Planes, a bus, riverboat and 15 hours later we finally made it to Refugio Bartola and the neotropical rainforest along the Rio San Juan, Nicaragua. The amount of abundant wildlife and astonishing biodiversity I’ve encountered in the last three days is almost indescribable. To get a picture, at night time while sloshing along one of the countless muddy trails the ground glistens with the eyes of the largest spiders and unidentifiable insects I’ve ever encountered. Whether it is the chirping red Strawberry Poison Dart frogs, the rambunctious White Faced Capuchin swinging from branch to branch 30m in the air, or the venomous Coral Snake slithering among the leaf litter (I’m wearing calf high boots Mom it’s all good!) I have yet to feel that I’m not actually in a Planet Earth documentary on National Geographic, but actually experiencing the real thing.

In terms of the research aspect of the trip I’m currently in the beginning stages of developing and working on two projects. My partner (Kathleen) and I are working on an animal behavior study aimed at understanding interspecific competition among ground dwelling spiders, while our conservation study is looking at the effects of distance from edge environments on bird and mammal species richness.

So far it’s been quite a surreal experience. Having such an incredible opportunity in the rainforest is both a daunting and humbling experience. And maybe, just hopefully, I’ll stop having vivid images of spiders crawling all over me every time I close my eyes in the next couple days.