Weekly Personal Reflections
Welcome to the reflections section! On this page, I will be discussing the more personal aspects of what being remote for 8 weeks in the rainforest is like. Just like the research log, I'll be updating it weekly throughout my summer experience.
Week 1 (6/10-6/16)
I was initially a little worried before the trip had even started about spending so much time in South America. I had a 2.5 week study abroad in Peru at the start of Summer A and had initially just planned to stay here the whole time with a couple weeks between trips. However, I am glad I made the decision to come home and spend time with my family and friends. I definitely feel like I would have struggled had I just stayed here all summer. Right before I left, I lost a very close pet and that has definitely plagued me a little bit while here. I have tried a few things like taking a few minutes to myself outside the lab and laying quietly in bed a little bit to try and make myself feel better, but it does make me sad to realize I won't be seeing my cat when I return home. There are plenty of mental distractions here, which is good, and I have now come to terms with the fact that I am in a very remote place and will be for the next couple months. That's not to say it hasn't been absolutely amazing though, just different. I've already seen some incredible wildlife that I probably won't see ever again. It's also been an amazing experience trying to plan out my project plan. When I dress up in the field clothing every day I really do feel like a real researcher.
It has been a lot of hard work, especially the walking. Everything is muddy 24/7, the rain is a constant looming threat, and the rubber boots we have to wear aren't exactly the most fit for long forest walks. Sometimes the forest feels claustrophobic, like I am constantly waiting for it to open up and it never does. There is a super high tower that gives a great view over the canopy, and this is the best place to see the clouds, sky, and sun (when it's out). The riverside dock can also feel very peaceful in the evening to see the stars. I really just feel like I'm not disconnected from the rest of the world when I'm in those spots. Other than the physical work to actually get everything for all 3 projects set up, it has also been a great challenge doing the computer stuff and working out logistics. It always feels like there's something more to do. But I know that this is a part of the learning process. As of right now, I am looking forward to learning how to code with R in the fall, as it seems like this is how all ecological data entry is done in this day and age. I called my family for the first time about 10 days after leaving the states to check in and let them know I was alive. I had a nice conversation, but it has also been so busy that time has just absolutely been flying by and I didn't realize it had been so long since I talked to them. I am going to try to phone home more than that for future weeks, but we will see how that goes...
Week 2 (6/17-6/23)
The time here is flying by. I keep a sort of e-journal on Instagram to log my travels for my family, and yesterday I wrote that it was Day 16, which means today is Day 17. It's all so hard to believe. It makes me a little bit sad because it just means I really only have two weeks left to find all the super cool mammals, seeing as the other four weeks will be spent at the station with significant mammalian hunting. I do think about home sometimes, mostly my pets and the convenience of being able to eat when I'm hungry. The meals are spread apart here just long enough that I crave food with about 2 hours to go before each serving. While the rainforest has been amazing and really everything I dreamed about reading picture books of the jungle as a kid, I've also had my fair share of frustrations. One big one has been my constant battle with the weather. It has poured and poured on many of the days I plan to run a survey, and so I've had to change plans a lot. And it always comes at the worst time, after many hours of beautiful sunshine, then bam. Torrential downpour. I can't do anything about it, and I expected at least a bit of it, seeing as I'm in the rainforest during the rainy season. The group from this past week was pretty loud. It made mealtime atmospheres pretty crazy, and doing some labwork a bit more difficult. They departed this morning, however, so today and tomorrow will feel weird just for how quiet it will be. At the next station, I believe there are 6 undergraduate researchers there long term and that may be it. The gross thing I get annoyed about, however, is that because everything is so humid, mold likes to grow on pretty much everything you don't keep dry. Dirty laundry, towels, suitcases, and of course, my toiletries bag. Lovely to wake up in the morning only to find a horrid stench coming from my early-phase molded toothbrush. It's pretty easy to clean, but it just always comes right back.
I celebrated my birthday here on the 21st, though I'm not sure if that is the right word. I did a snake survey. But of course that was the one day I didn't find any. In any case, I am happy that I am finally 20, and maybe theres a late birthday present at the next station in the form of a boa constrictor. Bedtime is amazing here, with nothing but the sound of the birds, frogs, and insects to soothe me to sleep (as long as my pajamas aren't moldy). I've also now seen 7/10 of the monkey species here, and a big goal of mine is to see all 10. I feel like 70% of those within the first two weeks is pretty good if I do say so myself. What's fun about the monkeys is that they all have such different personalities. When you see them in the forest, they all react differently and it's fun to see how they interact with the other monkeys as well. For example, the Capuchins will grab a branch, shake it, and yell at you, while the titi monkeys sit quietly on low-hanging branches, tilt their heads, and watch you for a while. They sort of remind me of puppies. Hoping that the boat ride tomorrow yields some more jaguars and the first tapir.
