It may be beautiful, but there are a few downsides...hahaha

Funny story, when we got here, we found out that there are apparently rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas and black widows around the center... goody. We have to do scorpion checks in our mattresses and sheets every night before we go to sleep (of course we're not exactly sure what we're supposed to do if we actually find one...). Fortunately, I have not yet encountered any of these creatures, however, the professors almost guaranteed that we would have them under our tents and sleeping bags when we go on our camping trips, yikes!

Eventually, we're supposed to go out at night with a black light and look for some scorpions, which I am actually looking forward to!

Here's a picture of a pretty big spider some of us happen to come across as we were walking around the center after dark, ahhh! 

Well, I'm finally here at the beautiful Bahia Magdalena in Baja California Sur. We arrived on Feb. 2nd so I've been here for about a week. It was so strange, our group must have looked really sketchy or something because our van got pulled over by cops three time in the first 24 hours we were together, once when we left the airport and twice on the road. Everyone had to get out and the van was searched, crazy!!

I'm living at the center for The School for Field Studies, or should I say La Escuala Para Estudios de Campo. The center is located 

on the beach, unfortunately, we can't swim near the center because the water is too polluted due to a fish cannery down the road, yuck! Aside from that, everything here is so beautiful and every night the sunset is amazing! There are palm trees everywhere and hammocks hanging from the trees and buildings so we can just chill out and and do our readings, so nice! 

The temperature is great. Most of the time it's in the mid to high 70's and will occasionally break into the 80's but you usually have to wear a sweatshirt because it's so windy. It gets pretty cold at night (of course nothing like the temperatures on the east coast, haha) but I'm currently sleeping with a sheet, blanket and sleeping bag in addition to long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. 

This is my cabana

We had our first boat ride on friday on our way to the swim test. We went out to this area surrounded by mangroves, it was actually a very pretty spot. We had to swim from one boat to another and back and then tread water (pretty much the same as the Swat swim test). We all thought it was going to be crazy easy, so we just jumped in and started swimming. We all noticed that the current was pretty strong but didn't think much of it. I was feeling pretty good, thinking I was powering my way through the water with my sweet breath-stroke. I looked up and realized the other boat was still quite a ways ahead so I put my head down and tried to swim harder. A few minutes later, Rudolfo, one of our instructors tells us to swim closer to the mangroves nearer the shore because the current apparently wasn't quite as bad. We all look up and back at him and realize that we've only swum about 7 feet away from the boat (and of course by this time my arms felt like lead and I was all out of breath). They finally had to move the boats closer together because everyone was pretty much just flailing in the water looking ridiculous! Once we were done, we flopped back into the boats looking like a bunch of tired seals but much less cute and we headed back to the center. 

On our way back from the swim test I saw my first whale!!!!! It was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced and I was sooo excited they practically had to keep me from jumping out of the boat (you guys can probably imagine). I actually saw 4 Gray Whales and we got really close to them. It was sweet because our boat got closer to them than the other boat, haha! The whales were so cute!  

Gray Whale spyhopping