Hi everyone!! The travel blog is back!!
This time, I am in Grand Cayman doing research for the IRCF (Int. Reptile Conservation Foundation). Here's what I do pretty much every day...
I wake up between 5:35 and 5:50, eat oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, get my gear ready, and hop in the car with F- who I work with. We drive to the Salina reserve and we always pass the sun rising over the beach on our way there. We also pass by heaps and heaps of former houses, trees, and cars that have been destroyed by the hurricane. When we get to the reserve, we do a strenuous 1/2 hour hike into two sites where we have released iguanas. By strenuous, I mean that you couldn't even get a donkey down the trail. The trail is essentially sharp stalagmites called “karst” which is like a treacherous honeycomb rock formation. My ankles are miraculously still in tact! Boots however look like they have been chewed by a dog --both pair. After we get in, F- and I go to different sites and I don't have human contact again until the end of the day. At 745 sharp I start my first round of iguana tracking. We have released 13 baby iguanas into the wild for the first time, and each has their own area with a wooden nest box that has been iguana tested and approved. Without the boxes apparently they just run off and die. The first iguanas poke their heads out of their boxes at a little after 8, and then I walk a circut from box to box recording their movements once an hour. Once the females get themselves settled, we will release the males, and hopefully havoc will not break loose. When the last iguana is back in her retreat, or hole, or tree as the case may be, I get to hike out and go home. On the way home, we get to see the sunset, and the destruction. It really looks like the island has been through a blender. When we get back, we crash on the couch to take off our boots and hit the showers. Then we heat up a british caserole that S- has made for us in the freezer and somtimes D- makes a salad. If the casserole has meat then I eat rice and beans which I made and put in the freezer. D- is a filmaker and sometimes she comes with us to film the iguanas. After dinner, we get our gear ready for the next day, and spend a few hours entering the data into the computer before we forget all our little notes. There are also usually other things to do like laundry, dishes, phone calls, and stuff for the project. We try to finish all of this by 10, because we are always exhausted. I am currently sitting in the bushes waiting for my next round of tracking to start. I purchased this blackberry thingy, so even though I'm in the middle of nowhere, I have wireless phone and email. Please email me. I can't promise to write back right away given my busy schedule, but its nice to hear from home. If you don't have my email (hotmail) ask around, I don't want to put it on the blog and get spammed with viagra adds.
- posted by cxjo @ 10:23 AM