DP Science Trip

From December 11th to 13th, the whole DP 1 class went to Sinharaja rain forest for the annual DP science trip. At first I definitely had mixed feelings about the place. I’m not the type of person to enjoy dense forest creepy crawlers but at the same time I was excited to be able to experience this national treasure that I’ve heard so much about. Not only have some of my friends been here but so has my brother and I’ve definitely heard enough about this place to be able to form its reputation in my head. It was a regular start to the day and getting to school at regular time. As soon as I got there, I realized my first mistake – not wearing leggings and not purchasing leech socks. Then realizing that I forgot my leggings at home I just accepted the fact that the next time I step foot in the school I’ll be covered in leech bites. The drive was long but interesting and being able to have our phones was definitely new to a lot of us because usually bringing your phone on a school trip feels criminal. I appreciated the fact that no one was glued to their phones and I think we were at that point where we’re old enough to know a limit to how much we use our devices in a public setting. Once we got to the rain forest, we hiked (aka walked) up to Martins lodge where the ESS kids were staying. Now I have heard a lot about this place from my older brother and the countless times he’s visited so nothing was a surprise to me. After the brief visit and eating our packed lunches we walked up to an area of secondary forest where we would do a trial of data collection. There Were leeches everywhere and it definitely wasn’t comfortable and we actually had a rare type of pit viper go across my friend’s foot. After this was finally over, the chem, bio and physics students walked all the way back down back onto the buses and over to our hotel. Once we got to our place I was so happy and impressed with the place. The AC and hot water felt like a reward. The girls all gathered in our room and we had a blast that night and encountered a giant spider as well. Had a great sleep that night and woke up to our data collection day. We went down to a quite open spot down this hill where we collected data and I learned so many new ways on how to collect data and how many factors there are in a tiny 2x2m square. This location was definitely a lot better than the day before and once we were done we headed back. Since it was raining some plans that we apparently had got canceled but I wasn’t complaining because my friend and I went to our rooms and took a “power nap” which ended up being about 2 hours, it was amazing. But I noticed that my shins really started to hurt and walking felt like sharp knives were jabbing into my legs. I decided to just sleep on it since we were hiking up a mountain the next day. Once we started walking up to Martins Lodge to meet the ESS kids, my legs hurt so bad. Luckily I wasn’t alone and had company during this walk since I was trying not to walk too fast and injure myself even more. Once I reached the top I felt as if I was in too much pain to be able to go on the hike and I decided to stay in my friend’s room in Martins. Later on another one of my friends joined me since she had to turn back too for another pain issue. We hung out and eventually I fell asleep and got woken up by one of my teachers. I quickly got my stuff and headed downstairs where some of my guy friends were waiting. We all walked back together and the rest was just the usual packing and getting ready to leave. It definitely was a great experience and a great end to the last trip our grade will be going on together, definitely grateful to have had the opportunity to experience this.