the departure

hola amigos!

i am sitting here on nicole's deck, and she is reading me pick-up lines from my new spanish phrase book. "Shall we get some air?" "Vamos a tomar el aire?"

i am wearing quick dry convertible pants, tank top, quick dry long sleeve shirt and my hiking boots. i am so ready.

soon Jan will come to pick me up and we will go to Naam for dinner (awesome.) then the airport. i leave at 11pm PST.
tomorrow around noon i arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica. and look for the dude with the "La Suerte BFS" sign. we spend one night in San Jose, then travel to Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. wooooooooooah!

i really can't believe it. i think it hit me on the ferry this morning. i was inline for a PCL ticket and it just hit me. i am going to nicaragua. i almost fell over (the falling over was actually more likely because of my 95lb backpack. seriously. it's enormous. and very heavy. but it fits well, so bring it on.)

i am wearing my wooden Maori fishhook necklace for peace and comfort (and safe travels over open waters, which is the actual symbolism of it... hopefully it applies to higher atmospheric altitudes as well.... mostly it just reminds me of nz and makes me happy).

at Ometepe i will be doing a month long independent research project about howler monkeys and attending classes most days. i think. i don't actually know that much about this whole thing. my prof seems really nice over email though, so that's good.

anyways
welcome to my blog!
i got an email from the coordinators recently that had all kinds of general info, including something like "do not worry, there is internet access in Meridia, which is only a 45 minute walk away from the field station"... so yeah... no worries, dude... only a 45 minute walk. through the rainforest. no biggy.

all i can say is Bring it On. i've got Rite-in-the-Rain notebooks instead of pom poms but it's basically the same idea.

i'll try to post whenever possible, but it could be pretty infrequent.

i hope y'all have a great summer and those of you in kingston - see you in august! and those in vic - see you in september!

((just to clarify - an "Atelid" is a monkey in the taxanomic family of "Atelidae" which includes howler monkeys and spider monkeys and a bunch of others. howler monkeys are what we'll be studying.... Atelid is not an adjective.... as far as i know... but i used it that way anyways. yeeeah alliteration!))