Thursday, July 3, 2014

Day #12: Capuchins on the ground!!

Omg today for breakfast was that fried dough stuff, it was two big plate size ones, just two triangles but they weren’t filled with air it was all filled with dough! YUM! A little strawberry jam omnomnomnom Then I went off!

Hour or so went by and couldn’t find anything and then I ran into my teacher who pointed out a group where she was. So I started following……or rather chasing. Running after capuchins who run through the canopies of trees where you can get zero visual is not easy! Essentially I lost them after 30 minutes and got just about  18 minutes of data. It took me an hour to get back to A trail, any frikkin’ trail! That GPS unit kept forgetting the direction it was sending me in I SWEAR! UGH! Constantly weaving my way through, dodging giant spider webs. Countless times about to walk somewhere and going “BAH!” at the spiderweb in front of me.

Ugh, I was sad and frustrated I’ll admit. Especially when it kept telling me to go through a dead end UGH! Anyway, an hour later I was out and continued in any direction, eventually there’s a marker where you know where exactly you are. So I thought I hit the airfield, but I didn’t. However, I did manage to find the capuchins I lost. As usual the tiny juveniles where low to the ground. In fact when my watch went off, one crawled really fast closer to me and was eying me and then got bored and abandoned me. –sigh- But yay more data haha Total 30 minutes xD

Headed back and found some emperor tamarins jumping through bamboo, but they were gone as fast as they came. Lunch was chicken noodle soup haha and rice, with FRENCH FRIES!!!!!! And this like sliced onion tuna thing. Madeleine is vegetarian so they gave her the mushroom version lol so was switched cause she hates mushrooms anyway. Technically, she eats fish so she’s a pescapalian (No clue on spelling, and Word is confused too). Anyway meh it was fine, the French fries were the bonus!

Anywho, relaxed a bit and then went out and I FOUND CAPUCHINS ON THE GROUND! You don’t understand, that’s a pretty big deal! I could barely get a visual on them, I watched some run to another bush, but they could’ve easily jumped so I don’t know. Then they were foraging like 2 feet from the ground! There were more on the ground but with the underbrush I couldn’t see. You also need to understand I couldn’t physically get close to see any of this, but as soon as I saw them going to the ground I like dive bombed the vines cutting me off from them. I also heard like noises that sounded like thy were hitting something on a trunk, but that’s totally me being OVERLY optimistic haha. Although seriously, that one monkey hitting the brazil nut on the branch is by far the highlight. Nothing more amazing than watching an animal so smart for cognitive thinking Eep! I was doing that a lot too haha squealing and trying to keep quiet.

Anyway again, I got back, have yet to enter datamay try to do so tomorrow during the free day. I did talk to my teacher about how I get maybe an hour of data a day and it’s hard to keep up with capuchins and she said she gets it and keeps it into consideration. AGAIN, anyway, so after showering we all started getting together to start baking Christian and Varun’ (a researcher here)  cake! One banana, starfruit, coconut milk one, and another crushed oreo, coffee, and coconut milk one. Hopefully, they turn out well but the girls in Varun’s group helped A LOT. They clearly know how to cook on the fly and what to do haha. Anyway now we are just sitting around. I just promised Gideon that I’d snag him capuchin poop if I witness it for his research.

Madeleine got bit by a fire ant looking thing and her hand went numb and she couldn’t open or close it. Luckily, I bush wacked and didn’t run into that problem. Did have ants down my shirt but just a couple otherwise nothing else. Stephanie says the slight rash on my neck is a heat rash, and if it gets worse she has powder to keep it dry to protect it from the sweat.

OH also this morning totally went down trail 15 to go find the jaguar tracks….and I DID! Extra cool. It’s like a big cat paw….yeah who knew. Kinda surreal but I snagged a picture, it was really awesome. So I guess yeah overall it was a good day, but I’d totally trade that hour I got lost in the woods. Not fun when you’re by yourself –sigh-

Now it’s the favorite time where we wait for dinner J Tomorrow will be a crazy day, and I can’t wait for the cakes! Omnomnomnom. I’ll take pictures of course and will add in here when we get it. Why I’m typing out something regarding something I will be adding in later I dunno! But I’m blogging on the fly woohoo! Live blogging, so confusing, and so possibly hopefully entertaining! I’m imagining doing obnoxious like cheers into the air, but I’m really just sitting here listening to music xD Can’t find my headphones L  I’ve also started trying ahrd to rid of all the heavy stuff. Shampoo, body wash, protein bars aaah! I want as much room and leeway for souvenirs and such! I should really start eating these protein bars L It honestly isn’t good to hike with no pack, I just find it the lighter the better also easier to bush wack ALSO I would have spent like another hour trying to find my backpack once I got out of the woods! But yeah I know I know, I’ll carry it from now on.

One of the cooks came out and I laughed and pointed to the empty cracker thing so he can fill it while a lot of people aren’t here so it’s easier to snag some cookies xD Again for the stash ;) WINK!  He grabbed it and did a whole mission impossible thing, they’re really nice here and funny J

Picture count is at 284 right now. I’m giving up on taking pcitures of capuchins –sigh- They are never close enough to GET a decent picture and when they are they are hidden L

COOKIES! I got three, oooo yeah, strawberry and chocolate J I have so many that I’m not eating xD

I also just spoke with Sean the bird guy here because I was talking earlier about crazy adaptations, I love adaptations LOVE THEM. It was actually from a documentary I took dad and Carole to see at the theater. It was a bird that takes bones that it has scavenged and flies high up in the air and drops it on rocks to break them open to then eat the marrow inside. But apparently there are a lot of birds that can do that. Seagulls apparently do that with mollusks. FASCINATING! Okay I lied I am eating a “chomp” cookies. Orange flavored biscuits, but I shared! They weren’t all for me :D haha Yeah eyah when I get back it’s back to dancing my butt off for exercise I know.

Peter and a bunch of the guys went to swim in cocha lobo and I wanna go and just jump in to say I did xD Live blogging again, it’s all just random nonsense while we wait for dinner. Talked to Peter again while signing Varun’s card, he’s like Varun’s research assistant. They are going to Cocha Manu, a REALLY like full forest, with a few more species than here but like apparently you can just tell the difference. And then right after they are going to a defaunated forest, means it’s an empty forest completely devoid of any animal just from over hunting and running them away. So w e were talking about what it’d be like to go from Manu that’s so full and diverse and then going to such a quiet forest :/

Not it’s time to work on the glaze for the cakes! Oh it’s the quinoa stuff for dinner :D I like this stuff haha Regardless if I know what it is. Oh cake time yay! Yum so good! I’m totally writing this before it comes out L I wanna make sure the post goes through, internet is always bad at this time.

Until tomorrow J

REN

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