My 5:30am alarm was surprisingly easy to wake up to considering our new sleep schedules. I had a particularly early start time of 6am for bird banding this morning. We hiked through the jungle and unfolded five various nets along the trail, intended to catch birds for monitoring. After making this half hour round trip, we circled back and began checking our nets. We repeated this loop three more times and ended up catching three birds. Each time, we identified, logged, and released the bird. Fortunately, an early start time means and early end time, so I had a long time to nap, read, and relax during the late morning and afternoon. Plenty of time for hammock snuggles with my monkey friend Cappuccino.
Weekends at Panthera do not fall on Saturdays and Sundays as they do back home, but rather, Monday and Tuesday are considered the weekend. This makes Sunday afternoon essentially the end of the week, so we spent the rest of the day until sunset playing ultimate frisbee on the beach. Sandy and exhausted, we eventually returned to Panthera to have dinner and pack up our things for our weekend vacation to Puerto Maldonado. Falling asleep was a bit difficult as the thunderous storms rolled in, but we all knew that we’d soon be relaxing in a hotel in Puerto Maldonado with warm showers and no bugs.
-Haley Clafton
EGL Family Abroad 