We're back! I'm sitting in the nice air conditioning of my hotel room in Brazil, and realizing that I haven't blogged since the end of my Brazil trip, and waiting for the other guys to get back and I guess it's time.
We woke up early yesterday, 4:45am, which was particularly difficult because of the time zone difference to start our journey into the forest. We met up at the gas station with some beetle collecting pals who were also connected with INPA, the research institution that was helping us with our trip. Breakfast #1 consisted of a nice bag of rolls, guava juice (from concentrate, not the real thing but close enough), and those Negresco cookies that Gustavo always used to bring for us last year in the lab (basically oreos that are a little less sweet). The beetle people car was similar to our Jeep renegade except it looked like it was actually meant for going on dirt roads and actually had trunk space. For most of the three-hour journey, the roads were not terrible. Rhainer expertly navigated all of the roads and besides occasional potholes that would sometimes cover most of the road, it was pretty smooth sailing...er driving. Apparently the beetle people hadn't eaten breakfast so we stopped for breakfast #2 those tapioca taco things with fresh cheese and some kind of palm fruit cooked into the middle of it. It tasted surprisingly meaty. They also gave us some cupuacu juice and let us try the fruit (I think you're not supposed to eat the seeds). The coolest place about this little breakfast joint was this tree that was over on the side. It was totally full of vultures or "urubus".
After gorging ourselves on tapioca, we headed out to the first site. There were a bunch of red libelulid dragonflies and a huge gomphid that we chased forever but could never get. The heat engulfed us in a warm sweaty hug so I think we were all excited to get back into the air conditioned car afterward. Back up a couple minutes: so last time I went to Brazil, I bought these really great khaki adventure pants from DI. They work really well in the forest and they're lightweight and great. I probably should have bought some other field pants, but I ran out of time and didn't. Anyway, back to the story, we get all packed into our car, and began to back out. But instead of backing out, our wheels went deeper and deeper until the wet sand we had parked in was almost up to the bumper. We all get out to push the car out of the sand. I took my place on the right side of the car. On three we all pushed, but the car didn't budge. Some of our beetle friends came over to help so I kind of got scooted over to the side so I could only push the tire. On three we all pushed again, and we could feel the car wiggling a bit, but what I noticed the most was the rrrrriiippp of my pants splitting open right at the crotch seam. I don’t think I have ever had such a big hole in my pants. As everyone else was standing there worrying about how to get the car out of the sand, I was desperately trying to think of what I could do to hide this giant hole in my pants. I did NOT want my dignity to be compromised by the professors finding out about my folly. Thus, I pulled down my shirt and got quietly into the car as inconspicuously as I could (by this time, an experienced Brazilian driver had maneuvered the car out of the sand and onto dry ground-he was the one who discovered where the four-wheel drive button was). I kept looking over at Sam with a strained expression on my face, hoping that one of us would think of something.
Every once in a blue moon, a human experience moments of sheer brilliance, and if any moment of my life would qualify, I believe this is it. I remembered I had packed a long sleeve shirt in my bag that morning. I guess long sleeves are better to wear in the Amazon so you don’t get sick from the sun (insulation sickness?), so I had brought a couple, but I didn’t want to wear it because it was so hot outside, but I brought it with me in the car. I realized that if I draped my shirt around my waist with the sleeves tied in the back, you couldn’t really see the hole in my pants! So the rest of the day, I went around wearing my other shirt like a skirt, traipsing through rivers and climbing over branches and things. I thought someone might comment on what a strange style I was wearing, but they probably thought I had a strange sense of style in the first place with my fanny pack and flat-rimmed BYU hat. So, that was how I escaped the shame of everyone knowing that I had a giant hole in my pants.
The other big adventure of the day was seeing the pink Dolphins. The water in the Rio Negro where we were collecting was red, like tea because of all the roots and debris in it, which was impressive in the first place, but apparently the river dolphins are also somewhat pinkish! I would classify the ones we saw as more gray, but it was still super cool! One of the Americans in our group, the beetle guy, didn’t really want to make the drive out to see the river dolphins, because he’d seen dolphins before and would rather go look at beetles, but Dr. Bybee and us were pretty excited to see them. We had to sit through this presentation thing where they explained all about the dolphins and how we could only touch them under their mouths not on the top of their heads, and then we got to go sit on the dock right next to the girl who was feeding them and pet them and stuff. I wasn’t entirely sure how it worked if this company “owned” the dolphins, or if they were free to go wherever they wanted on the river, but apparently the money we paid went to conservation, and in any case, this kind of business seems better than other businesses like selling their eyes for amulets or harvesting their organs and things. Apparently they used to have a huge problem with people killing the pink river dolphins because of the legends about them. I guess sometimes these pink dolphins turn into really handsome men and get women pregnant, so a lot of husbands were mad and wanted to kill them. Anyway, we didn’t get pregnant—I think that would have been a really awkward phone call—but the dolphins were awesome.
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| Acai from outside the mall:) I ate this twice in one day |
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| This is an acai tree! Acai is this tiny purple fruit that they grind up and add sugar to. |
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| We were looking for rimonella dragonflies by holding back waterfalls and I found this cute megalopteran |
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| These were some pretty rad orange mushrooms |
After going to a couple more sites we headed back to our hotel and finished the evening out with some arroz and feijao and our first acai cup of the trip (we were really glad that Dr. Bybee was as enthusiastic about acai as we were and Rhainer supports us in our goal to eat as much of it as we can).
These are the reasons I blog: First, I want to post all my pictures without seeming like I'm bragging or showing them off to people who don't care. But more than that, I want to be a writer. I feel like so many of the problems with the world today come because of poor communication. Scientists in particular seem to get a particularly bad rap for being difficult to understand and sometimes precariously uppity in their words and expression. I hope that I won't ever be a scientist who thinks my work or my hobbies or interests are somehow more important and interesting than those of others or that having letters behind my name make me deserving of honor or praise of any kind. Even though this stuff is pretty amazing. #seeyalaterseeya
