A few pictures...

Here are some pictures from our trip! :)


This is one of the many, many roads we've traveled on our way to the sites!


 The trees are SO cool.. Most of the trees around here don't have leaves, but the fig trees have really healthy looking leaves that leak weird sticky white stuff when you break them off. The fruits are like that too, so the picking process gets a little messy sometimes! The neat tangly stuff in the branches are adventitious roots - they grow from the trunk of the tree and find their way to the ground. Neat, right?



This is the collection of vials after our first successful day of collecting. We have the squishy fruits, and then we slice them with a knife and stick a toothpick in them, then throw them in the canisters. The bugs come crawling out after they see the light coming in, and our first step is complete. The whole process is called "rearing". Gross, but interesting.

Here's Brad doing science. Isn't he dreamy? We're taking stock of the number of fruits that are on the tree (a good estimate, at least.. It's tricky to get a good count of all of it!). Also, that stuff behind him? yeah, we climbed through that. Booyah.
Neat branches... All of the plants here are very interesting. Most of them are pointy, but this particular one was rubbery and easy to pass by. These plants are my favorites (aside from the fig trees which blow everything else out of the water on a scale of coolness.

Fig trees have AWESOME roots. They grow right into the rock and take claim of the area. The trees themselves are some of the very few things that provide shade, too, so it's a relief to find a good, healthy tree for LOTS of reasons!


It's been a great trip. Adam took this picture. The stick I'm holding is what we're using to get the figs out of the higher branches. Brad sometimes has wanted to climb up high to get them, but I'll be having none of that on my watch. I think my restriction is going to get me a special sentence or two in his dissertation. :)


We've been having a grand time, and the food is AMAZING! We're going to try to get some pictures of it tonight. There are some incredible places around here. We're trying a new tequila every night so we can be total snobs when we get back. Hehe!

It's been a blast. We'll update again really soon!