Hey y’all!

Man, has today been big first day! We met at Rice before the crack of dawn, drove to IAH airport, and hopped on a 2-hr plane ride over the Gulf (an amazing view, btw) to Belize City. After a lovely lunch and drive through multiple towns throughout the countryside, we arrived at our first stay of the trip: Crystal Paradise Ecolodge! This lodge perched in the mountainous country is reputed for its sheer number of colorful bird species visitors can see each morning at dawn. I only hope I can get myself out of bed early enough!

Though I did not see it, one of my classmates found a variety of tailless scorpion in their room on a toilet paper roll before moving it to the forest outside! The animal in question had eight, very thin legs, was gray, and had a squat abdomen and head. I am not sure what this is, but I am looking forward to figuring out what it could be! Sorry for the lack of pictures right now! Having some technical difficulties but hoping to resolve them soon!

The first round of presentations was very interesting, focusing on trees and birds as they will be the most likely things for us to see. Then came my presentation on Life in the Canopy. I was pretty nervous at first, but I started to really get into it and have some fun with the material and discussing chain reaction effects of disturbances to the rainforest on different types of plants reaching the canopy. I guess all I had to do was loosen up a bit and have fun with it!

We’ll be heading into the rainforest tomorrow and seeing some ancient Mayan architecture, so hopefully I’ll be able to find more arachnids and take pictures of them!

Until tomorrow!

Serenity