Week 3 (6/24-6/30)
It's been too long since I've seen the sun here. I guess I should've expected the biggest rainforest in the world to be rainy, but man. It's too much. Other than that, I can't really say I have had any other problems. Bugs were a little worse this week just cause of the rain, but my non-DEET Eucalyptus spray works wonders. It has been absolutely surreal being out here. This station doesn't feel quite so isolated, and can be reached by boat, car, bus, and even helicopter. It is so strange to sometimes hear the sounds of a big truck rumbling down the gravel road or a police siren. The two weeks before this, the only sounds were of frogs, birds, and bugs calling. As far as research stations go, I feel like both the ones I will be staying at are pretty high-end. At this one, we have electricity 24/7, warm water, AC, and individual rooms. I am honestly liking this station's campus more than the other one, but that opinion may be carried heavily by the fact that there is a basketball court here. I can confidently say that the food at TBS is miles better, however. There is also a great group of undergraduate students here doing their own project with plants, and so we've been hanging out with them around the station during downtime and occasionally in the field.
I knew I was in for a good couple weeks when I found an Anaconda on day three. The snakes I've seen here are definitely more interesting to me. I have noticed significant changes in the large mammal community, which is sad but was also expected. So many of the animals that were everywhere at the last station have yet to bee seen here, but I suppose that is just what happens when hunting is so prominent. I think I have only seen monkeys twice here, while I saw them every single day at TBS. A little bit haunting to have such a strong silence in the forest. We had a huge group of 35 kids from the station's associated school, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador. They were cool to practice Spanish with and also to share cool animal findings with. I even got a few of them to play basketball with me.
I honestly have been using basketball to take my mind off of everything. And I mean everything. Nothing on my mind in regards to my project, the upcoming school year, thoughts of home, or anything else. I just put in my Air-Pods on full volume and start playing. I try to play at least one time every day, but it gets tough with the weather. I'm not even very good at the game, it's sort of just an escape. I really enjoy the tough days out in the field. I love to challenge myself, and I guess I have a bit of extra motivation from starting The Last Dance on Netflix just last week. It gets difficult, but it's just part of being a field research assistant out in the middle of the Amazon. There's two things I always have energy for at all times: going to see cool animals, and hooping. And I can sometimes even do both at the same time out here. I think it is significant that the sun is actually peeking out as I write this, perhaps a sign of better days to come. I hope it is not only good news for my survey tonight, but also for next week in general.
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Week 4 (7/01-7/07)
Well, all that rain from last week has caused so much flooding along the trails here that about half of them are completely inundated. The water levels have been so high that our mentor had to swim across what was once a bridge to get to the other bank, which is scary because the water is brown and when the forests flood, caimans, electric eels, piranhas, and freshwater stingrays come up to hang out. I've seen 3 caimans this week just in what is usually forest floor. It has made for some long days and frustrating moments. Earlier in the week, Alyssa and I were tasked with collecting walking palm fruits and seeds on a certain trail that is usually a big loop that starts and ends in camp. We got all the way around it until about the last 200m, where the water became shoulder-deep. It was so annoying because we could almost see camp, but there was genuinely no way around the water. After I made a futile attempt to bushwhack without the machete, we ended up having to walk all the way around back the way we came, causing us to be 30 minutes late to lunch.
The rain has also made it so hard to play basketball, as the court is covered with algae and smooth surfaces, and it incredibly slippery. I developed a good relationship with one of the kitchen staff members here, and he is always willing to play no matter what the conditions of the court are. We also had a giant tree fall on the right side of the court towards the middle of the week, but that didn't stop us. I had to take full advantage of the court here because I know I won't have access to it for another couple of weeks.
The students here are all super cool, and we talk to each other a lot about our projects. One of them even joined me on a night survey, a night where we got two snakes and saw the anaconda again. We did a mini symposium on Saturday, which was good practice for the one we have in the fall. I felt like I had a pretty good slideshow with some fun pictures, and everybody here has loved helping me out with reporting their snake findings. They won't be here when we come back for our second rotation, but it was nice to have company out in the lonely forest.
