back to Bacalar tomorrow

Not much to report here. We worked from home after several failed attempts to get permission to work on ejidos in the area. Tomorrow, we're doing damage transects and bracken hunting in Bacalar starting at 6.45AM! Thankfully that only means we have to leave here around 6.15. Oof. And at the end of the day? Not playing in the laguna, sadly. Shower, pack, and drive up north to work there for a few days. We got our tree tags today!

By the way, when I say "up north" I kind of mean central Quintana Roo, the state I've been living and working in. I work in the Southern Yucatan region. So we're going to the sort of northernmost part of the southern part of the region, if that makes sense. I felt I needed to clarify. I am a geographer, after all.

Yesterday, though, was pretty cool. We had to drive all over Quintana Roo to arrange our schedule (you can tell we're working in rural places without phones) for the coming week, so we went an additional two hours out of our way to see some ruins and the Caribbean Sea. Long, but lovely day!

Tree of the day: orange tree. Unlike pineapples, these do grow on trees! And, we have one in our neighbor's backyard that grows up and onto our roof, where we all like to sit when we're working on our computers. Nothing is ripe on it yet, but it sure smells nice when climbing through it to get on the roof!

hint: it's the ITCZ

My morning consisted of sitting in the bed of the pickup truck with Alex and an ejidotario and driving around some of Noh-Bec's better roads in search of bracken. We found and mapped some, but Alex and I also had a good talk about trees and climatology. (If you didn't already know what a huge nerd I am, I guess I just blew it.) I saw a 400 year old Pich tree! And yet, the tree of the day is going to be the Chicle tree, easily spotted due to the diamond shaped slashes in the bark for the purpose of harvesting the sap for chewing gum.

I'm sitting on the roof, watching a pretty awesome lightning storm in the distance. Don't worry, it's so far you can't even hear thunder yet, and there are lots of things around me that are taller than I am... and it's really pretty! As mentioned, in addition to being a tree nerd, I am admittedly a climate nerd. I can tell you all about why the rainy season is about to start in this region... but I'll spare you unless you want to have this conversation. It was pouring when we woke up this morning and it seems like it will rain again tonight. This should make fieldwork more interesting in the next few weeks.

We've finalized our plans for the next few days, so in case you're my parents who just got back from an internet-free weekend in D.C. and you wonder where your daughter is: she'll be in internet-free central Quintana Roo. On Sunday, we're travelling north to visit Maya ruins and the beach at Tulum before settling into the house we're renting for a few days in Laguna Kana. It's got two rooms. I'll be sleeping in a hammock and not posting here. I may have some things to say tomorrow, otherwise, catch you Wednesday or Thursday!

research update

Today is a work day at Ecosur. I'm pretty sure whatever tan I might have gotten through the intense amount of sunscreen I've been wearing is mostly gone from sitting in the library all day. We got to sleep in a little bit at la Casa amarillo, but we still got up at a reasonable time to enjoy a nice breakfast together: scrambled eggs, hash browns (from scratch!), coffee, juice and awesomely fresh avocado. The entire team (Zack, Marco, Irene, Alex, Birgit and me) met to discuss everyone's individual research and to try and figure out a schedule for the coming weeks. We did pretty well with the first half of that, but there are still some questions about our upcoming plans. For example, who from UVA is going to be joining us, and when will they arrive? This has changed several times. Also, there aren't enough beds here in Chetumal and there aren't any beds at the field house in Zoh-Laguna. The whole team is going to Zoh-Laguna this weekend for some talks for the anniversary of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, one of the two we work with. Are we buying mattresses or staying in a hotel? To be determined. It looks like Irene and I won't be spending much if any time at that house though; priorities have changed a little bit so we're going to spend more time in other areas, perhaps staying in a house in one of thse edjidos in northern Quintana Roo for a week or so. It's hard to organize so many different researchers and projects, but it's coming together.

We almost ran out of water in the house last night. Not the drinking water-- we keep one of those big blue jugs that you see on water coolers handy in our kitchen at all times. I mean the water supply we get from the city once a day. It goes into a tank under our back patio, which we then pump into a tank on the roof, which then goes to the faucets in the house. Of course, there's little other control over it-- we only have hot water in the kitchen, and only cold water in the bathroom. No matter. Point was, the level was really low and we were worried there wasn't enough for my shower. I ended up filling a bucket just to make sure I'd have something to rinse my hair with when finished, but dumping a bucket of water over my head was far more effective than our weak shower has been and I'll probably just do this from now on. Truth is, I was seriously considering a dramatic haircut, because between our low water pressure and the high humidity here, my hair was getting pretty awful to deal with. Necessity is the mother of invention though, and now I'm hopeful that I'll return home unaltered, except the whole more tan/ more blond/ more bug bites thing.