9 posts tagged “ecology”
Unlike in Europe, where you can hop a train to Paris from Madrid for the weekend and explore on your own, the Mexico semester provides planned fun with built-in educational opportunities. Snorkelling is a good example of this, as is hiking through a forest looking for monkeys. Today was one of those days, and we went white-water rafting. The morning was cold, as we dressed for it- packing long sleeve shirts in rainjackets, predicting that we could stay dry if we really wanted. That prospect was eliminated before we even took off down the river, when war broke out. Our boat adopted the attitude of the French, put up a weak fight initially, and then just perpetually waved our white flag and submitted to the assault.
After learning how to hold the oar correctly, follow some basic directions and duck into the boat for the waterfalls, we took off down the river with the team cameraman in tow. This paparazzi man, Ernesto, could have given Roberto a run for his money: he has some amazing footage. Unfortunately, none of it is of us because we were in his boat, and Robert has none because we were always first. Its just too bad- our less than flattering expressions will not have the opportunity to echo throughout time on the internet in pixel form.
The highlight of my boating experience was definitely my near-life experience. It’s an early waterfall and not a very big one. In fact, the entire course doesn’t even register to a ½ a point on the scale of white-water. Nevertheless, I’m a little uncomfortable due to the unfamiliarity of the situation. We paddle faster and faster towards the edge before ducking into the boat, and I grab the lifeline in what I swear is the correct position, lean back appropriately, take a deep breath and wait for us to land upright on the other side. Things don’t exactly go as planned, and fortunately or unfortunately, there are no pictures because we are the first boat.
In Fight Club, Jack is arguing with Tyler about why Jack wasn’t included in Project Mayhem, citing the special nature of their relationship, its outgrowth from Fight Club which they began together, and so on. Tyler is incredulous at this and wants Jack to just let go, especially after he can’t robotically produce something he wished he could do before he died. So, speeding down the highway in a car stolen from an airport parking lot by a valet who works there, Tyler lets go of the wheel. He lets go of the wheel, drifts into the lane of an incoming eighteen-wheeler and forces Jack to accept that he’s going to die, not without protest, as the car passes through incoming traffic and off of the highway where it ends in a colossal wreck. They are alive, but battered, having finally experienced something akin to near-life.
The boat flips and despite by best efforts, I am flung out of the grip of the lifeline and into the undercurrent. My first thoughts are, “So this is the undercurrent he was talking about. I should tuck and wait to come out.” Fifteen seconds later, when I feel the oxygen in my lungs dissipating, and the strength of the current increasing, so that I feel like I am being thrown around in a washing machine, I start to think that I am not going to make it. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. I’m obviously a little scared because I think I am going to die, but I don’t have any dramatic thoughts. “So this is what it feels like to drown,” is one thought, and “Well, if I have to die, life hasn’t been so bad.” Like when my plane to Pennsylvania hit a deep spot of turbulence that pushed the plane down altitude significantly, I just accept death if it’s coming because there is nothing I can do about it. So, anyway, struggling for air but doing my best not to inhale the water, I finally pop out. I swim the that I can towards Dana and Danielle, who were also tossed out of the boat and see from the opposite side of the river that it flipped, and that other boats have come down safely. I just had a near-life experience, and I’m damn resentful none of the other boats were privileged either.
For our boat, the rest of the rafting experience was relatively uneventful, but nevertheless a lot of fun. The weather was miserable- dark, cloudy, rainy and yes, cold, but this didn’t inspire our moods at all, even as we choked back water when we tried to swim individually through some rapids. I was soaked to the bone, freezing cold and having a lot of fun. One of the other boats flipped at one point, but they experience was less dramatic than ours, or maybe just less fun. Cesar, our bus driver, popped out during a waterfall, only to stand up gracefully, slip, and fall back into the water- all caught on video, by the way. In another glorious feat of acrobatics, Hugo, our perpetual guide, rolled out of the boat on a fall with incredible drama, again, caught on tape.
I was sad to reach the end of the river because I knew the weather was going to affect my mood when I did. We got out of the boat, still soaked to the bone and freezing cold, but not excited by the prospect of hiking at least 1.5km to a Mayan site, then back down, up to a waterfall where we could finally eat, and then, at least 5km after that, all through the jungle, to reach our cabins where we could acquire (hypothetically) warm showers and dry clothes. To make matters worse, we had to wear our life jackets, our helmets and carry our oars the entire way, and my shoes were not staying on. My feet slid around in them effortlessly, lubricated by water, mud, and blood from the many sticks that stabbed into them. Who would be in a good mood facing that kind of prospect?
