21 days here. To my memory it doesn’t seem so but, to my body, it does. I have had quite the journey. Many nights I have gone to bed either frustrated or…elated. I feel as though I have hit the breaking point.

If I have to experience just one more mosquito in my rice, one more pair of 3-day wet pants, one more spider web to the face, one more spiny palm spine in my hand, one more bug bite on the arch of my foot, one more inconvenient rainy day that makes it impossible to go out and collect data just four days before we have to leave, one more time the suctioning of the shin-deep mud removes the boot from my foot causing me to fall over, one more cut from a terrestrial bromeliad, one more venomous snake to nearly step on, one more cluster of harvestmen spiders to fall in my hair, one more fish-hook vine that snags my hair and prevents me from getting home on time for dinner, one more butt-slide down a muddy hill caking my pants and backpack with mud…

Just one more breathtaking vibrant streak of color from the fluttering wings of a morpho butterfly, one staring contest between me and a caiman floating below the surface of the water, one more canoe trip with a river otter, one more game of hide and seek with a troop of capuchins, one more game of tag with a very aggravated male howler monkey, one more rainy morning sitting under a tarp with my partner marking over 200 spiders with paint, one more chorus of the Montezuma’s Oropendola up in the canopy that makes me feel like I am in an underwater casino, one more army ant swarm to burst from the forest beside me that is accompanied by the blue-faced ant birds waiting to catch a meal from the small insects fleeing the ants, one more moment of hysterical laughter in the middle of the forest with my partner, one more blood-chilling moment, bent over, removing soil from a leaf cutter ant nest, only to hear a low growl and turning around to see the bold looming presence of a jet-black jaguarundi watching over me, one more endless moment of eye contact with that predator, one more quiet moment beneath all of the diverse leaves of the canopy, just one more pink sunset on the river…

I am at the breaking point between insanity and discovery. Being here has made me realize that I love every moment that I have out in the forest, even the ones involving mud. However, I have also realized that science is very much like art, fantastic and wonderful to create, but as a profession, the need of money causes the passion for the work to diminish. I still find that I have much to learn before a decision is made, and I am looking forward to what my decision is.

This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, put on my muddy boots, and slopped down a muddy and miserable trail in search of spiders. Not only did I find these spiders (clustered in a tree of over 200), I poked a stick at them to chase them down a tree (that is covered in spines both on the bark and on the leaves) towards a mesh cube to later determine their sex and transport them to another spiny palm site on the other side of the reserve. I then spent the afternoon poking around in leaf-cutter ant holes.

I never imagined that I would love field-work this much. Yeah, it is exhausting and frustrating (so many hills and so many insect bites), and sometimes I have no idea if the data my partner and I are collecting is making any sense, but I truly enjoy every moment of it. Each venture out there has a purpose and we are finally starting to see some interesting results. The procedure of coming out here to the wilderness, running around and observing behaviors, and developing a testable question and predictions about a system has been more stressful (and more fun) than I ever imagined it could be. However, I am still not a fan of reaching my bare hand into a fabric cube of spiders and watch them bite my hand- nor do I like poking sticks at them in a tree and having them fall in my hair.

We have almost completed our harvestmen (spider) project. Our question focuses on whether or not these spiders that live in spiny palms in clustered groups of up to 300 individuals have sex specific chemical cues since it has been established that they are sexually dimorphic and rely on chemical cues left by other individuals when finding a roosting site. We have translocated 510 individuals into 17 trees and thus far it seems that females attract both males and females whereas males only seem to attract more males. But we still need to do the stats. Just three more translocations are needed and then we will collect the last of the data involving the habitat characteristics of each translocation site

With regards to our other project looking at the potential difference in leaf cutter ant colony quality and behavior when living in un-logged or selectively logged areas, we still have a lot of data to collect. We tried doing our data collection at night but…there was a large animal in the canopy above us, a wasp that stung my partner and professor, and a giant tarantula. So we have to collect our data during the late afternoon. But I am sure we can complete everything over the next seven days.

I look forward to finishing up early and having some time to eat lunch on the river. I also look forward to one last easy hike through the jungle before going home.

I hear the sloshing of my boots being suctioned by deep watery mud in my sleep.  Then I see, amidst total darkness, endless sparking green and blue eye shines of the hundreds of spiders perched on leaves, branches, and roaming in the leaf litter glistening and sparkling like stars in the night sky.  I am then shaken awake by the deep rolling moan of the howler monkeys echoing through the canopy. A chorus of birds of striking colors of red and yellow call from the field and I find that I am overwhelmed with gratitude and passion.  This is what I am meant to do.

Four days have now come and gone at Refugio Bartola.  Many of us are still stressed about our project ideas and designs, but we all are working well with our respective partners and with each other.  I like to say that we are all lost in the right direction.  I remember being very anxious the first day while walking through the trails, thinking, “How in the world am I going to find something to study- wait, what in the world was that?!”  However, my partner and I work very well together and we have come to a decision about both of our project ideas: our behavioral project will focus on potential sex differences in the foraging and roosting behavior of harvestmen, a type of arachnid that looks too much like a spider and our conservation project will focus on looking at the differences in the soil and activity in leaf cutter ant colonies to see if there is a difference between colonies that live in logged areas and un-logged areas of the forest.

Perhaps what I have come to learn about this trip is that we are doing more than just vacationing.  What I have seen on every trip out into the rainforest is something many people can see.  I can talk about how I saw a river otter on my first canoeing trip up the Bartola river, or the myriads of poison dart frogs I see about my feet, or the strangely shaped and brilliantly colored insects I see landing on my clothes, or nearly stepping on a turtle in a mud puddle left by a boot because I thought it was a fruit, or having a spider monkey throw a fruit at my head and hit me, or seeing a fer de lance and a coral snake in the same day, or having to pluck harvestmen with my bare hands from a spiny palm, or having a bullet ant land on my neck.  What is different about this forest for me is that I am not just observing, I am interacting.  Placing my data collection equipment around ant mounds, marking harvestmen with paint pens, actually performing research, has made me a part of this forest.  Every venture has purpose, every venture has meaning and I cannot wait to see what lies beneath the next leaf.