Panama Travel Journal II - Day 8

Day Eight, December 15, 2009

This day started strangely. We went to bed around 1:00 a.m. last night and awoke to some Jewish rapper on Edgardo’s cell phone. We’ve never set alarms, but last night with the pending walk out, the Benadryl we gave Edgardo and the packing ahead, Edgardo had set his. In true Edgardo fashion, we all woke up and he continued to hit the rapper snooze for 30 minutes. Strange but wonderful in an eclectic Edgardo way. You will also see and hear this when we get the video up that I shot from my hammock.

The horses arrived at about 9:00 a.m. and we are packed, but the frogs are not. Once again, we underestimated the time and materials it would take to pack them out. The morning and early afternoon was spent boiling water to sterilize moss. Everything needed to cool in order to wash frogs and hydrate it all. Each frog was gently grabbed and placed in a small yogurt carton-sized container. Most of the packing was done by 1:00 p.m. and everyone but Edgardo and I left for the walk back. Edgardo and I started the four hour walk at 2:15 p.m. We made it out in about 3 and a half hours. The drive back was long and full of Panamanian Christmas traffic. We ordered pizza and ate at the Summit Zoo around 9:30 p.m. After taking care of the frogs for the night, we split up and went to our rooms for the night. Della and Jeff went off with Eric from Zoo New England and I went with Roberto to unload the stuff from out trip at STRI. We all went to bed after midnight.