Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Long Internship work placement in Drake Bay

For the past 8 weeks of our work placement part of the internship Connie and I have been living in the paradise that is Drake Bay. The beaches are stunning with warm clear water and rocky outcrops and the surrounding countryside is amazing with hills covered in primary rain forest and small streams and waterfalls in every valley.

We are living with local families who make us feel very welcome, cooking all our meals and letting us borrow whatever we like, such as the snorkelling gear. On a calm day you can see all sorts of topical fish and corals in the water. The wildlife spotting here is also amazing we have seen scarlet macaws, humpback Wales near the beaches with babies, loads of snakes and all sorts of tropical birds (fiery billed acaris were my favourite).


Every two weeks a new group of volunteers arrives and we lead them on surveys into the jungle we have mainly been doing observation surveys, which involves hiking to a particular tree that is fruiting in the jungle and observing what species come to feed on the fruits over a set period of time. These can be monkeys, toucans and lots of other colourful bird species.

Yesterday we went on a day trip with the volunteers to Rio Claro. It began with helping a local man who runs a turtle hatchery move a nest of olive ridley turtle eggs into his protected hatchery. Next we were ferried, by canoe, up a beautiful river to a huge rock where we could jump in, then we were led to a series of small waterfalls where we could swim it was great fun.

We only have 4 more weeks left and 1 group of volunteers, I am going to be sad to leave this beautiful place.

Harry, UK


Share/Save/Bookmark

0 comments: