Volunteer project II

I just got back to Cusco after a month in the jungle. It was fantastic! The last two weeks were spend in Romero, a lodge in the Manu park surrounded by pristine rainforest. Romero is more isolated than the MLC, and there was no wifi there at all, we had electricity only a couple of hours a week. The goal of Crees is to compare the biodiversity of regenerating rainforest (MLC) with pristine rainforest (Romero). We were the first group of volunteers there, so we were very lucky! The wildlife was amazing, better than at the MLC. Here we saw many species: a cayman, many snakes (one of over two meters long!), monkeys, birds, beautiful butterflies, an anteater, huge trees, lizards, spiders and frogs.
Some of the surveys we did had to do with butterflies: we tried to catch them with nets, which was great fun, and we had to check traps with really smelly bait we had set up for them (the butterflies seemed to prefer the rotting fish over the fermented banana). We also measured and counted palms, because they are of immense importance for many animals, amongst others humans. During the early morning we went out to see mammals and birds, a couple of times we tried to catch the birds with mistnets. In the late evening we would go out on herpbox-surveys a couple of times, those are surveys where you walk away from the trail with a box connected to your pants. The box contains a wire that you can connect to a tree next to the trail so you will always be able to find the trail back. During those surveys we would walk very slowly (alone in the dark, a bit scary ;) ) and look for everything we could find, mostly frogs. We also helped to maintain the trails, we had to mark them (they weren't used for research before) and clear them with machetes.
The group at Romero was much smaller than at the MLC, so we had to cook for ourselves every day. This proved to be more difficult than thought, since we had only beans left during the last two days. I think we had plantains at least two times a day, and rice often even three times a day.
After a long boat ride and bus drive back, during which we slept in a place with hot springs, we are back in Cusco now and all the volunteers will go their own way again. I have just met Ariana, my travel partner for the next three months! We will most likely leave for Arequipa tonight.