Goodbye.. maybe?

I´ve left the city... and with it, internet. When they said I´d have internet every night they weren´t lying per say... just not telling the full truth. It would probably take the entire night to load this website, so, new posts may be at an end from me. I´m currently an hour and a half from my home in the closest town with decent internet. My computer also seems to have died.. so I won´t be able to upload pictures. And of course, I dropped and partially broke my binoculars within 20 minutes of ariving... but really, who needs binoculars for bird research?

Home right now is the most incredible rainforest terrain I´ve ever seen. Go watch Avatar, then try and come to terms with the idea that my tent is set up in an even more awesome landscape. The ride in is unbelievable. The west slope of the Andes is dry and arid, with mostly succulents and other deserty plants. As we crossed over the top onto the east slope it changed almost immediately. Wet and cold, the cloud forest starts here. The trees are absolutely covered in epiphytes and moss and the clouds literally form around you. As we descended through the koñipata valley the forest just got more and more insane. Having splurged on all you can eat Indian food the night before, my first experience with the rainforest was yelling at the truck driver to just pull over, diving over the side of the road and welcoming curry to the jungle. Despite feeling like death the whole 8 hour journey (sitting with 180 eggs on my lap the entire ride) it was still one of the more incredible experiences I´ve had. I don´t think you can really appreciate nature until you´ve driven through true rainforest. (The view from one of our mist nets)

The entire research team is currently staying on a platform provided by cock-of-the-rock lodge. This week has been crazy, as we´re trying to organize all the food and equipment needed for 2 months at 3 research stations as well as training everyone in all the research procedures. Not only that, but we have to keep our food protected from the goddamn monkeys. These capuchins are ugly, mean, and want to steal everything we have, our souls included. So far they´ve taken eggs, butter, fruit, vegetables and a whole bunch of our instant noodles.  (These things are actually pure evil. Hit one with shoe yesterday)

If they get the coffee though I may actually die.. considering that the days start at about 5:30 and if you´re running the experiments at night, end between 2 and 6 in the morning. With what we´ve got left though the food is actually pretty decent. Along with the 180 cans of tuna we brought we also found a ton of tuna hidden in a chest from last year... awesome right? Crap... cab´s here, gotta go.

As far as birding goes... this place is hard to imagine. From our platform I´ve already seen some of the most incredible birds of my life. Paradise, Yellow-Throated, Golden, Saffron-Crowned, Beryl-Spangled, Blue-Necked and Bay-Headed Tanagers are all present. Generally seen as part of the most incredible mixed flocks, it´s hard to get over the fact that these birds are even real. This is just one of the crazy birds we've caught - Cerulean Capped Manakin, a Peruvian endemic (many more insane bird pictures to come).

The butterflies too are just unreal. A decent pass time is watching as the tourists coming to the lodge get out of their trucks and immediately stare down at the ground... all the truck drivers piss there and the tourists go stand in puddles of piss and watch the butterflies that swarm for the salt. Who can blame them though?

I do apologize for the lack of pictures and shitty writing. I´m a little rushed since we need to stock up on fruit and vegetables to bring back to the research station. I also need a hammer and nails... I´m planning to build some canopy treeforts in my spare time. What else? Really.. this place is unbelievable. Just outstandingly beautiful. There was a guy staying here who shoots national geographic quality time-lapses (I mean.. he actually shoots for nat geo). Some of the stuff from around here is pretty much mindblowing. I´ll try and put something together for y´all. (Trying to get a time-lapse of this.. haven't had another clear night though) -

Alright, I must be off. If you want to talk send me an email or facebook message, I´m not sure how often i´ll be able to make it to the blog. I will write blog posts regardless of my internet status though and do my best to post them when I get a chance. Pictures will probably come in August.

* Update, I can't seem to upload pictures from here but I can send them to my mom. So if pictures show up here, you can thank her.

Some pictures from a night hike... I don't want to go back and change this post so you're going to have to deal with just pictures, no words.