August 6, 2009
home sweet home
I’m back! But not without another ridiculous airport experience. My flight out of Honduras was no problem, on time and everything. Miami was another story. I was supposed to have only a two hour layover between flights, so I rushed through saying goodbye to my friends, customs and security to try to make it to my next flight on time. I got there with half an hour to spare, so I thought everything was fine. And then the delays started. At first 9:10 got pushed back to 10, because the crew hadn’t arrived yet. So we boarded the plane at 10 and then sat on the plane for another hour because the crew was “on their way”. After an hour, the captain announces that due to a mix-up, the current crew actually aren’t legally able to fly this plane, so we all have to get off again and wait for another crew. Departure’s been pushed back to 12 am. So finally, three hours after I was supposed to leave Miami, and exactly when I should have been touching down in Chicago, we finally leave. Which, added to the 2 hour drive back home meant I didn’t get home until 6 am. The sun was already coming up by the time I went to sleep. What a loooong travel day (24 hrs to be exact).
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising, but things don’t feel any different now that I’m home. Even though I’ve only been back for a day, Honduras seems like it happened ages ago and worlds away. The first hot shower was amazing, but other than that, I don’t find myself stuffing my face with every imaginable food or indulging in other luxuries like I thought I would a few weeks ago. I’ve settled quite quickly and comfortably back into the hum drum existence that is called summertime, life the exact shape and mold as when I left it. Maybe I’ve come back with more insights and knowledge, but old habits are easy to slip back into and I find myself once again lounging all day on the couch doing not much of anything. (Although I’m giving myself some credit because I did work on some secondaries today. 3 done, 9 more to go!) I guess the next step is to load pictures on Facebook and here, so watch out for those soon!
August 3, 2009
Adios Parque Nacional de Cusuco!
It’s my last night, and it feels weird. It’s hard to believe I’ll be leaving for good in 12 hours, that I won’t snuggle in my sleeping bag for another night, I won’t need to take cold showers anymore, or eat anymore beans and rice. I’ve developed a great fondness for this place and for the people here, and I can’t leave this place without also missing a great part of it. I’ve really been blessed to meet so many great people, to make new friends and mentors who I know will keep tabs on me even after I leave. There have been so many people who’ve selflessly helped me with my research and been both instructive and inspiring. When I write my acknowledgments for my thesis, I know it’ll be quite lengthy.
We’ve just finished our wrap up session for the season, where each science team goes around and reports on the findings they’ve collected over the past 8 weeks. That, probably more than anything else, seemed like a definite sign that the end has arrived. My bags are all packed, my permits are sorted, presentation and report are finished…not much left to do except eat my last tortilla and hop on a truck for the last ride down the mountain.
My flight out of San Pedro is at 2:50 pm tomorrow, but I won’t be home until after midnight. First thing I’m doing is taking a nice long hot shower and properly wash my hair with real shampoo for the first time in 8 weeks. I’m so excited!!! Thanks to everyone who’s been following my travels, knowing you guys are reading and praying for me is a great encouragement. I’ll see some of you soon!
August 2, 2009
one more day!!
