Two months later...

Lets see been to Africa and back yet again, this time South Africa and Swaziland. Was collecting insects in the sugarcane fields among other things as part of some wildlife research projects being done by students at TAMU. My data looked pretty promising so the plan is go to back for a couple months this northern hemisphere summer (southern hemisphere winter). Should be a good time especially since its falconry season- if all goes to plan have a black spar in my future! Plus some hawk trapping for good times.

In other news the peregrine is doing well, hit his first duck a few days ago, been two years in the making. I have to say falcon stoops are always cool, but when its your own bird there is nothing like it in the world. Kes's season starts in 2 weeks starlings beware.

So what has therese been up to in the last 6 months?

Well as you guessed I never did finish putting up the Argentina stuff, maybe I'll add that at some point. To sum it up the collecting was amazing, the food was fantastic (2 steaks and a beer for 3$ US can't be anything but good), and the group of people I was with were great fun.

Since Argentina I've went and played around in South Africa for a few weeks, went to conferences on 3 of the four corners of the US (all in the course of 3 weeks), and now am describing my first 3 species (and maybe my first genus too). The International Congress of Entomology was in Durban, South Africa, and like any good falconer I went a few days early since it was winter and ran around with the falconry crowd. I got lucky enough to pick a falconer who also has cheetahs, so that was doubley cool.

On a different note I got a new Elhew English pointer since my last one died last March. Dumas arrived at the end of August (the weather wrecked havoc on shipping him down at 8 weeks). He is out of good grouse hunting lines ( including Elhew Snakefoot and Hanna's Elhew Lou (for the pointer enthusists out there here is his pedigree: http://www.gundogcentral.com/pedigree.php?dogID=2230)), bred in Montana. I found out from a friend of mine that a statue of my pup's grandfather is in the town square in an Alabama town, hopefully this coming week we'll get to see it and have a family picture. Hes turning into quite the bird dog, beating out some of the much older pups in our bird dog group. Heres a picture from when he was almost 4 months old:

Restarting this thing

Well my awesome little brother has a blog now (you should check it out its cool- http://hardenter.blogspot.com) so I think I'll restart mine. I've actually got a lot of posts between the 2, but they haven't been edited to make sence, so I'll do that and get them up. Since the dates listed will be the date of original creation, they will appear below this message. As I add more things I'll post something under the actual todays date to alert yall. I know you wouldn't want to miss any postings.

Argentina Day 2

The plan had been to meet for breakfast bright and early, call the airport to see if the generator was coming in on the 11 flight and if not take off and head north. Well Tim woke me up a few min before 7 and we went downstairs for breakfast. I had some cereal and a glass of orange juice. There was no bacon so the normal therese travel diet wasn’t complete. Chris and Dema arrived about the same time we did, but noone else was there. After a while Dave, Kathy, and Max wandered in and I went over to ask dave how much the ticket from salta to BA was. It was apparently 250 US, which is mostly reasonable depending on how much the change fee at AA would be. He said the one problem was the 15kg weight allowance could jack the ticket cost up a lot if the overweigh charge was high. After eating I asked Jason for the key to our room only to discover I was suppose to grab it on my way out of the room since I was the last one out. So I tracked down another key, went up and sent mom an e-mail asking her to check how much it would cost to change my ticket. I then went back downstairs and gave Jason and tim each a key, then grabbed Chris’s key and went to pack my stuff. On my way I was sent to make sure Santiago and Geret were awake. I pounded on their door and sure enough, they were still asleep. I woke them up then went to the room to pack. I used one of my big ziplocks to put my beer in incase anymore broke. I took the one that had been opened and ducktaped the cap in place and then wrapped that up in a second bag before putting it in the baggie. Chris walked in after a while and I asked him how difficult would it be for me to stay until the 19th? He looked at me and asked if id already changed my ticket. I told him no, I was just looking into it at this point, but if it was going to make things really difficult then I wouldn’t. He said it depended on if Dani and her friend came or not since if they did the trucks would be too full for another person, but he wouldn’t know until the 6th or 7th since Dani wouldn’t find out until after her job interview.

It was now time for the first big adventure of the trip- loading the trucks. We had 2 crew cab short bed trucks and 1 small car. Jason and Tim stuck all their stuff in the car and were planning on a 3rd passenger until it was decided that we needed all the space we could get so instead of 4,5 and 3 wed put 5 in each truck and then just Jason and tim in the little car. The packing was sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, we must have moved each piece of luggage around 3 or 4 times before finally finding a way to get everything in. While we were doing this Anna and LeAndrew made it to the hotel. Anna works on Agallinis and LeAndrew works on flies. They were suppose to have come in yesterday, but Anna’s id was expired so they wouldn’t let her on the plane until she got a valid one. Chris made an executive decision- leafhopper people (plus LeAndrew) in the small truck, Cicada people (plus Santiago) in the big truck, and NYSM people in the little car. We gave up on the generator and took off. We were packed in like sardens, but it wasn’t as bad as it almost was since it looked like we would all have to hold our backpacks until Jason found room in the car for them. It was still super tight especially for poor LeAndrew who was stuck in the back and had quite long legs. Chris drove although Dema did some driving too. We didn’t stop much although we did stop a couple times to do some sweeping. The highlight of the drive raptor wise was seeing a bunch of caracaras. They’re all over down here. We stopped in a small town and bought a backup generator incase the 110 died on us, then finally grabbed some dinner around 2000- pizza, although the meat pizza took forever to come out so I also ate one of chris’s empanadas. We decided to camp at a nearby campsite and run lights there. I got my stuff out to set up lights and with Geret’s help we got my sheet deployed. Since we had to pay per tent I asked max if I could sleep in his tent so I stuck my stuff in there then headed out to the sheets. I tried to do my normal collecting method, but soon discovered I really needed to give into aspirators and chris said he had an extra on in the truck. So I found it and after 30 min of trying finally got good enough with it to actually catch bugs. It seems like weve got a pretty good group of people on this trip, all a lot of fun around the sheet, especially once Geret and Santiago showed up with a cold beer and them, me and Chris passed the bottle around until we killed it and called it a night. I got to Max’s tent and discovered I lost my leafhopper vial somewhere. I figured it was somewhere near the fence we had to climb over going between the sheets, sure enough it was over there- tragedy averted. I slept really well, my mp3 player is awesome


Driving over a bridge. Note the lack of cups in the cup holder














Jason and Tim's car















View from the road















Looks like Texas
















Field right off the road
















Look familiar?




















Our truck (closest to me, bed covered), and the cicada truck (farther away, and bed cover up Any time we stopped, even for 10 seconds that bed cover was opened.

Argentina Day 1

What a day. So Jess dropped me off at ORD around noon. I checked in and proceeded without issue through security. While waiting I mostly just screwed around on the computer and watched part of the Godfather. I started checking the flight info and discovered that Chris’s plane from CMI had been canceled. That should make things interesting. I grabbed Mcdonalds for dinner and ate while watching the Godfather. After eating Dave came up to me and so I hung around with him and Kathy until it was almost time to leave. We grabbed more McDs and then prepared to board. This was looking like the blind leading the blind since none of us really know Spanish and pretty much had no clue on the game plan. Still no Chris. I called his house and his wife said hed made it on a plane that should arrive with just enough time to get to our fight. The 3 of us got on and I called up the family and Chavez then sent a couple txts to Cammack and AMC. I saw Chris and Dmitri walking towards the seats at that point so figured it would all work out ok. I waved at Dmitri but Chris apparently didn’t see me at all. The flight took off and we cruised along for about an hour. Nothing too exciting although they showed the route on tv screens along with how fast we were traveling and that sort of thing. Well after about an hour of this I got bored so decided it was time to talk to Chris. So I popped up over the seat (he was sitting behind me) and said Hey Chris. Hes like how long you been sitting there and when I told him the whole flight he seemed in disbelief and asked again. I thought it was pretty funny especially when he said hed been looking for me as he walked in. We talked bugs for awhile and then we hit turbulence and the pilot put on the fasten your seatbelt sign again, so I moved back to their row between chris and demitri so we could keep talking. Soon they served us dinner- BBQ beef stuff which was actually fairly good. I had yet another glass of milk plus a coke since I knew that the one thing I miss foodwise when im not in the US is good milk. After dinner Chris and I talked a bit more then he decided the temptation to watch Rattitui was to great and watched that. I went back to my seat and turned on my mp3 player. I tried to get some sleep, but I had a heck of a time staying asleep for any length of time. I did mange to get some sleep though around 4am, and woke up just in time to watch the breakfast cart pass me by shortly before 6. We landed without incident and met up with dave and Kathy in the terminal. We went through immigration which took me forever since some random guy cut infront of me when I got to the desk and he didn’t know what he was doing. I eventually made it through and caught up with the rest of the group at baggage. My bags both made it and were actually not the last ones off like they were in Guatemala so that was nice. I exchanged a bit of money then went to customs. I got waved through, didn’t even have to give them my customs form or get my bag x-rayed so I beat everyone else. We gathered outside customs to try and figure out what to do next. None of us were sure if we were suppose to meet geret at the airport or not and saw no sign of him at the baggage area. Dave pulled out his computer and read the emails for geret, but we still wernt exactly sure what was going on. We waited around for about an hour while we got some money out of the ATM (it wouldn’t take my credit card, said I needed a pen number) and then got a bus to take us to the hotel. The bus finally showed up, and we discovered Dave had wandered off. He reappeared 10 min later or so and we walked out to the bus area. On our way we aquired Geret, apparently there are 2 terminals at EZE and hed come into the other one. We managed to squeeze all our stuff and ourselves into the bus and 40 min later arrived at our hotel after a few wrong turns and some circling through neighborhoods. We expected to find Jason and Tim waiting for us, but instead walked in to discover not only were they not at the hotel, but also that the hotel was overbooked and Chris and Dema were moved to a hotel across town. We did find Santiago waiting for us though. We spent the next 30 min trying to convince the hotel people that we were fine putting 3 people in a room, that someone could sleep on the floor, or that we didn’t mind shareing beds especially since Dave and Kathy only needed 1 bed. At first they said no, but eventually we prevailed. I was put in a room with Chris and Dema and we started the trek up to the 6th floor. The hotel was very small, only 3 rooms per floor with really narrow hallways and a tiny elevator. I got on the elevator with dave and Kathy and some of my stuff. It dropped them off on the 2nd floor, but then rather than taking me to the 6th it went back down to the ground floor. So Dema got on with his stuff and we pushed 6 again. This time we went down to the mantinace level, but didn’t realize it. We got off and sort of wandered around looking for our room until some guy came out and told us we weren’t suppose to be on that floor. So we went back to the ground floor- the door opened and chris looked at us and was like what are yall still doing on the elevator, dema and I were laughing too hard to tell him so the doors closed and we went up, this time making it to the 6th floor. We unloaded our stuff and sent the elevator back down to chris. He made it up without incident apparently and we explained to him the great elevator adventure. The next challenge was figuring out how to work the AC. Dema tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. We then realized none of the lights would turn on either. The fridge was cold though so something was up. After a few min of wandering aimlessly around the room Chris figured out that we needed to put a room key in this slot to turn the power on. That problem solved we got settled into our room, I got on the wifi and played around while Chris took a shower. Then it was Demas turn to shower and I got off so Chris could get on the computer. Once Dema was done I took my turn in the shower and then we headed downstairs to meet the group. We were going to find a bank and a supermarket, but before we could take off Jason and Tim finally appeared. Turns out their flight from Albany to Atlanta got cancled, do Delta took them by taxi to JFK where they caught an American flight. They lost their generator somewhere along the line though. They got the key to their room, but were informed that the power was off in the hotel for the next 30 min or so and they would be unable to unlock the door to their room until the power came back on. So they stuck their gear behind the hotel bar and we started to leave. By the time we located everyone though again the power came back on so they took their stuff up to their room. Finally we left to do our shopping. Dave and Kathy had to book a flight from Salta back to BA in order to catch their flight on the 19th so that was our first stop. While they did that chris wandered off to find a bank never to reappear. The rest of us went to the grocery store down the street. We spent an hour wandering around the store trying to figure out what to get. I got some tuna, and the only can of corned beef I could find. I also got some oranges, apples, lemon juice concentrate, sugar, water, and beer. I got 2 Quilians and 2 Quilian stouts. Me, Dema, and Geret started walking back to the hotel only to have my bag of beer break and one of the guilians fall out and the top pop off. It was fizzing like crazy so I started drinking it. We walked a bit further and my second quilians did the same thing. This one I handed to Geret and he carried it back to the hotel. We made it back with no more beer losses and we went to our rooms. I walked in to find Chris staring at my computer trying to figure out the password. I told him he should have gotten it since it’s a leafhopper genus, and he said hed tried the ones he thought it could be then checked the password hint which was Agalinae before Dietrich moved it. Well apparently he didn’t make the change, Andy did, and anyway couldn’t figure out what the hell it went to. So I told him Aceratagallia and I had no idea what I was thinking when I wrote the hint. He figured it was a trick to keep hackers from getting in. So he played around on my computer while I stuck my groceries in the fridge including the ½ a beer that was open. After a while Geret came over with my other beer and I stuck the top back on as well as I could and put that in the fridge too. Chris left at 1800 to pick up the rent a trucks and I played on the computer and talked to Dema. They were gone forever and finally reappeared around 2200. We tracked down the others and we went to find dinner. We walked down the road we were on until we found a hamburger place to eat at. I got a cheese burger and fries. After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Jason and tim said they had an extra bed in their room, so I moved down there but left all my stuff in Chris’s room. I just took my backback, computer, and the open beer down there. I plugged my converter into the wall and instantly the lights when out in the room. I stared at it for a min, then Jason said to get the desk guy so I walked downstairs. The guy came up and stared at the fuse box which was unopenable since it was painted over then left to go check some stuff down in the basement. That didn’t work so he said unless he could get into the fusebox we wouldn’t have power that night. Since the ac was off that wouldn’t be a good option so I pulled out my leatherman and Jason was able to cut through the paint to get into the box. In the process the knife slipped and cut a big gash in the paint in the box. He turned around and looked at the hotel guy who said “I didn’t see anything, did you?”. We flipped the fuse and power was restored. I sat in my bed and drank my beer and read my book. I tried to go to sleep, but since it was only 2200 back in dallas I had a heck of a time going to sleep. Instead I started plotting to stay longer since I realized since I was getting home wensday and it was a long weekend due to mlk day there was no chance I would actually drive to CLL just for a 1 hour class, then turn around and go home, so maybe I should go back with dave and Kathy on the 19th. The more I thought about it the better it sounded, so I decided in the morning maybe id e-mail mom and see how much it would be to change my ticket. I finally went to sleep listening to my mp3 player.

Picture from the 6th floor of the hotel

FYI

By the way, there are some new posts but they come before the 2 April one so you have to scroll down to see them.

3rd round of guatamala pictures

Here are a couple more pictures from Guatemala. The last couple were taken by AMC and JRJ so there's actually a couple pictures of me. Wow how many times can I use couple in this?

One of the last places we collected



















Asleep in a hammock getting bit by black flies. They transmit river blindness, but I wasnt in the endimic area. Aubrey however did manage to get big in the endimic area and now we have to check her eyes for flecks occasionally to make sure shes not coming down with it.

Life with a bird again

Pretty much the last few weeks has been composed of spending as much time as possible with Boeri. Hes doing realy well. I have been working on the screaming at this point by trying to vary the routine and also have him see people as much as possible so feeding becomes such a small percentage of the time its not noticed. The conclave team helped with this since they were practicing a fair amount at the house so i would block the bird in the living room where he could see everyone. Boeri would scream for a bit then quite down and hang out on one foot, occasionaly baiting off but quickly regaining the perch. I would feed him mid way through these gatherings, by doing a few jumpups for tidbits. He doesn't like coming horizontally but will go the lenght of his leash vertically no problem. He seems to do well eating twice a day 15g or so feeding up to 277 each time.

