Sitting here waiting for dinner again, but you’ll be happy
to know there’s a TON that happened :D Best hiking day so far …..by far
First and foremost forgot to mention I saw 4 trumpeter birds
out on the trail yesterday. They are birds that come up to my mid thigh maybe,
considering I’m about 5’4”, and they have a head and neck like a peacock, long
and tall and then they’re bock just slopes back with all jet black feathers
except for a white patch at the back. Pretty cool J You don’t see many big birds
back home!
Anywho, morning was as usual, woke up and got a plate of
eggs and I guess that mystery meat aka spam looking food is sausage? Who knows,
as everyone says “don’t ask just eat.” Right now they are blending something
and it’s making the power flicker haha
Please note when I say a plate of eggs, it’s like a tapas
style serving, pretty small, I usually end up eating a protein bar a couple
hours later from hiking.
After breakfast we headed out and luckily it was all flat
terrain J
ok, big breaking news….new crackers in the bin xD We swarmed like vultures haha
They’re really like cookies? The only word I found was Vanilla lol but it’s
good for a rainy day :D
ANYWAY! We found capuchins a decent group, my glasses kept
fogging so I couldn’t see them L
But I caught the occasional visuals, all through the canopy, of course.
We continued literally maybe 20 feet then decided to do our
habitat assessment lesson. We split into 3 groups so it was Courtney and me
(just started pouring again yay lol so that’s two in one day) Live blogging SO
EXCTING!! So not to get confused, we set put 10 meter by 10 meter plots and
measured the DBH (diameter at breast height) of each tree and recorded the ones
that had diameters higher than 5 cm. Now I know what you’re thinking….and now
we don’t do circumference and calculate diameter, We have a tape that you do
put around the circumference but it is created in a way that it tells you the
diameter :D NIFTY! After we did that we measured crown diameter. Essentially
you find one end of the crown, the furthest branch on the tree (IT IS REALLY
POURING!) and then you go on the other side of the tree. Excuse the random
tangents.
AFTER THAT, yes there’s more, we picked one tree (for
simplicity sake) and you use a klinometer, which is essentially a mirrored
compass to figure out the height of the massive trees. Essentially you take the
percent grade to the base of a tree (which you also measure out) then you take
the percent grade looking up to the canopy and hopefully that creates an angle
less than 100 which you need. Add Percent grade A (to the trunk) and Percent
grade B (to the canopy) and multiply by the distance from you to the trunk (in
meters) and that gives the height of the tree J
If that makes your head hurt imagine topographers doing that at every single
little slope on land haha that’s how they make those maps.
So after that the teacher showed me my new GPS unit which is
great, you can flag waypoints of whatever you want like different monkey
species or to help get back on trail after running through the forest chasing
monkeys. She also showed how to properly use a compass, which mine doesn’t work
:/ Sorry mom. It was just missing something.
She then gave three options for trails and I chose the first
one that I hadn’t gone on (GREAT CHOICE!) I set off with Christian and
Courtney.
About 5 minutes in of careful walking a bird (possibly
trumpeter? It was pretty big) suddenly flew up and a creature jumped onto a
nearby tree trunk. Exciting right?! YEAH! So It turns out it was a Kuwati,
possibly butchered that spelling lol. It’s maybe 3-4 feet long body wise and
has maybe 1.5-2 foot long tail….COMPLETE rough estimations. But it is an
omnivore that’s pretty short and just clung to that tree and stared at us. I
didn’t want to use my flash in case it scared it so I wasn’t able to get a
clear picture :/ You win some you lose some, but nonetheless it was awesome.
Continuing on for over 1500 meters we finally crossed some
Sakis. Which were not habituated to people so they weren’t too thrilled about
us being there and proceeded to growl at us. I didn’t see them very long and
I’m too short to see over Courtney and Christian so I decided to do my own
exploring. I followed some distant branch snapping and lo and behold there are
capuchin calls. I rush through the forest to keep up but they are SPEEDY! But I
saw some jumping between tree WAY in the distance.
Anyway we continued trekking on and headed back to the site
via the abandoned airfield....just a wider trail in a more open area :D I’ll
take a picture next time haha. But we started hearing whimpering and rustling
from a bamboo bush. After much waiting there were a couple of spider monkeys
jumping from the trees into it.
