Am a little behind with this because the last few days have been pretty busy, since we sent up the traps. Firstly scrap whatever plan I had written down for saturday; clare, charlotte and gen got back from trying to locate the paca with looks of despair saying that they'd been lead around in circles by the radio signal. In the afternoon we all headed out to try and locate which burrow this paca was sleeping in....... three and a half hours later we were no closer and had walked several miles through thick forest in a big loop! We decided that we must have disturbed the paca and it therefore was running away from us, so headed back to find the cars via wading through a large lake. Once we were back on the path we walked back towards the car feeling a bit dejected, as we passed the Fosters house, we saw that their captive Jaguar was awake and sitting in the tunnel they had built for him so we decided to try and have a closer look. Richard saw us and invited us over and got some bits of chicken to feed to Max (the jaguar). He was rescued from somewhere where they weren't feeding him properly but he can't be released as he is too used to humans. The Fosters are a couple to film wildlife documentaries, they have filmed for life, planet earth and national geographic. Max is going to be used in a new documentary they are making, they will train him to dive for catfish and then film it in the massive enclosure. They filmed the amazing shots of the basilisk running on water in the recent bbc life series, which is pretty exciting although it's all done in studios/enclosures around the back of their house. Which is a bit odd, to think that a lot of the shots are filmed in studios but I guess it makes sense. Anyway Max is a full grown male and the difference between him and the juvenile jaguar in the zoo is immediately obvious. He has a huge powerful head, beautiful markings and looks ridiculously powerful. He cruches the chicken bones without a problem! Basically he is absolutely beautiful and his eyes are incredible, we all agree that this completely makes up for the failure of finding the paca.

On sunday I have a day off, but 6 people head out again to try and locate the paca again. They spend the day chasing the signal around the forest again, but decide to set the traps where we think the paca has been sleeping from our previous daytime position data.

On monday, the traps at big falls are finally set. Both for small carnivores and smaller traps for pacas, coatis and peccaries. It takes a long time to bait all the traps and involves getting pretty wet. The rains seemed to have arrived with august, and the small river we have to cross on the logging road is fairly high and most of the transects are flooded. Zoe manages to fall into the river and completely soak herself. Now that the traps are set, they need constant monitoring. They are set with radio transmitters which send out a faster beep if the trap is triggered, the signals need to be checked for every trap every two hours. This means that we have to stay overnight at the research house and take it in turns to check the signals. Zoe, sophie and me were the first group to stay with Arturo. None of the traps were set off, but we got very little sleep due to the noise that the rain makes on the roof. For dinner we cooked rice, noodles and chicken noodle soup, it was surprisingly nice although very salty. Arturo brought us two mangoes and bart and becky left us a pineapple, they were both amazing. Pineapple in england will never taste as good. In the morning we sat on the veranda and watch as it gets lighter hoping to see an animal. We saw a lot of birds and a gray fox, whcih looks slightly wet and bedraggled. We had cooked way too much rice and so ate cold rice for breakfast! Eventually everyone else arrives with Bart and Becci and we headed back to TEC for cold showers and the luxury of a flushing toilet! We soent the afternoon in Belmopan buying more supplies of snacks, sunglasses and flip flops.

On wednesday we headed back to big falls, the traps need checking everyday to make sure that the bait is ok and that the traps aren't under water. It rained even more over night and the road outside the reasearch house had pretty much turned into a river! We had a long discussion with bart and becci about possible projects, there are a lot of options and they all sound really interesting so we need to have a think about it over the next few days...... and possibly fight over some of the projects! After that Josh, Staff and Michaela headed back to TEC as they satyed the night at the reasearch house and the rest of us divided into groups for trap checking. I drew the sort straw and so have to stay at the house to check the trap signals incase one is set off. Me, Ed and Gen stayed the night last night; we cooked coconut rice, tomato soup and avocado whcih again is surprisingly good! Even Arturo complimented us on our cooking. Arturo built a bridge over the river by the logging road meaning we no longer have to struggle over trying not to fall in. It took him about 20 minutes and it's ridiculously sturdy with a handrail, made from trees which he chopped down using his machete. We didn't see much wildlife but did sleep more this time, and while driving back to TEC, Arturo points outa large rattlesnake on the side of the road. We were pretty glad that we were safe inside the car! Now have got the rest of the day to relax a bit and try to catch up on some sleep. It finally seems to have stopped raining so hopefully everywhere will dry out a bit and might actually have a chance of catching something in the traps.