Plot twist: we aren’t in Athens anymore.
One night after dinner we all had the opportunity to go on a night hike with two of the naturalist working on campus. I do not do well with 1. bugs and 2. walking in the dark. After 30 minutes of people trying to convince me to go, I decided to join my group and go on the hike. I’m so happy that I did because it was awesome! We were seeing insects that the naturalists had never seen before. Walking at night time you hear so many noises and pick up on so many things that you would never notice walking the same path in the morning.
One of the naturalist mentioned that there had been puma sightings in the woods, so throughout the entire night hike we would scream PUMA CHECK to make sure one wasn’t following us. We ended up using the same phrase throughout the entire trip.
The night after the hike we ended up having a visitor in our cabin (pictured above). My one roommate, Lizzy, was very calm and called over some boys to handle the situation. Jillian and I were on a table looking out the window screaming, not helpful at all. Our one friend, Carter wouldn’t even get close to the tarantula and Philip decided to take a bunch of pictures of it. That’s when Maya in the room next to us came to the rescue and moved the spider to the woods. Maya is the real MVP and now we know to call her over the boys when it comes to bugs.
Adventure is always out there and being surrounded by some of the most fascinating creatures on Earth was one of my most favorite parts of the trip.
