Greetings! The Costa Rica contingent remains alive and well apart from a couple of us coming down with some minor stomach ailment. The general mood here is usually always upbeat with the occasional day of dragging fatigue. The students and their professors are all up very early, racing to the dining room to bolt down some breakfast and then off to the field or the labs. Many of them have already been up on early morning observations or data collections. Lunch time sees them emerging from their various sites, blinking in the bright light (under the canopy is pretty dim) quite sweaty and dirty but happy. Many of them take a packed lunch into the field and stay out all day. Dinner time is quite bubbly but quickly dies down as everybody heads back to their rooms for a shower and bed. Some late afternoons the boys and I will (my little boys….ahem) lie on our bed with the fan pointed on us and watch a movie on my computer.
The boys have a Spanish lesson every day as well as some reading comprehension and math drills (grampa is such a good teacher). When those are done they ride their bikes over the suspension bridge to go play foos-ball or ping-pong. One the way they grab some fallen fruit to feed the fish (great fun). They are both now engaged in writing a story which makes it hard to get computer time. The other day Bobby spotted a small boa constrictor huddled up under one of the benches in the atrium. He/she was very beautiful but quite small, probably a baby. The staff carefully moved “it” to a tree. There was a large Marine Toad lurking outside our door the other night that Bill wisely advised I not lick …….(!!?) Phew, that was close!
We went out with one of the researchers the other day to look at the bat colony she has been observing. It was especially cute because we could see a couple of the “pups” nursing from their mothers. It’s also really nice to have someone explain what some of the behaviors mean. Further on that same trail is a small hand-operated pulley-type gondola-thingy (you can sense I’m having trouble giving it a proper name) which two people can get into and pull themselves across the river. I have yet to give that a go as it’s being repaired at the moment.
We had another tree fall very close to one of the dormitories which gave the people inside quite a turn. The power was out for most of the next day but gave us all something to goggle at.
We are headed to the Cloud Forests on Tuesday to visit with our friend Olivier Chassot. I’ll post pictures of that adventure as well. Talk to you soon.
Michelle
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2 comments:
I told ya there was lots 'n lots of snakes down there. Dwight's got an answer for them though. Check the 7/18 post on his website.
I think "gondola thingy" is pretty much right on. They call'em Tuins in Nepal but that is so unimaginative. I call'em goddamners but that's pretty confusing since that's what I call everything the name for which I can't remember. You may develop more new names for it if ya catch your fingers between the pulleys and the cable or get poked by frayed cable wires.
It looks like you guys are having a great time! Missing you at work Michelle but happy to see you are all enjoying yourselves. Keep the bugs off!! :) Love, Jenny Penny
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