Sloths, rockets, and gendarmes

Sorry for the delay in writing since my last post, but la vie guyanaise took a strange turn over the past week. Some small children stole half our equipment from a locked building at the research institute, which to be honest wasn't especially helpful. It's been a manic cavalcade of police interviews and missions to Cayenne to restore our equipment lists, surreally involving five gendarmes combing the house with forensic brushes for fingerprints. There were a few furrowed brows about how to get our radio-tags working without one crucial element, but fortunately I encountered a very slimy man in downtown Cayenne who has sold me an improbable-looking plastic device. Miraculously, it works! So many thanks to the slimy man.

We're busy attaching the radio-tags to the wasps, so some photos of the lovely wasps themselves are coming in the next post. For now, a few snapshots of life in beautiful French Guiana. Even with child thieves making off with your equipment, it's a wonderful place...

Three-toed sloth in Kourou

Cattle ranches beyond Sinnamary

The Guiana Space Centre

The launch of a Soyuz rocket from Kourou