End of an Era

Well, if you can really call 6 months an era. But my time with GVI is finally up. The last six months have been a blast. I´ve met loads of cool people and done loads of cool things, but the time has come to move on and see a bit more of this continent whilst I´m here. Unfortunately, this keyboard has no letters on it and my touch typing isn´t what it used to be so I´ll let the pictures do the talking.

First the science bit (which is, afterall, is what I was primarily there for).

This little guy is known as a glass frog because his underside is transparent. At the reserve they´ve found a new species (new to sience and as yet unidentified). It´s been dubbed Yachanito as the reserve is the Yachana reserve. Specimens are needed to aid the identification process so yes, we found and killed one of them in the second half of this phase. Nocturnal and preferring leaves above streams we spent many an hour wading / swimming through streams guided only by our headtorches to get hold of specimens.

There were also more impromptu scientific studies. Sen kindly brought us a chikcen one day. Unfortunately it was in a bin liner and had been under the Ecuatorial sun for a 3 hour canoe ride. Needless ro say it wasn´t in prime condition when it arrived. Only one thing for it, leave it for the vultures left(sorry Sen! but it´s the thought that counts).

In addition to vulture watching there was also a bit of hard science. True biology in the field. I was going up to the lookout one day for a bit of peace and quiet when I stumbled upon an apparently dead snake. Like any health and safety conscious staff member I looked for a stick. After poking it for a bit I ascertained that it was indeed an ex snake. Not knowing much about pissed reptiles I took back to the resident expert, Zach. Of course, we had to find out what had killed it, so out came the scalpal:

I still have the skin in my rucksack... and I was in charge of salud y seguridad this phase. Hmmm. The idea is to attach it to my hat one day, once the smell subsides.

We also had a trip to Limon Cocha. One of the best birding sites in the world. Although the birding was superb, I think it´s fair to say everyone´s highlight had to be fishing for pirhana in a dugout canoe:

Catch of the day went to me but as you may notice it ain´t a pirhana. It´s some bottom feeding ugly bastard apparently called a Pasha. I don´t how to spell it but right clikc the picture and view it. Rhis demon fish also refused to die. Having lugged it into the boat, Zach told me to batter it´s head. I got an oar and twatted it but to no avail. Zach´s next suggestion was a knife through the brain. It was a thick skulled mother but I eventually penetrated it with my penknife. ´Now twist the knife`shouts Zach. No chance! I could hardly even get it in there. With it still flailing around in my hands I reverted to the oar. Fearful of putting another hole in the boat (Zach had a little fountain at his feet all day) I gave it a proper whallop. Finally, with it´s skull caved in, and looking meaner than ever, I slid it back to Zach for gutting. On closer inspection of demon fish he retracted all his ´don´t be such a girl´ comments. It tasted pretty good fried that night but then 7 of the 11 of us fell violently ill for 24 hours. Loudest and most puking award goes to Sam, Sarah close behind. Sam also won the award for best imitation of our Good Lord, mkaing a solid come back from death´s door, although no one else seems that bothered by the second coming:

More in a while but I´m all typed out for now. Oh yeah, I´ve fixed the ´contact´tab so it has my proper email address now.