Goodbyes...

Hi there..!! Hope you have all enjoyed your the summer holidays so far. It's now time for us here in the Trinidadian jungle to start packing up the research station.. no one can BELIEVE that 8 weeks passed so quickly and that its now time to move on to Tobago which is an island that's a part of Trinidad to have a look at the coral reefs there..VERY exiting and different from what we have been doing so far! We have experienced so many amazing things and places here and its both sad and happy goodbyes..sad because we don't want to leave and happy because some of us will come back to work here again for sure, myself included!! But it's not over till it's over, and even though this is the very last blog I'll of course tell you about some of the things we have seen and done this week.

This week has been a very good one and also a very hard one as we have climbed 2 mountains! On Friday we climbed El Tucuche, Trinidad's 2nd highest mountain.

We had to wake up at 5 in the morning as the climb to the top was nearly 6 hours long..BUT the reason we did this was because we know from previous years that the endangered and rare golden tree frog (picture mountain) lives only on the top of El Tucuche all the way up in the canopies inside a flower..sound like a game of hide and seek..??

The view from the top of El Tucuche

So we set off, but as we came closer to the top a storm came in over the mountain and we were suddenly surrounded by hard rain, lightning and very LOUD thunder, so when we reached the top it was way too dangerous to try and climb up the trees to look for the little golden Kermit, so this time we won't get to see him. In a way that's okay because its one of the things researcher and biologists encounter ALL the time..things NEVER go according to plan and more often than not you won't find what your looking for in your first try..or second..The golden tree frog study is a continuous one hopefully next year the new team Trinidad will have better weather..and luck when they set up the rough mountain once again.

Sunday we went up Trinidad's 4th highest mountain (don't be fooled..it's still VERY high!) to do some research on a species of bromeliad..and guess what we found in the plant..tadpoles..not from the golden tree frog but from another rare frog that also lives in these plants.

Dissecting a bromeliad to look for tree-frogs atop Chaguaramal.

Here are a few thoughts and reflections from some of us about our experiences here the past 8 weeks.

Nina: When I first came here I was absolutely overwhelmed by this place and now, 8 weeks later even more so. Ive seen so many cool and amazing animals and plants here and its hard to say whats been the most exiting, all of it!! (but I really did enjoy getting close to some of the big snakes and spiders here..) I really love all the noises here, it will be strange to go back to Glasgow..to hear only the traffic.

Cara: I've had an amazing time on this expedition and it is very difficult to pick just one favourite moment...there have been so many! However I would definitely count seeing Leatherback sea turtles nesting on the beach as one of my favourite moments as well as spotting monkeys at Nariva swamp and looking for the many species of frogs found out here. As Nina has mentioned above, scientific research often never goes according to plan....but that's the fun of it! There have been several times when we have set out on a trip to look for something and end up finding something completely different. It is difficult to sum up our time out here in just a few sentences so I guess you guys will have to come out and see for yourself!

Innes: Like Nina said, it's really difficult to believe that my time working in the forests of Trinidad this Summer have come to an end. This is the second time I've visited the island, and I'm really glad that I came back, as I've seen such a different side to the country than I had experienced before. The rainforests here are the coolest environment I've ever worked in, and they've definitely been the highlight of our time here for me. It's seemed like every place we went to work in the forest had a different feel to it, and there was always something new to see. I'd have loved to have been able to see a golden tree-frog, but our work looking for them was part of a larger study that Dan had been running this year and last (and will next Summer too) and in the places we looked this year he had never found any golden tree-frogs, although they are known to live there. Bad weather accounts a lot for us being unable to find the frogs, but also their elusive nature could be indicative of their increasing rarity, and just emphasizes how important it is to conserve their habitat, as this beautiful little animal, and others around it, might disappear. I can't help but have some optimism after the great time I've had working here though, and I hope that I can come back and work in the rainforest again very soon.

We really hope you have enjoyed reading our little updates here from the jungle and hope you all have a very nice summer onwards. Just before we go we would all like to give a HUGE thanks to Amazonia for showing a genuine interest in this conservation project here and for helping us sponsor this trip. It's made a big difference to us..and it's been FUN and a great experience working with them too..:)

BYE NOW!