I'm missing the states just a little bit right now. Every year, my family goes on a road trip to South Carolina from Oklahoma, where we just get to spend a week at the beach hanging out with the extended family. That's where my whole family is for this week, so it's been a little sad watching them from Life360 and seeing all the pictures they have been posting while I am over 2,250 miles away in the jungle. I'll feel a little better once they return home back to OKC. Regardless, I am really enjoying my time in Ecuador and I know that this may be one of the only times in my life where I can make it out to the Amazon. I cannot wait for the food back at TBS though, everything just hits different over there and the desserts are far superior.
Week 5 (7/08-7/14)
The lack of sunshine not only wasn't conducive to snake activity, but also wasn't good for my mental health. The canopy cover makes the darkness bad enough, but when it is rainy or cloudy every single day it is eons worse. This week was frustrating on many different levels. For the main umbrella project, there was a lot of extra work involved. I knew coming into this rotation that we would have to set up 15 more clusters each for our new species of tree, but there was a lot of additional stuff that ended up getting piled on. We had to go and replace so many seeds at the sites we worked so hard to set up because we didn't know they were immature. This is a very tedious process, as we had to then reapply all the pesticides as well. Additionally, we had a couple instances where we had to move entire sites because we had missed GPS points when hiking. There was also a lot more fruit collection to do, and this can be exhausting when the parent trees are very far from camp. Not only that, but every day it seemed like I was running on 4 hours of sleep because I would be up super late finding absolutely nothing on my nocturnal surveys. I felt irritable, tired, and unmotivated. It just seemed like there were a lot of moving parts to this week, and nothing was working out the way it was supposed to. It was a lot of days filled with fruit, and fruitless nights.
There was one day that almost broke me, but this was also the day that the sun came out so if you already read my research log, you would know that it ended well. But I was sent on a solo mission to go and set up a cluster site on the other side of the river and to reapply pesticides to the 4 existing ones. About halfway through, I had to go down a big ravine and cross a small stream, but it was very steep and I had to grab some small trees to support myself on the way down. This shook the branches above me, and something big dropped down onto the back of my neck. I figured it was just a leaf or a stick, so I reached behind me to pick it off. When I brought it to the front of me to see what it was, I was horrified. It was an enormous wandering spider bigger than any tarantula I have ever seen. I immediately chucked it so hard into the river below and watched as it floated downstream. I had to stand there in shock and process what had just happened before moving on. I was feeling done right about then, so I finished my tasks and then radioed for the boat to come pick me up. Nobody heard me for 45 minutes, so there I was, stuck with the spiders with a storm rolling in. Eventually, the boat did come, but I was completely out of it. While I absolutely love snakes, spiders are probably my number one fear, especially something as large and venomous as a wandering spider. Man did I really need that sun to come out that afternoon.
Eventually, we did get over the great rut of a week we were having, but it took until the last day. The spider day turned into the snake night, and all became well once more.
Week 6 (7/15-7/21)
I think at the start of this week, I was really feeling just out of energy in many ways. Not much motivation for the projects or for personal things. I had been doing a lot of physical work almost every morning, afternoon, and evening for a lot of the previous week. I think it just took a toll on me. However, I definitely felt much better once I started seeing snakes again. I also feel as if I will be cured once I move to the other station and I can just play basketball and run around to take my mind off of things.
This slump didn't last, and I gained so much motivation when we finished our last exclosure site. I think just having a few days to relax and reflect were just what I needed. Though I will also say sometimes doing nothing makes the day go by much slower. The rest was great but I do like having things to do. So, to fill that time, I really did a lot of messing around with my camera. I haven't really had the time to use it as much as I would have liked on this trip, so I took this week to just go crazy. Our group also took this extra time to go and do some more things for fun. For example, one early morning we went to go visit a salt lick along the river. This is a place where many different species of tropical birds congregate to gather nutrients that they do not get otherwise from their diet. We saw parrots, macaws, parakeets, and some birds of prey. Great place to take out my zoom lens. Another afternoon, we went to visit the pygmy marmoset population on another part of the station. These are the smallest monkeys in the world, and they were adorable. I've now checked off on my list all 10 primate species that are here. One a different afternoon, we went to take a group picture by the enormous Ceiba tree a couple kilometers into the forest. It is shocking to just see how big these trees are, and even more wild to think about how long they've been around. The end of the week made me feel more like I was a tourist rather than a researcher, and I think that sometimes that can make it enjoyable. Sometimes doing work constantly in the place you are studying makes you lose sight of where you are actually are in the world. The Amazon Rainforest is an incredible place, and it was nice to take a few days to go out and appreciate the wildlife that I may never see again.
