Day 5: Horseback Riding, Town Scavenger Hunt, and More Science (Kennedy and Jason)

 So this morning we woke up very early to get breakfast at 7:15. For breakfast, we had rice and beans, an omelet, watermelon, and papaya. For drinks we had the option of water, coffee, and a strawberry banana juice mixture. After everyone ate breakfast and got their laundry situation settled, we got in our van and departed to  Santa Maria Volcano Tours to begin our tour on horseback. Mostly everyone had pretty tame horses. On our ride, we saw the clouds coming in over the mountains, crazy colored bark on the big trees, wooded trail like areas, cows, and 2 different types of cows. We saw Broma cows and holstein cows. After we left our ride at Santa Maria, we arrived in town. While we were in town, Mr. Castro, the retired mayor, told us about the history of the town and who all founded the town. His father was a big feature of founding Columbia de Liberty. After Mr. Castro ran us through the history, we were handed and map for a scavenger hunt of the town. The scavenger hunt was basically and big goose chase. We got lost a few times, but it was okay because after our wild goose chase, we were rewarded with ice cream from Mr. Castro's sister. It was very refreshing. Then we had to walk all the way back to our dorms. We went to lunch where we had fried chicken rice with refried beans, a lot of beans. After lunch, we headed back up to the lap to continue our projects. Once we got there, we got our lab notebooks. We recorded all of our information in the notebooks. We worked up in the lap for about 3 hours and 25 minutes. We went back down for dinner, where we saw a rainbow. For dinner, we had porkchops with a sweet and sour sauce. Then we had some starchy thing and a vegetable that was green. After dinner and a brief check in with our teachers, we headed back up to the lab for more work time with our project. This time was mostly dedicated to our procedures. After our work time in the lab, we will return to our dorms for showers and our bonding time on the porch. My favorite memory of today, was watching someone chicken out of taking the soldier ants out of their colony by paying someone else to do it.

Kennedy

This morning, we woke up for breakfast earlier than usual, at 7:15 A.M. For breakfast, we had fruits, rice, beans, and eggs. After breakfast, we split into two groups of six people. My group went to ride horses while the other went into town for a tour. During the tour, we went through a couple fields and the rainforest. After the horseback ride, we switched with the other group, and we went on the community tour with the retired mayor of Colonia Libertad. We learned about the town's history after talking with the former mayor, and then, we went on a walk around the town to look at different buildings and monuments. After the tour, we got some ice cream and walked back to Finca Anita. Once we returned, we had fried rice with chicken and beans and a long break before we had to head to the lab to start our experiments. My group needed to collect samples from a few different ant colonies, and we went through a long process of taking the samples and putting them into petri dishes for our preliminary tests. We then went back to the dining area and had dinner. Dinner was pork chops with a sweet sauce along with vegetables and something similar to a yuca. Then, we went back to the lab and finished taking our samples, and we wrote in our lab notebooks, journals for our procedures and data for our experiments and process. My favorite part of the day was collecting the samples and just talking with everyone in the lab.

Jason Bui