Lab has been going fine also, they had their first lab pratical also. It went ok, I wish I had gotten to be tricky with the specimens and put out some not typicals, but o well.

AZ and back in a weekend

After a mostly uneventful first real week of school (including taing my first lab it was off to AZ. We got a bit of a late start even though I skipped Oz's class friday afternoon. By the time we were loaded up in the truck it was after 1400. We stopped in Caldwell for a late lunch at McDonalds then jumped on the road. Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. Cammack made a CD for the trip which had enough music to get us there and back without listening to the same song more than a couple times, mostly a mix of country and rock, so we just listened to that and talked most of the way. The highlights of the drive was seeing something burn up in the atmosphere. It was the strangest thing id seen in a long time. Bright green, flying across the sky for a good 2 or 3 seconds before disappearing. The other really fun thing was driving down the highway with the headlights off in the dark. Cammack asked if I'd ever done that and I said no so we did it, it was really cool so i made him do it a few more times. We finally got to Harrys at around 5am and found our room. Paul was already in the room I normally claim so Cammack and I got the other bedroom by the computer room. We were pretty much instantly asleep only to be awaken a few hours later by Schebert, Harry's treeing fiest. The dog ran into the room and jumped on me before decideing that i was not very interesting and running over to the bed and jumping on Cammack. We got Schebert out and I got up briefly to say hi to Harry and Paul and ate breakfast before going back to sleep. The second time I woke up I stayed awake. People started comming by the house shortly afterward to see harry while we ate lunch. Then it was time to go hunting. There were quite a few people by now gathered at the house, probabily 20 or so. The plan had been to all go fly Harry's Aplo then go watch the peres fly. However there was a miscomunication somewhere along the line and we ended up getting dividied into two groups. Me and Cammack went with Harry, Beth, and a couple others to fly the Aplo. We went to a nearby field and turned the dogs and bird loose. The bird perched on the car top while Harry and Beth got on the horses and took off. Shortly there after we got our first quail point and flush. The bird chased it nicely, but no catch. The quail was reflushed and this time after a 100 yard flight or so the Aplo grabbed it in nice flight. The fiest was near by but was unneeded to recatch the quail as the Aplo had it all on her own. The pointer ran off and found a few more birds and held point nicely while the Aplo ate. After she was done Harry boxed her back up and went to get the pointer. Then Harry called Paul to figure out where the pere group was and we took off to meet them. The pere people were being led by Tim Rierden who found a pond to fly his falcon. We came up on them and parked the truck in a long line of cars and met up with the other group then headed down to the pond. We all hung back while the pere rung up. Tim flushed the ducks and the pere stooped. The birds went back to the pond and the pere remountd. On the third remount she connected with one. It was a nice flight she caught the duck after a bit of a chase right by us so we all got a great view of it. Tim let her eat a bit of the duck then hooded her up and it was back on the road. We found another pond to try the next bird on. The bird went up although not super high and stooped the ducks nicely although didnt catch any. The ducks all flushed and we were off to the third pond and peregrine. Again it was a nice flight but no catch. This final pond was a bit of a hike from the trucks and across a barb wire fence and by the time we got back to the trucks it was dark. We loaded up and headed back to Harrys to get ready for the banquet. The Desert Hawking Classic was being held in Harry's honor so as guests of the guest of honor we got great seats with Harry and Beth. I bought a meet shirt and 3 raffle tickets plus a telemetry tickety. I didn't win the telemetry, but I did win 2 gift certificates for quail. Harry bought a ton of ticekts, so we all got to put a bunch of them in then keep track of them. I got some additional books that way since he divided up his winnings between me and Paul. As part of the festivities a few people got up and gave speeches about Harry's affects on them. The best though was one detailing various quotes from Harry over the years, the best was one likinging something with being sinful with the the 18yr old neighbor girl. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. The club gave Harry a large bottle of Scotch. After the banquet I talked to Tim for awhile about pulling peres, I really do want to give that a go sometime in the next few years. It was now time to head for home since it was getting a late. So we loaded up in Harry's firebird and took off for home. On the way he asked Paul if hed every shown him the acceleration in the firebird, and Paul said no, so Harry gave us a taste of the Firebird. Nice car. We went home and went to bed. This time Schebert didn't wake us up, and i woke up intime to grab breakfast before making the new anklets for boeri. Once they were made we got him and cast him. I put the new equipment on and then got him on the fist for a little bit. Then I boxed him up and finished packing up the last of our stuff before loading up in the truck and heading back east. Boeri screamed all the way to Las Cruces. By this point i was trying to figure out any way to make him stop, cause belive me a screming bird in the middle seat of a ranger is not conducive to a good road trip . I thought if i had a hood that might help a bit. I called Angel first since Boeris is about the size of a tiercel Aplo. I left him a message and he called me back after a few min. He was hunting quail, and didn't have a hood anyway but suggested Pete Jungerman might have one. I found Petes number and sure enough he had a hood that would work. So we stopped by his house and after struggling to get it on the normal way we cast him and stuck it on. That quiteed him instantly. Then me and Cammack took a tour of the breeding birds, Cammack liked the goshawks and the tiata falcons. then it was back in the truck agian. We finally got into College Station around 2 AM, dropped Cammack off at his place then went to mine and attempted to get Boeri to eat something. He screamed a lot and ate a tidbit but that was all for tonight. Long weekend, but I had a lot of fun, hopefully Cammack had some too.

running from the cops, well not quite but running from someone

The first week of school was rather amusing, especially since we didnt have to go to school the first 2 days due to snow. Instead my time was spent hanging around in Heep (shocking I know) working on getting stuff ready for the semester. That extra 2 days really helped give me a little more time to recover from Guatemala. Whartons lab continues to leak, I was over there till midnite on Sunday helping JAC and Wharton try and engineer a way to channel the water coming in. We were joined by some physical plant guy who pretty much said we had come up with a better solution than they had at the moment. The entire lab is full of tarps and tubes leading to the sink its pretty crazy. The hole in the roof is big enough you can actually see it from the ground looking up apparently one of hte spot welds broke- gotta love low low low bid contractors. After using clay from the micoroscope stands to channel the water we decieded enough dammage had been done for one night and called it a night. Me and JAC went to his place and played CatchPhrase with his roommates, its a pretty fun game, similar to taboo but less restrictions.

The original plan had been to go to AZ the weekend after school started to pick up the bird. JAC was going to come with me since he didn't want me driving all the way by myself, but most of the route was suppose to get snow, so we decided to postpone to the following weekend. I talked to Ralph and he said they were suppose to get a bad storm through and since the ground was frozen it would probabily stick pretty good, and he basicly forbid me from going. At that point I was already quesitoning going anyway, if it had been just me i would have gone, but I wouldn't put JAC at risk due to my own stubronness. So thrusday night rather than packing we went over to Stephen and Dasiys for dinner. Daisy, Maria, and Annaliese watched Grays anatomy then we all watched Monster Truck Rally. After watching that and then some hunting shows on the outdoor network we decided we should go try and shoot some birds. So me, JAC, Maria, and Stephen loaded up in stephens truck with a couple pellet guns and took off for tcwc, followed by annaliese and will. We got to TCTW and parked the truck. THere was a truck near the herbearium enterance, but we didnt see anyone so we walked over to the nature trail. Stephen heard a bird in the grass but none of us could find it, so we took off again. We walked a good ways through the trail but no luck, so we started just playing aournd out there. we came to a gully with a pipe across it so JAC the showoff walked across it. I decided to stick to the ground and ran across the gully. We made it back to the fence and this time rather than walking the extra 200yrds to the gate decided to go though the locked gate. We all made it through without too mcuh problem, ecept for will who climbed over the fence. As we made it across we realized that the truck had its lights on now so we all ran across the grass hiding our guns and dove behind various objects. Me, JAC, and maria ended up behind one of the trailers. Stephen ran to the truck and jumped inside and was going to come pick us up. We jumped in and threw the guns under the seat and out of view. The truck started looping around into the parking lot we were in and we elected annalise to go talk to the guy since everyone likes her. So she went over there and we all stayed in the trucks. They talked for a bit and then he drove off. She came back and told us hed asked what we were doing and she told him we were doing our ornitholgy project and listening for owls. It wasnt anyone from our dept. so they didnt know any better. It was great fun.