Still, we all sucked it up. Lacanja, the Mayan site was undeniably beautiful for its setting, and as the last site we are visiting on the trip, I felt compelled to appreciate it through what I had learned this semester. After awhile, my teeth stopped chattering and things weren’t so bad. We stopped at a beautiful waterfall we were all too cold to swim in and ate a lunch of delicious cheese, watermelon, Ate de Frutas, which is a fruit-mash-pectin-gel-substance that is great and olives. Some of my classmates played the old ROPES game of passing the team through a spider web with the waterfall setting for beautiful pictures. I changed into my semi-dry clothes, relaxed, and enjoyed myself watching them have fun too. The hike back was long, but enjoyable, and I felt like Raymond K.K.K.K. Hessel after my shower- I will never feel so clean in my life again.
Today was the second day of our Calakmul visit. In addition to being an archeological site for a major superstate in the Mayan region, it is also a biosphere reserve in the middle of nowhere. As a result, it was the perfect way to spend two days learning about ruins and keeping an eye out for elusive mammalian species.
We spent the large majority of our time at Calakmul filling our field notebooks with animal sightings. While we have become accustomed to seeing many of the same birds over and over again, things like flycatchers, jays, orioles and mot-mots, we were treated to less common varieties of these birds in our first hour, including toucans, Oscillating Turkeys so frequently Robert chased some down the road on the way in, a Boat-billed Flycatcher, and a Violaceous trogon, which I am glad to take credit for spotting since I am binocularly-challenged. Then, we saw the monkeys! Now you know what time it is- Spot the Sigmund! At first, it was just one lone, aggressive male spider monkey, which is strange because spider monkeys do not usually roam alone. We spent fifteen minutes chasing him a little bit off of the beaten path, listening to him vocalize and make threat displays when two of his friends showed up, more inclined to hop around between the trees and eat.
Later, as we were climbed down from atop the tallest structure in Calakmul, the illustriously named Estructura Dos, we heard the growling bark of a troop of Howler Monkeys, and having been deprived their presence, we chose to chase down their call. We were not disappointed and chased a group of seven or so of them in the trees, at least two large males and a small baby howler monkey. After they had escaped our camera and our trail in the brush, we cut through to the road again where we spotted them a second time, but they had largely stopped howling. Further down the trail, was a very agitated group of howlers, or I should saw, couple of males. I wish I could describe the sound to you- it sounded everything like a cross between the sound you hear the T-Rex make in Jurassic Park to the phantom scream of a supernatural villain in a horror movie. Oh wait, why don’t you watch the movie on Youtube? That more hominid, less-frightening sound you hear is Ellen.
Today, we were accompanied by the field biologist of Calakmul on a nature walk around the largest of the five reservoirs the Calakmul Mayans used for water. Again, we were treated to many birds on our way in, including a pair of unexpected Great Egrets on the other side of the reservoir. We also spotted an Agouti, several Great Curassows, and more Oscillated Turkeys. While on the trail, we also spotted Leist Grebes, an as-of-yet unidentified but very colorful snake, and the molted skin of the vicious Fer-de-Lance.
Like I mentioned before, in addition to being one of the largest biological reserves in Mexico, Calakmul is also a major archeological site, although for its relative importance, little is excavated for likely one reason: the remoteness of its location. From Xpuhil, a relatively small town, it is a two-and-a-half-hour trip by bus, at least, depending on how many turkeys Robert takes a mind to paparazzing on the way in. While it was discovered in the 1930s, large-scale excavations did not take place until the 1980s, when travel-guides were still recommending chainsaws as useful tools for alleviating the difficulties of travelling into Calakmul. Moreover, while approximately 117 stelae have been found here, more than any other in the Mayan region, because the quality of the limestone is poor when not imported, most of the history is lost except where it is recorded in other cities. That it is even recorded at all attests to the large hegemonic power of Calakmul as the seat of the Kaan dynasty and arch-rival of the superstate of Tikal.
The notable features of the site include the monolithic structures one and two and structure three for a post-archeologically-relevant inscriptions. Structure one and structure two are only interesting because they are gigantic, and you can see Guatemala from the top of them. Otherwise, they fit the mold of the common Calakmul monument: Terminal Classic with Early Classic substructures with Peten-style architecture. Structure three, however, is worth mentioning for its graffiti. Although there is a large amount of graffiti left by tourists, who feel compelled to destroy whatever stucco has been spared erosion, there is an inscription from the archeologist, Cyrus Lundall, who discovered the site in the 19321. Can you pick out his name in the old and the tourist graffiti?
Overall, I’d argue that Calakmul is incomparable to any site we have seen so far, not just for its magnitude, but for its location as well.
Today, we travelled to the Siaan Kaan Biosphere Reserve, on which is the small site of the city of Muyil, where we ventured back into the land of name-by-number structures.
To begin our day, we took a motorboat into the lagoons of Siaan Kaan and explored the Mayan-constructed canals surrounded by marsh. Conspicuously, there were few birds- I only recorded one chilling Great Blue Heron in my notebook, even though it was flying over the lagoon. This is probably because the lagoons were made of freshwater, which is naturally less biomass abundant than saltwater. As a result, there is fewer things for the birds to eat, like fish, which are absent because of the lack of large amounts of algae. The water as clear, icy blue, and where the boat had not stirred up the sandy sediment at the bottom, there was an off-white limestone bottom to gaze on, perfectly devoid of all life except for sporadic marsh grass.
After the passing through two lagoons connected by the Mayan canals, we entered another group of Mayan canals, were instructed to stand on the dock and put our life vests on. So, I, centered the life jacked on my body like I intended to put it on backwards, and then threaded my legs through the arm-holes, pulled it up like a gigantic diaper, and fastened it around my stomach. Not visual enough? Try the picture to your left. Then, I lowered myself into the water that makes the Guadalupe River feel warm, and proceeded to float down the Mayan canals, paparazzi’d by Ahau Roberto the entire way. Along the side of the riverbanks, we gazed on more marsh grass, mangroves, some termite nests, and occasional spots of brown algae, but we were really the only living things in the water until a second group of tourists, all in boats, met us at the end of canal. They insisted they had paid more for their dry excursion, but I doubt they had as much fun.
On the way back, Aakash’s attempts to imitate Leonardo di Caprio gave me something to contemplate- I still owe him a Mayan sacrifice- would a lagoon instead of a cenote suffice? Before I made my decision, we had arrived back on land to explore Muyil. Unfortunately, this Mayan city, while beautiful, provided no opportunities to make up for my indecision.
Like other sites we have visited, like Labna, Sayil, or Acanceh, there is not a lot of money coming into the site. As a result, less of the buildings are reconstructed or consolidated, there are fewer tourists to spoil my pictures or to encourage grotesque sound and light shows. This also means that a good number of buildings are mostly as they were found- no more than large mounds of rubble. A good number of the structures were still “presentable” in a way that they would appease the eyes of tourists, however.
Muyil itself was one of the largest East Coast cities and has architecture that reflects influences from their East Coast geography and the Peten region. There is evidence of occupation from the Middle Preclassic (550BC) to the Terminal Classic (~925AD), although there is no architecture from the earliest periods, so the origins of the site are dated by pottery. Apparently, it is one of several sites that we will see in the coming days with a peculiar round structure at the top of the Castillo related to either the Terminal Classic/Postclassic cult of Quetzalqauotl (sp?), or possibly the World Tree.. More interesting to me now that we have seen more than fifteen sites of ruins, was that this site is still used in modern Mayan rituals. On the pathway into the reserve, there was a hieroglyph as a worship-aid for a Mayan pilgrimage up the East Coast of the Yucatan peninsula where they carry a Jesus Christ on a cross. This is yet another example of the way the Mayans have integrated Christianity into their ancestral religion. Additionally, one of the temples is still used by modern Mayan shamans for religious rituals because it is built over a sacred cave. As I may have mentioned before, caves and cenotes are inherently sacred to the Mayan because they represent a link to the underworld, Xibalba.
After the site and the lagoon, we went out to lunch in Bakalar, the small town where we stayed at the hotel Laguna Bakalar. The restaurant was built next to a cenote that would rival a small lake in size and reached a depth of 90m. After the frigid water of the reserve earlier that morning, I had burnt myself out on swimming, but I did stick my feet in the water to find it surprisingly warm not only for the weather that day, but also for how deep it was. It was yet another nice cenote ending to a long, Mexico day of ecology, travelling, ruins and restaurants.
I don’t feel compelled to say a whole lot about what class has been like the past couple of days. Several of my fellow students gave presentations on members of our reef taxonomy. Robert gave one of his slideslows from pictures he took on his underwater camera. Oh, yea…he took those pictures snorkeling, once in Puerto Morelos and once in Cozumel, as part of class.
