The 09ers

Sometimes the difference between science and witchcraft is merely semantics.

And that’s what I was dealing with yesterday as my coworkers and a local archaeologist searched for gold.

Not kidding here.

I live in the El Oro province Ecuador, which is named such because of the gold deposits that used to occupy the ground and riverbeds of the region. An Ecuadorian California, if you will.

Well, word got out about the presence of gold in this region, and there’s not that much left. I guess after the Spanish got first dibs, then nearly two centuries of Ecuadorians trying to make it rich there won’t be too much left.

But it’s still common practice around here to search for gold. It’s just that there is less of it now than there used to be, but people have not given up hope.

Yesterday morning, we left at 7:00 a.m. to begin our quest.

Now, I’m no expert in mining and detecting the presence of minerals. But I assume the archeologist with whom we went has an understanding of the subject, which is why I was surprised when he only brought four copper rods.

We drove about 20 minutes out of town and down a dirt road and onto what I would describe as more of a wide walking path than a driveway until we pulled up in front of an abandoned house. There were two cars parked out front. Apparently, we hadn’t asked permission to be here, but after the acheaologist explained out purpose here and that the owner could make it big, he allowed us to continue our quest.

The archaeologist had a hunch that there was gold hidden on this land. He said something about an Incan trail that used to pass through these parts. We got out of the truck, and the archeaologist held the copper rods with my coworker.



They stood there for a minute, and the rods moved in a direction. Apparently, this means that the gold deposits are in that direction. Well, the rods pointed to the house.

We asked the owner if we could do the whole rod thing in the house. He said that people had already been by the house to look for gold and had dug a hole several meters deep, but had come up with nothing.



We went into the house, stood over the hole that was dug by the previous searchers, and did the rod thing. The rods pointed to the side of the house, to an algorobo tree.

We went to the tree and did the rod thing again, and the archaeologist decided that he was receiving a strong signal and that the gold deposits were about a meter below the surface.

Then, we strayed away from the tree and went back to the car to converse with the landowner a little bit. From what I understood of this conversation, sometimes the landowner hears noises and voices at night around the house. Apparently, a lot of other people have also told the landowner that there is gold on his land. He said that they told him that his house was haunted and has spirits — all because of the gold deposits.

The archaeologist told him that he could talk to all the Peruvian shamans and fortune-tellers that he wants to, but the archaeologist’s method is science.

Mind you, that the archaeologist’s method involved four copper rod, holding them together for a few minutes, and then deciding that whatever direction the rods point is where there is gold.

To me, this sounds just as much like science as it does witchcraft. But then again, I’m no expert in either.

Or maybe, the difference between the two is a lot smaller than we think.

The tree at the top of the post isn’t related to the post at all, but it looks kind of haunted — so I thought it fit with the theme. It is a ceibo tree, which used to be very common around these parts. But with the deforestation and all, you only find the lonely ceibo — like the one in the picture.

Richard: Did I catch a niner in there? Were you calling from a walkie-talkie?

Tommy: No, it was cordless.