The Homecoming

Our last day in guatemala was pretty crazy. We got all our stuff packed up and Jose came and picked us up. We loaded up the truck and then drove to the airport, which is undergoing major renovations. He dropped us off and we said our good byes. The four of us then headed in. me, AMC, and David checked in and got everything squared away while JRJ went and checked in for his flight since he was again on a different plane. We then went and payed the exit tax which was about 2$ US. We started to head towards security but then David decided he wanted a nice 20$ Q bill for the display frame he was making so went back to the exit tax people and got one. Then we went through security and customs. None of us had any problems going through either so that was quite exciting. Inside the terminal we found some more souviner shops to play around in while we waited for our flights. We found some brightly colored clothes that we all wanted but I had no cash so JRJ bought me the one I liked. Its rainbow colored, should look nice on my desk. I then went out to the lobby area and transfered some moths around and watched all the people running around. As David and I were sitting there I heard someone yelling my name. I looked up and saw Christina from Dominca class in the airport along with her boyfriend. Totally random, but typical Catanach trait of running into people you know everywhere. They were on our flight. We headed off to our gate and had to go through a second round of security to get into our gate. We then waited around forever until they finally called us to board. Me and AMC sat together again, but fell asleep instantly and I slept basicly all the way to houston. Once we landed we got our bags and went through immigration and customs. AMC went first and they asked her what she had and she told them dead insects. they sent her and us over to the ag inspection line where they just waved her and i through. They totally searched David and made him fill out the FWS forms before theyd let him leave. Then we emerged into the normal part of the airport. Davids wife was waiting for him and they left. AMC and I found a place to sit and waited for her mom. I called JAC and told him we were back in the US of A and he asked if wed be back in time for dinner. I told him itd be late but wed be back by 9, so he said call him when we left and hed have dinner ready. AMCs mom got to the airport and we loaded up our gear. Traffic was bad, but we made it to her house and got the stuff wed left there. After hanging around for a little bit we decided it was time to leave so we could make it back for dinner at a semi reasonable hour. The trip back was uneventful, just talked about guatamala and how much we want to go back. When we got to college station we ran by AMC's apt to drop off some stuff and then went to cammack's. Dinner was almost ready and we talked bugs while he finished up the cooking. I drank some milk- the one thing I've discovered tastes totally different if you're out of the country, so had been craving some good american milk for a week. Then we broke out the beer. The 3 of us talked bugs and collecting while we ate, it was great fun to have JAC back with us, he definatly makes things fun. We pulled out some of our bugs to show off what we'd collected and then told the collecting story highlights. Dinner was great, ate quite a bit and enjoyed the good times. It really did feel like I had come home, sitting there in the kitchen eating a homemade dinner (well wed been eating homemade food the whole trip but this was made by someone who did it cause he liked us not cause we were customers), telling stories, and planning the next trip. It really was a nice ending to a good trip. I think coming home to an empty house would have been different, I'm so glad JAC was there. Eventually we decided to call it a night and AMC dropped me off at Maria's friends apartment where my truck was. I went inside and saw her for a few min before I took my truck and went to heep to deal with the trap samples. I re alchoholed the samples, played a bit on the computer then called it a night.

Guatamala Day 8

We woke up about 715 and I quickly got ready. We went over to Jacks shortly before 740 and I ate some oreos for breakfast (breakfast of champions) JRJ showed up just as we needed to leave ands like is it too late for breakfast? AMC sent him upstairs to grab her kill jar shed lent him and we met dave outside. Hes like wheres josh? For once though we actually knew where he was. Jack drives a BMW so we loaded up in it- dave in the back for once and drove a few feet before Jack realized we were making the car ride even lower than normal. He said hed bottom out if we all stayed in the car so everyone but AMC piled out and he drove up the driveway. We got back in but he bottomed out going over the grate so we all got out and he drove up the block until he got to a flat area and we piled back in again. Along the way we set off a ton of dogs including a husky on the roof of the house next door and this ugly shaved thing with bangs. AMC said it had an angry haircut so she didn’t like it. Back in the car we bottomed out going over the joint with the street and slowly made our way to campus- there was a ton of traffic so it took a bit. We arrived at the university (and highschool, grade school, and elementary school) and were let into the parking lot. We walked up to the 3rd floor of a large building where entomology was. The halls and everything were outside and the place had a sort of high school feel to it (complete with lockers). The building was pretty nice as was the landscaping. The ento rooms included a collection, a working area, an applied lab and jacks office for systematics and ecotourism. Jose had told me that ecotourism was a major there and he was actually jacks 1st student in it since he didn’t do so well in chem. etc for biology. We toured collections- there were quite a few cabinets but looking in the drawers made me cringe. There were bugs crammed in, stacked on top of eachother, pieces everywhere, looked like there was a dermested problem at some point, and also a totally nonstandard labling system, pointing, and lines. It was actually painful for me to look at. There were 3 drawers of cicadellids- all unsorted. So I had my work cut out for me. There was also a computer with internet acess which was quite exciting for me the internet junkie that I am. JRJ, AMC, and I walked with jack to find out where the cafeteria was and then AMC and I walked a bit farther towards the parking garage.. Back at collections I checked my e-mail and sent a few to various people. Midway through this a girl came in and said she was the one that use to work on Cicadellids. We talked for a while, turnes out she hasn’t worked on them for about a year since shes now working on mosquitoes. Eventually jrj appeared and started talking to her also. They took off to look at mecoptera and I went back to my e-mail. Once I was done with this I started working on leafhoppers. I stared at the drawers just trying to figure out where to start. It was such a disaster area. They seemed to have about 6 drawers of material and absolutely no rhyme or reason to it- it wasn’t even grouped by collection as far as I could tell which seems to be the most common way for unsorted material. I decided to just start doing a basic subfamily sort and stick names on stuff I knew as I came to it. By now it was about 1030 and I was starting to get hungery. Jose showed up a bit after 11- it was nice to have my main source of entertainment (exclucing AMC of cource) back in the area. He brought in a drawer full of bugs he was donating- it was uplifiting to see a drawer in good shape with nice neat and orderly rows, with good data on nice looking labels and bugs all in one piece. Sort of restored my hope in Guatemalan entomology. JRJ took a picture to document the donation since apparently theyre not so good at keeping track. Jose needed something to download the picture on so I pulled out my cardreader and he pulled it off. I was starving by now and asked him when we were going to go eat. Hes like are you hungery? I told him I was then remarked that he should know the answer to that by now since im always up for more food. He said wed go in 10 min and told the others. I went back and moved a few more bugs around. So far its a lot of cicadellinae, some delts, and a fair number of gyponinae. Very few typhos but I think that’s a sampling bias. It was time to go eat so the 5 of us headed down to the street. The truck was pretty close to the exit was used so that was exciting. I think I could recognize that truck anywhere now. Jose said we were going to a Mexican place near the university and his wife would meet us there we got to the place and he dropped us off to go park. We went in and grabbed a table. A women came and took our drink orders. Jose came in and said our measls would come with lemonade so went and canceled the orders. We sat around waiting then got our drinks. Jose's wife came and ate with us also. The lemonade was great. I ordered fish (dolphin fish) which was quite tasty. After lunch we went to the souvineer area and wandered around looking for things to buy. I found a Gallo shirt and decided i wanted one but couldnt figure out what color to get. We went to a bunch of shops and I found some small paintings. They were really cool looking- bright with mountians and boats. So i got one for cammack, and one for my parents. I then saw one that was a bit larger and got that for myself. While AMC was getting a few also I went next door and got a black Gallo shirt. Then she and I wandered somemore until we came across these cool paintings done on tree trunk sections. I got one of those also. I declared myself to be done shopping and so just wandered around looking at the shops. After everyone was finished we went back to the collection and worked until about 6. We went to burger king for dinner which was quite an adventure. AMC went 1st and told them no for everything including is this for here? So we got our food in take out bags. I tried ordering a number 1 without vegetibles. Even though i used the correct words i still got veggies on it. O well. They didnt give me a sprite but after trying to figure it out withough either one being able to understand the other they gave me a sprite. So much easier with Jose coming to the rescue when ordering gets tricky. We were joined by the department head for biology. We were going to get ice cream but the place closed while we were still eating dinner so we got some oreo pies and me, amc, and jrj split one. It wasnt bad. After eating we went back to Jacks and AMC and I worked on getting the trap samples dealchoholed. It took a while but we got it done. Then i sat at the kitchen table and got my bugs packaged. Jack came out with jrj talking about music. Jack was playing the guitar then gave it to jrj to play with and played the mandilne. jack got out this instrument that is stringed and played with 2 bows. he gave it to jones to try and play happy birthday on and while he was attempting this amc came in. She was handed the instrument and told to play 3 blind mice. Which ended with us trying to sing it while she played. It was quite fun. Jack then got out a kazoo and handed it to her since she wanted to start a kazoo band. 1st she couldnt blow into right then she was using it backwards. Jack got her straightend out and she played with it for a while. He then got out some of his tapes and we listened to them while he translated the words. The music sounds pretty neat and the lyrics tell stories, some about the revolution and that sort of thing. They were really big during the revolution and were actually taken to costa rica during the peace talks to play. We then moved into the music room and listened to some of his other stuff. He finally called it a night around 1 and me and amc went to bed pretty much right away

