From Sunchubamba

Most of this day was spent crawling up and down the plot over and over again in an attempt to spread my manual throughfall gauges in a stratified random way. We had only 30 of the needed 100 gauges at hand but even those we didn't manage to distribute in full as we struggled to fit scientific rigour to the peculiarities of the plot which mainly consist of steep slopes, intense undergrowth and treetrunks wherever the random number generator has decreed that I should place my gauge. Walking back to the lodge at dusk (discussing Harry Potter and the English public school system) we followed the mysterious black cow that has in recent days been seen near our hut (and has also left behind cowpads there which are interestingly more heap-like than the European ones). I asked V. why cows are hanging out in the Andes on their own and she replied that they belong to the nearest village, the mythical Sunchubamba behind the mountain, but that they are allowed to go where they like. When I asked her how near Sunchubamba was she said it was beyond Quilyabamba and when I asked how near Quilyabamba was she said she didn't know. I think this was a language thing.
The cows, however, apparently get eaten at some point and so I can understand that the one in front of us prefers to stay with us in the Lodge and not in Sunchubamba, even though I mind that it gives me a shock when I come up the hill from the dining hall in the dark.
The cow is not the only thing to give me shocks here, though - I had been quite proud of myself because I had managed to not acquire any further insect bites. This morning I discovered that I had a whole new set of some 38 of them on my upper arm. They looked like flea bites, but J. told me that they are 'chigger bites', and that chiggers are small and red and bite people as much as they can. I remember seeing one of them on the table and thinking 'ah, a cute little red spider'. Next time I will, I think, be less condescending. Another unappealing chap I've met recently was this enormous fly which I took some time to photograph the other day. I hadn't known then that they bite, too - but thankfully I was naive and lucky and the beast left me alone.