Lots of walking!

We woke up this morning to the sound of light rain and a feeling of excitement for the day! Before we started out the day, we ate a wonderful breakfast consisting of fresh fruit, beans & rice, eggs with ham, and juice. After, we began the day with the science portion with Dr. Adrian Pinto. He showed us how to cultivate an ant colony and gather the chamber and fungus without collapsing it. Then he allowed us to attempt to dig our own colony. One group was able to dig one and another group wasn't able to find the fungus and will continue their digging bright and early tomorrow morning at 7 before the rest of the group wakes up for breakfast.

After a delicious lunch, our group pilled into a small trailer pulled by a tractor for a nice muddy hike to the river. The tractor ride consisted of lots of flying branches, bugs, smiles and laughter. We rode as far as the tractor could pull us, we got out and started our slippery, down-hill nature hike with a guide. About half way to the river, it started to pour rain. The trails were extremely slippery, enough so that Jake and Drew surfed down the mud. Arriving to the river, Tyler was the last to arrive because he an announcement that, “I have escaped from death once again!”. In other words, he stepped on a deadly poisonous snake in which Pablo saved the day and killed it with his machete. After a much needed swim in the river, we started our long hike up-hill, back to the tractor. We finished our hike with a fun and muddy ride back home.

After arriving back at the ranch we had approximately one hour to clean up and take some well needed showers. Before dinner we took another hike through the forest. This was a night hike specifically dedicated to finding night creatures in the forest. Our greatest discovery was a toad tree (and Annie's furry creature of whom she was terribly afraid of and turned out to be a rock).

We ended the day with observations of last nights petri dish experiment. It was interesting to learn about our various discoveries on microbes around the environment. Pictures can't even describe the beauty of this country and our amazing adventures as a group. We have really almost become a family.

Annie and Camille