Tuesday May 4th, 2010

We finally made it to the rainforest today, and it only took us 17 hours to get here! We set out from Georgetown at 3:00 a.m. in the back of an old Bedford military truck. We were lucky enough to get some padding on the floor, but I still find it quite amazing that both of the Andrews and Jeff were able to get a substantial amount of sleep in, squeezing in between knees and boots to get a comfortable spot to rest. The majority of the ride was smooth, and we even made it to our lunch spot earlier than expected. Riding on the open back of the truck allowed us to see many parrots and blue morpho butterflies. The ride was bumpy, but we did not lose anyone on the winding road through the forest. Everyone soon began to comment on the dust, as the roads are made mostly of red dirt and gravel. The layering of sunscreen and dust and bug spray and more dust gave everyone the look of amateur-looking spray-on tans! The further we drove into the forest the taller the trees stood. Many organisms from our textbooks came alive before us as we observed strangler figs, epiphytes and buttresses. I can recall many times where people would turn to each other and question, “Are we really here?!” We caught our ferry across the Essequibo and rode across smoothly; in fact we almost made it to the Canopy Walk without a hitch until our truck broke down... The engine was overheating and some pump was broken, so water was being brought in from streams we crossed to cool the engine. Fifteen miles away from our destination, we were done. As the men were working on the engine, we students took this time to explore along the road and even found plants displaying thigmotropism! Our plan was to wait for some trucks we had seen earlier and hitch our last fifteen miles with them, but when they eventually showed up, the men ended up chaining our truck to another and towing us for the last fifteen miles. We are now settled at the canopy walk and it is really an oasis. The bedrooms have two twin beds with mosquito nets, and the showers are large and clean. We had a really good meal with fresh squeezed lemonade, which was extremely refreshing. Tonight we are falling asleep to the sounds of the rainforest!