DONE!

So today we gave our final presentations. We're done with the 99% of the Panama course. Besides working on the ENVS paper and editing everyone's biology papers I'm done. It's such a strange feeling....
The presentations did remind me of how much I miss Panama though. Even though I was so ready to come home at the end of our time there I'm finding that I really do miss it there.
That's all I really have to say. I'm glad this semester went so well and that our final presentations went pretty smoothly. I don't think anyone really reads this any more anyways, but I felt like it deserved some closure.
So yeah. It's been great fun blog, thanks for letting me write you. Farewell!!

A Day in the Life

I wrote this while I was still in Panama and it was relevant. But for those of you that care, here's what an average day was like at La MICA!

A Day in the Life

So I’ve realized that every post I’ve done so far have been about the extraordinary events of my trip in Panama. I was thinking the other day and decided maybe doing a day in the life kind of thing about my everyday life here in Panama.

Well here goes nothing…

♫♫♫♫♫ Wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head ♫♫♫♫♫

Heehee. But really....

Everyone generally starts waking up at around 6:30, because they’re crazy and we go to be super early (around 10 or so). I personally usually refuse to actually get out of bed until 7:15, 7:30 if I can. I get up, brush my hair, change, then walk around the building to our outside living room/dining room/classroom/ hangout room. By the time I’m up most people are awake and breakfast has been brought in. Breakfast usually consists of some kind of cereal, milk (which comes in boxes, is highly pasteurized, warm, and either whole milk of skim, neither of which are my personal chose, but what can you do), and something from the bakery, like the sweet bread (essentially super sweet cornbread) or some kind of cookie. If we’re lucky we get fried things, like empanadas, tortillas (which are my favorite, they’re not like Mexican tortillas, they’re thick and crispy), or some kind of fried dough that’s like a doughnut without sugar. Lately we’ve been getting eggs, either hard boiled or uncooked so we can make them how ever we’d like on out little propane powered stove. Mmmm breakfast. For awhile we weren’t getting enough food, so if you weren’t up by 7 you wouldn’t get anything to eat, thus everyone getting up super early, but that problems been resolved now :D

After breakfast people generally start to break off and do whatever they need to get done that day. Some people go into El Cope to go to the Chino mart and buy stuff; to go to Julie’s to work on their project, etc. Some people go to the park to work on their projects. There’s usually a chiva to take us up there around 8 or 8:30 depending on the day. Other people just choose to stay at LA Mica and do work there, or sit and do nothing. At the beginning of the trip I used to go to the park every day, but lately we haven’t needed to go as much during the day, so I’ve been staying at LA Mica and working on stuff here. I usually read or play on my computer, but I’ve finally run out of reading material.... Lately we’ve actually busted out lots of games, like Bananagrams and various card games. I’m not sure why it’s taken us so long to get them out to play, since it was within the last few weeks that it’s happened, but I’m glad we’ve finally gotten them out cause it’s a lot of fun to play! Between 12 and 1 lunch comes, varying from Panamanian soup with plantains, yucca, and some kind of meat, to grilled cheese sandwiches. So we eat then continue doing whatever we were doing before. Days at LA Mica are generally boring and nothing super exciting happens.

Let’s say it’s a day we chose to go to the park instead of stay at LA Mica. This means we leave LA Mica about 15 minutes before the chiva is supposed to be here, since it takes about that long to walk the trail out. We get there, hop on the chiva, then ride it the super bumpy, jerky, steep 45 minute ride up to the park, nonchalantly holding on for dear life. Once there we decide on a time for lunch (which is PB&J sandwiches, sometimes chips, and usually cookies of some kind), then head out to our various projects. Me and Leslie go to our transects then slowly walk them looking for frogs. It usually takes us about 2 or 3 hours to do one of our transects, so then it’s time for lunch. Sometimes after lunch we go home, especially when it’s raining and we’re soaked and freezing. Sometimes we stay and walk our other transect, which we generally have less luck with because the day time frogs like the morning hours, not the afternoon…. Eventually we head back to LA Mica where we hang out for a bit until dinner, then usually head back out to the park after dinner for more research. We then do the same thing we did during the day, only it’s dark and we can’t see. We also have to watch out for snakes and various other biting venomous things that we might step on or touch, cause that would be bad. The park at night is fun though, besides the fact that I’m terrified of what could be out behind me in the dark ;D

We usually end up back at LA Mica a bit after midnight, then have to quietly get ready for bed without waking up all the sleeping people, since they went to bed several hours ago. It’s good times. I like it. We then go to bed and do it all over again the next day!

So yeah… That’s just a general overview of my day to day life in Panama!

