Best Day in Life as a PlantPath Girl

I GOT ACCEPTED TO NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF PLANT PATHOLOGY FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL!!!!!

I GOT ACCEPTED! I'M IN! I'M GOING TO NCSU FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL!!

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! 

Best Day in Life as a PlantPath Girl! NCSU was my dream school for graduate studies. I cried when I got my acceptance letter :D

A huge shout-out to my three bosses who so kindly wrote letters of recommendation on my behalf. Thank you Carla Fischer (BioChem), Brian Emerson (WMARS), and Judy Reith-Rozelle (WMARS) for being the best bosses I could ever ask for!

I DID IT! I'M GOING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D 

Negative Split Runs

Hola! I am feeling gooooooooooooood! I went for two runs today - first time running in 3 weeks! When I was in Guatemala, I didn't run unfortunately. The first week of class left me not in the mood to run. Until today. I told myself no more excuses and hiked my butt over to the gym (it's a 3 minute walk at max). As always, the treadmills were taken and the track was packed!!

So my first run was a relaxed one to get me back in the swing of things. It felt good to just back on the track where I belong! My second run was intense. I told myself I has going to do a power mile. For instance, my normal pace is around 7:27 minutes per mile for runs under 4 miles. So for a power mile, I try to run a mile 30 seconds faster than my pace. And I did just that :)  I also ran each lap with negative splits (each lap faster than the previous). The adrenaline rush is identical to beating Amy Thielke that one race. It felt so good!!

Here a few motivational quotes to keep you on your feet and feeling healthy!

Beat that.

I'll choose the sore.

Come on. Challenge me.

Where's yours?

I'll choose to push through.

Will that day ever be today?

Yay for running!

HAHA! This is true! Sorry for kicking ass :)

Losing? No thank you!

Can't catch me? Good!

Who likes liars anyways?

My all time favorite!

  

Volcanoes to Sea Level to Antigua

My last final days in Guatemala....what a sad post. I really really really want to go back :(  I'll do a quick overview of each day and post photos after each. Hopefully it isn't as long as the other one - sorry about that. So anyways, my last final days in Guatemala were just as exciting as the first few. The whole trip was amazing to say the least. I cannot wait until I get a chance to go back (which I will. Promise).

Day 9 - Today started off with a boat road across Lago de Atitlan. We visited a coffee co-op. It was organic, shade-grown, and no machines. It was a sharp contrast between the co-op and the first finka de cafe we visited. Then we went to Axoj Ajkeem: a place where women do natural dyeing and hand weaving. The women all had multiple children that they had to care for while doing the dyeing and weaving. It was amazing all of the colors that they could get from one plant! We watched them hand weave all sorts of items from purses to scarves to shawl type things. Tonight I stayed with a Mayan family :) They were so welcoming, giving, and happy that I wanted to experience their lifestyle for awhile. It was a great night.

Part of the Harnandex Chotio host family :)

Beautiful volcanoes on my boat ride across Lake Atitlan

"Mayan Face" rock formation

Biological Greening around the rust. Rust is an obligate parasite that needs it's host to stay alive in order for the rust to survive. The rust keeps the area around it green/alive for as long as possible as can be seen above.

Natural Dyeing

Day 10 - Today we viewed a permaculture farm - it seemed chaotic but oh well. We hiked to see another waterfall - not as pretty as the other one but still worth the hike. I love climbing over the rocks and whatnot; call me EarthGirl! Later we drove back to Antigua where I did some shopping :)

Bananas!!!!

Tomato melon plant thingy...

Volcano from the hike down from the permaculture farm

PlantPath Girl just chilling in Nature like the usual.

Day 11 - We visited Pantaleon which is a sugarcane plantation that converts the sugarcane into bioethanol. It was just ridiculous how far the plantation stretched. We drove for over 40 minutes and we still did not reach the end of the plantation!! I won't discuss biofuels because that is a very debatable topic and I feel very strongly on it. Pantaleon pretended to be sustainable by multiple ways but it was complete crap! You don't grow an Eucalyptus forest to cut it down for woodchips to turn into electricity and saw that it offsets your Carbon footprint. NO!!! Oh, companies....greenwashing!! Anyways, the rest of the day was fun. We went out to the bars - I was more or less carried out to the pickup truck and half sat on so I would join them. It was a lot of fun actually - I'm glad Oliver made me go out with the crew!

Panorama of sugarcane and sugarcane and sugarcane

One of eight harvesters

There were 14 tractors that had 3 trailers to drive by the harvester

PlantPath Girl versus sugarcane!

Day 12 - We walked through Antigua one last time. Then we hopped on the good old Agronomy bus that took us back to Guatemala City Airport. Then the goodbyes came :'(  That was awful but I didn't cry until I was on the plane and even then it was only a few tear drops. On the flight to Miami, I saw a beautiful sunset which made it a little better. I'd still do anything to see the USAC boys again...at least I have connections for the future! Miss you guys!!!!

Hugo y Oliver. This is why I love them <3

Adios Luisa! Muchas gracias! You are the best <3

Goodbye Guatemala City...I will return!

The Mexican coast line

The Guate boys :)

The sunset!

