Buenos Aires to Asuncion

I met, Peter, my volunteer field assistant in Houston and we embarked on the plane to Buenos Aries together. Nine and half hours, many miles and a magnificent lighting storm over Columbia we arrived and were greeted by Maria Elena and two of her staff biologists, Andrea and Julietta, who shuttled us off to their office in Castelar (a part of Buenos Aires). The cryo-shipper was held up in Houston and did not make it on the flight with us but no worries, it arrived the next day. All of the other ear arrived safely and we cleared customs in no time even with our plethora of baggage! The day was spent planning with Maria Elena for our sampling time in Argentina to begin on 21 October. Thanks to help from Daniel Blanco (another Argentine biologist with Wetlands International, www.wetlands.org) we bagged what would have been an 18-hr bus ride from Buenos Aires to Asuncion for a 2-hr plane ride and a room in the Hotel Diplomat in downtown Buenos Aires. We arrived in Asuncion, Paraguay today where we met up with Brett (my major advisor) and the very helpful staff of Guyra Paraguay. Visit their website if you can read spanish or just look at the pictures, http://www.guyra.org.py/index.htm. We set off tomorrow to take care of more logistics and look around Bahia de Asuncion, the bay next to the capitol city, one place where we will catch shorebirds!!