I WAS going to continue my update on week 7 in Cortecito, but at this point, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say anyway and am too lazy to use any brainpower to remember. I’ve been in the monkey house in Cofradia for the past few days and number 1 piece of news: acquisition of hammock has failed 
. I was told that I could buy one in town, but everytime we went to where the shops were, no one was selling them. I am greatly displeased. That’s one Spelman decorating scheme already down the drain. Secondly, howler monkeys are incredibly cute, but do absolutely nothing. They just sit in the trees all day napping, occasionally eat some leaves/fruit, and maybe poop on you (one almost managed to get us, but we moved out of the way just in time). My camera has a pretty crappy zoom though, so most of my pictures aren’t that great…it just looks like a black blob in a tree. The days watching monkeys are no picnic though, they’re much longer work hours than up here stomping through the jungle. Cause we’re helping collect data on monkey behavior and habitat, we’re out in the field for 7 hours, constantly staring at monkeys. It’s cool for the first 3 hours, but once the 4th rolls around, you’re like “yup…seen enough monkeys, and ow my neck hurts”. Not to mention when they move, you have to move with them, so that means more rampaging though forest, but unlike the nice trails already cut out in the jungle, following the monkeys means blazing your own path through brambles, thorns, and muddy swamps. I don’t think I’ve seen more evil looking plants than in the monkey forest. So there were some pretty tiring days down there, and since its so much closer to sea level in Cofradia, the temperature hovered solidly around 95-100 degrees. After the coolness of the jungle, I thought I was going to melt from the heat, and nights were absolutely unbearable. It reminded me of hot muggy China in the summertime, but without any relief from air conditioning.
Anyway, now I’m back in Base Camp for a grand total of 1.5 days before I leave…for good! I have a lot to do: pack (not sure how I’m going to cram everything into one rucksack and backpack…things seem to have expanded since I came here), figure out my export/import permits for my (dead) froggies that I’m bringing home, finish my presentation which I’m giving to tomorrow + write a one page report on my project, pick up some more souvenirs… there might be more stuff I’m forgetting. At this rate, I’ve put med school secondaries on the back burner, at least until I get home. I got flooded with emails the other day, so now I have about 12 secondaries to fill out, which is like “yipee, homework to do when I get back.” Oh joy. Okee…I’m off to do the million things I need to do.
July 28, 2009
nearing the end
I have officially completed my last trek in the jungle. From now on, I won’t be doing much walking, as my next week in the monkey house is pretty chill and we’ll get driven everywhere. I’m also done with all of my sampling, and will be returning home with 183 samples of DNA and 4 dead frog specimens. Whoo…more lab work once I get back to school. Other “lasts” are less momentous, like my last inevitable fall into the river (quite spectacular this one, I almost went on my back like a turtle), my last river bath, my last time peeing in a funnel or using a trench (I forgot if I’ve explained this before), my last PCR reaction (in the jungle), etc etc.
Generator is going off soon so I’ll try to review last week quickly: a bus took us from Base Camp through San Pedro Sula (the city), around the mountain and dropped us off at the base on the other side. We then hiked up in the HOT noon-day sun to a camp called Santo Thomas, which is like the “base camp” of the west side. The hike was incredibly grueling, especially since this was the first time we’ve ever had to do it under the sun, jungle hikes are nicely shaded by the canopy and are nicely cool and breezy. It was worth it though, because the views from the side of the mountain are absolutely amazing. Because there were no trees to obstruct our view, we were close enough to the border to see into Guatemala for several miles. And when you’re standing on the edge of a hillside, with the land laid out before you for almost 360 degrees, it’s really a breathtaking moment. There’s no way cameras could capture it, although I tried (pics later).
We stayed over in Santo Thomas for a night, then the next day made the 6 hour hike to Cortecito. Another very hot, uphill journey. Santo Thomas is at about 500 meters above sea level. Cortecito is at 1500 m, so we hiked about 1000 m up! Pretty crazy, and I thought I was going to die on the way, but after I got there still in one piece, it felt like quite an accomplishment. I’m glad I did it, even though I probably wouldn’t volunteer to do it again. In comparison, the trip back (all downhill) took us only slightly less than 4 hours.
Ok, more later, I’m afraid they’re going to cut power before I can post this.
