We have had good luck with the power here, so each night after dinner and clean-up we have movie night and all hang out in the conference room watching movies or Game of Thrones episodes through the projector.
Last Saturday, we had a big day planned at the beach with some makeshift limoncello, Puerto Rican party tradition "sandwichitos" (sand-wee-chee-tos) and other snacks and drinks. Sandwichitos are a little strange but since they are a tradition, I had to try it. To make them, you blend up velveeta cheese, pimentos, and spam. eek! Then, smear the mixture on plain white bread and cut it up into little triangles. Shape is important here, people. They must be little triangles. So we took a couple coolers full of food and drinks to the Seven Seas Balneario and set up camp. It was a big group of us REU's, mentors, some of the lab techs and researchers too. The locals in our group knew about a place about a twenty minute walk from our beach spot through the woods next to the mangroves that brought us out onto a really nice secluded beach away from the main drag. There were huge piles of boulders that we climbed around on and big crashing waves too. It was a nice day until the rain came! It was cold rain too, so most of us filled up our cups and went and stood in the water, where it was warmer. We left eventually, but not before I tried a pincho, which is chicken, pork, beef or shrimp (take your pick) on a stick usually with some small bite of a carb to go with it. It's well marinated and delicious. The beach vendor that I bought from even had a bottle of Sriracha for the snacks! First bottle I have seen since I have been here and I miss that stuff! Here's the vendor..
And his goods.
Later that night, we went out to the college town of Rio Piedras and bar hopped around, I took a couple of photos, but I will be back one day to take some in the daylight. It's a city painted in street art, but not just name-tagging and stuff. There is really cool, strange, abstract, weird & awesome drawings.
This one is just a photo of stickers at the beer bar we went to. They like local brews too!
It was a good night all in all. We got back to the station very late and stopped at this little taco stand on the way. yum.
I slept in Sunday, did a little bit of research on my project and same for monday, but Tuesday, we went on an adventure. A few of us asked for a free day from the director and our mentor and went with Roxy, a tech for one of the grad students doing research here, to Piñones to do some sea kayaking! It was so nice. Myself, Wilmarie, Emily and Roxy had a great time on two tandem kayaks, which Emily calls "divorce makers". We kayaked into, through and out of some thick mangrove swamp like areas to the open water and enjoyed some beautiful weather on the coast, while up at El Yunque, we could see storms circling the mountain. After about two hours of kayaking, we hit the beach and enjoyed some passionfruit sorbet, warm water and sunshine. I got a little roasted toasted out there, but it made for such a nice day.
Here we are, on the kayaks and in the mangroves, in hunt of the manatees! Or just one manatee, we would be happy with one big happy manatee sight. (They do exist here)
We found no manatees, but we did find enjoyment away from the station. AND I bought some cheapy flip flops so that I would stop getting heat rash from my other shoes. This rainforest keeps me itchy, all the time.
Wednesday, Keysa Rosas, Emilys mentor & Alonsos lab tech, was our speaker. She talked about aquatic insects and their use as bio-indicators for aquatic ecosystem health. Aquatic insects are any insect that has at least one life stage in the aquatic environment. They live from 2 weeks to 2 years generally. Keysa worked in bio-monitoring and bio-assessment before she began work in The Ramirez Lab at UPR. We learned a lot of background on orders and families of aquatic insects, and some traits of those. For example, the ephemeroptera family of mayflies has three caudal filaments coming from its abdomen while the plecoptera family of stoneflies have only 2 caudal filaments coming from their abdomen. These two families along with tricoptera, the caddisflies, are very sensitive to pollution. Measuring richness and abundance of these families in comparison to the chironomids, who are not sensitive to pollution can help a bio-assessor understand something about the health of the stream. Scientifically, this method is not acceptable as a measurement but for companies and agencies who want a "grade" on stream health, it is. Here's their equation:
(Plectopera+Ephemeroptera+Tricoptera)÷(Chironomids) = blah blah blah
Sound stupid? It is. I think it's ridiculous that governments and companies use this reading as acceptable when scientists deny it. Anyway, Keysa gave a good talk and I learned about something that I know nothing about, so that is nice.
SO, I mentioned when I started writing this (11:00a or so this morning, when it was sunny) that we were so lucky to have power and now, after heavy heavy downpouring all day, I am about to post it at 4:00p and the power has gone out. We are back on the generator, so sorry for jinxing it guys! :)
Saturday, we are beaching it again, going to Old San Juan to see the forts and having sushi for lunch.
Rain, Rain and more Rain.
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