It's about time, right?

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I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seat for a new update, so here goes. (Also, I'm sorry there are no pictures, but I will add them to the blog later and republish it. You'll have to wait a week, though, because I'm headed to Culbra again tomorrow morning.)

I left off a few days before I set out for Culebra, to Erick Olmos' cattle rancho in the middle of Parque Internacional La Amistad. Alejandro and I left Finca Dracula at 5am to get a taxi to Boquete where we grabbed some breakfast, bought some supplies, and hit the trail by 8am. Nine and a half hours, with mud and water in my too-big, too-short boots, we made it to the rancho. As we crested the hill and saw it for the first time, I swallowed hard. It looked really tiny from where we stood. I thought it was one room with a tarp! When we finally got there, though, I saw that it actually had three rooms: a kitchen and two bedrooms. Alejandro and I shared one bedroom while Erick, his wife, their son and two nephews shared the other bedroom. We settled in and ate a big supper after our long hike and then went to bed not long after. The bed was just boards with a little tiny bit of padding that might-as-well have not been there for all the good it did. Needless to say, Alejandro and I didn't sleep very well.

The next day, Erick killed one of his calves for us to eat the whole week. He asked if I wanted to watch and I said yes. I think that everyone should know where their food comes from, and I've never seen someone kill a cow before. I watched with my hands up over my face, similar to the way that I watch scary movies. He shot it in the head and then drained it's blood into the stream. After it drained, they began butchering it while Alejandro and I went on a hike. We had fresh meat the first day and then the rest was smoked to last us through the week. By the end of the week, Alejandro and I swore off red meat for a while.

The next 5-6 days were spent hiking looking for monsteras for Alejandro and frogs for me. I took one day off because my knees were bugging me, but other than that, not a whole lot that was exciting happened. I swabbed the frogs that I caught the last day we were there.

The hike home was hell. Pardon my French. We woke up at 5am, finished packing by flashlight, and prepared breakfast over a fire before heading out. We waited for first light, and then started on the trail at 6:30am. After rain the night before, the first part of the trail was two hours of sinking into mud past the top of my rubber boots. Usually, when you sink in mud, you just pull your foot out carefully to avoid coming out of your boots, but when your boots are way too big for you, you have to flex your foot, hard, and then pull straight up with all of your might. It was an exhausting way to start a ten-and-a-half hour hike. After trudging through the mud, we came to our next obstacle: the three-hour steep uphill hike with a forty-pound bag. Slowly, surely, and sweat covered, we made it to the top. At this point in the hike, I was reminded of all of the bug bites that I had accumulated during my stay and began a mental battle of wills with myself to not scratch. The next few hours were only a gradual incline, but the worst parts of the trip happened there. First, I slipped on a log while crossing a stream, which allowed water to fill my boots. Second, I was still looking for frogs, and suddenly, I heard the call of the glass frog. Excitedly, I began searching for it, only to realize that every time I turned around, the call was still behind me. It was quite a disappointment to realize that I was hearing the frog in my backpack that I had already collected. Dejected, I continued on and it began raining. I stopped and put my rain cover on my pack, but decided against the rain jacket since my clothes were already soaked in sweat anyway. We hiked the rest of the way back, with another hour-and-a-half uphill until we finally made it to the end of our hike at 5pm. Wanting nothing but a meal, we all ended up waiting for another hour-and-a-half for our ride to show up.

Eventually, Alejandro and I made it to Mamallena, a hostel in Boquete. We ate at a nearby restaurant that my family ate at when they were here and then went to sleep. We headed back to Finca Dracula the next morning.

A couple of days later, I met a photographer here who wanted to take some pictures of my frogs. He ended up telling me about his friend in El Valle who is a part of the project to keep extinct frogs alive. He ended up calling him and I akwardly had a conversation with a person that I didn't know over the phone. It turns out he was one of the research assistants on Erik Lindquist's golden frog research.

Not a whole lot exciting has happened since then, but I'm heading out to Culebra again tomorrow!

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Comments

[Grandma Linn]

Again!
I guess the trip wasn't as bad as it made me feel for you when I was reading it. You are going again! I find all your blogs interesting. I am gald you didn't step on a snake or fall on a stubble. How many cattle does Erick have on his ranch? Does his wife live there? We ate a lot of beef when we were kids because we raised beef. We'd ate some fresh and froze the rest. Dad sold some, too. What an experience. You are amazing Emily. I've been looking at lots of pictures, many from when our grandchildren were you, Carl, and Ryan then continued on to all 7. What precious babies. We must sit and look at them when you come home. I tried to see the personality of that little Emily that is yours today. I'd say you have the same precious spirit. I couldn't see that you would be an adventurer. Thanks for your blog. Your trip was very interesting. My love to you, Grandma

[EmilyBrantner]

:)
Hi grandma! He has a about 50 cattle there. He actually didn't come back with us this time because he had to stay and take care of a calf. I didn't know that your family raised cattle. It wouldn't have been so bad if it could have been frozen; it was having smoked meat the same way every day that we didn't like. His wife lives in boquete, but she hiked out with us. She came this time as well.