I'm home!!

So now we're back in the U.S. and trying to get back into the swing of things. I have now taken 6 hot showers, that's right, I've been keeping track. :D I also think that everything is way too expensive here since the low prices in Panama have ruined my outlook on prices in the U.S. forever... :(
I have also been to two doctors who have assured me that the horrible rash I developed in my last week in Panama is not contagious, nor is it ringworm. It is in fact, a hypersensitive reaction to insect bites, leading to the release of too much histamine, thus the rash wherever anything touches my skin... It's wonderful... But now I have steroids to make it all better!! So yay United States and modern medicine!!!

The last few weeks in Panama were pretty brutal. I was exhausted from all the physical activity, homesick cause I missed Easter, and covered in the before mentioned rash. It all worked out in the end though and the last week was pretty productive. Well lets back track a minute. We had free days at the end of Holy Week, which turned out to be the worst idea ever. In case you didn't know this it is nearly impossible to travel in Panama during Holy Week. Me, Dan, and Leslie tried to go back to El Valle to help out at the frog center for a few days. We had absolutely no problem getting to El Valle, but once we got there we found out we had no place to stay and they didn't need our help. So we turned around to leave, only to find that once we got back out to the Entrada and onto the Interamericana there were no buses to take us the direction we wanted to go. So we waited for 2 hours trying to catch a bus, then had to turn back around and go back to El Valle where Heidi had magically found a room for us to stay in for the night. We then stayed the night, woke up, then it took us almost 4 hours to finally catch a bus out of El Valle and back to El Cope, but we got out and that's all that matter. Oh that was such a stressful time. I feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it...

Other than that our last few days in Panama were rather uneventful. Me and Leslie finished up our research. Chad took us out on our last night and we went adventuring through the forest to find a pond that had red eyed tree frogs. They were so cute!! And it really was an adventure since the path to the pond was all overgrown and we had to whack trees out of the way and explore off the path to find a way. It was exciting! We also saw a few really cool snakes, which made Chad's night, but then it started raining so our biology fun was ruined and we had to go back. It was a sad chiva ride back from the park that night. My last chiva ride... Maybe my last chiva ride ever!

So that was all the exciting stuff. We had a talent show on Tuesday then left early on Wednesday morning to go to Panama City and do some shopping and go to the mall, which was wonderful. I bought nice clean clothes to wear home. Then showered and got all clean when we got to Gamboa. It was wonderful to be clean and not have to worry about getting covered in dirt again 5 seconds after being clean. I still love the feeling. I'm not used to it yet.

But yeah, then we flew on the plane (which we almost missed) from Panama to Miami, and Miami home! I attacked my mom at the airport and her and my sister almost didn't recognize me because I was so tan. :D

It's good to be home and I find that I really did miss it. I've adjusted back to life here better than I thought I would, but I still have to stop myself from talking to people in Spanish and waving at all the cars I see. It's strange to adjust but I'm getting there. Happy day! Yay being home!

Frog time!

So not too much has happened since last week. We had a birthday party with a terrifyingly cool pinata (we think it was some kind of goat-moose creature), and I spend my free days in the park helping the lizard people with their project. We actually spent all day one day and spent the night the next night working on their project. It was super exciting actually. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Wednesday we went on one of out marathon excursions around Panama. First we went to a sugar refinery, which was an interesting experience. The smell was horrible and it was very hot in the factory. We actually spent more time listening to the tour guide talk then looking at the factory. It got kind of old very quickly, but the actual factory was a cool experience.

After the sugar refinery we had lunch in Aguadulce. Then after that we went to one of the oldest churches in the Americas. It was a really cool old church, go figure ;D
Once we left the church we went to El Cano, an archeological dig site that's open to the public. They had a pretty cool little museum with artifacts and also have these stone pillars in a field that they're not sure what they were actually used for. The cool part though was the 5 skeletons they have in one of the old excavation sites. They're pretty nifty! All the artifacts are from one of the old Panamanian indigenous tribes. It was a pretty cool day, exhausting though...


So I've saved the best for last. So on Monday (we went back in time for a minute) we went to El Valle, which is about 3 hours away from El Cope (where we live). It's a real touristy kinda town with a market in the middle of town, but it's nice and small and I really like it. The best part of this place is in the zoo. The El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center is located in the zoo and is working to save the frogs! We went as a group and explored for most of the day then me, Dan, and Leslie spent the night and helped out at the cent the next day. I got to clean the cages of the Golden Frog and I was so excited! They're such pretty frogs and they watch you while you feed them and clean their cages. I love them so much and I love getting to help out here.


I love it so much actually that I came back for my free days! So right now the same group of us are helping out again. We can into town yesterday and are leaving tomorrow. Today we get to clean out some cages, which means I actually get go hold the frogs. So exciting!!
The other great part about El Valle is the fact that we get to stay in our own little house. It's just a really nice little house and I love it. I'm not sure why, but I do.


Well I'm having issues conveying my excitement in writing so I'm gonna go and hopefully today will be awesome!!

So the other day was the halfway point of our stay here in Panama. I think that means we have like... 3 more weeks here or something? Which is crazy. I don't feel like I've had any time to actually work on my project and am starting to get rather stressed about getting it all done...
Any way last week when we left Panama City we headed back to La MICA. Once we got back it was super muddy and the trail to La MICA was terrible and I didn't like it. When it's muddy I fall down lots and it's horrible. There's this horrible hill that we have to walk down and I fall down every time it's muddy and it makes me sad.. So many pants ruined...

Moving on from that. We spent a few days hanging out at La MICA, doing homework, going to the park, etc. It was super rainy so nothing exciting happened since all the animals hide when it rains... We were supposed to go to Santa Marta on Sunday, a community in the mountains that has no electricity. Alas it was raining too much and the road was bad so we couldn't get through. So we spent the day fixing up the trails around La MICA and now most of them are very nice. :D
We left for Santa Marta on Monday instead and that was exciting. It was a scary chiva ride on the side of the mountain and was bumpy and twisty and mostly up hill... Good times...
Once we got there we were paired up with families to stay with since we were doing home stays. We awkwardly stood by our family and tried to talk to them for a bit until we had to go help make backpacks for the kids, since Tuesday was their first day of school. It was chaotic, but we got it done.

Once that was over we went home with our families and sat awkwardly around for a bit. The first day we were all scared to speak Spanish and had trouble understanding our family, but by Friday when we left we were very comfortable there and it was much easier to make conversation. I feel like my Spanish is way better now than it was when we first got there. Yay Spanish skills!


Wednesday was one of the worse days of my life. I'm not gonna lie. They made us walk up a mountain, without informing us of how much walking we would be doing and how much water we would need. The first part of the hike was ok and the views were wonderful, but the second part was terrible. We pretty much hiked straight up a mountain for 3 hours... And we we got to the top it was very disappointing. It was the plane that crashed in the 80's killing Omar Torrijos, beloved general in Panama. It was half a plane and not worth the hike. I was so tired at the top that I was crying and it ruined my mood for the rest of the trip. Stupid plane... I don't wanna talk about it any more...


Moving on. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We did have a fiesta on Thursday night. And they made us dance with the Panamanians from the town. It was kinda awkward. Nothing like being wrapped in the arms of a Panamanian man who's a foot shorter than you! It was fun though. :D

Oh! I forgot to mention that we went and saw some awesome waterfalls! I they were so, so pretty. And we jumped off of the rocks on the side of them, which was super fun!! Yay waterfalls!

It's been pretty uneventful since we got from Santa Marta. We swabbed so frogs, wrote down what they were. I got kinda homesick, but other than that not too exciting.
(Cool frog we found. He's blue and orange :D)

Oh yeah. It's my birthday, I guess that's exciting! I got jello last night as an early present from Julie. She also made me a nice card. And now I have internet! It's a good day.

I'm gonna go be productive now!!! Wooh internet!!!

Trapped in a Tourist Trap

*Warning: Contents of this post might be exaggerations of actual events*

So this morning me and Hanna decided it my be fun to go and check out a place called Mi Pueblito, which sounded like it would be pretty cool. It said it had replicas of Indigenous housing and other Panamanian houses. So we got into a taxi and headed over there to check it out.

Driving there I noticed we had to go through the shady part of town and started to get nervous about the exact location of this place. Once we got there though it was a safe distance from the scary part of town all by itself on one side of the highway. We got out and quickly realized we were pretty much the only people there and the workers were still working on getting everything set up for the day. We walked around, slightly disappointed in what we were seeing, but determined to make the best of it.

We soon realized that this place was really just a giant tourist trap. Literally. It was up away from the main road, which was a giant highway. If you don't know anything about Panamanian highways, or roads in general, they're pretty terrifying since Panamanian drivers drive like maniacs and blatantly ignore all traffic laws. So we decided trying to cross the highway or trying to get a taxi down there would be scary and we didn't feel quite up to it right then. So we explored around a bit more and found the indigenous housing, which turned out to be a fake Kuna Yala. It was interesting since we had just been to the real Kuna Yala. It was really weird since it was just a super fake version of the place we had just been, which made me uncomfortable. Also we found the "ocean" on the other side of Kuna Yala and realized that we were quite trapped in that direction.

After looking at the horribly fake Kuna Yala we explored down a forest path and found more buildings, also a fence. We once again realized that we were totally and completely trapped in this area with no hope of escaping. At this moment of great despair fake natives came from the forest and captured us. They threw us into a giant cage, which was full of signs that there had been captives there before. With all hope lost we settled into our captivity, praying some one would save us.

Low and behold! Harrison Ford (a strange, but sexy, mix of Han Solo and Indiana Jones) runs up, whip cracking, blasters blazing to the rescue. He swept us into his arms then ran us down the hill where a taxi, driven by Panamanian Samuel Jackson (cause Morgan Freeman was busy), was waiting. The fake natives were in hot pursuit with poison dart blow guns, but they were no match for Harrison Ford. As we drove out off, leaving Harrison Ford to fight off the natives we yelled "We love you!" to which he responded, "I know," as he was over run by natives. When we looked behind us Worf and Bashir (from Star Trek) ran out of the forest phasers blasting. We hoped they would be able to help Harrison Ford and save the day.

(My excitement upon seeing Worf there to rescue us)

Panamanian Samuel Jackson then drove us the Natural History Museum, which was pretty cool. We looked at all the stuffed animals and saw lots of really cool ones. There was a terrifying room filled with animals from Africa that looked like they would come alive at any moment. We slowly backed out of the room, only to find the door was blocked, by Harrison Ford, Worf and Julian Bashir. They live!! We were so excited we could hardly contain our joy. So we ran back to the hotel to share the news with the world, hand in hand with the sexy men.

Bashir. My hero.

2 weeks worth of adventures

I've just realized that it's been about a week and a half since my last blog update. A lot, and also not a lot has happened since then. Like right now I'm in a hotel in Panama City, after going to Gamboa, Kuna Yala, back to Gamboa, then home to El Cope for a few days. Now I'm back in Panama City, but I'll get to that later.

So when I updated last time I was on my way to Kuna Yala. That was an interesting time. From Penonome, where I last used the internet, we rode 2 more hours to Gamboa, where we stayed the night. We stayed in a really snazzy place that was old army housing turned into a hotel type thing. The guy that owned it does bird tours and apparently owed some favors to Marc? So we got to stay there for cheap. It wasn't really even all that snazzy, but it had indoor showers, flush toilets, air conditioning, and pillows. We were all so excited you'd think we had never seen civilization before... Even though it had only been a week and a half.

Gamboa was nice, but the stay was really short. We got there Monday evening then left at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday. We got picked up by some Kuna people that were friends with Marc in 3 four wheel drive vehicles for all 25 of us. We were pretty jam packed into that car. There were 3 people in the back back seat, 4 in the middle, and one up front, plus the driver. That car ride was one of the most terrifying events of my life. The highway was fine, but the actual drive through the mountains to the ocean was horrible. The road was gravel, with cliffs and drop offs, also through a river, and also up a mountain. We were flying down the road super, super fast and it was so scary and I felt really sick...

Once that horrible, horrible car ride was over though we were at the ocean. We got into giant canoe, that fit all 25 of us plus our luggage, and boated to the island we were staying on. Lordy lou, the island we stayed on was pretty much paradise. White sand, turquoise water, palm trees, you name it and this island had it. We each got our own private tent so we could sleep on the beach where ever we wanted. It was super nice. We spent most of Tuesday playing on the beach and swimming. Ah, so nice.


In the afternoon we went over to Garti, which is the main island in of Kuna Yala where the General Congress is. We were greeted by the Congress and accepted into Kuna Yala. We then explored the island (so we walked back and forth 3 times down the 2 main roads, it's a very tiny island) and shopped a bit. I bought some pretty cool molas (the Kuna women use them as shirts, but mine are just decorative). The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We just went back to our island and hung out for the rest of the night.

Wednesday we took a horrible boat tour of the bay. We drove straight across the bay for an hour, looked at some mangroves, which were pretty cool and would have been cool if we weren't roasting in the tropical sun. We were on the boat for 4 hours and it was hot and my butt hurt from sitting on the wooden benches...
The rest of Wednesday was better though. I just sat around and read The Other Boleyn Girl. It's a good book, I recommend it. It made me feel better after that boat ride. Also the beautiful beach I was on.