Guatamala Day 7

The alarm went off at 215 and we decided to wait until 4. at 4 a woke up and went out to check the traps. I got some beetles, a few hymenoptera, and a couple other random things. I also grabbed a chrysopid on my way back to the room off the guys room wall. I was just dosing off when I heard a rustling on the shelf. It then touched one of the malaise trap jars so I got worried that whatever it was would knock down one of the jars that was cracked open to let the alchol evaporate out of the worrlpack. So I pulled my bioquip light out of my pocket and flashed it over there. I saw nothing but figured it was probably a mouse. We had been talking about them at dinner yesterday and dave had told us about putting on a pair of shorts in iraq and discovering they were inhabited by a mouse. He said that was a rather unpleasant surprise. I dozed off again and this time woke to the mouse landing on my head. It froze and I started to reach for my flashlight when it jumped off and onto the bed. It ran around a bit and I went back to sleep as far under the covers as i could since the mouse was still scurying around on the bed. Good times. I woke up again at 715, quickly got ready and then AMC and I went to pull down traps. Jose had already taken the one near the light sheet down so we set off for the far ones. We pulled pan traps first- which were pretty empty then moved onto the farthest malaise trap. It too was pretty empty. I think between the rain and how cold it had been up there over the last couple days stuff just wasn’t flying. We walked back to the middle trap to discover jose had finished taking down the light trap and so moved onto the malaise. We got there just as he finished up so the 3 of us walked back to the hotel. He went to tell the owner we wanted breakfast while AMC and I packed up the traps and she brought down our luggage. Breakfast was ready at 840 or so and we all ate along with the random Canadian who was staying at the hotel also and had hung out at the lights with us the night before. Jose went to get me a citrus punch juice deal and remembering my struggle with it yesterday that finally culminated with me using my leatherman pliers to open the juice opened the top for me. I then managed to almost pour it all over the table since it didn’t fit all into the glass at one time (I almost did it yesterday also). JRJ showed up and ordered one also and joses like lets see if he screws it up also. So we all watched him open it with no problem and pour it without almost spilling. Im like guess they teach you that during your masters. JRJ had no clue what we were talking about and didn’t seem really happy about it. AMCs like were having fun at TACs expense not his and then jose explained what we were watching for. JRJ though we were crazy. After breakfast we loaded up the truck and waited for jrj and dave to finish packing. As usual the guys were holding up progress. We finally got on the road around 10 I guess after watching amc and then jrj try and shake this huge tree that was full of chryosmelids. After that was unsuccessful jrj started throwing sticks up until one came straight down and hit joses truck. Luckily it was mostly rotten so pretty much exploded on impact. I slept a little on the drive down then just looked out the window. Noone was really talking much and jose had the music down pretty low. We stopped at a stream for a little bit of collecting. I got a myrmilion sweeping a low bush along with a bunch of eveniids. There were 2 streams and then a mud track to one side and I just went up and down the grass along the track. Jose found some huge flowers- the largest in the new world and pulled them off the bush to show me. They smell pretty bad and attract a lot of flies. They are sorta s shaped so we broke open the lower s part to see what was trapped in there. Only culicids, although shortly after a calliphorid landed on one but flew off before I could grab it these flowers were close to a foot long and he said they were pretty small compared to the ones that grow in the wet forest. Next stop was a gas station to get dave a pepsi. He hadn’t had one in 24 hrs and was starting to get sick. I got some m&ms. As usual we were waiting on jrj to get his act together and AMC decided we should name the trip Donde estas Josh? Dave and Jose liked the idea and daves like we should make shirts – Guatemala 2007 with the slogan on them. JRJ showed back up and joses like we voted while you were gone and have named the trip Donde estas Josh? JRJ though that was rather amusing but I don’t think he realized how true it was. Jose got a diet coke and jrj made a comment about someone else drinking coke (since everyone else was pepsi drinkers or non caffeine drinkers) and joses like who else drinks cokes. I normally get them but didn’t get anything to drink this stop so jrjs like therese drinks them. And I made a comment to AMC about me and jose just being drinking buddies between the coke and the beer. We decided to make one more stop to collect on a stream in a very dry area. We turned off the main road and drove for 20 min or so trying to get access to this stream. Jose passed the bridge we were suppose to cross and there wasn’t a spot to turn around for quite a ways down the road so we got to see a bit more country than planned. This area was super dry- looked like it would be a good place to light trap since it was fairly open. We finally made it to the stream and started sweeping. I got some cool bugs including leafhoppers, a cool ode with pink wings, and some leps. While we were waiting on jrj as is tradition jose and I were talking about trucks. I want to put cargo tie downs on mine like hes got ang a cage thatll go over the luggage and can be locked so I don’t have to worry about it while im going on trips. He was telling me about a collector thas modified his 250 to basicly live in and has driven allthe way to argentina in it. That sounds like a good time. Jose wants to get a rack that goes over the cab to put nets and that sort of thing on. Once everyone was gathered we loaded up and drove to the next town and found a pharmacy to buy alchohl since dave needed a little more. While we were there we parked under a tree that was raining flowers. There was a guy standing there trying to sweep them up but they were falling faster than he could sweep. It was rather amusing. Then we drove to Guatemala city. Theyre doing construction to widen the road to 2 lanes in each direction for the stretch coming into the city. In the city we wove around for quite a while before finally making it to jacks. His house is the last on the street (it bascily dead ends into his gate) and he had 4 black labs that ran up to the gate. Jose got out to find the key to let us in and the house boy showed up and opened the gate and watched the dogs while we drove in. AMC and I got the room with bunkbeds since we figured we didnt mind living together for a month whats one more day while dave and jrj each have their own room. We unloaded all our gear and got it to the rooms. Then the 5 of us stood around talking. The dogs showed up with rocks in their mouths and jose got one and threw it. They all took off and after 5 min or so brough back the same rock- impressive since jose threw it down a pretty steep slope and they had to run in the opposite direction first before making it to the slope. We played with the dogs for a while then jose said hed come get us for lunch tomorrow from the university. The 4 of use kept playing with the dogs then went all looked at everyones room. After a while me and AMC decided to hang our traps up to dry so went back upstairs. Me and AMC then went to explore the property and all the dogs followed. Amcs taked to calling them fatso, number 2 (the other fat one), big one, and the other one. We kept throwing rocks and made our way down to the stream that was along the boarder. We then turned up and headed along the fence back to the top. AMC was making all the descisions since I like watching her make them and we ended up along the road we drove in on past the house. So she followed the fence which was a spot about 6 in wide. So there were me, her, and the 4 dogs all in a line. We made it back without falling (good since it was a 6-10 ft fall) and then threw rocks for the dogs somemore. Amc was worried about hitting jrj with the rocks but I figured the chances of that were sufficiently small to deal with. Jrj eventually appeared and then amc and I went back to our room. I took a shower then played on the computer wheil amc took one. After a while jack showed up apparently hed though jose was taking us to the university and he had only just gotten a hold of jose to find out that we were already heare. We ordered a pizza by the meter (we got .5 m) and jack cooked up some fishsticks. The pizza arrived and we ate it while listening to the Dixie chicks. We talked bugs a bit- hes got someone whose interested in cicadellids also then we got the house tour. Hes got a secret room behind his bookshelf that you can also get to from behind the bathroom mirror. Sometimes hell tell kinds the bathroom is haunted and go in flush the toilet then dissapere behind the mirror. The house is built totally for jack whos about 6 ft 4. the mirrors are up so high I couldn’t see myself in the one above the sink. He also has a study, another bedroom a music room (hes in the most popular rockband in Guatemala) and his working area. After the tour I went and got my bugs and started processing them. Jrj and dave went to bed and amc talked ichs with jack. Eventually amc came into the kitchen where I was working and we talked about the trip. We want to come down again and were calculating how much it would be to drive form tx to here. I need to find out when joses free months are and see what we can work out. Jack showed up and said he was going to bed and that there was cereal for the morning. As he left hes like you drink beer? Amc are like yup and he said there was some in the fridge from the last visitor and he doesn’t drink so help ourselves. Amc and I are the bad ones on this trip for sure since the other 2 don’t drink or anything. Amc went up to harass jrj while I finished up then we went and pulled our stuff down since it was starting to rain then we went to bed.

