Field Trip 1

Sorry, I know it's a smidge late, but I have been super busy!!!

So this will only be a brief outline :)

Monday 14th, we headed off on our first field trip, leaving our highland homes in the Andes to descend back down to sea level. We had had a bit of a kerfuffle that morning trying to get our passports back from the foreigners office, as once in the country you are required to go and register your visa - it's all rather tedious but a necessity if you want to stay in the country - which I most certainly do!

So we headed off after all of that kerfuffle at around 10 am. We arrived in Playa Escondida at around 7pm, it was a pretty long trip! But we had a few stops for snacks, food, and loo facilities, as well as petrol. The country here is so beautiful! I love driving through it and seeing this amazing landscape!!

Tuesday we put together out quadrats and field kits, and had a short briefing before waiting for the tide to go out enough for us to begin our surveys. I started out with Taylah to hunt for whelks, which we then weighed and measured. We had only been going about 45 minutes when the weather decided to turn on us. But we didn't mind :) it was great to be out in the field. We sampled whelks for a couple of hours, before the rain really started to take its toll on the scales, and they began to malfunction. So we retreated back to the hotel, where we put our data into the computer and dried off. We had a great afternoon chilling on the beach which was topped off by the appearance of a boa constrictor - naturally all the Aussies jumped right in and with Daniel's assistance (he's one of our tutors) we caught the boa. He wasn't overly please about that, but we all enjoyed having a good look. We then returned him to the other end of the beach where he promptly hopped into the water of a small pool and disappeared. I think I could even hear him grumbling as he left. Admittedly, if some random was to come and grab me, I think I may be slightly disgruntled as well!

Wednesday we headed to another beach to complete another set of surveys, this time being on transect lines and quadrats. We had a good group and got through it all quickly, and then chilled on the beach for a while. We had an interesting encounter with the local fisherman, as they had caught a green sea turtle. They removed the fins, the heart and some of the belly meat before tossing the remains back into the water. It was interesting to talk with the fisherman and to learn about how they lived their lives and what they fished and how often. But it was rather brutal to see the turtle.

Thursday we packed up and jumped on the bus, returning to our mountain lairs back in Cumbaya. It was a wonderful first field trip, and I am thoroughly looking forward to our second one!!