I received several messages over the last few days, some good some bad.
The good one is that Dr. Torales and her team from the University of the Nordeast (Corrientes-Argentina) will receive me at the return of the trip with my (hopefully) big termite capture. She is the main termite expert and apparently the only one in the country that can identify termite species. If I get a good catch we will probably can discuss her academic support.
Having an expert in the country is very important, because I need to work with local species. I got a message from a termite supplier in the USA saying “Sorry but no”. They cannot ship live termites out of the country. I assume I will also have a hard time shipping mine abroad, although they are commercial and I plan to be both academic and commercial.
It is also good to work with local species, to avoid a potential ecologic disaster. Of course I will be blamed if there are termite infestations around my lab, but a foreing species will be more potentially explosive and dangerous.
Thus, I am preparing the trip. See this photo:
Well, this is not my car actually. I grabbed the photo from some site. But the result will be quite similar, although my current plan is to travel alone. I have rejected one volunteer so far, because he does not have field abilities. Anyway, I will get real photos later.