Survivor

Planting trees in the middle of the rainforest. It was a beautiful day today and not quite as humid as it has been. Super hot thought!!!

Jean (from Canada) my planting and tagging partner today.

The very dense forest that we trudge throught each day.

Planting. Closest is Elles (pronounce Ellis) from the Netherlands.

Me measuring and tagging the last tree.
I told everyone before I left that this would be my survivor and people laughed. Okay, no more laughing. Yesterday was really, really difficult. So much so that I didn't even post last night. So I will post twice today. Yesterday was a torrential downpour. We were very far from camp on the side of a mountain. I was beautiful but with the rain coming down so hard and so frequently that I was really unable to take many pictures. We worked on a plot trees, measuring the tree itself, the canopy and the distance between each tree. I was the data recorder which appeared to be the simplest of the jobs. HA!! It was virtually impossible to keep the paper dry. I was able to use the waterproof paper but even that was difficult as I kept falling down and breaking the pencil, pens, whatever I was holding. I thought at one point I actually broke my wrist but luckily the pain subsided and I was fine. The trek home was interesting. It was pouring rain and the mud was unbelievable. It was a foot deep in some places!!! If you stood in it for too long it was difficult to get out. It took about 1 hour to get back and it was all uphill. I was hiking back with Claudine (from Ireland) and she forgot to put her gloves on...an absolute necessity and got sliced wide open from the razor grass. Most everything here is not dangerous but you need to watch out for the razor grass. It is tall and sticks to everything and slices through skin like a razor!! We got back to camp, took a nap and headed off to the town. It was very fun. It was a small town with many, many people out enjoying the fantastic Puerto Rican food and several small shops where I bought way too many souvenirs. There is only one car so we rode back to the house in shifts. I was part of the last group so I was able to play some pool with my new friends for about 1 1/2 hours. I slept horribly last night. Today was wonderful and I have added some photos of our work today. We didn't journey far from camp and we were able to plant new trees. After planting a few trees I was placed on the tagging and measuring team which also included Jean (from Canada), Elles (from the Netherlands) and Molly from just above Santa Barbara. We only worked about 3 hours and the sun was relentless. I was sooooo sweaty I was thankful for the very misty shower when we got back. We are now about to eat, and we have an amazing cook (Julie, from Puerto Rico) and then rest time and the Coqui study this evening. I will update after the evening hike.