Guatemala day 6

The alarm went of at 2 then again at 215 at which point we got up and went out to the sheet. It was pretty cold and there were just some leps most of them were dead on the bottom a bit strange but I guess we killed that many when we were playing around at the sheet hitting bugs. So it was back to bed until the alarm went off again at 715 or so. I looked at AMC and went back to sleep since we weren’t eating breakfast until about 8. She got up to take a shower in the not warm water. I drifted back to sleep and was dreaming that I ran into Emily mount down here and was talking about the reunion when I heard Teresa, Teresa. Im like why is Emily calling me Teresa and she sounds strangely masculine. Then I heard it again and realized it want my dream but actually jose knocking on the door. I guess he heard the shower ands like you in the bath? Im like no that Aubrey hes like theres a Quetzal. That woke me up in a heart beat and I was out of bed with my shoes on before he finished saying that it was out in the front. I grabbed my camera and ran out the door. Jose was already back out front with the german dude. Jose lined me up with the bird and then it flew out and I got a glimpse of it. There was a male and female feeding pretty high up. The female had a red breast and the male was lacking the long tail. We watched them fly around and I took a picture that might have a quetzal dot in it. They flew off after a bit and I went back to get ready for the day. AMC wasn’t quite done showering so I laid back down. She came out and I must have looked funny cause shes like you ok? And I said yeah I just saw a quetzal. She though that was pretty cool. I got ready then we went down for breakfast. The guys were no where to be seen and AMC and I decided to order eggs. AMC remembered the word for breakfast but put me in charge since it worked out ok yesterday, but I walked in and jose was in there so we were spared ordering. I got scrambled eggs. AMC, Jose, and I ate together while the german dude was at the table next to us. The guys were still nowhere to be seen so we decided to go put out the dead fish and some pan traps while jose ran into town. AMC and I were walking to the room when we ran into david and jrj. We told them the plan and gathered our stuff from the room. Then we had to figure out how to pull the fish out of the tree where jose and hung it to keep the ring tailed cats from getting it. AMC said to cut the string so I did. Then she tried pulling it out of the tree and after a few good tugs it came down. Dave and I both thought she should have let go and launched it across the forest. We decided to put the pan traps near the trap with the fish, down the trail from the rooms. The fish went up pretty easy, just ran the kite string through a gill like a stringer. Put down 29 pan traps, but its so cold well see if they get anything. We then set up a 3rd malaise trap farther down the trail. We made it back about the same time jose did and got ready for a day of collecting in the oak forest. There were a couple more quetzals flying around inlcuidng a male with a long tail. They get to be about a meter long at the end of the molt. There was a bit of an alcohol issue since jrj was using a bunch and needed more but couldn’t find anymore. We had a bit in our room so we went to get it and managed to lock the key in the room. O well its still guys 2 girls 1 on that count. The 3 of us plus jrj took off down the road and stopped about 20-30 min down the road at a spot with a ton of flowers in bloom. The collecting was really good and I got a bunch of new bugs. We then went down to the river at monkey tail (don’t remember what it is in Spanish) and collected some more. Got some more new ones including a tridactylid and a hydrometrid. Very exciting. By now it was getting late so we headed back for home. It started to rain part of the way, and we picked up a guy walking so we didn’t stop anywhere else to collect. We dropped the guy off where the dirt met the pavement then we drove to the gas station. I put the backpacks in the cab to minimize the water issues. On the way back to the reserve jose stopped to call and remind jack schuster we were coming. AMC and I went back to our room and then I went back to the main house to grab my spam. I took some bugs to work on and ate with jose. AMC came over as we were finishing up talking about collecting- I told him about the dominica mess since he really wants to go there and told him id try and get elvis’s contact info. He wants some Hercules beetles from the island. After a bit he decided to go to town and I worked on my bugs trying to get them ready for the trip back. I think were going to carry everything on so as not to worry about it getting lost or mangled. It started getting even colder and AMC and I headed back to the room. I messed around on the computer and she made fun of my map book until jose knocked to see if we wanted dinner at 630 with everyone else. It sounded good to us although we were still eating the tortillias wed stold from his lunch. I ordered a steak. 630 we headed down in the rain and sat down. The food wasn’t quite ready and we sat around talking. I asked jose if he wanted a beer then went and got the 2 of us beer. The food came out and we ate. Jose gave us or export permits- we each have our own for 500 bugs of our group. Very nice. I added it to my permit stack and called it good. After dinner jose and I talked raidos since hes wanting hts for his workers to use. Checked the light then he and I went to pull the fish off the trap. I also got some lep envelopes. On the way back I managed to totally crash and burn on one of the steps, it was rather amusing im sure. After that we just checked lights there were quite a few good bugs out even with the rain and jrj and jose took pictures. Jose was playing with jrjs camera making jrj walk around and pose trying to get a picture of the reddish light bouncing off the ferns far back and jrj in the forground. It was rather amusing.

Even more pictures

Picture going up the hill to the village













The road














Now this is an A+ set up- all pannels taut, nice placement- flyway with brush around













House near the river we collected at the day we headed north and almost got to Mexico

More Guatamala pictures

Here is AMC pulling bugs out of her net. This was taken moments before I caught the blue morpho.












This is a cool catipillar we found















This is the village in the river blindness endemic area.












Here are a couple pictures of the kids up in the village everyone wanted their pictures taken so we spent a good 15 min doing so.

Pictures from Guatemala

This is the hotel we stayed at the first night. It was in downtown Guatemala City, right next to the American Embasy. It had a bunch of random statutes in front of it. The best part was that it had wireless internet and TV.









This is the view driving down the street in Antiqua.













This is the second place we stopped to collect at on our trip. There were a ton of leafhoppers in this small patch of grass. The mountian in the background is a volcano that erupted periodically.









This was the first Malaise Trap that AMC and I put up. Note the use of leaves and vines to get it possitioned correctly. The trap wasn't quite an A+ but I figure we made up for it in creativity.
















