The End of Our Journey

Today is the final day of our trip, by the end of the day we will be back in Oklahoma. We've done a decent amount of stuff since the last update. We've collected and dried leaves for a decomposition study. I weighed the leaves and the snail shells that were to accompany the leaves so that rate of decomposition  can be compared to litter with and without snail shells. We got all of those put out Sunday afternoon, thus ending the research portions of the trip for Dr. Zimmermann and myself.

Not everything we've done since the last post has been purely science we've had some fun as well. Saturday we pretty much spent the day out and about. We stopped in the morning at a Puerto Rican bakery where we enjoyed breakfast before we headed back up to the tourist oriented portion of El Yunque. There we enjoyed a hike up to the highest observation tower on the mountain and a hike through the cloud forest. From there we headed down to the beach and made our way to a beach referred to as the hidden beach where it's almost completely free of your everyday beach goers.

Here's a short recap of things I've done/learned throughout the short time I've been down here:

• mark/recapture of snails
• become very proficient with calipers
• data entry
• litter decomposition work
• experienced the rainforest both during the day and at night
• learned to navigate the big grid at night using a compass and map
• experienced many of the streams and waterfalls the rainforest has to offer
• swam in both the rainforest and the ocean
• tried many delicious foods
• visited Old San Juan
• kayaked a biobay
• visited the cloud forest
• spent time at the beach
• visited the mangroves

All in all I've enjoyed the trip and would recommend it to anyone willing to deal with a little bit of hard work in the rainforest because it's not an experience that will be forgotten anytime soon. I've gained loads of field experience while down here while also enjoying a decent amount of fun as well.

 The view from the highest observation tower on El Yunque

 Hidden Beach

Mangrove