Day 2/Biological Station/CRIRE

12/11/18

Today, we woke up early and had breakfast around 630. The rice and beans aren’t too bad. The juice is amazing. I think it was star fruit? The eggs are pretty good too even though there more.. orange than I am used to. Lol but free breakfast we went back to our rooms and waited a bit then met with Rodo where he took us on a little tour of the botanical garden. It’s the second largest in the world! That’s amazing. A lot of the plants and trees here aren’t native though. But they still look beautiful! We also seen some pineapples that were growing and also bananas! The bananas were just little guys. Maybe about 2 inches. They weren’t ripe yet though. Also seen the oldest tree in this area which is bout 125-150 years old. After our tour with Rodo, we took a mini coffee break then Scott took us to check out the forest. Man oh man is it beautiful. I seen a big beautiful butterfly. I thought it was blue but somebody said it was purple but who knows, it was so fast. We also seen this tree, I think a fig, being taken over by another fig tree from the top. It was wild to see. Especially looking up in it. We hiked down to the “river”. I put that in apostrophes because it seemed more like a creek to me. When I think of river I think of it being wider than what it was. Anyways it was beautiful there! Took lots of pictures and selfies of course. After being there for about 20 minutes or so I started walking back to the station and my goodness I am out of shape. The walk was inclined and made it a tad more difficult but somehow i managed to walk up the watch tower. That was worth it. The views are amazing from up there. After our hike from the river, we ate lunch which I demolished. Lol afterwards we hung out for a short while then met back up at the reception area where we have meetings and talked about the safety protocols and what not with Scott. *reminder: make sure all luggage bags, backpacks and whatever else is closed Incase a scorpion crawls up in it. It can happen. Lol*  After our meeting we met with our mentors. Our group talked about what sites we were going to do and how we’re going to do our assessments. What we’re doing for our project here I do back home at my college so it’s going to be a breeze. Or so I hope. After meeting with Randall, I honestly came back and took a nap. Lol I was drained from the little walk. I woke up just in time for dinner which was spaghetti and good!! After dinner we got to meet with the indigenous group that came from Panama. Most of us introduced ourselves in our native language which was awesome to hear because it’s not everyday you can hear different native languages. It was awesome. They also talked with us about who they are and what they do. The elder was basically like a medicine man. He looked like a wise man who can share good stories. After meeting them and doing our formal introductions, our group from ANC gifted them. I gave the younger woman some petrified wood, some sage to pray with, and a beaded bracelet made by a local artist back home. Dawn gave the other woman some sage and Randall’s personal bracelet which he took off right then and there. I explained to Alex why we smudge and he translated it to the women. Then Randall’s sons gifted the men. Randall Jr. gave the elder a Pendleton and some sweet grass and his other son Gabriel gave the other man some sweet grass as well. He then explained to the men what it’s for (it had to be translated). I felt honored and proud to be able to give them gifts because that’s how our people are. We thanked them for allowing us there and for their time. Then I came back to my room to write this up. Lol now I’m going to sleep!