01-03-2005 Our samples got stolen!
Cable Vision in Laprida
Laprida is a beautiful little town with around 8500 inhabitants with 1 icecream shop per 100 inhabitants (rough estimation :- ) ), full of bikes (again without locks) and friendly people. The first person we got to know was Carlos Difippi. President of the local fish club and full of knowledge about the local hydrology and fish populations. He helped us locating various lakes and kindly offered his freezer to store some samples. Another man that enters in the Salga acknowledgements list is Don Pedro, caretaker of laguna Quillaluaquen and the world record holder in getting Pejerrey out of our multimesh nets. Maybe we would have still been there if it was not for him. The amount of Pejerry in the nets was enormous. The fish population had totally changed since Veinticinco de Mayo. Tararira had gone and Pejerrey appeared.
But although positive thoughts have forehand in my memories of Laprida, the red-cool box-event made that I will never forget this place.
On Monday we noticed that the red cool box with all our sediment and phyto samples was gone. At that moment we were sampling in ‘El Paraiso’. You can imagine that the world looked quit a bit less like paradise after this discovery. We convinced ourselves that we left the box at the previous lake. Since we could not find Don Pedro and we had no patience to wait Gige and I drove the 30 km back, climbed the gate and walked the last 2 km. The amount of mosquitoes was incredible. I was wearing a short and eaten alive. But it was worth it. Arrived at the lake we did not find the box.
Two hours later we were back in El Paraiso were Carlos also had arrived. He proposed to go to the radio and the television to get broadcasted that we were missing some samples. Within an hour after I left the radio station 3 people had called informing us where the cool box was. On Sunday morning a neighbor of the hotel had found the box in his garden. He thought the contents were veterinary samples and informed the police. In turn the police contacted all vets in the area. The neighbor, the police and a veterinarian contacted the radio as soon as they heard our message.
What a relief! We got back almost all our samples (3 missing) and world fame in Laprida. Next day we were interviewed for the local tv channel (isn’t it amazing that a town of this size has its own tv channel?) and the radio station. Today we are also in the newspaper "La Voz del Pueblo".
I think we should start considering adding a media-contact person to our team ?
Duraznillo
saturated with Pejerrey Quillalauquen.
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