The Recap

Six o’clock in the morning the itouch sings its song and I roll out of bed and suit up: orioles hat with two bandanas around my neck, one covering the back of my neck and the other around the front, a tank top tucked into my hiked up field pants, with a button up long sleeve over it all (this protects against what we call “plumber crack bites”). Then its tall wool socks and my boots with intense metal cleats, and over the boots and pants are gaiters. Gaiters are ankle to knee Kevlar sleeves that protect against snakebites, apparently an intern has never tested it but they claim they work. And that’s the outfit!

Then breakfast (cereal and soy milk) and packing. We each have a big backpacking pack that is old and smelly. We fill it with 5 gallon buckets, funnels, dip nets and empty water bottles, a combination of 2 liter, 1 liter, and ½ liter. We also have our dry bags with a lunch (peanut butter/jelly sandwich and crackers) and headlamps.

We set out in a beat up truck for about 30 minutes. We drive from the Arima Valley to the Guanapo river valley, just to the east, along a very windy, bumpy road. Then we hike.

Depending on which of the 4 rivers we are going to it’s a 20-60 minutes hike. The shortest one is to Taylor and it is just down the hill through the jungle. The longest, Upper Lalaja, takes us down the hill and up through the stream for another 30-40 minutes, and through the stream means trudging up through the river, climbing up waterfalls over boulders and under fallen trees. The gaiters fill with water and it squished through your boots. The uncomfortable, poorly fitting packs get much heavier when wet and the only brief break is when they are floated on your back because we are wading up to our waists. Haven’t seen much big wildlife yet on the hikes but plenty of frogs, insects, and bird singing. Beautiful hikes really.

Once we get to the reach that we will be fishing we empty our packs and get in teams of two and take to the stream. It’s rocky with jungle along the sides. We rock hop up and down so as not to disturb the fish or the benthos, and with two butterfly nets each and buckets we squat and watch, and when there is a flash we corral the fish into our nets and plop them in buckets, males and females separated so as not to induce unnatural mating...

There is lunch time but we pretty much fish from 8ish to when the stream is empty of guppies or 430 ish when we have to leave so we can get to the truck by dark (and then we go finish the next day). The crouching is tough on the knees and back, and it can be very frustrating to chase the same stupid little fish around a pool for 20 minutes until you loose it under a rock for good, but all in all being out there is very enjoyable. It’s beautiful and quiet and very meditative. When it rains you get wet but with a rain jacket it’s not cold and we take a little break from fishing because you can’t see and hang out. The people are fun and interesting and after very few days of spending every second of every day together, you get pretty close, and end up talking about the silliest stuff to pass the time.

After we bottle up all the fish from the buckets (about 600-1100 depending on the day and stream) we pack our bags and hike out. The weight of the now full water bottles gets distributed among the packs and we begin the assent. This is the toughest part but now that I know the way it’s not that far. The metal cleats are a savior, you could not walk through these streams with the packs without falling on your face every two seconds without them.

At the truck, its boots off ASAP to avoid any fungus, or “the rot”, and picking of various fruits around the road (limes, oranges, mango, coconuts, bananas). We then head home soaked, sweaty and tired, bumping through the potholes, avoiding stray dogs sleeping in the roads, and honking as we go around corners to avoid collisions with oncoming trinny drivers.

Once home, we put all the bottles in tanks, still separating fish by sex and the section of the stream where they were caught ending up in 70-some tanks. These are square petsmart tanks of varying size with very colorful tops. Each gets a bubbly stone and the proper label to keep it all straight. For those of you who were a part of my attempts to keep one fish alive this school year, you can better appreciate my awe with so many fish staying alive right outside my window in the lab (also our porch). There are of course some fallen soldiers but we label and preserve them to send back to the states with the next traveler.

Then the evening is ours. Showers, beers and cooking. Max is the main man when it comes to cooking. Gourmet!!! He is a foody and loves putting the extra effort in to make a meal amazing. To give you a taste he made homemade pizza dough and made 4 pizzas. One was topped with fried eggplant, stove roasted walnuts and red wine sautéed onions. Amazing. We also have curry lentils, pasta, bean chili, spicy corn soup, grilled tuna, beans and rice. All delicious and people get really into it. Sometimes we go into town and get doubles (as mentioned before I believe, its the local food at the stands on the streets, a fried doughy tortilla thing with chickpeas called channa and salsas on top). There is plenty of spicy here too. We go into town for a beer at a bar or stay at the house and hang out. Good music good food and joking around on the porch pass the time quiet quickly and then it’s relatively early to bed for a long day of processing.