Day 5 of boot camp.

Will the madness never end?

Actually we finally caught a break. We were supposed to go on the most intense hike of the week today, but the hike was twice as long as the Fantastic Four had anticipated. 26 kilometers to be exact. There was no way.

So the professors scrambled to organize alternative activities over breakfast. For breakfast, we had gallo pinto, huevos, tortillas, and the nastiest coffee I have ever tasted in my life. Ugh. It was like I was back in the states drinking tap water. I tried forcing myself to drink it, in expectation of the headache that was to come if I didn't, but I couldn't do it. Oh my gosh it was disgusting. I am gravely disappointed. We are in Costa Rica. How do you mess up coffee?

After breakfast, we went on a walk through the park talking about rocks and plants and insects--all of our favorite things. Fabricio took Katie and David in the truck up to check out some rock or stream or something, and so we walked around with just Scott for a while, and ended up talking about parasites the entire time. I was enthralled. Scott has a scar from a near-parasitic incidence. You see, he was walking through the jungle in nothing but his gym shorts to see how far he could get in the pitch black and his bare feet attracted some burrowing nasty. He ripped off one of his toenails to rid himself of it. I would find this admirable, but the story began with the man walking through a jungle in the dark with gym shorts on. Sorry, Scott, no cool points for you. Just boy points.

Fabricio came back to retrieve us after a while and informed us that whatever it was he had checked out with Katie and David was a bust. So Fabricio, Scott, and the six of us piled in the truck and drove a bit down the road for our next activity. The activity turned out to be tree counting. And we had 3 hours to do it. Ughhh. It was statistics all over again. Kill me now. I am not destined to be a botanist. Nor am I destined to be a statistician. Perhaps if I eliminate careers one by one, I will discover my true calling by process of elimination. I'll let you know how that goes.

Finally, after taking data from 8 different randomly selected samples of forest and plotting the data on a graph and discussing the line of best fit and the asymptote that we weren't quite approaching yet, we deemed our data inconclusive and went to lunch. Freaking nasty juice again, but the salad continues to impress. As do the beans, which is hard to do after 2 straight months of bean consumption. And today's lunch dessert was frutas. Pina and watermelon, to be exact. Yum.

The Fantastic Four were extra fantastic today. After lunch, we drove out to the beach for fun. What? Fun at boot camp? Surely this was not happening. Oh but it was. We had to go in two shifts since we only have the truck on non-travel days. I went in the first shift with the K/Carlas, Abby, Tess, and Tia. The beach was GORGEOUS! I love sunbathing in November. So right smack in the middle of boot camp, there I was, soaking up the sun in my bikini and reading Eat, Pray, Love and listening to my iPod. And no one even mentioned coleopteras. Pinch me.

We headed back over to Santa Rosa National Park for feeding time. We just barely made the 6:00 cut-off. Good thing, too. I would freak out if we missed a meal. Don't test me. No dessert again. Gross juice again. I'm just about over this place.

I think there was a night hike planned for tonight, but we are laying low in our room in hopes that no one will knock on the door and make us do anything. Not that we really did anything all day, but laziness is our thing. That and snacking. What a great combination.

peace love and parasites