Day 9

Yesterday we said “goodbye” to Finca La Anita and said “hello” to Horizontes. We woke up to a delicious breakfast before getting the chance to buy some merchandise and homemade Finca chocolate. After spending lots of our money, we said “adios” to Pablo and hit the road for our next adventure!

The drive took us several hours, and we stopped by a grocery store and a souvenir shop along the way (Father’s Day is on the brain for many people). After spending even more money, we arrived at Horizontes! Horizontes is very different from Finca; it is in the middle of the dry rainforest and near the west coast, while Finca is in the wet rainforest nowhere near the coast. We were given our rooms and we set about unpacking. I think I speak for all of us when I say that Horizontes is not nearly as glamorous as Finca. The floors are cement, the walls are white, and nothing here is remotely “fancy” or “luxurious” (even Jack’s pillow was stuffed with cotton balls!). Oh, and we have to check for scorpions in our beds before we go to sleep every night. Nice…

After unpacking, a delicious lunch, and lots of card playing, John made several announcements for us. First of all, he reminded us about our presentations to all of you on July 9^th, and told us that we needed to trim off (or “shave” rather) about half of our 10-12 minute bioinformatics presentations to make them only 5 minutes long. We’ll need to shorten and cut slides and talk a lot faster if we want to be able to fully communicate our studies to you.

Secondly, during our time at Finca, we have been invited to participate in the Hospital Microbiome Project. This project is an effort to map every kind of microorganism that exists in every part of every hospital in the U.S (especially the “sterilized” areas). Our Seeds of Change group has been invited to map a hospital microbiome as part of this project. Because we were invited only recently, we have not chosen a hospital to map yet, or a time to do it, but it is something that will be planned and scheduled relatively soon.

Finally, Bridget and Karin gave us more in-depth information about sea turtles, and their pioneering efforts to track them. We learned about the different kinds of sea turtle tracks, and how to distinguish them, but most importantly, we leaned about their idea and efforts to record sea turtles using drones. Their idea is to use automated drones to scan previously unreachable beaches (due to their dangerous terrain) for sea turtles. They have tested it in makeshift environments (like the park) and proven that it can work, and have already filed a grant request. They are revolutionizing the way scientists search for sea turtles.

After the meeting was over, we passed the time until we went to the beach to look for sea turtles the old fashioned way. We set down our blankets, turned off our lights, and slept (more or less) under the stars and with the sounds of waves crashing. Bridget and Karin took groups in different directions on the beach to look for sea turtles. They would spend around 45 minutes each looking for tracks, and would ask for or find volunteers to come with. By 2:20 AM we had come up empty and headed back to our rooms for about 4 hours of sleep (unless you wanted to skip breakfast, which is a very valid option that I’m sure many people will accept). Ben had to leave the trip early, and we all said goodbye to him before hitting the hey.

Today is a new day, and a new blog I won’t have to write. We’ll see all you parents tomorrow!

Raymond Martinez