Day 25- End of jungle duty (for now)

Around 1:45, I awoke to the sound of a flash downpour.  I happened to remember that my raincoat was outside on the banister and I rushed out, with my handy flashlight and flip-flops, to retrieve it.

I had Kayla again and we set out with Cleofo for the deep jungle!  We set out to map a mound called simply, M73 (mound 73).  Luckily, Cleofo has an awesome sense of direction and memory and we eventually found it.  However, many of Andrew's flagging taped- trees had sense been removed or covered over and it took us an hour to finally find the correct location.  An unmapped mound in front of M73 tricked me, because Andrew did not have it on his map.  So, I again named a mound- 10610 (it actually means something- hurray!). 

We were near a swampy area while mapping and were attacked at every turn by nasty, fierce, blood-thirsty mosquitoes.  We even took a short lunch so we could rest the extra time back at Yalbac (where the mosquitoes were plentiful but not swarming in packs).  We finished the entire mapping job by a little before noon and headed back, this time only walking 30 minutes because Cleofo had his directions back.

I found out that I am more clumsy than I thought I was.  On the way to the site we mapped, we crossed over a swampy area where water had carved out small islands sticking up from the ground.  As I "island-hopped", I frequently lost my balance and had to grab on to a nearby tree.  On one of my grabs, I took hold of either a mooch or a basket tie-tie (both of them have medium-sized long black spines).  They got in my hand and caused a nuisance until I pulled them out.  On the way back, there were vines with two opposite backwards-bending hooks every inch or so.  Those kept getting caught on my pants, which irritated me to no end because I would have to bend down and unhook myself.  However, I rejected my earlier disgust when the vine caught me in the cheek.  Since the spines are hooked, I couldn't just pull it out, I had to pull it in the right direction or it would sink in deeper.  So, I turned to a surprised and slightly-disgusted Kayla and asked her (very politely) to please pull the hook out of my face.  She did, and we moved on.

When we were almost out of the jungle, Cleofo found the fruit of a Mamee tree (which is edible) and the fruit tasted almost like a nut (very dry and vaguely sweet).

I feel like a translator when I am having students map for me.  I have all the identified plants numbered and scattered throughout my field notebook.  So, whenever Cleofo tells me the name of a particular tree, I either have instant recall of the number or have to scramble in my book to locate it.  As time has gone on, I have gotten better and better at this locating and/or recall process.

The students and the 2 TA's leave for San Pedro tomorrow around 8 AM.  I was supposed to go out to Yalbac and help Dr. L finish up a project, however, she decided to take a much-needed break and so I will have one as well.  I am looking forward to relaxing a bit over the 3-day weekend and preparing myself for the last 2 weeks in the field.  I can't believe we are so far along- and I am officially done with jungle surveying!  I am going to map Cleofo's home garden, maybe a few other small projects, and this summer's research is complete.  The end is in sight!