10:05 a.m. Sunday, Oct 10, 2010 – La Casa, Palenque, Mexico
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We had one more day of Balam—in which they were kind to us and stayed mostly over a pretty little stream. They had and nice, long howling bout and we could track them easily and relax for a change.
Yesterday was also Brittany’s birthday, which worked out perfectly since it was the last day of the cycle and we were able to celebrate in style. After work, Evelyn, Liz and I sneaked off to town to pick up the Rex toy (from Toy Story) we had seen Brittany lust over on several of our grocery trips. It roars when you squeeze it, and to select the perfect one we had a “howling bout” between several to determine the “dominant male” with the most impressive voice. Then Dr. Estrada took us out to dinner at this really fancy restaurant. We took the opportunity to bust out our dresses, which get little use in this line of work.
We all enjoyed dinner and drinks, and joked about things both work and non-work related. It felt nice to hang out with Sarie and Dr. Estrada in a non-work environment for a change. Rex was a big hit, and his roar could be heard often throughout the evening.
After the responsible people headed home, the rest of us headed to El Panchan to continue the celebration. Brittany, Evelyn, Liz and I decided to each order a different cocktail, so we could try something new and rotate around the table. All of ours proved to be pretty typical except for Brittany’s. She had selected the “sacrificio Maya,” and the waiter brought out a double shot mixture of unknown liquors along with a lighter. He began heating the rim of the glass, and when the liquid finally caught fire he instructed Brittany to drink using a straw as he spun the glass and shook cinnamon into the flame. The result was a sweet/bitter rush with a kick of flame and ash at the end which burned the throat. After witnessing the spectacle, we were all impressed and had to order one of our own. It was even better than blowing out birthday candles!
This morning I woke up early and got to work with laundry, house cleaning and graduate school researching. Tomorrow I’ll do a three day cycle with Chiara in the forest fragments in CBETA with the Griffin group. For the time being we are on a system where three of us go with Sarie and one of us rotates with Chiara so she has help monitoring the males for her project. I had been to CBETA on my very first day with Chiara and Jason, but just in one small area so I don’t really know what to expect. I have heard from others that it is a much tougher area that has more dense undergrowth and few trails. So we’ll see how it goes!
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