Thursday was the Kuna's independence day. They gained autonomy from Panama on February 25, 1925. So every year they do a reenactment of it. So we spent all morning watching those. It was really interesting, but I don't speak Spanish, or Kuna, so I had no idea what was going on the majority of the time. Eventually though the Kuna people kicked the Panamanian police out and won independence! Ooo! I forgot the part where they picked Chris (one of the guys on the trip) to be Mr. Marsh, an American that "helped" the Kuna get their independence. He didn't really do anything important, but the Kuna glorify him, and it was funny to watch Chris get dragged all over the island in the reenactment.

After the reenactment all the Kuna people go into what we're going to call the "vice hut" and drink chicha beer and smoke. Chicha is a very interesting drink. It's made from coffee, sugar, and rice. The alcohol is very strong tasting... Its kinda like coffee in wine mixed together? I didn't really care for it and was rude and didn't finish the bowl the was given to me. It was too strong! Bleh xP

After spending most of the afternoon in the vice hut we went back to our island and once again did nothing for the rest of the night. We looked at the tide pools on our island, which were cool, but otherwise we did nothing productive. Oh! It was really scary for a while though. The people that were making our food were headed back from the main island at dinner time and their boat flipped. They didn't find them for several hours, but they're all ok now. It was very scary...

The boat flipping was the start of our horrible night... At about 11:45 I woke up because the wind was blowing and the flaps of my tent were flapping like they were going to fall off. So I closed them and tried to go back to sleep. 20 minutes later the heavens opened up and it POURED down rain for about half an hour. Fun thing about sleeping in tents, they leak. The water started coming into my tent and soon everything at the foot of my tent was soaked. I put my towel down there to stop the water and that seemed to work. It finally stopped and I was able to go back to sleep....For another 2 hours, when it happened again. This time the water got my mattress pad wet up to my knees... It then rained once every 2 hours the rest of the night. It was terrible. We were all soaked in the morning. That night was one of the most miserable nights of my life.
Good times good times...

Well we left after that horrible night of rain storms. We had to go across the stormy ocean in our canoe (which seemed so much smaller with the waves as been as they were) and I was comforted the entire time by Chris telling us all what to do in case the boat turned over. Thanks. It was very comforting...
No worries, we made it back all safe and sound. We then rode out the super fun road to/from Kuna Yala back to Panama City, where we went on a tour. The tour was ok, but the bus windows were tinted and it was hard to see out of them. Also we got there late so we didn't get to see very much. We did go to the Panama Canal, which I thought was awesome. We watched a boat go through then got to play in the museum before we were herded back to the bus.
The other cool part of the tour was the church with the giant gold alter that was the only gold pirate Henry Morgan did not steal from Panama City when he sacked it. We also went to the ruins of Panama City, which were pretty cool.


That night we went back to Gamboa. It was nice, again to have a real shower and a comfy bed. We went to Panama City the next day, on public bus, which was super exciting. Public transportation is really cheap and efficient here, which is really awesome. It's $0.65 for an hour bus ride from Gamboa to Panama City. I got Pizza Hut in the bus terminal and it was amazing. I'd been craving pizza for a while, so it was a happy day. Also very stressful cause we had a very short amount of internet time... It got nothing accomplished, but was very stressed for the 30 minutes I was on the internet.
To end our Kuna Yala adventure we headed back to El Cope and finally got back to La MICA. I really, really missed it there while we were gone and it was good to be "home."

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. I started getting sick on Sunday so I didn't do much. Also it rained, which makes doing research outside on frogs nearly impossible so we didn't go out and look for them. On Monday I spent almost all day in the Park (Omar Torrijos National Park, where I'm doing my research) looking for frogs and swabbing them. We captured and swabbed 13 but saw more. And we were there from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., then again from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. It was a good day for finding frogs!!

Tuesday afternoon our free day started and Hanna, Jackie, and I headed to Panama City while almost every one else headed to Boquete, which is in the north. They're gonna climb a volcano.
We're staying in a nice air conditioned hotel with flush toilets and a shower, with internet, and going to museums. Getting to Panama City is actually pretty easy. We just hopped on a bus in Cope that took us to Penonome, where we got on another bus that took us to the bus terminal in Panama City. It's really cheap too. Only $6 to take us half way across the country.


Me and Hanna actually went to 2 museums today (the Emerald Museum and the Panama History Museum) and wandered around Casco Viejo for most of the day today. It was really nice. It's very freeing to be able to travel around a foreign country in a super small group. I feel accomplished that we could move around with relative easiness here when neither of us are fluent in Spanish. Score one for the gringos!!

So now we're just chilling in the hotel, probably gonna go find so food later. I'm just glad I could check in!!

P.S.--We saw a cab driver today that looks like a Panamanian Morgan Freeman. It was super exciting.