Lauren + Palm = Bad Lab Report

In January we took a field trip to Isla Barro Colorado, which is a famous island created when the canal area was flooded. I mentioned it in the first update I sent out. I'm told it was the first tropical nature reserve ever created. Our lab exercise was less than glamorous since it involved crawling on the rainforest floor to collect seeds from palm trees and avoid ticks. The most impressive thing on the island were probably the howler monkeys. When you first hear them, you're convinced that a really gruesome murder is taking place very close to you. Then, when you find out they're just monkeys you're convinced that they must be enormous, when they're really only small and cute. It does take some time to get used to the idea that something so small can make that much noise. They're kind of like small children that way. This is also where I went kayaking around with crocodiles. To be fair, I tried to use the canoe, which would have been safer, but after Rachel and I finally dragged it into the water (it was old and really really heavy), we found out it had a hole and then had to drag an even heavier canoe (now full of water) out of the lake. I'm pretty sure I took a couple of years off the life of my back. It was also a painful (literally) reminder that I have no upper body strength. I will stop abusing parentheses now and put captions on my pictures.

Note: My camera battery died on the boat ride to the island so I don't really have any pictures. To simulate being on the island imagine a tropical forest. Since that is pretty much all it was, this will suffice.

Bottom: Sunrise on the canal. We got on a bus at 5:00am to get to this place
Top: Crocodile!