Yes, I would like some cheese with my whine, thank you.

Have I mentioned that doing damage transects is hard work? And that it takes a long time? And that IT'S HOT IN MEXICO?!

Before I discuss this any further, you should know that while I was not pleased at the time, I am pleased now that it's over and pleased to be sitting on the roof enjoying a nice breeze. However, it's hilarious that 70 degrees feels cool.

We set out at 6AM to an ejido about an hour and a half away called Noh-Bec. The comisario didn't have two ejidotarios ready for us at 7.30, as we'd discussed when we went to ask for permission last week, but promised us two other guys would be ready soon. So at 8 we meet our two guys, whose combined age was still probably younger than 50% of our research team. As Alex put it, "We're giving them a tour of their own ejido." After a couple of hours of off roading searching for the place, we took them back to town and requested someone who actually knew the land, and after waiting a while for someone to finish what they were doing, we were off again, around 11. He lead us to a road that used to exist. An hour of extreme offroading later, we were in the middle of the selva mediana-alta (medium-high forest). The conversation leading up to that moment was along the lines of, let's find the points and come back on Friday to do them. Let's just do bracken today. But upon our arrival at the points, it suddenly changed to, "Let's do this!" A few issues here:

• It was noon. You know, high sun.
• The two damage transects we've completed thus far took over 4 hours each.
• Today's pair of transects were in a forestry ejido. Meaning, there were more trees, bigger trees, and we couldn't use nails to tag the trees.
  
• Fishing line is hard to tie quickly.
• Our "ejidotarios" were obediant but didn't know the trees or the land at all.
  

Alex and Karen took the transect that required a 2 kilometer hike to get to, but I got to take that hike later anyway when Irene and I realized we misplaced our DBH tape (diameter at breast height, it's a snazzy little forestry tool that measures the diameter using the circumfrence). Thankfully, they had an extra, and work carried on. We finished the transects a little after 6, out of water and pretty tired. But they're done! And that felt pretty awesome. Actually, all things considered, we had the weather and the shade in our favor for the most part. High of only 85 today, and a somewhat regular breeze. Glorious. We don't have to go back there again. At least, not till next year. But hopefully I'll actually have graduated with my masters by then. Actually, we do still have to do bracken fern work, but we're going back on Friday and we requested someone a little more familiar with the land...

We got back to Chetumal at 8.30. Long day, but I think we're all feeling pretty accomplished and pretty glad to have that one behind us. Tomorrow we return to Juan Sarabia to do more damage transect work. You may recall this is the ejido that I now co-own with Karen and Irene. It's nearby so we don't have to leave until 7! I might go read a little bit FOR FUN before I go to bed!