Viaje del Campo

A bit late, but better late than never (my life mantra, perhaps?)
Went on a salida del campo for my tropical rainforest class to get some firsthand fieldwork out in the jungle. We stayed at a house belonging to the family of one of the students, in between Mindo and Los Bancos. Half of the students stayed inside the house (think like a cabin, except in the rainforest) the other half in tents outside. Us, being silly gringos, all excitedly opted to sleep outside in our sleeping bags. The Ecuadorians laughed at our enthusiasm.

We did a lot of really cool things, including two night hikes through the jungle, where we got to see lots of cool animals, like this frog. Other cool stuff we saw:

• Basilisk (the lizard that runs on water, not the Harry Potter kind)
• Amazon canopy crab (huge crab that lives IN the canopy, 100 ft up!)
• tons of huge spiders (no worries Ross and Allie, didn’t put any pictures this time)
• cockaroaches
• Fish
• Orchids
• Millipedes
• Lots of funky looking bugs
• Vine snake!

I also went on a bird hike on Saturday morning. It was one of the first times I’ve really bird watched (harder than you think!) but very much enjoyed it. Got to see a toucan in the jungle! My life is complete. Also, a cuckoo bird, parrots, a giant ant nest, and other cool stuff.

All in all, it was actually a pretty chill weekend where I got to take an hour-long nap in the hammock on the balcony, wake up, lay there and watch toucans eat fruit out of the tree not 6-ft away. It was pretty awesome, yeah. As I mentioned before, Mindo is considered a cloud forest (bosque nublado) so we got to wake up to a rainforest engulfed in clouds. Also a highlight was watching a flock of white birds fly around the canopy on Saturday morning while waiting for breakfast. Your stereotypical image of birds in the rainforest. Again, very excited.

Drawback to living in the rainforest: sticky and muggy so you feel gross all the time. Huge drawback for the weekend was that we ran out of water from both the jugs from the store as well as the house. Ie we had barely enough water to drink, let alone wash dishes, flush toilets, etc. Another interesting tidbit was that the Ecuadorians partied on Saturday night. Apparently this happens on these trips a lot (professor allows it), which is just another example of culture difference I guess.

After this weekend I am very excited to go to Tiputini in January where I get to live in the real jungle for two weeks!