July 20, 2009
and i’m off again…
I’m off again tomorrow morning to head to the west side, this time to a camp called El Cortesito. Because its all the way on the other side of the mountain, the journey involves a truck ride back down the mountain to the city, around and up the other side. And then another few hours hike from the point where the truck drops us off. So it’ll be a long trip tomorrow. But this coming week is my last for data collection, so essentially my project here is almost done. The last week I’ll be spending some time on a farm in a nearby town called Cofradia playing with monkeys. I was originally supposed to be in Base Camp the entire week 8, but since I figured I wouldn’t be doing much anyway, I opted to go down to the monkey place and hang out there for a while. It’s purely for fun, and to experience what Honduran town life is like. Being in the jungle is nice, but you don’t really get a sense of the culture of this country…its like being in Honduras without really BEING in Honduras. So given that schedule, I’m not sure when the next time I’ll have internet will be. I’ll probably come back to Base Camp next Tuesday, but that’s not for certain… Til then!
July 19, 2009
end of week 6
This week at Base Camp has passed far more quickly than any of the previous. It’s not because there’s more to do (there’s less actually), and its not because I’m constantly hanging out with people (I’m not)…perhaps I’ve just gotten so used to the daily humdrum of life here that the days pass without me noticing. But whereas I recall complaining two weeks ago that Base Camp was extremely boring, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the past few peaceful days here. Part of it stems from having a huge tent all to myself. No more sharing a cramped space where I can’t even stand up, sleeping on mildewy mattresses with all my gear crammed up next to me. The tent I’m in right now is brand new (I’m the first occupant), it having recently replaced one that was damaged in a storm. It’s a two person tent, but big enough to fit 3 and tall enough stand up in. Aside from having more room to spread out my stuff, it’s been really nice to just have a space all to myself. I can sleep in as late as I want in the mornings, go to bed as late as I want (although I still get up at 8 am and go to bed at 10-11 pm, its nice to have the option at least). It also means I have a quiet space to do my quiet times, which I’ve tried to be more diligent about this week. I’m reminded of how refreshing it is to read God’s word at the end of the day…plus, it adds some of the normalcy of my routine at home that is so lacking here. Meanwhile, I’ve been running more PCR and gels, but I’m sharing the lab and equipment with two other dissertation students, so progress has been slower than before simply because we can’t all used the machines at the same time. That gives me a lot of down time, some of which I’ve spent laying in the hammock and sleeping/getting a tan. I think I’ve managed to get two shades darker from just two days sunbathing, but its limited to my arms and legs so I’ll probably have horrible tan lines. My goals this week were also to: work on medical school applications and finish the presentation I have to give on my project the last week I’m here. The med school apps are….going (everytime I do something like this, I’m reminded of how I hate writing essays about myself), but I made significant progress on my presentation today. Yay…
Only two weeks left, which is pretty crazy considering the end seemed so far away a few weeks ago. And the end of this expedition means that school is not far behind either. The “back to school” period is arguably one of my favorite times of the year, partly because I love buying new things for school: notebooks, pencils, books, etc. And this year, with moving into Spelman, there’s the added bonus of shopping for furnishings and kitchen and foodstuffs. I spent a few hours this afternoon on lnt.com and bedbathandbeyond.com looking at curtains and bedding and crap…online shopping is pretty addictive, and I love searching for good deals on stuff. But in the end, it all comes down to money, of which I do not have a lot, so most of my grandiose decorating plans for next year will probably fall flat on its face. I’m still adamant about that hammock though…
July 14, 2009
a brief brush with civilization
*Edited with pictures: click on the links or go to the gallery at bottom*
It’s a funny thing, but after 5 weeks in the jungle, you start to realize how unclean and messed-up things became after man arrived and started wrecking havoc on untamed nature. Civilization has its own dangers, sometimes a lot crueller than those of the wild, but we’re just so used to them that they don’t bother us anymore. Two incidences this past week to illustrate what I mean:
Animals in the jungle are usually running in one direction: away from you. That’s usually the opposite of what we want, especially when we’re trying to catch them, but when it comes to large cats and snakes, its really a blessing in disguise. At any rate, you’re pretty confident that no animal in its right mind would seek out humans and attack them. We’re just that scary (ha!). This rule doesn’t hold in a village of people. There, people keep animals as pets (namely, dogs) and the abundance of human and animal cohabitants creates an environment where animals are no longer afraid of their two-legged counterparts. So dogs, chickens, snakes, frogs, cockroaches, scorpions (etc etc) all live together in unhappy harmony. Unfortunately for me, the home I was staying in (we all shacked up with a local family for the week…more on that after I finish this story) was at the bottom of a hill, past a house which had a pair of skinny, mangy (and probably rabid) dogs. Daytime doggies were fine (who knows where they were, probably wandering around the village), but come nighttime, they turned into savage beasts. If they were locked behind the gate, they would bark and growl at you as you walked passed, with their beady little eyes glowing in the dark like some demon from hell. That really freaked me out. One night, I was walking back to the house alone and was slowing inching along the path, hoping the dogs wouldn’t get too crazy. It was pointless, cause they still barked and growled like mad, and I got to a point where I thought it would be wiser to turn back and wait for some other people to walk with me. As soon as I turned around to head back up the hill, I swear I heard them right behind me, so I didn’t even think and just RAN. The farther I ran from the dogs, the closer they seemed to be, almost right at my heels and stilling barking and growling all the way. That 25 meters or so back up the hill was probably the scariest 10 seconds I’ve ever experienced, I totally thought I was going to die (ie. get bitten and get rabies). I think I scared all the other students when I charged back into the patio area where we eat/hang out. But when we finally went back down, we (the 3 girls who live down the hill) took 3 guys with us, armed with sticks. The dogs were locked behind the gate. In retrospect, they probably had been the entire time and I was just freaking myself out, but I wasn’t about to stop and check when I thought I was getting attacked by rabid dogs. It all seems less scary and more stupid (on my part) now, haha.
By God’s grace, for the 4 weeks that I’ve been in the middle of the jungle I’ve been both safe and healthy. Given that there’s such potential for uncleanliness here, the camps are uber-sensitive about washing hands with bleach water, etc. But back in town, rules get more lax, all supposeduly because things are more “civilized”. And so of course, that’s when I get sick: in a village. It could’ve been something I ate, something I picked up on my hands….dunno. But something I definitely noticed was that the first few days, there was no bucket of bleach water for washing up before meals. And unsurprisingly, after I got sick, said bucket appeared. After a day of sleep and some Ciproflaxin (antibiotics), I felt mostly back to normal, and now I’m totally fine. Praise God that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could’ve been (same w/ the dogs).
Those were the two most exciting things this week. So…onto more mundane details: the village of Buenos Aires is lower in altitude than Base Camp, but it happens to sit right on the side of the mountain, so that if you look out you can see an entire range of valleys and mountains scattered across the horizon. There are some breathtaking views, some that can be seen from the main road, and even though its “lower”, its still high enough that we were literally living in the clouds. Mists would roll in and at first I thought it was smoke or dust from the road, but realized pretty soon that it was just a cloud was passing through. They don’t call this a cloud forest for nothing. I got pretty lucky in terms of accomodations. The family I stayed with was one of the wealthier ones, evident by the fact that they owned a truck. I got my own bed/bedroom to share with another student, with an attached bathroom that had a flushing toilet and shower. Given, the water was only on for a few hours per day, but the one time I did manage to catch the shower when the water was running (I didn’t know how to ask since my Spanish is nonexisitent…) was like heaven. Base Camp showers are way to cold to stand under (this one was still cold water but not as much), but this one was amazing and I actually got to rinse my hair properly.
The food wasn’t really all it was cracked up to be. Strike one against it: there was absolutely no peanut butter. I LIVE off of peanut butter and tortillas for breakfast (so yummy…) and was deprived for a week. As soon as I got back to Base Camp today, I loaded my lunch tortilla with peanut butter. We did have chicken, quite a few times actually, but only one was it actually cooked in a way that tasted good (fried). Usually it sat in a puddle of oil and detracted from the novelty of having meat. There was a slightly different variety of food though, which was good (less beans, more eggs, more potatoes). The best meal probably was one breakfast where we got fresh mango, pineapple, watermelon and orange. Yummm.
