Day 32: Las Cruces, and wifi!

I woke up at 5:00 this morning so I could be packed by 5:30 breakfast. I am going to be so great at getting up early in the morning after this trip. Finally.

Right after breakfast, we loaded everything onto the beach. The boat was going to show up at 6:15 and we needed to have everything ready because loading it in the surf is not something you want to be doing for a long while. After some goodbyes around the station, we took a final picture in front of the Campanario sign and loaded onto the boat.

The ride back was just as fun, although we didn’t see anything too notable. We got back to Sierpe to see the (still egregious) bus waiting for us. As we unloaded everything, we noticed that Matt was offloading his luggage to a separate spot. What? Wait?

So that thing about him leaving after El Campanario was real after all? No no no no no no no no no noooooo.

Yeah, we had to say goodbye to Matt. It was tough, but it was time. Sadly, we all climbed onto the bus. Again, I passed out for the entire ride. I awoke to us backing into the botanical garden. Slightly upset, actually. We had been told it was a three hour drive, and we got there in just over an hour. I just wanted my sleep, especially after getting up at 5.

We met Rodolfo, the lead biologist at Las Cruces, and he gave a safety briefing and short history about the station. We then had free time until lunch.

Las Cruces is beautiful. This place is designed just as much for tourists as it is for researchers, so the accommodations are some of the nicest that we’ve had on the trip. We also don’t have a project to conduct here; Las Cruces is a time to recharge our batteries and finish two manuscripts. While here, we need to finalize the Cuericí draft for publication and write the Campanario paper in only four days. We also have an identification quiz for plants on the last day, so we need to study for that while were here. But compared to conducting a full-length research project, this will all be relatively easy.

We spent the rest of the afternoon writing our Campanario papers. The first draft is due tomorrow, so we needed to get it completed and no one wanted to work later.

After dinner, we got feedback on our Cuericí manuscripts and need to have them ready by tomorrow afternoon. This should be fun.

Day 33: This is the best garden ever

BACON. THEY SERVED BREAKFAST AT BACON

BACON AT BREAKFAST

WHATEVER

Sorry, did I shout? I guess I got a little excited. I didn’t realize I was missing/craving/thirsting for/in desperate need of bacon until there was a big pan of it in front of me. Then inside of me.

Ok, not the whole pan, but I was close to losing all control. Bacon does that to you I guess.

After bacon, we Rodo (Rodolfo goes by Rodo) for a hike around the garden. He took us on a tour of the station and taught us about many different families of plants, which will be really useful for the practicum. We ended around 11, so I had time to shower.

THEY HAVE HOT WATER.

Sorry, got too excited again I guess. This place has shower heads that heat the water as it passes through. It doesn’t get hot hot, but it’s finally nice to take a warm shower (although the cold showers in Campanario were both necessary and incredibly refreshing, there’s something to be said about a hot shower after a week of cold ones). In the afternoon, we got feedback on our Campanario drafts (the ones we had turned in at breakfast) and began writing the next version of those. We listened to Hannah (the student) talk about the paper on manakins she had read, then to a lecture about tropical birds from Madi. I stayed up late exchanging some strange Youtube videos with Braden, then passed out reading The Martian.

So far, it’s an awesome book. Would definitely recommend.

Day 34: I’ve finally caught up

Well, we’ve made it. After heavily editing many of the entries I wrote for those 2 weeks away from civilization, I’ve finally caught up to current time. Since today isn’t over, I’m probably not going to write much more. I need to get out and start studying for the plant ID quiz; this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon until 3 are the only times we have left.

Anyways, I’ve dumped out so much material and posted so many pictures that I’ve probably scared everyone away from this. And if you make it to hear before I come back and edit it tonight, very impressive.

Alright so I’m back. I didn’t do a bunch today. After finishing all the blog entries and spending far too much time inside, I went outside to walk around the garden for a couple hours and study plant families. I don’t think I’ve explained the quiz we need to take, so I’ll give you a quick low-down. Basically, we’ve been given a list of 35 families (orders are divided into families, for example palm trees fall in the arecaceae family) of plants that we have encountered this trip and need to learn to recognize. I wrote the list in my notebook and walked around the garden for a few hours trying to find examples of each. It helps that many of the plants here are labeled.

It doesn’t help that all plants look like other plants. And that some plants in a family look nothing like they’re supposed to.

Man this is way different than the vertebrate quiz. Identifying an agouti or a heron is so much easier than differentiating marantaceae from heliconiaceae. I guess at least plants stay in the same place.

Anyways, after dinner we had to finish revisions on our Campanario paper, but then had free time afterwards. A bottle of wine was broken into, then Leah and Hannah showed up with a bottle of Malibu. Ah. So it was destined to be THAT kind of night… Yup.

We played Truth or Dare until midnight.

Man, we are just an exciting group of people aren’t we?      <- that was sarcasm

In all seriousness, it was a bunch of fun.

 

Day 35: The dreaded practicum is here.

Today was the day! The day of the plant practicum!

We had to edit a few sentences in our Campanario paper to have it ready by noon, but other than that the entire day was unstructured time. I went on a walk in the morning around the garden to identify a few more plants, then headed back to the classroom. I was going to study the family names and identifiers a little longer, but then saw I had the Martian in my backpack.

Shoot.

There goes my entire day. Seriously. I grabbed it, sat down on the outside porch, and read until lunch. I came straight back after lunch and read until 3:50. I wanted to leave myself plenty of time to study for the practicum at 4. 🙂

Hey, being relaxed is supposed to be good for memory retention, or something right?

Right before the plant practicum started, we decided to catch a HUGE katydid that had been hanging out above the classroom. Amber tried scaling the supports along the wall which we all thought was not the best idea, so I boosted her up on my shoulders and we grabbed it. This thing was insane; the patterning on its back looked like camo snake scales and the eyes were striped like a zebra.

The practicum began with Braden leading us on a merry tour of the garden. He would find an unlabeled plant and point to it, then we had identify the family.

And yes, apparently being relaxed before an exam definitely does help. At least, for this one it did.

After the practicum, we were done at Las Cruces! All we had left to do was pack for tomorrow. I finished the Martian right before dinner started. We were told that the unstructured time tonight was dedicated to anything BUT work, so we decided to make it a movie night. Everyone broke out the wine they had and we voted on a movie to watch. I had been spouting off about how good Cloud Atlas (both the book and movie) is, and with the help of Callum’s aid we managed to get it selected. I loaded up Cloud Atlas and we watched it for the rest of the night (it’s a 2h 51m movie, so everyone went to sleep straight after).

It was awesome. Watch it!!

Watch Cloud Atlas! Read the book! They are both absolutely incredible.