Soooo... Panama?

More than a few people have asked me what I'm doing in Panama, which is a fair question, given my general lack of communication on the subject.

To clear things up, in September I began my Masters in Biology, with a concentration in Neotropical Environment, at McGill University. A component of this thesis-based program is a duet of courses offered in Panama, "Tropical Biology and Conservation" and "Foundation of Environmental Policy". Both of these courses are being offered at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in January and February this year, thus I've decided to travel to Panama to fulfill my program requirements. Additionally, my Masters research is also based in Panama, so I have decided to extend my stay here until the end of April to get some preliminary research done. This, not so coincidentally, coincides with the dry season in Panama, prior to the rainy season that generally commences in May, so yay, 2 birds with one stone.

Now, though I've only been here just over a week, so much has happened, so I'll try to give you as much of an overview as I can, without boring you with the details. I must also admit something; I am a terrible photographer. Not only do I never bother to take pictures... but the pictures I take are generally varying forms of crap. I've also noticed an increasing number of my photos have guest appearances of my fingers in the corners, something that kind of takes away from the effect of it all. That being said, there are people in my current course who are far from terrible photographers. They have given me permission to use their photos on this blog, to supplement the sad excuses for photos that I produce with my cell phone's camera.

Something else I should note, is that the people in my current course, Tropical Biology and Conservation, come from several institutions. We have representatives from McGill, University of Illinois and INDICASAT (a university in Panama), not to mention people from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Brazil. This adds some interesting dynamics to the whole program... basically making it far more enjoyable with our diversity of backgrounds- research and geographically based.

Now, onto the trip.

It all began on January 6th when I flew out of the Toronto airport, packed with far more than I probably should have brought, but hey, I'll be prepared right? 

The flights were quite uneventful, apart from one thing: they were early. This was fine for me, except that the other people who were supposed to arrive at the airport at the same time as me, welllll, their flights were late. Fast forward from 11:30am at the airport in Toronto to 9:30pm at the Panama City airport, where I walk past customs and see a row of people holding signs... but no one with Smithsonian sign. I got the Panama tourism people to phone my course coordinator to figure out what I was supposed to do, and he told me to just stay there and wait.

Fast forward again to about midnight, and we were ready to go. When I finally got to bed around 1:30am at the Gamboa Schoolhouse, to say that I crashed would be an understatement.

Thus ended day 1.

The following day, about 4.5 hours later, we all woke up to go to Barro Colorado Island (BCI), which is a research station that the Smithsonian has been running since the 1970s, but which has been in operation since the 1920s. The island was created with the flooding of Gatun Lake and the development of the Panama Canal.

We spent 3 days on BCI. We went on hikes all over the island and learned about the research conducted there, the vegetation, birds, other animals and insects on the island and in Panama. We could not, unfortunately, go swimming. The reason? Crocodiles. Apparently in the 20th century, until the 1970s, the Americans had a military base on the island and would shoot any crocodile over a certain size. Well after they packed up shop, the crocodiles became protected by law, which means they can grow... a lot. One was reported to be 21 feet long... not something I'd want to run into on a swim.

We actually got to see a crocodile swimming in the water the first night we were at BCI, it was pretty cool, but I was glad to be up on the balcony.

So, on BCI and throughout the past week and a half or so in Gamboa, we have seen A LOT of amazing species and research projects. I shall try to save your eyeballs and brains from my babbling, however, and just try to illustrate the awesomeness with photographic evidence. Enjoy!

An anteater on BCI

Blue-crowned manakin on Pipeline Road

Kingfisher on Pipeline Road

Hiking on BCI

View on BCI

Taking the boat from BCI back to Gamboa

Blue-crowned manakin on Pipeline Road

Howler monkey (we've seen a lot in different places!)

Praying mantis

Oscillated ant bird on Pipeline Road

Another anteater shot! (Same one as above on BCI)

Carrion plant on BCI (looks like/ smells like dead flesh to attract pollinators)

Close up of carrion plant

Mother sloth with baby, seen from view on canopy crane. I was in the first group to go up the crane, so we didn't see them, unfortunately... but we did see one later...

Butterfly with eyespot

Kingfisher on Pipeline Road

Howler monkey

Fungal garden with ant queen

Close up of fungal garden (leaf cutter ants)

The sloth that Carlos (our course coordinator) rescued from crossing the highway

The same sloth that Carlos rescued!

And now for the people shots!

This sign is located in Gamboa and Lynette and I had a mini photoshoot for about 5 minutes and then it got too hot

Tara and I on the canopy crane-- so much fun!

Lynette and I at the Gamboa resort, enjoying a drink that didn't come out of a box or was tap water. (Fun side note: the water in Panama is safe to drink, unless you're in Bocas del Toro province)

Fishing trip!

More photos and stories coming soon!

xoxo

Please see the following Flickr accounts for more photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolaschatellaunay

https://www.flickr.com/photos/igertneo

On the subject of walking around Wellington, where there are a great many hills... "I like walking.. until I get to the top of the hill, then I hate it" (Abi)

Well, it has been quite a long stretch of time since I last wrote. There have been a number of significant things that have happened since the end of June. Unfortunately, since I've left this post so long, I may have to cut the stories short, and just proceed to list them. Fortunately though, I do have a great number of pictures to go along with the list.

First things first, I finished my exams- woot woot! June 30th took forever to get here, but when it did, I wrote my last exam and it felt wonderful to finally have them all done with. As you can imagine, things were very hectic in the weeks preceding exams and such, so having all that wrapped up was a big relief.

During this time period, however, I still managed to get some fun in.