*side note: I have
been writing in Word doc while the page was loading and I had to correct so
many mistakes. I apologize for my past blogs if they were just riddled with
them. I type too fast for my own good...clearly*
Anywho they
eventually started surfacing, poking their heads out and such. I got good
pictures :D It was awesome, they are so adorable, but still pretty rare to see.
One of the girls , Linda, had to change her project from them to another
species. So After those we turned around to find a bunch of colorful
butterflies and started taking pictures of them xD Exhilarating right?
Continuing on the trail before heading on the one back to camp I mentioned
checking out the other one to the side where more bushes were moving. Of curse
they said no, then decided to go and oh look Emperor Tamarins! Mhmm…. I also
got good pictures of them so I was EXTRA pleased to be able to get good
pictures J
It then began to
rain so into the backpack the camera went and we trekked along. By the time we
got back to the station it was just before lunch and I got to watch my laundry
and backpack/camera case get soaked….which sucks cause when I grabbed my pants
this morning they were still wet and I had to wear them xD So I needed clean
dry pants…..and a clean backpack! …and camera case J But I guess now they’re extra clean
haha.
Lunch was
lentils….please note EVERYTHING is with rice J so Rice with lentils and a little like
tomato onion salad I guess. Yes I ate lentils…shocking, but you can’t be too
picky here. This may be the place to send us picky eaters :D
I sat and talked
with Joe, the guy who had the asthma attack and who I also travelled here with,
and we talking a lot about the kuwati (which he identified right away) and we
spoke about the national zoo, and his work at the Lemur house in North
Carolina. He went to South Africa at the Kreuger National Park, which sparked
thoughts in my head……I mean it’s the safest place is Africa L……put a pin in it ;)
Anyway the rain
was so powerful, I mean when it rains here…….it floods that’s essentially it.
We could barely hear each other it was so loud…..it’s also metal roofs but ya
know J I love the rain so while everyone was
running from building to building I briskly walked haha….Yes mom I’ll use my
rain coat next time J
It was nice cause
it as so cool right before it started and a bit after, very refreshing. I met
with the professor to discuss my research question:
How often do Adult
and juvenile brown capuchin monkeys stay at the canopy level, mid level,
understory, and ground level of the forest and for what reasons do they travel
there.
There were more
sighting of capuchins on the ground eating grubs out of bamboo sop I’m dying to
finally see it……..it’s rare….you don’t understand!
Essentially I’ll
have 8 FULL days of data collection aside from occasional trips whenever I can.
I ‘m extremely excited, and before I leave here I will be formulating the
report, creating a powerpoint and presenting for whoever wishes to see. Yes, my
lovely family back home, if you would enjoy me talking your ear off about
science and monkeys I’ll be happy to present.
The lights are
flickering again haha I love it here. As Joe said “It’s like summer camp, but
with monkeys!”
I tried catching
up on readings again, which is what I’ll be doing tomorrow aside from doing my
proposal, Friday I’m going to a conservation station by boat so that’ll be
extra fun J I passed out for an hour from
exhaustion, which is good and bad. Good cause I had a rough night sleep,
nothing to do with being here just my usual waking up every few hours, and bad
cause I was directly on my shoulder for that hour. Which means, as some know,
with my double jointed shoulders sleeping directly on it tends to push it out
of socket so when I wake up my arm is in shock and the muscles spasm. It’s not
terrible, and doesn’t last long but I definitely wasn’t prepared for it so it
was a bit painful J And
yeah I showed everyone my arm trick…….yes mom and dad I’ll stop doing it haha
More importantly,
I have had no back problems which is great cause it’s the last thing I need
here haha…….here comes the rain again xD My poor laundry and backpack will
never dry!!!! I did make sure to check it wasn’t filled with water haha.
So! Just final
thoughts, after waking up I attempted making phone calls but it wasn’t working
that great at first. As I was trying to get signal I saw a Titmu…however you
spell it just standing under a bush and calling occasionally. It gave me the
impression it was lost L Also
these birds are about the size of a quail and they are just brown….take that
image of the trumpeter shrink it to about a foot tall MAYBE and make it all
brown. It started wandering around and would call out whenever another one in
the distance called. I followed it a bit until it went under a cabin but it
looked so sad. I even whistled at it and it would perk up L Found it again on the way to the
sunset and back while I spoke to dad. Very cute, I got a video of it calling it
has such a pretty call.
