Sparrows

Martes 10 Julio 

Luis, biologist and fog collecting guru from PEBAL

Starting at 4:30 am on Tuesday morning, Andy, Victor and I made our way to the bottom of the shanty town to meet with our new found friend Luis. From there we got a mini-van halfway up the hill, and trekked the rest of the way up to where the fog collectors were, above Flor de Amancaes.

Luis had the key to the little shack where the water tanks are kept and opened it up for us. There were two 150 Litre tanks there, the second connected to the first as an overflow reservoir. Luis mentioned there were problems with particulates because of all the dust, but sedimentation was pretty effective at cleaning it. The water itself he said was pure, but having been stored in a tank for a day or two couldn’t guarantee that it would be safe to drink- so the locals only use it for washing clothes and watering plants. On the other side of town is Villa Maria Triunfo, the site of another fog collection project. Here the air is polluted with contaminants and heavy metals due to the vast amount of cement and concrete used, and this has contaminated their fog water as well.

We left the shack and climbed the steep, dusty slope further. Luis had thought the best place for us to set up our structure was on the same hill as PEBAL’s one, but a couple of hundred metres higher and to the east, halfway between two hills. He assured us that this place was the most accessible of all the suitable spots!!

We reached the top as the sun was coming up, and set up the Kestrel on a spare bit of wood since we’d forgotten the tripod! We wanted a couple of hours of data so while we waited I sat with Luis and tried to get some questions answered, but my Spanish first thing in the morning…hmm…

The screens that we had previously thought to be abandoned are actually functioning very well, especially during April, May and June. We thought they were dirty, but turns out that there’s a couple of young guys in the community who are paid 5 soles/ month to clean out the troughs every week. Every six months they take down the meshes completely and wash them with water and detergent.

Who needs a tripod anyway??

We were less impressed to be informed that the heaviest fog is actually at about 9-10am, and this was verified over the morning as the fog rolled in and thickened as the sun rose. Who told us it was 5am??? Haha but we were relieved to find we don’t need to worry about taking wind speed measurements so early in the morning!

On the way back down the hill we stopped to check out PEBAL’s pilot project, an 8m² mesh now covered in algae but nevertheless collecting water!!

Coming soon- our trip to the mercados negros (black markets) and construction!! But for now I’m pretty keen to sleep, buenas noches muchachos!