 

Rainbow painted skies

Guatemala - Highlands and Mountain Peaks

HI!!! So semester has me really busy so far and therefore I have little time for posts! I will catch all ya'll up on my semester after I finish posts about Guatemala. So the middle days of my trip were spent in the highlands and mountain peaks at high elevation. When you think of Guatemala, how many of you think of nights that get down to the 30s and the high a mere 45? Yah, well, true story. It wasn't always that cold, but it was for one day when we were about 2800 metres above sea level :) Also, climbing at that elevation is a little difficult because of the lower oxygen levels. Anyways, we were all over the place from Salama to Huehuetenango to Queztal de Biotopo (a rainforest reserve). Yeah, it was beautiful. I'll give a short description of each day and photos to follow :)  Try not to be jealous - easier said than done right?

Day 4 - visited TAK, a fern production company. 100% of their products is exported to Europe for bouquets (which apparently are pretty popular). I was impressed that they had a program to screen for anthracnose (a very terrible plant disease). I was a little bummed that I didn't see disease, but I guess that's a good thing. I loved the fern production area; it smelt like soil after rain :) Also, later that night, many people played the guitar and we had a sing-a-long. You know, like little kids do.

The mountain peaks and the shade gardens where the ferns grow.

Just some epiphytes.

Here are the rows and rows and rows of monoculutre ferns.

Workers packaging the ferns and prepping for export to Europe.

Day 5 - Monsanto. Very touchy topic. My beliefs about genetic engineering and plant breeding were very challenged that day. I won't go into details but let's put it this way. It is a highly debatable topic and many people are very strongly opinionated about it. I will say that I enjoyed touring the place (EXTREMELY HIGH LEVELS OF PHYTO-SANITATION!) because I got to see a different perspective and see what they do. A few of the Guate boys talked to the manager about doing practice there after they graduated. It is somewhat equivalent to a capstone at UW-Madison except theirs is after graduation. Later this night, I hiked through the rainforest to a waterfall. I swam in it - very cold! It was beautiful and words cannot describe the feeling I had when I saw it. Absolutely breathtaking! If I close my eyes, I can picture it perfectly clear.

EarthGirl/PlantPath Girl just chilling in the forest

Cue drum roll! The beautiful waterfall! Photo couldn't capture the beauty!

A little cascade before the falls!

Cool little epiphyte. Couldn't resist taking a photo!

Day 6 - Today we hiked in the Quetzal de Biotopo. Apparently 2 hours was supposed to be enough for us to hike the 2 km loop. Umm...they must have forgot that we are botanists, phytopathologists, and ecologists. We love finding fungus and identifying tree species and seeing tiny ecosystems within the rainforest ecosystem. So...I made it a whooping 600 metres in 2 hours and was RUSHED through to the end. That did not make me a happy camper in the slightest. We had a talk about orchids and the rainforest preserve afterwards but I was still caught up in the beauty of the place I didn't really catch the whole presentation. Oh well. :)

Flower outside my hotel room

Guatemala's smallest orchid.

RUST! That is uredinia.

Couldn't resist this beautiful photo that I took :)

I like close-ups of flower stamens and carpels.

I like the shadow on this one

My friendship bracelet from Hugo!

PlantPath girl chilling by a waterfall

Day 7 - Today was the long day on the road. 10 hours on a bus. My butt hurt, my head hurt, my legs hurt, my arms hurt, my butt hurt, my butt hurt, my butt hurt, and my butt hurt. Anyways, the drive was chaotic. Some roads were nicely paved, some were dirt, some weren't exactly roads, some had a landslide a few years ago and never got fixed. The scenery was absolutely beautiful though! This is the night where it got super cold because we were so high above sea level. I had 5 blankets and I was barely warm enough with my layers and layers of clothing. But hey, I survived and I saw the most beautiful sunrise ever when I woke up. I didn't enjoy the potato tour because I was too cold to care (and tired and cranky from the bus ride). still beat a day in Wisco!

My boys at the beautiful lookout area on our way to the potato place!

Can you see that windy road. Well, our bus was on that for hours.

Hola sol! Why aren't you warming me up! No me gusta 40 degrees!

Mayan tour guide on the potato farm. That is a wooden marimba in the background.

Day 8 - After breakfast I hiked up a small mountain to get a view of the volcanoes. You know, nothing spectacular to start off my day. Afterwards, we drove to Pona by Lake Atitlan. Now that's a place to see. It's a tourist trap, but the volcanoes surrounding the crater lake was enough to lock your feet to where you were standing. It was a relaxed day just walking around and enjoying some free time. I had my friend barter for a painting for me (Mi habla un poquito Espanol). I love the painting - so cute! I finally had a HOT HOT HOT shower!!

Cool little flower.

PAVED windy roads. Luxury.

Hola from mountain peak to another

Sorry my finger is in the pic. Notice the farm plots on the slopes of the mountains. Crazy.

Panorama of the view from my hotel room on Lake Atitlan.

Three of the volcanoes that surround Lake Atitlan.

A rose that was too pretty not to photograph.

I'll finish the rest of my trip in another post because there is so much to talk about yet! I am still having a hard time with this stupidly cold weather. I want my 70s and low 80s back :(  And my Guate boys...they make everything better with their smiles and jokes in Spanish I don't understand! Miss you!!! 

Eduardo y Hugo y Jorge