Fellow Ursinus students, at home and abroad, what did you do today?
After leaving Kiuic, we headed for the Caribbean Coast to visit the Mayan sites of Coba and Tulum. While we never made it to Coba, we did visit Tulum and it was quite an experience in tourism.
Tulum, like Chichen Itza, has a large influx of tourists from Cancun. As a result, the city, resembles an amusement park, although a much more beautiful and smaller one than Chichen because it is perched on cliffs overlooking the Caribbean sea. Although some may argue that its Floridian landscaping increases this beauty, I likened it to a miniature golf course because of it. The palms were excessive, the grass over-maintained, and resulting, it bordered on gaudy. I couldn’t help but wonder what how the Mayans who built Tulum had envisioned instead. I will say that I prefer this gaudiness over Chichen Itzas sac-bes of vendors, however. At Tulum, they were permitted in the strip-mall entrance, but no further. Equally ridiculous, however, was the swamp of tourists, many of whom wish to take advantage of the beach access and seemed to be dressed only for that. Tulum was just a backdrop for their sunbathing, I suppose.
Tulum the archeological site was comparable to little else that we have seen because it is the only place we have visited that was almost exclusively built in the style of East Coast Architecture. The temple of this style in Ek’Balam was very plain and remarkably boring in comparison to the Puuc, Peten and Chenes style architecture of the other sites we had seen, as well as the Acropolis at Ek’Balam. As a result, I expected Tulum to be equally boxy and plain. I was pleasantly surprised. At the Temple of the Frescos, we were treated to what were elaborate, colorful murals before an assault of camera flashes bleached them, and contrasting masks echoing the themes of light and dark, life and death, etc that Hugo enjoys pointing out at many of the sites. There was little of the plain architecture we witnessed at that Temple in Ek’Balam, perhaps a reflection of the longer-lasting wealth Tulum retained as an important trade center.
After Tulum, we went back to our hotel for the night where we listened to a lecture of howler and spider monkeys by Phil. Afterwards, we were set loose on the town to acquire dinner and breakfast for the next morning since we would be getting up very early to go to Puntas Lagunas to monkey watch. We were not disappointed when we got there, in as much as we did get to see a very large spider monkey troop, even if we didn’t see the Howler monkeys. Can you spot the monkey?
We departed from the monkeys to listen to a semi-comprehensible lecture on the ecology of reefs by a guy who works at a reserve, but we didn’t do any snorkeling there because the water was too rough. Tomorrow, however, there will be snorkeling off of the coast of Puerto Morelos. The day after, we will visit the tourist-clogged Playa del Carmen and Cozumel islands for the same. I can’t think of any better way to have class.
We have left Kiuic after a long two weeks testing the limits of off-the-grid living, mist-netting, exploring its archeological ruins, some of which were right under our nose the whole time, and completing midterms or finals for two of our classes. While at times, I will admit the experience was trying in ways I didn’t expect, I am definitely grateful for it. Not only was it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, from which I learned a lot from the anticipated archeological and biological experiences, but I also just how “renewable” energy is, and just how far it will stretch.
Kiuic runs entirely on solar power. According to my inside sources, this was entirely a philosophical decision as opposed to a functional one. Given the nature of Kiuic as a Biocultural Reserve, whose existence, in part, is to make a point about the sustainability of our lives and our relationship with nature, this cannot be unexpected. However, solar power is not without its drawbacks- aside from the expense of the panels, in terms of toxicity as well as money, nevermind the low-lifetime batteries, it would seem like the Reserve could do better with reducing the impact by keeping the panels and bringing the lines in. This would pour clean power into the grid when the batteries are fully charged and it is not being used on the site, off-setting the environmental cost of the panels. That said, it would also facilitate heavy laptop use of sixteen Ursinus students studying for midterms, which is probably not the best way to promote sustainability, but the sun goes down eventually.
Environmental impact extends beyond energy-consumption, of course. While those of us in the United States often have the privilege of ignoring this crucial issue, although we certainly should not in light of our food and pharmaceutical industries impact, we are among the few. The number one cause of death in “third-world” countries is not some “exotic” disease like malaria, it’s diarrhea from poor or unsanitary water quality. Kiuic addresses the water issue by providing its guests with biodegradable soap and shampoo and treats its own waste.
