9-9-2007

Hey all,

The first field trip just finished up and we are now in Monteverde, were we will be staying at a research station for the next three weeks. Here we have more scheduled lectures and our first few exams.

So far everything has been amazing! We have seen some stuff I thought only existed in National Geographic magazine, visited very remote preserves, and learned more species than imaginable. As one of the girls put it “next time I’m going to Antarctica to study biodiversity… not as many scientific names to remember”.

I already have enough stories to overflow the capacity of the web page, along with boring everyone, but we did go swimming in glowing water at Curu. Curu is a preserve that used to be a large hacienda, which the family let a big section of remain forested for hunting. This provided a great place to see older wet forest environments (wet forest = less than 6m of rain per year, rain forest = more than 6 m). Then at night we went walking on the beach to discover that the water had florescent diatoms the made the waves glow. We went swimming, which cause the diatoms to glow around us, giving the impression of magical powers and fairy dust.

Hopefully now that there is more constant internet access I will write more, however there are 26 students, 4 computers, and internet speed from the early 90s. Love to all and I hope everything is well where you are!