The Computer store in one of the towns we drove through. You could tell what brands and products were sold inside a store by looking at what logos were painted on the walls such as Cannon, Intel, and HP in this case

Guatemala Day 5

The alarm went off at 2 and I promptly went back to sleep. I woke up around 630 and AMC looked over and asked what time it was. I told her and said the alarm would go off at 730, she said she needed to get up a bit earlier so I pushed it forward a few min and went back to sleep. We woke back up an hour later and got ready. Then we grabbed stuff for 2 malaise traps and headed off towards the top light sheet on the hill. I wanted to put one kinda near that in hopes of drawing in more bugs at they were heading towards the light. We decided to try the worrlpack idea but when we got up there AMC realized that the 1st trap didn’t have a bottle so we couldn’t use that to support the bag. I had a rubber band in my pocket so we used that to tie up the pack. I knew there was some reason to leave it in my pocket last night. We got the trap up without any issues and were on the move again in about 10 min. AMC wanted to head down the trail past the other light sheet so we took of in that direction. I found a small clearing and started working on it to see if it would work for a malaise trap while AMC headed up the trail to see if anything jumped out that required less habitat modification. She came back just as I was sawing down a tree with my knife are reported that there was a possible spot further up just as the trail started descending again. So we headed up to it and after a bit of moving stuff around we got the trap up. When we went to put the worrl pack on I realized that it wasn’t wide enough to go around the bottle so we could screw the bottle back onto the head. Since we didn’t have another rubber band we just decided to set it up the traditional way. We finished up shortly after 830 and we headed over to the main building to see what the plan was. Dave said wed be leaving around 9 so AMC sat down with Jose and Dave who were finishing up breakfast. I went up to the room to get some stuff ready and discovered one of my leps from the nite before wasn’t dead. I asked jose if I could use his syringe and he said go for it so I grabbed it and killed my lep. By now JRJ was almost ready to go so we loaded up and headed down the road to our 1st site. It was a short drive of about 30 min. We passed tons of people walking along the road apparently going to church. One girl was dressed in her 1st communion dress. All the people were pretty nicely dressed- men in starched jeans and button down shirts with clean cowboy hats and the women in nice pants or dresses.

Our 1st site was a small river flowing under the highway. There were quite a few leafhoppers here including quite a few id never collected. Our next site was similar as was the 3rd site. One thing that was really cool was that at the 2nd site there was a huge swarming group of Cicadellinae. The red and white ones- they were everywhere. I collected a huge series of them including some probable nymphs of the species and also the food plant they were feeding on. Maybe it could make a small paper. We then headed down the road a piece and passed through some small towns. We stopped in one and got some pepsi for dave and jose bought us all lime chips. I also got a coke. The chips were pretty tasty. Just the right amount of tangy lime and salt. We kept going and stopped in at a river under the highway. This site was pretty trashy looking but I got quite a number of bugs including some Tingids. I was all proud of my 2 tingids until AMC reached up while we were driving down the road and grabbed one off the ceiling in the truck. O well. It was nice while it lasted. We got to a larger city and I remined Jose we needed a fish for the malaise trap. He drove though the town looking for the open market then asked for a booth selling fish. He got some directions but we couldn’t find it. Saw a place selling raw chicken and live bunnies. Jose said we could always get a bunny. Dave said predead was better, but AMC and I are like live bunnies are fine. Jose found a parking spot and said hed be back with a fish in a min. Sure enough he showed back up with a small fish in a bag. We took off again down a dirt road that headed back to the reserve. Apparently it was the original highway. Jose wasn’t totally sure which fork to take so we stopped and asked some girls who didn’t know so he asked a guy on a horse with a dog. We got some directions after explaining what finca it was by since he didn’t know road names. We headed back down the road into some very different habitat. This area is in the rain shadow from the mountains the reserve is in. It was very dry with cactus, suclients, and small bushes. The whole area was also very flat. We came upto some cropland and Jose pointed out a tree that was part white and part brown. He said he thought some sort of homoptera did it but he wasn’t sure which. He said we could check it out if anyone was interested, so he stopped and got permission to check it out. We walked out there across this huge bone dry field that looked like it had been used to grow corn but had been plowed up. We got to this huge tree (related to an acacia) and jose jumped up and grabbed a branch. Sure enough it was wax that covered the branches. We couldn’t find any evidence of what type of bug it was though until Jose spotted a Flatid wing in a crevase in the bark. He proceded to tear out some chunks uncovering quite a few flatid wings. They were huge- 2 in long or so and white with dark spots. We poked around for a few more min before deciding there were no whole bugs. We all walked back to the truck and drove a bit further until we got to a small stream. There were some kids playing in it and dave gave them a bag of m&ms. We swept the area pretty good and I got some additional leafhoppers. This trip has been very productive for me as far as hoppers go. We drove down the road and started gaining altitude. We passed some long dead cows and some really cool scenery. Our last stop was a small stream up in the mountains. It was in a very dry area and there were some really cool bugs including some lavender cicadellids. On the way back to the reserve we passed through the oak forest were we will go tomorrow and an abandoned farm. Apaprently the farm managers had been aiding the army and some guerrillas came in and killed them then burnt the buildings during the revolution. The revolution sounds pretty terrible- the army rounded up a bunch of men in one of the towns near hear put them all in the churches then burnt them down. Back at the truck AMC and I collected some rocks for our geology buddies. On the way back to to reserve joses said dinner was chicken or steak if we wanted it. He was eating that and having a beer. This set off a drinking discussion and he asked dave if he drank. Apparently he only has a beer or 2 a year- basicly after getting a tattoo. That’s a little back wards. The he asked jrj who also said he didn’t drink. Jose must think tx people are strange- the women drink, are on time, and ride in the bed of the truck while the men are pretty much worthless. We got back to the reserve and Dave and JRJ promptly discover they locked the room key in the room. Shocking. We got back to our room and unloaded. Dave came by to say he was eating dinner at the main house so me and AMC went over there after checking the light. We went in and the woman said something in Spanish. We caught sit down and that was it. So we went outside and sat. after a while AMC went back to the room for a bit while I waited to see how this was going to work. Jose came down after a bit looked at me and said is there a communication issue? Im like yeah pretty much. Hes like what do you want? I said both me and AMC want steak and the best I could come up with was carne de vaca. He said that would have worked or just carne was fine too. And I got beef right even though AMC though I was making it up. Guess I do remember something from Spanish class. So he ordered it up then some random dude showed up ands like can you understand it? Im like not really but jose can translate if you need it. So jose ordered the random guy (who was from germany) dinner too. We stood around in the shop then Jose got him and me beers. The german guy didn’t want one. AMC showed back up and I told her id been right about how to say beef. I still don’t think she belives me. O well. Dinner was ready pretty quickly and she went off to get dave. I went inside and grabbed her an orange coke. The little girls like narania I said si then she said orange and I said si again. Then the woman appeared and im like por my hermana and she said si. I went out and put the coke at AMCs spot then when she appeared told her about the exchange. She was like hermana means sister. Id forgotten that but o well it convayed the meaning of this if for the other girl. That’s all that matters. We all ate- it was quite good. Steak, beans, rice, plantain, and some cheese. We ate with the german dude who was pretty fascinated with the whole insect collecting thing. I never though so many people would find it so interesting- comparing us to national geographic and all. After we were done eating we called JRJ to eat the scraps which he did. Daves like you feel like the family pet and he said yeah so im like at least we don’t make you do tricks for it and everyone but him got a good laugh. Hes going to try fogging again. Well see how that goes- its become the running joke of the trip really. After dinner we went over to the sheets with the german and he took some pictures. On the way over jose took the bag o fish and tied it to some kite string then threw it over a tree limb in hopes that the ringtailed cats etc would leave it alone. He asked for a knife and both me and jrj said we had one. We both grabbed for them (I went for the assist opening one). Unsuprisingly I won- I had mine open and in joses hand before jrj had even gotten his out of his pocket. I love the way it springs open when flicked. Jrj made some comment about how I carry around 3 and so it shouldn't be suprising and im like I have 4 don’t short change me a knife. He didn’t seem to understand the beauty of the knife and made some comment about people from texas. Whatever. I went up to grab the head lamps then back downstairs. My hopper catchers starting to break along the joint and I asked jose if he had any epoxy. He didn’t have any of that but he did have some strong electrical tape so we fixed it right up with that. Then the 3 of us went to check the malaise traps. Neither of them had very much but there was some stuff. We checked the other light and he gave me a Chrisina he caught and I also got a click beetle. It was raining a bit by now and then the fog rolled in. It was amazing how fast it came up. Jose went to bed and AMC and I went and checked the other sheet. I killed a couple of leps using the ammonia syringe then we called it a night also. I worked on my notes then typed this up while listening to music- it's become my tradition to listen to Bowling for Soups "Come Back to Texas" each night as I'm getting ready for bed. I love it down here, but nothing beats home. At 1120 AMC woke up and said she was having a bad dream where shes collecting on a cliff and got the label data wrong. Then she caught a silver beetle and though it was the coolest thing before waking up and realizing she was dreaming. I too dream of collecting while im collecting but mine have more to deal with bugs I really want (that actually exist) or ones ive already caught. Most of this trip its been dreams of catching leafhoppers in huge malaise traps that run for miles. Wish we actually had traps like that. Cammacks been in all my dreams usually as the other person on the trip. I keep wishing we could swap him out for JRJ. Life would be so much more fun. Jose made a comment about the 3 of us terrestrial people being collecting buddies and im like no our real 3rd member is back in tx then told him about the musketeers and the ets. The musketeers are the 1st time ive truly been part of a group where we all talk and hang out all the time. Now the 1st of the musketeers is in the real world and while the other 2 of us wont be joining if for a long time (really if ever) our time in the same school is rapidly ending. I really hope jac, me and tff (as AMC is known to JAC) take a trip down to this area. Itd be so much fun.