Ultimately, I was left considering Americans technological decline and how that technology has simultaneously been our downfall. I’ll be the first to admit that I would be an entirely different person without my laptop on this trip, and just in general. As far back as I can remember, the computer, together with the internet, was the primary vehicle by which I learned about the world. Yes, books were always important, and I remember more than I will ever admit through conversations with parents about the economy, turbines, American government, etc, but all of these things were reinforced by finding them somewhere else, in different words and different contexts. I shouldn’t forget about what I will dramatically entitle my “Intellectual Liberation,” which, too, was manifested in books, but was reinforced with community and access to information I might have not otherwise encountered- all with a skeptical eye, of course. The cost of all of this, in terms of my lifetime carbon footprint, is probably embarrassingly high before school is even considered, especially now that I am in college. But learning is expensive, as my experience in Kiuic demonstrated, and even then our impact was limited. What was has been since then, and before? How many people still leave their laptops on all night needlessly- I’ll admit, sometimes I forget.
All of this, and the place of the United States is slipping in the world, not just socially, but in terms of competitiveness. Hindsight is 20/20, and we probably could have done more to invest in sustainable technology before. Not only would this have alleviated our impact on our environment, at least a little bit, but we could have maintained our competitiveness in the world economy, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, we live in a country that basks in its own greatness, and social attitudes about science and technology aren’t always conducive to progress. It’s the Amurican way- the world bends beneath us. I just hope we everyone else down, too. (I’ll leave that to China.)
This weekend, we took a siesta from Kiuic this week to visit the small coastal town of Celestún to rest, watch some flamingos, and hang out among the mangroves. We spent the first day, driving, listening to Ellen’s lecture on mangroves and Ashley’s on flamingos, relaxing, which for the most part constituted reading in the hotel room, doing a small amount of work, and finding food. The next morning, however, we woke up bright and early to the estuary. There, we took a boat through the often very shallow water and were greeted with a sea of pink flamingos.
Ashley’s lecture was particularly timely for this excursion not only because it described a lot of the flamingo behaviors we were close enough to see, include juvenile/adult hierarchy, and various feeding techniques, but also the idea of vigilance. The idea is that vigilance, or when a flamingo extends its neck high in the air to keep watch over their surroundings due to disturbance, is incompatible with feeding, which requires the flamingo to submerge its head to employ filter feeding. Because our tourist boats are loud, like all tourist boats, this induces the flamingos in the flock to become vigilant and disturbs their constant feeding, which in turn results in lower reproductive success later due to a series of a chain reactions. Essentially, we disturbed the flamingos by visiting them, although we only disturbed one so much that it felt threatened enough to fly away.
In addition to flamingo watching, we also continued with the traditional bird-watching that we seem to do wherever we go. Many of the familiar faces and sky profiles were present- Double-crest cormorants, Anhingas, Herons, Egrets, and so on, but we also managed to catch glimpses of some rarer species, such as a nesting group of Tiger Herons, and the Pygmy Kingerfisher.
After our adventure on the lagoon, we offered ourselves up as mosquito feasts to take a walk through a mangrove forest and learn to distinguish black and red mangroves. While there are several interesting differences, including viviparity, or “live birth” in red mangroves, the most obvious difference is the presence of prop roots in red mangroves, and pneumataphores in black mangroves, which otherwise look no different than a normal tree. Prop roots are what you typically think of when you think about mangroves- sprawling extensions of the trunk for things to live in and around, if they can handle the wave agitation and the salinity. Pneumataphores are two inch protrusions in the ground which help the mangrove acquire oxygen.
We had lunch at the same restaurant as we did the day before on our way out of town and now we have returned to Kiuic for a week of preparing for the Bio midterm.
I'm having a hard time believing I am half-way through my second week in Merida. Between cenotes, the beach, nights on the town, trips to museums, salsa dancing lessons...it's really been a lot. Normally, I have nothing to say when I call home. OChem tests are the event of the week, well...if by some miracle they happen to be the only test I have that week instead of one of four.
This week has been relatively slow, though. Lest you all think we're on some Ursinus-sponsored vacation designed to catapult our GPAs, we have two Bio quizzes a week, blogging, and a fair amount of Spanish homework due on a regular basis on top of progress on our ecology project. Today, before most Ursinus students have even moved back into the dorms, we had a midterm which was surprisingly difficult.
