Ok this news is actually two days old, the internet is so slow I couldn't get it to post until now. I have an exciting update from today though, because Liz and I were scarily close to being trampled by peccaries today! Twice! In totally different parts of the forest. The pigs stink and you can smell them a long time before you see them. If they hear or see you, and are afraid, they tend to just run in any direction, potentially stampeding you. We were li...

To get to the research station, three of the four other students on the research team and I took a 5 hour boat ride up the Madre de Dios River.I finally felt like I was in the rainforest - on the way down river there were tons of birds, and a few tiny villages, along with many gold mining set-ups.The area is rich in gold, and Peruvians mine it by pumping up sediment from the river banks and moving it along mats to separate the lighter sediments from the gold.Me...

Arrived in hot and humid Puerto Maldonado this morning at 12:30 - the airport consisted of a runway, a wall-less pavilion, and a dirt parking area, all surrounded by forest and connected to the rest of the town by one small road. To get to the hotel I got a motorcar, which is basically a motorbike with a wooden seat and fabric roof somehow attacked to it. The streets are full of people and stray dogs and fast motorbikes, with little organization, so it was kind...