Day 20

By elissam

Angel met Paolo and I this morning to take us up to the source at Mari Pata, while Jeremy, Charlie and Richard continued surveying. We had not gotten all the way up to the source the other day with the whole group, and we want to be sure that all of the sources are clean. We had taken the sample from where the stream reappeared, and are worried that the sample will have more contaminants that the source because much of the mountain is cow pasture. We are still waiting to see the coliform counts, but feel that we sould be consistent.  On the hike up, we were talking to Angel about the meeting last night and what he thinks would be best for the town; he seems to think it a bad idea to revive the old system because of the condition of the old pipes and because the system can only serve up to 3/4 of the town if the pipes are in good condition.

Although Mari Pata is closer to Chirimoto than the source at Lambras, the hike took longer- almost 4 hours- because the path was so dense. The source is actually several small streams that join, fall over a waterfall, and then flow down the mountain to the capture tanks. On the hike down, we passed the reservoir for the Foncodes system. We met the others at Alberto’s house for Lunch, and then returned to the Hummingbird House.