Updates-Cuerici and Palo Verde

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So we have arrived in Palo Verde! I haven’t had access to the internet for a few days now because Cuerici had none. It was absolutely stunning! The station was nestled in the mountains and run by a farmer named Don Carlos. The surrounding forest was an oak forest with trees as old as 2000 years! (El Abuelo is the oldest tree, incredible!) We also visited the Páramo, a highland shrub-filled area with awesome plants! It was amazing how sometimes a cloud could roll in and you would be in the middle of it! Unfortunately I wasn’t as much of a busy-body as in Las Cruces because of a twisted foot (I was walking down the street during our last night in San Vito) so I didn’t get to explore the whole place like before. I’m hoping that my foot will feel better soon so that I can really poke around here and check things out! We are in Palo Verde (as I said), which is a tropical dry forest. There are quite a few bugs (good for catching and ID-ing, bad for comfort) which seems contradictory to me because it is the dry season. But, in any case, there are more snakes and tarantulas here (yay!) and some pretty amazing life in general. I’m excited to see it all! It’s a little toasty, nothing compared to Tucson just a little muggy for me. Tomorrow we are going out to look at plants and talk about dry forest adaptations.

Peace
Jo

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