I slept a lot in BA. Or at least assumed a (mostly) horizontal quite often. I blame this on the hammocks that were there. After a morning of hiking and sated with lunch, we’d usually retire to the patio and lie in the hammocks all afternoon, reading or listening to music. They are soooo comfortable, enough that I want to get one and hang it in Spelman next year. Wouldn’t that be sweet? All the froshies would come to our room cause it’d be the “room with the hammock”. Haha. I also played a lot of cards…we had a huge Rummy tournament going on.
In between napping and eating, I did manage to do some work. One night we hiked to the river (down a horrible hill which was had to come back up…in the dark) and saw a motherload of stuff. Huge tadpoles, a giant cane toad (ugliest thing ever), a few snakes, salamanders, and glass frogs! Those are the cute little guys, one of which is featured in the header picture for this blog (that one’s stolen from the internet though). They have transparent bellies, so when you turn them over, you can see all their internal organs and even its heart beating! And they make this adorable “cheep” noise, sort of like a bird or a bell.
So that was my week with the civilized. Now its back to Base Camp for another week, but since I’ve already sampled from every single river/stream within walking distance, there isn’t much to do in the way of data collecting. Guess its time to work on my tan…
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- patio area with hammocks
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- mi casa for a week
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- views from BA
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- sitting ON TOP of all the bags for the ride back up to base camp…sweetest ride ever
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- cute little frog that we spent hours trying to determine what species it was
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- big ugly cane toad
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- coral snake…very poisonous
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- see its heart?
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- glass froggie!
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- vampire bat…and to imagine i could’ve been doing this if i hadn’t changed my project at the last minute
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- one of the logs we had to cross going over a river
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- view of the surrounding landscape
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- coffee beans!
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- all the guys fishing for tadpoles for me while i watched, haha
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- coffee farm
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- the room where we stayed for a week
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- headquarters: included office and eating area
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- where we ate
July 7, 2009
At the halfway mark
Another week is almost over, which means I’ll be heading out to another camp tomorrow. This time I’ll be going to Buenos Aires (BA), which is a small village half an hour jeep ride down the mountain (about 1.5 hour hike). The local Hondurans who work for us are from there and many of them make the trek up everyday. BA will be a nice change of scenery, since Base Camp is quickly becoming older and more mundane the longer I stay here. Plus, BA has a “restaurant” where they serve chicken and fries! That’s where we’ll be eating for the week, and although our menu is pre-fixed by Opwall, I heard we’ll be eating chicken twice during the week. Oh joy! There’s also little shops where you can by candy and other foodstuffs, so I’ll probably load up and stash it away for the remainder of my trip. And of course, I’ll be collecting more tadpoles and froggies to test.
On the note of frogs, there were some interesting developments that happened in the last few days. Yesterday, we hiked down to one of the rivers further down the mountain. The high school kids came with us, and while they were splashing around in the pools and flicking each other with water, we found a HUGE tadpole in shallows. This one was a giant compared to the other ones we’ve found, at least 5 times the size of “normal” tadpoles. Whereas most have been the size of a fingernail, this one easily stretched across the palm of my hand and looked more like a small fish.
No, it wasn’t a mutant, but just another species that we haven’t caught yet this year. It was a Rana maculata, and the adult is biggest frog species known in this park, usually about 1-2 hands big. That find was definitely the highlight of the walk, although getting to wade and splash around in the river was pretty invigorating too.
This is part of the river that we were at. Gorgeous isn’t it?
Cool thing #2: I dissected a frog earlier (the one that jumped in the fire and killed itself) and found its belly full of eggs! They were all yellow and caviar-looking, both sad and cool at the same time.
