Late Wednesday post from Los Quetzales

Stream in Cerro Punta (Travis Law)

We’ve had our 12th consecutive full day of activities. We just finished with some student presentations of individual projects involving combining drawing and photographing birds and comparing night and day reef life. The cloud forest was spectacular and now we’re busy getting prepared for an early morning departure. We will have some final entries when we are a little less busy. All is well. I have uploaded some photos. Only some are from the last 2 days; most are from the whole trip. Click on “Photo Gallery” on the right hand column to see new entries from Amber, Gina, Sayre, Travis, and Steve.

We will be posting more photos, but probably not until after we get back. I will try to let you know when we clear customs in Miami. We left ourselves even more time in Miami than the airlines recommended as that has been a bottleneck for us in the past. We’ll see you soon.

Allan Wang above Las Minas trail

See Will’s post below:

“This evening was a fitting end to a wonderful trip.  We went out to dinner at a restaurant in Guadalupe town proper, and had a final group check-in to wrap up the trip.  It really did feel like a matter of days ago we had our first, and in fact, it wasn’t that long ago.  We discussed trip highlights and toasted the group leaders, and then went on to dinner- which included the most fantastic strawberries and cream dessert imaginable.  After dinner, the group went to watch two of our members join in a game of pickup soccer with local teens, which was an nice means of cultural exchange.  And we got some much-desired free time at the hotel to wrap up the trip, where we discussed our impressions of the country with friends over games of ping-pong and chess.

I’m still a little stunned at how many experiences we managed to pack into ten short days.  My eyes are glazed over, I’m slumped over the computer- exhausted, but a fulfilled, content kind of exhaustion.  Los Quetzales was, cliché as this sounds, the most beautiful place I’ve been in my life.  And this is coming from a nature freak who’s managed to haul himself to nine countries and twenty states over the past few years.  Our chalet-style cabins were situated in totally pristine, always-misty montane cloud forest.  They made fore the perfect spot to reflect on our work at ITEC, compare the forest with that on Isla Colon, and continue some independent studies at higher altitudes.  Students’ projects at LQ included learning Spanish naturalist jargon from local guides, mapping local rivers, studying Resplendent Quetzals, landscape drawing, and frog ecology- quite a spread!  We had plenty of time to bond with our cabin-mates and hang out. Still, even when we weren’t being asked to work on our projects, many folks were drawn to them anyway.

There’s a whole lot more to say here.  Unfortunately, Steve’s Mac is running out of reserve battery power (too many photo uploads, etc).  I’ll fill everybody in on the rest of the trip tomorrow, but it wont be too long before the group is back in Boston.

But honestly, I wouldn’t mind staying here another mod or so.

Best,

William Freedberg”