So my second trip out into the countryside took me to a place called Chuquiribamba. The mountains were absolutely gorgeous! The weather was perfect: slight breeze, a few clouds, no rain!!!! And the temperature was a lovely 60-something. Anyway, there were a few little villages along the way that we passed through. Let me tell you, the houses were so tiny! I honestly don't think I could have been able to walk through the door of any of them without crouching down, let alone stand up inside the houses. I think by US standards, this would be considered extreme poverty, but the people here live off the land, so they don't need much. I guess that's one of the perks to a less money-driven society. Anyway, we collected a few aromatic plants. The lab I'm working in also uses these aromatic plants to make essential oils that they sell locally. Some of them smell so delicious! They have limon, naranja dulce (sweet orange), and cypress, to name a few. It usually smells just wonderful when they're extracting the oils out of the plants.
Anyway, we were out all day, so that was cool. When we got back, I learned how to make the plant vouchers - where they dry the plants for cataloguing and identification. That takes forever and it's very tedious. I didn't want to mess it up, so I let Vladimir (the guy showing me) fix them all. I would hate to leave with the stigma of "person who messed up the plant vouchers". But then again, I'm a perfectionist, so maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. Perhaps next time lol.
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