Cool thing #3: This doesn’t have anything to do with frogs, but was awesome nonetheless. Joe, one of the head guys here left (for good, as in this was his last year here) and we had a party for him. And party= barbecue=meat! (and other yummy foods). Because this was “extra” stuff outside normal Opwall budget, we all pitched in a little money to pay for ourselves and the guides and cooks, and we all enjoyed a nice meal of beef, sausage and fried plantains. I loooove plantains, especially when they’re deep fried in sugar and all gooey and soft inside. Yummy yummy…I’m going to look up a recipe when I get home, although I’ll probably have to use bananas since plantains are pretty rare in the US. So it was a pretty festive night last night, we left the generator on for longer than normal and had music blasting from some iPod speakers. It felt weirdly “normal” and “clubby” even though we were surrounded by dense forest and in the middle of nowhere. If you had transplanted us to the UK, I think we would’ve fit right in the middle of a pub crowd.
Ok…so I’m off again for another week. Write again when I get back!
July 4, 2009
Happy Independence Day!
Down here in the tropical jungle, amidst revolting Hondurans and (possibly still bitter) British, the 4th goes by mainly unnoticed, save for the few Americans who are here. Our little form of celebration consisted of finally getting meat in the form of hamburgers and hot dogs. Walter, a wealthy local who comes up to camp to sell souvenirs, brought a grill and barbeque-ing stuff with him today. He probably made quite a profit selling $5 hamburgers and $3 hot dogs, and enough people here are craving non-bean protein that it all got eaten pretty quickly. At any rate, I’m satisfied, although I will miss the fireworks, whether at the neighborhood party at home or the huge extravaganza in NYC (whew, what an adventure that was last year!).
This past week has been pretty boring, given that there’s not much to do at Base Camp and most of the friends I made on jungle training have left (for home or other camps). Some excitement came in the form of a school group, who’s here for a week. Except when I saw excitement, its more like annoyance (sometimes) cause these “school children” are 17-18 year old high school boys. They have a huge influence on the atmosphere of the camp: when they’re off hiking, its quite and peaceful, when they’re back, its loud and rowdy. My tent is right in the middle of a bunch of theirs and they have the weirdest conversations at night and early in the morning. I don’t think they realize the tents aren’t soundproof. I mean, imagine…high school boys… But at least they make this place a little livelier.
Today also marks exactly one month until I come home. I can’t believe one month has passed already…the past few weeks have gone by so quickly! My research is coming along nicely, which is a blessing and a relief. It makes me almost excited to write my thesis, hehe. In other news, my medical school app is finally complete! I got a request from Columbia to fill in their secondaries the other day, so that’s something else I will be working on. Please pray for diligence in doing that as well, as I tend to procrastinate horribly with these things.
(PS. Since I’m quickly becoming obsessed with cute little frogs, I had the crazy idea of getting one as a pet next year. Opinions, Spelman roomates?)
July 3, 2009
salamanders, tadpoles, and frogs oh my!
Duellmanohyla soralia, aka the red-eyed stream frog. I took soooo many pictures of these little guys, they’re so cute!
These are tadpoles of the same species. This pool was just full of them, you could just reach in and scoop some out.
Halfway between a tadpole and a frog…look at its little forelegs still tucked in under its face! The big gaping thing at the top is its mouth, missing all its teeth rows. That’s either because a) it has chytrid or b) they lose their teeth as they morph.
At this point, I got a little too snap-happy and started playing around with the frog.
There it is on my computer. I think he liked it better than me.
He’s reading my guide on how to dissect a frog. How morbid.
And then he decided to jump onto the screen. I think he was attracted by a picture of himself (that’s the one that’s highlighted on the screen).
At this point, someone brought in another frog for me to look at. This is a Craugastor rostralis (no idea what the common name is).
Unfortunately, it was injured. See the tear in its skin? You can see the bone underneath. Poor thing… could be disease, predation, or just plain bad luck.
