poke his head out of the entrance hole. But the big question is: will he be able to fly? And if not, what will happen to him? Lots of interesting questions which will be answered in the next few weeks.

Today during mid-morning I saddled up Mataperro and rode to Isla Grande after discovering that the chick there hadn’t been checked on for quite a few days. He is very much transformed from the last time I saw him, a month and a half ago, when he was a fat, pink dumpling with wings, somewhat resembling a tiny, plucked chicken. He is still extremely fat—(he weighs almost 2 lbs!) but is now gorgeously feathered with all the brilliant ultra-marine, indigo and gold of an adult Blue-throated Macaw.

Below: The Isla Grande chick, Blecs, on November 14th and again on December 28th

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 07/02 at 08:51 PM
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Christmas at the Campamento

by Sarah Faegre

It is Christmas and our last night at the Campamento. Vicente and I stay up late, searching for the rare-maned wolf and then enjoying a campfire in the peace of our isolated island home in the Bolivian flooded savannahs.

December 25th

What a perfect Christmas (and final night) at the campamento. Vicente and I were sitting at the little, bound-stick table, listening to surprisingly non-staticy music from the high-frequency radio that we use for communication purposes. The music was interrupted, to my great joy, by the shriek of the rare-maned wolf. Vicente jumped up and turned off the radio and we sat in silence listening. The flickering fire-light, left over from when we cooked dinner, sent soft shadows over his face as we looked at each other, listening, both thinking the same thing: lets go look for it.

We grabbed flashlights, stepped into our damp rubber boots and walked toward the call of the rare-maned wolf. I turned off my bright LED headlamp and we walked in darkness, occasionally using Vicente’s low power incandescent flashlight. “The white light is too bright,” he told me. “It scares away the animals.” And so we walked to Isla 2 in darkness and silence, the rare-maned wolf yelping from the savannahs somewhere beyond Island 2. We waded along the short path through the flooded savannah between the two islands and then stood at the edge of Island 2, looking out into the darkness of the savannahs, listening. Neither of us spoke. The wolf shrieked again. I shrieked back. The wolf seemed to respond, calling again more quickly than before. As the wolf and I called back and forth my imitation of its voice improved. It came closer. Vicente and I conferred in excited whispers—it’s working. He believes me. And then abruptly the replies ended. I howled and howled in vain.

“You scared him away,” joked Vicente. “He probably got closer and thought, ‘what kind of freaky she-wolf is that’ and decided to leave”. As we gave up and walked back towards camp the wolf howled again…from the island we had just left. And we rushed back towards it, as quietly as possible.

After giving up our search for a second time we waded back to camp. I suggested that we celebrate Christmas by making a fire near to our hammocks, which were strung between palm trees at right angles to one another. Vicente went about making the fire and I heated up some water for mate. The night was warm and peaceful. I felt a little bit melancholy, knowing that it was my last night at the campamento, but also content, knowing that Goliath and Manu were safe in trees and able to fly. We rocked in our hammocks for hours, talking and staring into the fire.

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 06/19 at 07:24 PM
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Manu’s Second Attempt at Fleding

by Sarah Faegre

Manu seems determined to abandon the nest tree, but he still isn't able to fly.

December 24th 2007

Yesterday around mid-day Manu fledged, once again, onto the ground. I found him perched in a little sapling that he had climbed. Vicente and I set up the portable blind and babysat the tail-less, flightless chick until 5 pm, when finally, on my watch, he fell from his little tree. I did not go after him immediately this time, but instead waited to see if he would climb a decent tree on his own. Alas, he waddled along the forest floor aimlessly, screeching with hunger and displeasure—he hadn’t been fed by his parents since early morning, presumably because they did not want to come down to the ground or to his unstable perch on the sapling to feed him. He tried to fly once, running along the ground, flapping his wings, but made very little progress. He tried to climb a nearby palm but seemed to make only a half-hearted attempt before giving up and continuing to wander, weaving his way along the forest floor, screeching every 5-10 seconds, all along the way. What a way to advertise to predators.

Manu walked about 50 meters on the ground before stopping near the edge of the island. I had waited long enough—Manu was clearly not capable of fending for himself, with or without the help of his parents so, once again, I retrieved him from the ground. I set him in a tree, hoping he might climb, but he just sat there, panting from heat and stress. I left Manu in the tree and went back to camp to discuss the situation with Vicente. We decided to first see if the exhausted chick would eat some formula and then put him higher in a good tree, but not back in the nest.

I carried a thermos of warm water and the hand feeding formula as Vicente and I walked back to where I had left Manu in the tree. Although he bit me forcefully when I picked him up from the tree, he guzzled 50 cc of the hand feeding formula without a moments hesitation, giving little squawks of contentment between mouthfuls. Before feeding him we weighed him and found that he had lost nearly 70 g in only one day. On the 22nd, when he first left the nest, he weighed in a 662 grams (with ¼ full crop) and on the 23rd he was down to 590 grams with an empty crop. Taking the crop into account, he had lost about 50 grams of bodyweight in less than 24 hours. That is nearly 10% of his bodyweight. No wonder he was too weak to fly or climb. He was already skinny when he fledged at 662—not one of those fat chicks that can loose up to 25% of their bodyweight as part of the normal fledging process.

Once Manu was full-cropped and content we put him in a soft, cotton bag and Vicente climbed him high up into a palm encased in strangler fig. The coils of strangler fig formed a network around the palm trunk, and also long, twisted branches that curved out over the forest floor. We hoped the gnarled fig branches would provide plenty of opportunity for safe climbing and gripping as well as a safe haven where his parents would feel comfortable perching with him.

Apparently Manu approved of our tree choice because almost 24 hours later, he is still there, in exactly the same spot where Vicente set him. How much longer will he stay there, I wonder? This morning Vicente and I walked to the estancia Veintiuno, me with my ridiculously swollen clown-lips from accidentally chewing up a wasp that I didn’t see in my granola. My lower lip was so swollen that I couldn’t close my mouth and so heavy that with each step it jiggled like a horse’s slack lower lip. When we got to Veintiuno I explained that I had been stung by a wasp and the Senor joked, “Oh, I thought your husband must have been kissing you a lot last night.” Upon learning that I am single, I was immediately the butt of many jokes and comments about how I should spend the night…he needs a partner for Christmas…do I dance? With my painful clown-lips and desire to be left alone, I didn’t play along and simply stated that I don’t dance and that I am already betrothed to a parrot, to whom I must return home to right away.

We completed the purpose of our visit: To ask if they would come to pick us up at camp with the ox cart on the 26th so that we can pack up everything and take it to their estancia and from there, in the plane to Trini. The Veintiuno folks were very hospitable and fed us a wonderful breakfast of freshly fried charque, bread, and coffee and juice. They really did want Vicente and I to stay for Christmas dinner (which is held on the 24th), but of course we had to get back to camp and check on Manu. We left around mid-day to make the hour walk back before the sun got even hotter. The Senor called his wife and told her to pack up some bread for us to take back with us--Christmas bread. And so we made our way back. Manu is still in his tree. My homemade chocolate bars (from the cacao fruits that I picked) are hardening in the sun. I am now rocking peacefully in my hammock. Our work here at the campamento is done but I am sad to leave. I love it here. Only two more nights and then we pick up and move it all.

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 06/07 at 10:52 PM
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