Hello again everyone, things are going very well still...saw another beautiful sunset tonight after a morning of birdwatching at a biological reserve where i saw squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, and the famous brilliantly colored quetzal (google it, you'll be glad you did). On wednesday we went to.....here it comes.....ZIPLINING!!!! we whipped through the air above primary forest canopy up in trees over 100yrs old even jumping off a 30ft tower which was essentially a giant rope swing...fantastic. The other day went for a hike in the forest in our backyard and stopped at a waterfall and climbed an almost vertical slope to get to a giant strangler fig which we spent 30min climbing inside....yes inside. the tree strangles and envelopes another tree from the outside and then the tree rots from the inside leaving a giant very climbable hollow tree which we climbed to the top of and looked out over the valley. In terms of night life, we went out last night to a bar/lounge and listened to our TA play some music along with other live music performers. We later left and went to another place where we spent the night salsa dancing.

Academically things are challenging but good. I've memorized at least 100 species of native plants and animals and their natural histories,written up a scientific paper, written a sort of economics paper, and been in classes everyday from 8-6 (phew!) The practical we took saturday went well and was actually fun to take despite the fact that it was imperative that you know your species. Tonight on the docket is another paper, preparing for a presentation and later in the week another scientific paper and the week after 2 midterms....thus the cost of being in the field for 2.5 weeks and again in another 2 weeks takes it toll. To be honest though, you all know how much of all things i have no problem memorizing plants i've never seen before =-D we had an orchid introduction the other day and it was great

Coming up soon is a night hike tomorrow, plus more work, hopefully sitting down to write out some letters and even upload my pictures. I know you've probably been seeing the pics that others have been posting of me on facebook so enjoy those and ill have mine up as soon as my connection allows.

Finally, any notes you'd like to leave here are greatly appreciated, questions, comments, lame jokes, or news or stories from home would be greatly appreciated either here or facebook or email, w/e. pass on this blog if people ask and if they dont oh well. also, final thing for now, if you are interested in reading old entries some of them may have the same dates so it seems like there's only one but there's more, right now ive posted 3 times, fyi i guess, more to come....! Peace and love.