Everyone is lining
up at the window for dinner haha, enough rambling that’s about it for the day.
I am keep a notebook of all sighting so I need to add today’s in, and there’s
the dinner bell J and
it is……..some type of soup haha for first course with like bits of parsley,
carrots, onions, and what we think is pureed potato?. They also always put out
some type of juice with each meal, but sometimes it just extra sugary and
watery I choose to stick with my water J Main course is chicken on the bone with like the same potato looking
purree, bits of parsley in a risotto consistency and of course rice J
There’s nothing
else to say as of right now. After dinner is another lecture and then I’m going
to just read and die……pass out essentially J
Thankfully today
was very exciting because tomorrow will be pretty boring sorry L
Internet is down
so I’m hoping I’ll be able to upload today L
It’s fun sitting
and talking with people, I mean I had a great conversation with Joe about the lemurs,
but other than that people don’t usually ask me about my personal life. I’m
just here, which I mean I don’t usually care about all that much to be honest,
there are some that are really talkative like Christian and Samantha which I
talk a lot with but at the same time it’s like “yo hey, I’m here too xD” I try
to interject when possible but getting ignored gets tiring so I’ll probably
just sit back and do what I would prefer, just do my research and my own thing
until someone has a question about me xD It is better than hearing about Krista
push stories about her kids just to talk about them or mention being a
photographer back in the old days…..silence is so much better xD I mainly talk
with the group I travelled with then most of the members from my own
group….says a lot J I
mainly talk to others about their projects and such like Gideon’s I
mentioned yesterday and I ask TONS of
questions cause I find it all fascinating! I mainly talk and nerd out with
Madeleine about hyenas and games and all that and freak out over animals its
fun J
We also spent a lot of time discussing the genitalia of hyenas and
spider monkeys……scroll down if you don’t want to read xD So spider monkeys get
confusing for most people when telling genders apart. The males penis is actually
retractable, and the females have an enlarged clitoris so people assume the
females are actually males because of the appendage J Same with hyenas, and the hyenas
actually birth through the enlarged clitoris which is extremely cringe worthy.
It’s like when a guy sees someone gets kicked in the balls and they cringe haha
But yeah, also hyenas are, as most know, a matriarchy and the males while
actually get erections as a sign of submissive behavior. Extremely fascinating
:D Yes I’m weird -_- I also learned that red ruffed lemurs scream and so do red
foxes…like scary scream haha Courtesy of talking with Joe.
But yeah I
definitely mesh a lot better with the tamarin trapping group I travelled with
than my own group which is odd but eh oh well J
Although I can
say, I’m one of the few people here that has good table manners, I don’t care
if you’re in the jungle….it’s disgusting.
Welp just found
out the conservations tours are cancelled because a tapir was found shot on the
bank of the Los Amigos river, the river to the east not the one we are on that
is the Madre de Dios River, but the tapir was shot by a bow and arrow by an
uncontacted group of indigenous people, ye there are those here J
The good news is
internet is back up after the rains o I can finally post haha got worried I
wouldn’t be able to until tomorrow morning J
Lessons learned:
#1:Don’t jump down
from the bunk bed on concrete…..not as ummm bouncy? Can’t think of the word lol
but yeah there’s nothing to absorb that force except your bones
#2: don’t wait
until all three pants need to be washed so that in the morning you have to grab
damp ones from the laundry line that haven’t dried xD
Unfortunately
today hasn’t had many lessons, I’m just adapted so well :P That or I’m not
remembering -_-
As for injuries
the “rash” I mentioned yesterday it honestly isn’t a rash because it isn’t
itchy, it’s a bit splotchy but definitely going away. It’s probably an
irritation -shrug-
Everything is down
again so hopefully It’ll be back up to then post this, its up xD haha I’m just
doing live blogging it’s all confusing today….rain does that J
OH I also totally
saw a beetle on a window that was a big as my palm J And that’s not even as big as some
get!
Until tomorrow,
REN
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