A walk to the computer lab...

As you know, I have a pretty nice walk to the computer lab when I decide grace the world with my presence. It usually takes 15-20mins depending on how fast I walk but I thought I'd share with you whats its like :)

First I walk down the street from the house.... and catch glimpses of birds like the crimson backed tanager (left, my pic for once).

So after that I walk past the infamous Gamboa Resort.

Then after a little way I get to the actually Gamboa townsend (looks like rain!) and I make another left.

Walk up the hill....

And reach "183" the Smithsonian building :).

Thats it! A day in the life of trying to communicate with the outside world from Gamboa, Panama!

Love,

LA

Just had an exciting find on the way to the computer lab.....me and kaitlen saw a blue crowned mot -mot......how sweet is this!!! (not my picture btw....thanks wikipedia!)


But we've also had some other awesome bird encounters.... ill try to post more pics later but I dont really know how to use this Mac. Sigh.

Other than that, we also saw an ant-eater today! So it was pretty good day today.

Weekend in Panama

So, when we are not jungle exploring (aka the weekend).....




We went to a restuarant on the causeway out to the islands in Panama Bay out side of panama city. Awesome view, and the sea breeze was really nice. Panamaians like to use the causeway for biking, walking, running, roller blading etc. There are also a lot of fancy fancy hotels. Mom would love this.










Also we came across an ad for some sort of contest about democracy, plastered with Obama's face. Had to take the pic at an angle because it was night so there was glare. Kinda humerous...... There is $200,000 worth of prizes and since the money is worth the same as American dollars, maybe I should enter? Probably have to write in spanish though...darn.















Anyways I've had a relaxing sunday morning, made myself breakfast of champions. Aunt J's pancakes (done with no spatula mind you) with bananas. :) And Im sure ill spend the rest of the day reading.....or wandering around town looking at birds. I finished New Moon, its mostly ridiculous. Romance gets kind of boring to me after a while.....lovey dovey stuff is not too fun to read at least for me. So now I have started The Bean Trees. It's pretty good. So far the best line is "Something about Oklahoma makes you feel like there is no more hope." (or along those lines). It made me giggle....so true. I have also been reading tidbits of Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis. Its interesting, but kinda hard to follow. Reminds me of lit class in high school. yikes. And of course Ive been moving along on in the GRE study book. Did I ever say how much I hate word problems? and the vocabulary is out of control! sigh. ETS rules the American education system...and its all for money.

Dora the Explorer

This is me for the past two days......

We've spent time in new parts of the forest looking for more acacias. Had to trek through some parts dora the explorer style. It was slightly tricky (think rivers and revenes, vines and thorny palm trees.

But thanks to all the exploring we ran into a few neat things. Yesterday we happend upon a rufous mot mot nest. This a picutre of the rufous mot mot during the bird netting that I got to hang out for last years. Anyways, they nest in the side of banks in deep wholes so when we flashed our light down it, there were two orange puff ball baby mot mots back there. They were so cute!

Some other things we came across include..... jungle crab!!!

Panimanian Army training!

Sweet Butterfly!

Hope you have enjoyed the randomness of my jungle exploring. Get excited for more adventure!

Love, LA

Hey yall

Okay so been here about four days and I am already sweating my butt off! The humidity is slightly out of control lol.

Anyways, Monday was a shopping day in the good old El Rey (The King--24 hour grocery store). I braved the deli and the bakery and got some empandadas!! Yum!

My limited spanish skills hasnt gotten us too far yet. Our house keeping lady keeps trying to tell me stuff but I only catch about a 3rd of what she says.... I guess thats an improvement over last year when I caught nothing. So far me and Katlien have the apartment to ourselves but someone else will be moving in July. I think she is supposed be from Columbia?


We are in the same apartment this year, but lucky us the bathroom and refridgerator work this time. Talk about a fustrating time. Hopefully everything will stay in good order.


Some packages with our field equiptment hadnt come in till today, so yesterday was a really chill day of reading, going to the pool and watching a movie on my laptop.



Today we went out to the study plot (its called "Limbo) and its located on pipeline road. I took some pictures today but I havent uploaded them yet but I will soon. We basically just hiked around for a few hours so that Kaitlen could get oriented. Found lots of my ant and spider friends, I'm exited to get back to work on the project.

Anyways, on our way out of the forest, we ran into (well, literrally walked into) an army ant swarm. They are really cool because many certain species of birds follow the army ants around and pick off the insects that are trying to flee from the ants (the ants will attack anything in their paths---insects, lizards etc.) But since the army ant swarm was essentially on the road we got some good looks at the Ocellated Ant Bird. Its not rare or anything, but it is pretty neat if you look at it through binoculars. This is not my picture, because Im not that cool but I thought I'd share a glimpse of what Im talking about.

We also came across toucans and the collard acarcari today :), which are some of my favorites.

Crazy Creature isnt it?

Thats all I got for now folks!

Miss you all!

Love,
Loriann