** This blog post was written last Saturday (July 1st) but never posted….sorry for the delay!!**

This last week of lab before everyone left (except for me) moved quite slowly – we finished up a few more sediment decantations (view below!), mangrove root masses, and seagrass samples. Slowly but surely, the lab got packed up into large boxes and I waved goodbye to the group of people I have been working closely with for the last month.

I got left behind to finish my project, which if you recall, got delayed since I needed to receive some filters from Rice (which I did, thanks BioSciences!)

It’s weird to transition from working with the same group of people every day in a room to working all alone. Today was my first *official* day alone, and working on my water samples by myself is a strange feeling. Although there are other people and labs here working (in fact, I’ve been sitting in the same room as two other girls for a few hours), I am much quieter and reserved. This next week will definitely be challenging because I will have little to no help in processing my samples and sterilizing my equipment for my project.

On a brighter note though, yesterday was perfect! Rosalyn and Amanda stayed behind an extra day to explore more of the area and I joined them to Bastimentos Island, a place I hadn’t been to yet.

“Welcome to Bastimentos, god island home of the holy spirit”

It’s been a while since I’ve been hiking through jungle!

We spent the morning sweating and hiking up to visit Up in the Hill, an organic farm and coffee shop. At one point, we were met with a surprising guest:

SNAKE!!! I’ve rarely seen them alive and slithering about in the wild, so this was both a special and scary moment!

The hike was totally worth it. The farm is a hidden treasure in groves of trees and forest, and we were immediately greeted with the owners’ kids and cats. We took off our shoes and entered the Disney-like, cozy café, surrounded by handmade products and information about chocolate production. Just from looking in the nearby plants, I spotted a red poison dart frog! Since the farm is organic, a lot of rainforest creatures are able to coexist within this plot of land. One of the cats even ran past us with a freshly-caught lizard in its mouth.

Feels even nicer knowing we had to earn this view!

Poison dart frog!! Another pretty rare sighting.

We all decided on ordering a cold cacao drink with fresh coconut milk, which was as delicious as it sounds. Rosalyn described a tropical fruit she once had, only to have the owner swiftly hand us that fruit from a nearby tree. It’s known as custard apple in English, and definitely lives up to its name in terms of taste.

Don’t custard apples look like something you would find on Neopets?

After a quick stop to Coco Hill, a vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurant, we made our way to Red Frog Beach, which required a small hike through a reforested rainforest that is part of the the Bastimentos Island National Park.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the beach. It was so peaceful and fun to jump into the large Caribbean Sea that we almost missed our boat back our main island!

Beautifully warm water and beach, courtesy of the Caribbean.

I’m gonna miss these guys!!