We have still fit in time for fun, though, but that fun this week has deprived you all of exciting (but still interesting!) pictures. Yesterday, we visited CICY, the Center of Scientific Investigation of the Yucatan. We took a Dawley2 led tour through their botanical gardens. The second picture is of the gumbo limbo/naked indian/tourist tree. It's called the naked indian tree because it's red, and the tourist tree as a rebuttal because it's red and flaky like the skin of gringos. You'll have to defer to someone else for all the cool uses of this tree, but apparently it cures everything. Below that is a particularly useful plant as well, along with its accompanying sign, declaring it vegetation of Texas. It's a member
of the Agave family, which no surprise, includes the Agave plant that is responsible for tequila, and the trouble-making mescal. The particular species you see was that "important fiber" from the cenotes, heniquen.
I hope you all took notes! There's a quiz on this information tomorrow! At least for me, anyway...Phylum, Class, Order, Family, I'm sure.
Today, even more excitement because we made panuchos. It's derived from Pan de Chucho, Chucho being the nickname for Jesus. As a result, regardless of how offensive it may be, I am calling it Jesus bread because it was delicious. It's two tortillas glued together with frijoles, then deep fried until the tortillas are crunchy. Then, you sprinkle lettuce, a little bit of chicken or egg, onions, and tomatoes on top, and eat it like a taco. My blood pressure is a little higher for eating two of them, but I'm not inclined to feel guilty. I wish I had pictures, but we were too busy cooking, standing around as other people did work, and eating to do so. I guess you guys will just have to wait until I come home and clog your arteries with the Jesus bread.
First, rather than organize my photos logically for the first couple of backposts, I have decided to throw them altogether. This is so that you can see what I am doing every day, and not only what I did five days ago. Really, I just didn't upload them in order because I wasn't paying attention. Also, you´ll have to excuse this bizarre apostrophe. Mexican, keyboard, Mexican apostrophe. It´s also how you´ll know I am updating from an internet cafe and not my laptop. A little Spanish lesson before I digress into the photos: If you call it an internet cafe, they will send you to an OXXO (Mexican 711) for coffee, even if they work for the internet cafe. Trust me.
Ok, fotografias. The first picture to your right is a picture of los estudiantes del CIS attempting to dance the salsa, some more successfully than others. The next picture is from the Great Barn Adventure, and it was the coed room Robert delightfully labelled with the transgendered symbol. Following is a picture of our ridiculous amount of luggage, and then a picture of me with Megan, my roommate, and our host mother. Finally, all of us exhausted in the Philadelphia International Terminal, which is far superior to the peon terminals that domestic flights go through, as evidenced only by the food.
So, what you have all been waiting for: The Great Barn Adventure. In my opinion, no hay, no barn, but since it was clearly a barn at some point as evidenced by several large support beams and the lack of insulation in the stone walls, I´ll let it slide. We had heat, electricity and running water that was occasionally lukewarm. Additionally, the climate provided fantastic training grounds for our tropical semester. The pinnacle of this training involved ice skating, but Robert will have to provide you with that picture, and I´m unfortunately not in it.
Every day, we beat the sun up at the refreshing hour of seis y media and ate breakfast. Afterwards, we were productive for several hours, most days working on our ecology research projects and getting some supposed exercise. No surprise to all of you, I chose to forego this in place of a nap. After lunch, we were treating to enlightening lectures on the taxonomies and derived characteristics of Terrestrial Arthropods, Birds, Amphibians and Reptiles, as well as Plants. While I could do without a few classifications that I will only remember by rote memorization, this was not as boring as I´m sure it sounds to many of you. In fact, I liked it all except for the plants, which are only interesting to me in the hypothetical.
After our lectures, we had dinner, which involved pizza the former employer of mine which has institutionalized procedures that facilitate good hygeine, Papa John´s, and also Chinese food. After dinner, here was more learning, a movie in Spanish, a flying rodent not in the order Rodentia, getting to know you PowerPoints in which I shared the love of my life and best friend, Darwin the Death Trap, and the drawing of a bird that belongs in Star Trek, the Trogon.
Our adventure concluded at 2:30 in the morning on Sunday when we loaded up the bus and left for the airport. That picture of the terminal marked the only tehn minutes I stayed awake for the next four hours that we were waiting. was a member of the late night five that chose to forego what would consittute as a glorified nap by going to sleep at ten the night before, and the proceeded to chatter loudly on the bus on the way to the airport.
Ya estuvo! Próximo, explico sobre el día primer en Mexico!
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Ursinus in Mexico Updated: Dec 3, 2007
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