Sorry I haven't posted in a while - everything here has been really really crazy!
Day 4 Part b
After my awkward morning encounter I went back to the lab and worked there until lunch time. On the way back from lunch a snake with a frog in its mouth ran across my path. It was green and about 2 feet long. I thought it was pretty cool so I pointed it out to the guard. Then I told a person walking by who I thought might want to take a look. He basically wet himself with excitement and sprinted off to go get his camera. The guard and I looked at each other like there’s no way he’s going to get back in time with a camera; the snake will be long gone by then. But he was pretty quick about it and the snake was still there, hidden under a leaf. He got really close to and started snapping pictures like nobody’s business. I suggested that he might move the leaf to get a better picture. No, no he muttered. I don’t want to disturb it. “Ok” I said as I walked away (I had had enough of the snake). After 3 seconds or so he sputtered after me that “the snake is just so beautiful” and he “didn’t want to interrupt this sacred process [of eating the frog]”. “Ok” I repeated, “it was just a suggestion, it’s cool,” and kept walking. It was quite an odd encounter. Then I passed by the same spot about 15 min later, and he was still there snapping away… There was also a HUGE crowd of about 15 people staring at the snake. I don’t know, it was weird. I kind of felt like it was all a lot of adieu about nothing.
Then, after that interesting encounter I finally had a chance to pick out which plants I was going to use from the HUGE database of all of the plants here in la selva. Once that was done, I went to go visit Jose, an old man who is a botanist here. He said he would be happy to help me find the plants I was looking for. I arrived at this office armed with a list of about 80 different plants. He said that he had time right then and there to go looking for plants. I was shocked but also happy that we were going to get it done right then and there. So I went off to my house to go change. Once I got to my room, I went to go put on tennis shoes instead of the flip flops I had been wearing. As I put my foot into the second shoe I saw something black and large move in there. Now, people had warned me about checking shoes before putting them on, but I was in a hurry to get back to Jose so I wouldn’t keep him waiting. Once my heart rhythm had returned to its normal rate, I took the shoe outside and threw it a good 5 feet from my door. Gathering up all of my courage, I poked at the shoe a little bit with my finger. Nothing. I kicked it even further from the room. Nothing. So I oh so cautiously picked it up and held it upside down. Finally a frog came hopping out. Oh thank goodness I thought. Only another frog. Then I was about the put the shoe back down and a SECOND one hopped out. There were two frogs. IN MY SHOE. It was quite startling. Then I heard the door shut behind me. Now, the doors here automatically lock behind you. And, of course I didn’t think about getting my key as I rushed out of the room with an infested shoe. So I had to trek ALL the way back to the dining hall where reception is and ask them for another key. It was SUCH a problem. I got the key, and returned to the house. I put on the tennis shoes and some shorts and arrived back at Jose’s office ready to go. Then he asked if I had higher shoes. Oh… right. Boots. So I walked all the way back to the house changed into pants and boots and came back, ready this time for read. All in all, I walked to the dining hall (for lunch) to the lab, to Jose’s office, to my house, to the dining hall (to get the key) to my house, to the office, to the house, to the office, and then to the parking lot past the dining hall. Now, you guys don’t know those distances, but everyone of those is a good 5-10 min walk. I was exhausted even before I got into the field.
I got into his car, and we drove for about 5 minutes to a fire station. “What?” I asked. “Why are we at a fire station?” I thought that we were going to collect plant samples in the forest…?” He replied that la sleva used to own this land, and the start of the trail was here. Before we even got down the trail we found one or two specimens. It was incredible how he could just rattle off the scientific name of any plant there. We walked for about 2 hours. As we walked we talked about all sorts of stuff. It was really cool. He told his wonderful stories about plants and about la selva and about everything. It was getting late, so we turned around. I think we collected about 17 specimens though which was incredible! Then I went to his office to label and bag all of the plants I got. After that I went dinner. Someone at dinner told me I had to go hear this lady talk. I wasn’t planning on it, as I was completely exhausted, but I went anyway. She talked about climate change. The long and short of it is that we’re basically fucked because trees are only going to speed up global warming. Then, afterwards, the professor who convinced me to go the lecture helped me figure out what is going on with shrimp. He didn’t really know, but he said do more control tests. I realized that I had to count the plates of shrimp before I could go to bed. By this time it was already about 9:00 at night and my eyelids were drooping. But I absolutely had to count the shrimp, so I sucked it up and stared through a microscope for the next two hours. (for the record it is really straining to look thought a microscope. Not only do you have focus your eyes, but for me I was squinting and trying to figure out if a brine shrimp was twitching or not. It was really difficult). I left the lab at about 11:00 I think and headed home.
The walk from the lab to my house is only about 6 or 7 minutes but it is really really scary. It is dark and spooky and the trees seem to enclose you and you never know when something is going to jump out at you and it is SO dark and the leaves look like frogs and there are poisonous snakes that can kill you. Anywho it is quite scary but I made it home alive. I brushed my teeth and crashed at about 12 o’clock.
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