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Published: September 18th 2012
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Car ride
The car ride down the dirt road from the highway is not very comfortable. These are people's reactions. Nick is not supposed to be smiling. Have you ever heard of people say that if you kill a mosquito when it’s sucking your blood, it will pop? Well it’s true. Because I did it today. I was out in the middle of the jungle somewhere writing in my field notebook. I guess I was kind of asking for it because I hadn’t put on mosquito repellent. They had a nice 30 minutes taking sips from me. I’ll see the damage tomorrow.
Today was a “free day”, or our equivalent of a weekend. We went into Puerto Viejo, the closest town to the station. It’s a pretty small town, but good enough size to find what we needed. I haven’t run out of shampoo or conditioner yet, but I bought some for the next week when I do. We also made a stop at the Juice House. Best smoothies ever. And everything is very cheaply priced. It is deceiving though because the numbers are bigger here. When a smoothie costs 1300 colones, it’s really only under US$2.50. Not bad.
I was working in the biblioteca this afternoon to get out of the heat and humidity. Then, over the course of about 5 seconds, the weather changed
Paramo power lines
Me and Joanna on the electric tower on top of the paramo. Pretty sure we weren't supposed to be climbing on this, but we couldn't reallly resist. from bright and sunny to pouring buckets. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen it rain so hard. Now I believe the professors who told us that the river can rise 20 feet in a day. The storm kind of messed with the internet connection unfortunately, but apparently that’s a common occurrence.
About 30 minutes ago I got back from batting, aka catching bats. There’s a researcher her studying the seed dispersal abilities of a certain bat species. This means he catches bats in a net, measures them, feeds them, and examines their poop. Pretty cool job. It turns out he is only a year older than us (a senior in college) and he studied through OTS Tropical Biology a year and a half ago. I’d say he has a head start on the whole career thing. When you get a researching position when you’re still in school, I think you’re set. And he definitely has the personality and demeanor of a researcher: kind of quiet, socially awkward, and secretly genius brains. Anyways, he let us join him on his bat caching adventures once the sun set. The nets used to catch them are about 30 feet long and
Kelsey paramo
View not as cool as the top of half dome, but definitely up there. 5 feet high, and the netting is super thin and fine. Pretty effective method. We had to wait around a while but in the end we got two bats. And they are pretty frickin’ cute. Unfortunately, those of us without rabies vaccinations could not handle them, but it was still cool to watch. Also, unfortunately, my camera decided to go on the fritz right before we caught them. So I will be refraining from uploading pictures until that is fixed. Muy triste. I think it may just be the humidity and hopefully it can be resolved with some uncooked rice. Cross your fingers.
Finally, tomorrow we’re going to the Dole Banana plantation. I’m actually very excited. I think it’s a pretty rare opportunity to visit one of the number one corporations in the world responsible for rainforest destruction. So if any of you reading this have any burning questions to ask a company that systematically ruins ecosystems, local farmers, and also gives your morning cereal a sweet taste, please post a comment or message me. I know I have a few questions to ask and I would be happy to relay your questions along. Apparently last year while the OTS group was visiting the plantation, they were sprayed with remnant pesticide from an overhead plane. Hopefully we won’t be as lucky.
The pictures attached to this post aren’t from La Selva, but Cuerici. I hope to upload La Selva pics tomorrow when my camera is all better!
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Ashley
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Nice pictures!
Hi Kels - Thanks for the great report from La Selva. Watch out for those bugs and bats! XO