Guatemala Day 4

AMC and I were up by 615. I packed and got ready then the 2 of us rolled malaise traps. I showed her how to roll them the way i do since Wharton isn’t a competent malaise trap packer. We had everything ready and packed by 7 when we were suppose to leave. Jose told us to go sign the guest book so the 2 of us went over and did so. We got back to the truck as JRJ showed up and started loading his stuff. We were on the road by 720. None of us were particularly hungry so we didn’t stop for anything. Eventually we stopped for gas in a town and while jose got gas we went over and grabbed some food. Aubrey and I got gummy bears, pork skins, and juice. I also got a small block of cheddar cheese. The juice was bitter and gritty tasting but it was cold so that was exciting AMC claims you can buy it in the states, but I've never seen this brand. I then fell asleep for a while as I tend to do these days on car trips. Our 1st stop was at about 1030 at a bridge over a stream. The bridge was very small and getting down to the water was kinda tricky so I stayed up on top and swept in the trees and grass. I got some cool membracids and a few new leafhoppers though. We only stopped for 20 min or so then back to the truck. Driving down the road we spotted a cop truck parked. All the cops here drive trucks. They signaled for us to stop and they looked at joses license and registration before allowing us to pass. Apparently that’s illeagal but the do it anyway and as jose puts it wastes everyones time. Dave said when he was down here 5 years ago theyed gotten pulled over by the military complete with guns. Jose said the military and police often work together to do that since the military cant pull people over by themselves. They search for drugs this way. By now Dave was needing a pepsi (I think hes addicted to them) so we found a good size town and looked for a pepsi sign. We finally found one and parked the truck. He got out and started heading for the bakery back down the street. We all followed and I kept tripping on the sidewalk. It was pretty sad. The bakery didn’t have much so me, AMC, and Jose headed back towards the truck. Jose pointed out the piñata shop and said I should get one since id told them about my 8year old birthday piñata experience. We stopped at a coke store and I got a can of coke for 3.5 Q I was very proud of the fact I knew what the cashier told me the total was. JRJ and David caught up with us and we loaded back up and took off. David handed out sweet bread so I ate a piece of that. We stopped a piece down the road at a bridge over a river near the town of San Antonio. The river was pretty wide and people were bathing and doing laundry. AMC and JRJ took off across the river while I worked the banks on the side we parked on. There was a small pond parallel to the river with some trees growing along it so I hit that pretty hard. I got a Chalcid one of the yellow ones with expanded hind femora it was quite exciting. There were also some cool membracids and a leafhopper or 2. Back in the truck where we made JRJ sit in the middle. The plan had been not to stop anymore and we drove on for quite a while. We went through the dry part of the country which was quite hilly. We then started climbing back up into the mountains and came across some small streams that went under the road. After passing the 1st one dave got all excited and said we should stop at the next one we saw. We drove for awhile before jose spotted one as we drove past. He turned the truck around and dropped dave off. The rest of us kept going until there was a spot to turn around at. We went back to the site and I swept a bit. We were only there 10 min or so before continuing on. At one point we went through a town and got stuck in a funeral procession. There was a truck full of flowers leading it followed by the casket carried by some pallbearers. One of them had recently had his right hand amputated and was carrying the casket on his bandaged stump. It looked rather painful. Following the body was a large group of mourners then lastly the band composed of a few trumpets.

We arrived at the Quetzal reserve at about 450 and got checked in. AMC and I are in room 2. We couldn’t figure out how to get the door open and decided apparently 2 BS weren’t enough you needed an MS. JRJ was able to get it open so this confirmed out theory. However he promptly locked his keys in his room so guess a MS means you can open the door once but then your screwed. We started packaging our malaise traps samples into worrle packs. The 1st trap with only 12 bugs we just hand packed and saved the alcohol for rinsing with. The next traps all had a lot of bugs in them is we just poured as much as we could into a woorlpack then decanted the alcohol off the top through the fishnet then into the grass. We continued packing up samples until Jose came up and said he was going to town to check his mail. He asked if we wanted to go and I said the only reason I could think of was to get beer. He got all excited and said lets go. So me and AMC finished up what we were doing and headed down to the truck. Jose had 3 beers (Gallo) and we climbed in the truck and took off down the mountain. I love no open container laws its like driving around on the ranch. We got down to town and went to the internet café. Jose got us each a computer and I dealt with my e-mail while drinking my beer. Gallo is definatly an experience. Its not the worst beer I've had but its also not exactly the best. We were down there for probably 30 min or so before heading back up to the reserve. We pulled up and turned in our bottles. David and JRJ were collecting at the bottom light and some people were watching them. We went to check it out and AMC reached for a beetle which apparently JRJ was taking a picture of. He freaked out and the 2 of us decided to grab our dinner (spam, crackers, and peanut butter) and go to the other sheet further up the hill to eat. We collected a bit then sat down to feed. After eating we went back to check out the other light. I put the left over spam in the fridge. There was an American couple watching David and JRJ. They’re from Washington and took 6 months off to explore Central America. Apparently they saw us drive up and unload and the guys like I know what they are ive seen similar stuff on the discovery channel and after we had everything running came to check it out. We heard ring tailed cats which brought up pumas. Apparently they’re all over the reserve but are rarely seen. They also have ocelots and jacarundies. Jose spotted a rare lep and caught it. He was holding onto it walking towards his box and I asked if he ever killed them by injecting alochol straight into the body. Just as I said this he pulled out a syringe and shot the lep up with clear liquid which turned out to be ammonia. Apparently this works better since you need less than a drop to kill your bug instantly. Between that and the snake last night AMC and I decided Jose is the master at perfect timing. We went back to the top sheet and I caught a large weevil. AMC called it a night for now at about 915 and we went back to our room after checking the bottom sheet. I decided to take a shower which was quite an adventure since the hot water heater was on the showerhead. I couldn’t get the water hot at all. AMC asked me how cold it was when I got done and I told her at no point did I think I was going to freeze to death but it defiantly wasn’t even remotely warm. She though this was funny and kept saying at no point did I think I was going to freeze to death. Todays major amusement was the total role reversal between the sexes on this trip. Who are we always waiting on? JRJ. Who rides in the back of the truck? AMC and I. Whos like lets get some beer? TAC and AMC. So apparently its us girls who drink beer, eat spam, and ride in the truck bed. Figures. Yeah were living the good life the guys just don’t know what theyre missing.