Day #13: ......Wasted day :( Sort of lol

Today was an unfortunate dull day, not what was expected. First, let’s go to last night J

After dinner Linda and I gathered in our room with Christian and Stephanie. We started playing some card games which incorporated drinking. Now it was only beer, but either way I wasn’t a fan but I barely drank half a can in the end. It was fun, Krista and even our teacher came to join for a bit. Those two didn’t drink, but still. They ended up going to the dining hall where a group of people were playing “air hockey” with the cap from the pepper haha.

Anyway, we decided that we would go for a night hike and hit the tower, but wouldn’t tell the teacher in case she said no. Peter then came into the room and told us his bootleg booze arrived and they were going to drink in the lab. They as in Varun’s group. By 9:30 I was getting tired, weird right? I didn’t really want to drink and knew it wouldn’t last a bit to then go on a hike and climb  a tower that’s so high there are rest stops haha.

So I opted out. By 12:33 the group in the lab was drunk, a light way of putting it. Christian and Stephanie didn’t get back until after 3 am. I definitely contemplated going there to sit and hang out because it sounded fun, but I didn’t want to fumble around in the dark finding my stuff. Also, bed is comfy haha. More also, creatures crawl on the floor xD

Anyway, but it sounded like they had fun based off all the laughing and what Christian filled in last night.

This morning we slept in, I was shocked when I woke up at 7, I kinda assumed I would naturally wake up at like 5:30 like I have been without an alarm but that could be me waking up from other alarms. I ended up reading in my bed for a couple hours, finished my now tenth book for the year (third for the trip) and started my next one haha. Apparently there was eggs for breakfast. However, Seamus and Stephanie went out to find spider monkeys, I didn’t know they were going mainly cause they didn’t say anything and he just waited for anyone to come out. Mainly, a bummer because I’ve been talking about going up there to find them since I got here. I’m planning on going there for my morning hike while looking for capuchins.

We ended up just relaxing all day……..It was a bummer because I assumed we would do all the things we talked about the day before. The anaconda, rive otters, cocha lobo, all these things we wanted to do and it was our last free day. It was the only reason I didn’t do data collection, but I missed the part where we were playing it by ear I guess. I still feel dumb. I felt lazy today, I couldn’t do my paper, or read or anything because everything died. But more importantly because I didn’t go out and that bummed me most of all. I really should’ve woken up at 5:30 and gone out, I can’t afford free days. Not a fan of them anyway, I don’t like to relax here, that’s for at home. I’m in the amazon I want to explore and see things I won’t see at home. Maybe I should’ve gone by myself? I was mainly just looking forward to being with the group all together for once, and not hiking by myself. I do that enough haha.

I CAN say that I saw a type of ant eater :D Don’t know the name, and wouldn’t be able to spell it anyway haha But I got good pictures, it was so cute. Maybe like 3-4 feet total. Extra cute, very sweet, could’ve cared less we were there making so much noise. The whole camp took off running to see it haha.

Lunch was great! I think they did it special for fourth of July but I dunno It was rice of course, with some French fries and two slim halves of like fried up sausage or something. Like pan fried. Soooo yummy, my stomach was soooo not having it though –sigh- Not used to the grease. Good news there, family back home ;)

We may go on a night hike after dinner, it’s again being played by ear. I didn’t go to the sunset tower hike because I promised to talk to someone when the power came on. And now it’s just quiet while I play the waiting game for dinner haha. I wonder if they’ll do something else special J

It’s a really short blog today I know, but nothing happened aside from the ant eater L I did help Madeleine and Hannah re-tag tamarin feeding and sleeping trees for a bit. I ventured out on a little hike in a cotton shirt and just sneakers, not optimal for bush wacking. So I hung out for a bit, got but by something right away and was worried I’d get red ants in my pants haha so I didn’t stay long.

I will love nothing more than a decent internet connection when I’m home. It makes it so much easier to talk to people or do something simple like post a blog! I don’t care that it’s slow…..or anything I don’t! I just need it to stay up and running and quit cutting off.

I can say my schedules for the next few days, since my presentation is on the 12 and we are losing another day for the trip to the abandoned gold mine…..REALLY shoulda went on a data collection trip this morning so stupid! I really should’ve known –sigh- High hopes I guess. Anyway, I plan on leaving by like 6 and getting back by around 11 so I can enter data, read articles and slowly work on my paper until my computer dies, go back out and then work some more at night.

I’m planning on finishing my introduction and methods, as she suggested since that’s what we can do as of now, and have her look it over so it’s perfect when I turn it in. So that’s my plan for the next few days, I wanted to go out in the afternoon and hike but it was so hot. Otters will be in the river shaded and cool, anaconda hidden in the shade, and most importantly monkeys will be in the canopies out of sight –sigh- UGH! Can you tell I’m frustrated J I do hope we do a night hike at least, it’d be fun.

Chicken noodle soup again to start J OH for the first course for lunch it was like ring pasta with the tiniest amount of ketchup NOT put by me haha I was eating and was like this tastes so familiar. It was like mac n cheese with ketchup, but I guess no cheese I dunno but ah the childhood. I miss Kraft macaroni L The soup has shaved carrot piece in it and weird little pasta miniscule things it in? Weird but eh good. Chicken looks off, weird not mixed up looking soup. Not a special meal for tonight haha, guess just for lunch.

ALSO, I posted yesterdays blog, CHECKED to make it posted and that was it, come back today and see 2 new posts haha Theres a French guy here  xD That’s all I can say haven’t talked to him. He just got in. Anyway, I’m blah so that’s it until tomorrow J Here’s hoping for a night hike

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Ok lied been talking to the french guy, don't know his name. Attempted french butchered my sentence, I know for shame. But I'll practice :) It has also been confirmed: a lesson learned, French people DO hate Americans, and French people HATE Parisians, or however you spell it. Confirmed! Also if anything tell people you're Canadian xD It's horrible, but we all know it's true ;) At least stereotypically so haha but we all were laughing Haha We are going on a night hike and I invited him, so this will be fun. Also There are now botflys in the camp :) Matt has them in his head POSSIBLY the lip, and Gideon got one on each shoulder haha. We all crowded around to see, anyway time to go.


Okay i'm back :D Internet went down so the post never went up. Se we trekked somewhere between 1.5 - 2 kilometers before getting to the swamp. By that time at the end we were walking on docks and listening to the millions of frogs haha. The boats were tiny and extremely rickety oh lord! While getting on the boat Courtney and I saw a large orange eye maybe 10 feet to the right....oh yeam caymen alligators ya know it's a swamp. So we climb into the boat trying so hard not to MOVE and do weight distribution and then we were off. That boat had so many people in it that it was like 2 inchies from the edge of the water haha. I contemplating touching the water but it was gross looking like when the Patuxent is so gross it just paints the boat brown immediately haha. Anyway we went around, it was a decent sized lake creepy and cool. I saw a couple orange eyes in the distance haha but nothing in the water :( We found something little and went up to it a few times and then watched it recede into the reeds. we think it was a snake, and we hope it was the anaconda. We rode around in the dark too, all the while we could hear twigs snapping the distance. Also something pretty huge kept flying over us, all we heard were the wings haha. No not a bat, that'd be frikkin scary a bat that big. We did see a shooting star though! So it was fun :) Got back to camp around 11 pm, chugged water, read and passed out

REN