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Jamie's Central and South American Adventures
One word to sum up my experience so far = Amazing! The field station I'm staying at is very nice and the people are great! Surprisingly, my cabin here is cleaner than the Hilo house. Go figure. I wake up to the howler monkeys every morning and battle the bugs every night. I think you all would be very proud of me. I am the official spider catch-and-release technician of my room. Thank you cane spiders of Hawaii! =) The girls in my cabin are cool. I've become good friends with a bunch of people already. I think my greatest learning experience so far has been talking with people from around the country and the world. Two of my friends are Canadian (eh), and one is Italian. It's fascinating to hear how different and similar we all are. The ffod at the station is delicious! I've been eating nonstop. never hungry. yet I think I'm losing weight. the trails are muddy, but not difficult. I can thank my time in Hawaii for that. My time here has made Hawaii worth the pain. Finally! Also, the mosquitos aren't all that bad. They still bite like hell, but they're not as desperate for a meal as the Hawaiian mosquitos. The diversity of insects, birds and plants is astounding!!! laying in bed under the security of my mosquito net, I counted probably 50 species of insect in my headlamp light. I also found an ant outside one night that was enourmous. If I could draw a picture of the devil, it would look like this ant. By the time I got back outside with my camera, it was gone. Craziness! I took some pictures of the spider that I caught in our room last night. It wasn't THE biggest, but one of tha largest spiders I've ever seen. I caught it in a Ziploc bag because it was too big to fit in my Nalgene. Once captive, it was beautiful!Yellow stripes on the body and some yellow on black legs. The only creepy crawly I'm having a hard time with are the wasps. The first early morning out into the forest I was bit twice by a wasp. I shook out my pants VERY well, and it still bit me! yes, I had a wasp in my pants. It has yet to happen again.
I'm starting my research project soon. I'll be studying the feeding ecology of mantled howlers (Alouatta palliata). Part of my project will involve mapping out feeding trees. I also have my exam in 2 days, so I'll be studying quite a bit once I get back to the station.
Well, everyone, this is all I can think of for now. Sorry if the flow of this is a bit jumpy. I don't have a lot of time in town. I'll possibly be able to write more in a week. Maybe I will figure out how to send pictures. I miss you all! Sennd me email! I'd love to hear from people! later! -Jamie
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