Vanessa's Journal

Feb. 15

Today I hiked with Lao Fan to check traps again. It was another beautiful sunny day.  So sunny that Lao Fan warned me to not stare at the bright and shiny white snow on the ground for too long or I would hurt my eyes.  Some of the snow is starting to melt and I sometimes feel like I am wearing too many layers.  I’m not sure if this is a short-term thing or a signal of the end of the cold winter, but we shall see. 

There weren’t any animal sightings of note today, other than the hilarious site of a small bird perched on a comparably humungous piece of our meat, contentedly pecking away at it. That is definitely a warped reversal of the normal laws of animal food chains.  In recent weeks, the birds have really done a number on our meat. Lao Fan noted that one piece of meat at Jianpengzi was fully intact yesterday. However, today when we walked by it, we saw that it had been reduced to shreds by a large flock of birds apparently experimenting with a carnivorous lifestyle. 

After we got back, I decided to finally take the leap and go down the mountain for a trip to the city of Chengdu.  It would be my first trip there since early-mid December.  I needed to go because I ran out of money and had to exchange more traveler’s checks to Chinese yuan. It would have been smart to exchange it all in the beginning, but for various reasons that I can’t entirely justify at the moment, that did not happen.

I had been avoiding the impending Chengdu trip for a while, as I was concerned about what would happen if we caught a panda while I was a four hour bus ride away.  But if we all wanted to eat and not have our phone disconnected due to failure to pay the monthly bill, I had to get going. Lao Wang was nice enough to lend me some money, as he felt nervous about the idea of me going off to the big city with only enough money for the bus ticket. I left strict instructions about what to do in the event that a panda was captured and clearly laid out all of the equipment needed. The field team members are all smart and capable, so I was convinced that they would be able to handle things without me for a few days. 

I hiked down the mountain and was lucky to run into one of Lao Wang’s relatives driving his giant blue truck. He gave me a ride to town. I always wondered what it would be like to ride in one of those. The big blue trucks are icons in the reserve. They are intimidating with their towering presence and seem to have a powerful energy in and of themselves. To me, they represent the invasion of the modern into the pristine rural areas.  They transport large amounts of goods (e.g. animals, construction equipment, crop yields) in and out of the reserve. Riding in one of those giant conglomerations of metal, I did feel a strange sense of power that was somewhat disturbing. Nonetheless, I was relieved that my friend had saved my back from carrying the excessive amount of stuff I packed all the way to town.