I got to see Ian Mckellan perform a one man show at the Wellington Opera House with Sara (Team Awesome strikes again!). For those of you who don't know, he played Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, he also played Magnito in X-Men. The First Act was about his movie acting career, the second about his Shakespeare acting career. He was just as phenomenal in real life. The show was made even more amazing by the fact that all of the proceeds made from the entire production were going towards rebuilding the Christchurch theatre (which was severely damaged during the earthquakes last year).

At the end of the show, he called up the entire cast of 'The Hobbit' (coming out this fall!!) to help collect donations. Sara and I both bought programs and got him to sign them (he charged $5 for autographs, but at least it all went to charity). We also managed to get Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings movies) to sign them as well! It was very exciting for nerds like us!

The next big thing- the third and final photo shoot. The shoot ended up being quite different from what was originally planned- in that less than half the dancers showed up who had actually confirmed attendance, and then we ended up having, at one point, more photographers than photographees. But no matter, it was a great time, and photo cred goes to Big Mark Photography, Rob Wilson Photography, Kate Griffiths Photography, and Wild Kiwi Photography. Also, a shout out to Abigail Helsby for being a volunteer make up artist- though the zombie theme didn't work out (long story), we still appreciated your help and presence! Love ya girl!

This is the beginning- when our original photoshoot location was jacked by a large group of ukulele players, we moved on to this spot. This was an action shot of Mark and I being photo dictators... 

I trust Ahmed... mostly. Though I have to say, this jump came close to changing that- and the shape of my fingers.

Nanmie doing his thang.

Uh huh...

Ummm... I was tired- and cold!

Eddie- first time dancing with this guy, too bad he couldn't stay in Wellington longer!

Jeck dancing away- action shot!

We moved to a new location for the next 10 shots or so- pretty neat spot.

This next series of photos is at a new location again- the one we were originally supposed to shoot at on Cuba Street. Ahmed, Eddie, Jeck and I had a little dance battle and these composite shots are taken from that. We gathered a little audience too- and I was actually recognized the following day in a cafe by a woman who had watched us and took her own pictures- crazy!

The gang!

The next big thing that happened was my trip up the east coast of the North Island. I visited: Hastings, Matamata, Tauranga and Rotorua. Here are the photos from the trip!

I stayed with my good friend, Stephen, and his family in their home in Hastings. Stephen and I spent an afternoon in Napier and these are a sampling of the photos- and foolishness- that ensued!

MINI-PUTT!!! So awesome! (P.S. I really suck at mini-putt).

Lunch time! Very good food! I got eggs benedict.

It started to rain that night, so Stephen's dad picked us up and we drove to the top of a ridge/mountain whose name I can't actually recall, but there was a mural on top of it, and this ^^ is a picture of the world's longest place name. With the crappy weather we couldn't actually see the real thing from our viewpoint, but we were close by.

Being the super awesome people that we are- we spent an evening putting together this three-dimensional Hobbiton puzzle while watching the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring- and proceeding to make fun of the characters as we did so. Though we spent more time rehearsing everyone's movie lines with varying degrees of success.

Hobbiton photos! Hobbiton is located close by Matamata, which is this cute little town, full of friendly people. I was just standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the tour bus, and a guy on his skateboard skated by and said 'Hey bro' as he passed- this is a popular greeting in New Zealand. Anyways, so Hobbiton was amazing and I was... very excited as we walked through the site, as you will see...

Fun Fact: They made hobbit holes of varying size, depending on the character who would be filmed by the holes i.e. if the hobbits were being filmed, the holes were fairly large, big enough for a normal sized person to stand in, but if a human (or a wizard) was filmed by a hole, it would be a much smaller replica to make them seem taller.

This oak tree above Bilbo Baggins' house is made entirely of fibre glass- our guide told us that many a cut was had when the leaves had to be put on!

Tauranga- arguably the best beaches in New Zealand, it reminded me of a tropical island. The mountain on the right is Mount Maunganui.

Sheep! There are 7 sheep for every 1 person in New Zealand.

Rotorua! Well known for its smell- because of the geysers around (and in) the city, it has a strong sulphur smell (volcano lava heats up the water above and creates water spouts, known as geysers- my geology terminology and knowledge of the process is very sparse, so please excuse me if this is not the exact process). The geyser(s) I visited were at a place called 'Te Puia'.

It was at Te Puia where I met a lovely German couple (Nadine and Michael) who have been traveling for the past 3 years- we ended up driving over to the redwood forest nearby. They were amazing people- with equally amazing stories! I was recommended to visit the redwood forest by a man I met in Tauranga while climbing down Mount Maunganui- and I was glad for the suggestion!

Here's the redwood forest.

My week up the coast was very packed- I arrived in Rotorua mid-morning on a Thursday, and was scheduled to leave that night around 11:30pm. I went into a nice cafe/restaurant to get dinner and noticed that black ice had made the front page news (these are the winter months in NZ, but their winter is far from the winter we get in Canada!). I kinda thought it was funny, so I took a photo. I made friends with the people who worked in the cafe and we went to a local dive after they closed up the cafe and we had a drink before one of them took me to the bus station. They were so great to help out a stranger!

....
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As I wrote this blog post 2 years ago, I cannot exactly tell you what happened next, except that I: visited Abel Tasman park for a tramping trip, and spent a few memorable days in Queenstown (but couldn't go skydiving because of the weather *stomps foot in frustration* and had a couple days in Dunedin as well with a lovely woman who I met in Pahia, and her daughter.. cried an exorbitant amount in the Wellington airport when I said goodbye to Tali and my other kiwi friends, and travelled back to Canada.


BUT all that was 2 years ago... when I forgot to hit the "publish" button.

Why is the blog now re-surfacing, you may ask?

Stay tuned for my trip updates to...

PANAMA!

A 4 month graduate course/ masters' research adventure beginning on January 6th 2015.

Photos and more consistent blog posts coming soon!