The end, and a beginning

This is it, the last entry in the field log from the Pacaya-Samiria (a mere 5 months after it all ended; I am nothing if not prompt...).

When I got back to Madison last August, I wrote a post that was meant to bring all the loose bits of memory and science and friendship that happened in the Peruvian Amazon together, and to a close.

All the stars we can't normally see

But in the end, that morose gem (written at 4:30am when I was Very Sad and couldn't sleep) turned out to be a mushy piece of garbage. And since this blog aims (above all) to shed light on the art of field science, I will sum up our summer on happier note.

In the end, there were just too many pictures to choose from to make a consolidated album (since the worst possible thing you can force on people you love is perusing thousands of vacation photos). So instead, I took this challenge as an opportunity to finally figure out the magic of iMovie (file it under 'painful attempts at becoming a Mac person') and spew my favorite memories into one giant...piece of art(?).

Thanks, Iquitos, for letting Nico and I become our own art!

If you find yourself with 4 minutes to spare, have a look-see at this photo tribute that's chockablock full of Things I Love, including:

BEN HOWARD!

Peru

Fishes (lots and lots of fishes...)

Lovely faces that continue to make me smile

BEN HOWARD! (He's so good I'll mention him twice.)

I think Peru changed all of us in ways we couldn't have predicted, and despite my attempts to tell our story, no life-changing experience can be meaningfully reduced to a series of anecdotes. So we go home, remember fondly, and begin again, thankful to those who joined us on the journey.

Todos mi amor, jungle friends; thank you for fishing with me ;).

Until we meet again...