Monday, March 12, 2007

I survived our first midterm! yay. and I wrote my paper, and I did the stats homework.... but i forgot to do my spanish, oh well, 3 out of 4 isn't bad. After my midterm I took a very nice hike through the cloud forest and rediscovered how off kilter my sense of direction is. It turns out that it is possible to hike over the continental divide without even knowing it, woops. I did have a fairly obvious clue to my misdirection when the weather changed from dappled sun (the pacific) to pouring rain (cuz thats what it does on the Atlantic side). I eventually did manage to meander my way back to a recognizable trail and then slide my way back down to the station. On my way down I was accosted by a flock of butterflies. There is a species of butterflies that roost in groups during the day down here. The ruckus I created while tromping down the mountain woke up about 20 of these flying terrors and sent them flapping straight into my face. Almost immediatly, we both realized our mistakes and headed in our separate directions. Shortly there after I came across a large gathering of army ants but after my butterfly encounter I figured it was best to leave all 6 legged critters alone. Also, from recently acquired experiance, I now know how much ant bites/stings hurt. Acacia Ants (Pseudomyrmex spinicola to be exact) are not toys! Amusingly, for that project we did with the ants and acacias, we managed to pick the most aggresive ant species and harass them at their most aggressive time. woops, again.
On an entirely random note, I have finally found a Costa Rican food (actually we aren't even sure this is a Costa Rican food) that I will not eat. Today for lunch we had a "banana bean wrap". ummmm, yeah. beans wrapped in mashed sweet plaintains topped with cheese. It was a unique meal that I hope never to have to experiance again. On the plus side, we got mango juice at breakfast and at dinner today, and mango juice is pretty much the best thing ever (it's up there on my list with sleep, salamanders, and chocolate). Actually, I think the possibility of mango juice is really the only thing that forces me to get out of bed for a 7 am breakfast..... mmmmmmmmm.... mango juice.....
Coffee is good too, we drink a lot of it here. I will be returning home an even bigger caffeine addict then when I left. It turns out that coffee (with milk and sugar) makes an excellent growth medium for tropical fungi. I forgot a mug on my desk for a week or so and the results were a little frightening. I won't be doing that again. On that very disgusting note I am going to bed (where hopefully there will be no scorpiones, or stinging wasps, or crunchy beetles).

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