Another fun part of this week was doing climbing lessons with a group from UMiami. They usually do this to monitor primate communities in the canopy, a place that is usually inaccessible to humans. I enjoyed seeing what some of the other groups are doing in terms of projects, and it always opens my mind about just how cool the field of ecology is. Looking forward to transferring back to YRS for the snakes, and hopefully we can get a tapir or another jaguar on the boat ride tomorrow...
Week 7 (7/22-7/28)
Everything here revolves around mealtimes. You plan your day around the times, you distribute your work accordingly to abide to the times, and you get annoyed when you have too much work and have to take your food out into the field. Every researcher is studying something very different. We have primatologists, botanists, herpetologists, psychologists, ornithologists, and yet everyone still congregates around the tables every day, three times a day, at 6:30am, 1:00pm, and 7:00pm. I guess it sort of humanizes everyone, because I am always impressed to see just how hard everyone works on their projects, and yet everyone still has to eat. It is one of the few aspects that stays consistent within the social realm wherever you are in the world: mealtimes.
On that related note, it can be tough working around mealtimes because it also means you cannot just eat when when you are hungry. I really miss snacking, and more so at this station because there is that extra thirty minutes between breakfast and lunch, which seems to be the time window when most of the daylight fieldwork must be completed. Luckily, I still have some granola bars left that, if I plan it right, should last me until the end of my time here. I only brought 30, which I regret heavily but it really has helped me be disciplined about when I know I should eat.
I had an incredible trip here to YRS for the last Tiputini boat ride of the field season. We saw a huge jaguar about 30 minutes in that just stared us down for a good while. It was the best moment of the trip by far, and I'll probably never get as good a look at such a cool animal again in my life. After we all got over the adrenaline rush from the cat, we eventually arrived at YRS and did one last luggage trudge. I am staying in a much smaller room this time around, but it is much cozier in my mind. I will probably start using the community bathroom for showers though, because the water pressure is too high in my room and it shoots out everywhere. Once I was all settled, I immediately went to go grab the basketball from the kitchen staff so I could start working on my shot again. I am happy to have access to this court for the rest of my time here. We have been having very dry weather recently, and I feel like that is what the snakes enjoy more. I am looking forward to my final week here in the Amazon, but also wouldn't mind staying longer next time if I ever do come back.
Week 8 (7/29-8/04)
It is crazy for me to think that my time in Ecuador has come to an end. The Amazon has long been a dream of mine and the fact that I was so immersed in it for about two months is incredible. Looking back, while it has been a lot of work, it has also gone by at a rapid pace. In fact, the days we had off felt 10 times slower than the days where we had ambitious goals and lots of fieldwork. I was fortunate to have a really amazing team with me throughout the entire summer, and am looking forward to working with them more as the school year inches closer. This week had three of the most special moments of the trip for me. On the 29th, I found an Emerald Tree Boa, a snake I had completely taken off my list just because they are so difficult to find and they almost never inhabit vegetation that isn't way high in the canopy. Just a couple surveys later, I finally got my tapir. The fact it was at the site with more hunting just goes to show how lucky I really got. On that same evening, I got to watch a Giant Armadillo forage for food for about 10 minutes, and even got a great video of it standing on its hind legs and looking directly at us. I've never seen an animal with bigger claws.
This week, and this rotation in general, has been absolutely surreal. When I wasn't seeing amazing wildlife on surveys, I was just appreciating the nature that was simply around the station. So many sounds I may never hear again, and colorful plants I may never see again. The reality of having to go home makes me a bit sad just because I know I'll miss it the moment classes start back up. I am also excited for some aspects of it. I really want to see my family, pets and friends back home. I will only have about one week of this visiting time before I have to drive all the way back to Gainesville, so I am planning on spending it well. This trip has gone so smoothly for most of the time I've been here and I am very grateful I didn't have to deal with very many preventative obstacles for my project. Though I can also confidently say that the ones I did have to navigate through have done nothing but help me gain valuable experience. This summer was a snapshot into the life of a real field researcher, and reaffirmed that this is what I want to do while I am involved in academia. Lastly, I look forward to the day when my work finally gets to the level of directly influencing conservation decisions.