Momento

You know when you have an experience that is completely unique you’d swear that nobody has ever had that happen before? It’s those moments that make life such a fascinating trip. Two random events coinciding so perfectly that it amazes. Of course we’ll get to this…

Called off the field day in the face of amazing weather to let Tinny put in a solid day of practice on the bike (our commute to the next plot starts and ends with 5.4km of cycling). As Tinny was out there working I took on the analysis that has been toying around in my mind for months now. It turned out awesome for only a few hours of rough work. Planning to get back to it tomorrow with a more structured effort.

Tinny retired from some successful practice (still not all the way there) around 11:00am. Played with the GIS software until lunch, got in a little bit of reading. Science is cool, but the people who make all of the landmark discoveries are the coolest. It’s turning out to be a book for people who don’t like science, but like to learn. Funny and enjoyable read nonetheless.

After lunch I was feeling all schvitzy and dirty so it was time for a shower. The basic breakdown of the shower situation is that the one in my room cranks out no hot water while the one in the common area does. Today was a hot shower day so I kicked off the shoes and got the shower tote. My face wash wasn’t in the right location (in the tote) so I had to retrieve it from the bathroom.

In breaking routine for that brief moment I forgot to throw the ever-important keys in the tote and walked right out to the shower. It only took me 0.000087 seconds to realize what I had done. Stood there for a couple minutes and pondered. Should I just take a shower?; that’d cheer me up…

Take a moment to picture this too. Standing there with no shoes, no glasses, no shirt, no keys, and greasy hair! I decide that since I saw the cleaning lady walk into cabina 5 on my way over I could walk down there (50 or so meters) and have her come key me in. So I start walking over, as I leave I realize my lack of footwear. Since it is the rain forest, I should probably wear kicks, even for such a short errand.

In this instance I was prepared in that my hiking boots were taking a vacation on the porch-thingy. Prepare to add untied, muddy, worn boots to your mental picture. Zip over to cabina 5 quickly and quietly snoop around for the cleaning lady. Told her all about my predicament and she was more than happy to come let me in.

Problems solved, we started walking back up the trail. As soon as we set off I spotted Tinny walking the opposite direction on the cabina trail. I’ll try to summarize the rest of these events with an abridged play:

Tinny (walking and talking with determination): Ben, I need to talk to you.

Ben (recall from above story) (trailing cleaning lady who also is walking with determination): Walk with me Tin.

Tinny: I’m going to San Jose.

Ben: That’s fine Tinny.

Tinny: Yea, but it’s why I need to go to San Jose I need to talk you about.

Tinny (key quotes from the rest of the conversation include the following): For a night or two…to talk the coordinator…decide if I want to leave or come back to La Selva…

Ben (thought bubble): Man, I’m ******.

Ben (deep in awe of this moment): You gotta do what you gotta do Tin.

There’s your moment. The cleaning lady then keyed me into to the room and I couldn’t have been more thankful. Shower didn’t turn out to be as enjoyable as it could have been as a result of the afternoon’s events. Filed my current thoughts away and got back to the pretty maps I spent my morning preparing.

Amanda & Debra returned from the field around 4:00pm. We coffeebreaked (next verb to be added to Webster’s right there) from about then until 5:30pm with Mauricio, who is kind of the man these days. Had full blown peccary for dinner, the best I’ve had all summer. Afterwards I watched my Yanks lose an ugly one via ESPN Gamecast.

With Amanda & Debra both leaving in the morning, we walked (and partly taxied) out to La Machaca, the closest bar to La Selva. After being there for about 20 minutes a Britney Spears video came on. This immediately reminded me of the days of watching TRL after school. Then came just about every Britney video ever (Lucky, Oops!...I Did it Again, Stronger, ...Baby One More Time, Toxic, & Crazy). Just about the coolest thing ever. After the Britney Spears marathon (that used to say marathong, good thing I caught that) (comment on your definition of the word marathong), we kicked back with Mauricio and talked for a little while before returning to the station to get some solid sleeping done. So, yea, that was a pretty up and down day, who knows what tomorrow holds…

BP