The Two-Week Hiatus Explained

Following Spring Break, we jumped right back into the swing of things for our classes. I was a little sad to see my break go (also that meant that the course is more than half over- eep!), but we went to some amazing places in the past two weeks, where I had the opportunity to have a lot of new experiences. 

First, we headed out of San Jose to Monteverde. Once we got there, we had to hike down to the field station with all of our things for around 45 minutes. I considered it a miracle that I managed not to fall over with my backpack, especially because it was debatable as to whether or not I would be able to get back up again.  The San Gerardo field station was a welcome sight to us sweaty college kids who each carried ~20 lbs of stuff down into the valley where it was located. 

First of all, we were greeted by this view of Arenal Volcano from our rooms, which also was the view that could be seen from the hammocks (even more bonus points):

Yep. Could get used to this.

Second, we found out that the station hosted a ping pong table. So we naturally launched ourselves (including the professors and our TA) into a tournament (I unfortunately only won one round, and then lost in the first round of the tournament, but still had a good time). 

Third, the cook made snacks for us that were to DIE for. I'm talking homemade empanadas, banana bread and donuts kind of good. I'm pretty sure I gained like 6 pounds just at this station, I ate so much food. 

Fourth, the biodiversity in this area is astounding. The cloud forest is a very rare type of ecosystem, so a lot of endemic species call Monteverde home. Managed to get introduced to some bird watching finally, which was pretty successful- saw some pretty cool birds, including the endangered Mottled Bell Bird! We also had the opportunity to go on a lot of night hikes, which also led to some interesting finds:

Glass Frog! 

Snail!

Me getting way too excited about holding a frog. 

Fifth, Monteverde just hosted some pretty cool sights. We ended up taking a trail on our last full day that lasted pretty much the whole day. But in the end, we got to see the river that runs through the park, as well as this pretty sweet waterfall:

Do you feel tranquil yet?

Unfortunately, we didn't quite realize what our professor had meant by a "tough trail". So the way back from this beautiful sight was kind of hellish, because it was uphill essentially the whole way. And by uphill, I mean like you were basically scrambling up cliff faces and then on a 45 degree angle for the rest of the hike. I felt good that we managed to complete the hike anyways, but it made the next day when we had to hike out of San Gerardo (with all our stuff again) even more hellish. But, to be fair, it didn't help that the road was practically 3 inch deep mud the whole way up. 

We eventually did make it back to the bus (after essentially skating up the entire hill), and we spent that night in the more touristy section of Monteverde. It was interesting to contrast our experience of Monteverde with what the tourism industry attempts to sell to foreigners. Essentially, the tourism industry of Monteverde has focused on marketing "EXTREME" tourism, like zip lining, bungee jumping, etc. and it has eventually morphed into the surrounding community becoming extremely dependent on tourism for their economic stability. 

We didn't actually get to go zip lining or anything like that, but we still saw a good portion of how reliant the community is on tourism. In the end, we got to visit a Co-op that had little gifts for sale made by community members, and then got ice cream from the cheese factory that a set of Quakers began when they moved to the area in the 1950s. The ice cream was so worth it after a hard day of walking around practically everywhere. And to top it all off, we visited a shop that set up hummingbird feeders outside. There were at least 50 hummingbirds zipping around in the area, and some of them would actually land on your hand if you stood still next to the feeders. 

Our next adventures took us across borders, where we ended up in Panama. The entire process of getting ourselves to Panama was a lesson in patience and politeness to immigration officials. But the cool part was that I had the opportunity to actually walk across an international border, which I thought was super cool (albeit on a very rickety bridge that possessed gaping holes that I very nearly fell into). 

In the end, everything went fairly smoothly and we ended up in our final destination: Bocas del Toro. Here, we had our marine biology section of the course, and essentially got to snorkel in coral reefs for three days straight. I unfortunately don't have very many photos from Bocas because I don't own an underwater camera, but I seriously did see some really cool stuff that truly allowed my inner nerd to unleash itself in full bloom. Some of the highlights from my snorkeling adventures include: an eel, a puffer fish, a ray, spiny lobsters, jellyfish, too many fish to count (including a baby barracuda, butterflyfish, damselfish, and LOADS more), corals, sponges, shrimp, crabs and so much more. This was easily one of my favorite activities that I've done in the course so far, and I absolutely had a blast.  Not to mention, Bocas was not too bad on the eyes.

Could get used to this. Part II. 

The only part I didn't really enjoy about Bocas was the field station. It was clearly still in the middle of construction, and we were kind of forced to share a bathroom between 11 of us... Not the most ideal situation, but the snorkeling was so awesome it definitely made up for that. I also somehow managed to legitimately fall into the boat from the shoreline. I was standing in ~2ft of water, so I decided to just pull myself up into the boat using the side. I somehow instead managed to fall flat on my face, driving my shoulder into the bottom of the boat.  Thinking back, I still don't really know what went wrong in that situation, but the boat driver tried so hard to stifle laughter when he told me that he had never seen anyone else manage that before. 

But, all in all, I really enjoyed Bocas and the type of research that we did there. My only regret is that I wore my flippers for too long - my apologies to my bruised toes. 

Now we're back at La Selva (after a surprisingly easy border crossing back into Costa Rica), which is our final station. It's kind of weird to be at our last field station, but it seems like we're going to have a great time here. We've already seen loads of animals:

PECCARY PIG PILE. SO CUTE. 

A photo of a porcupine that I unashamedly took through the scope of the guide. 

Leaf tent making bats!

Orb Weaver Spider!

And today we had the opportunity to go up into the canopy towers and take a look around, which was an awesome experience. 

It was actually really great to be back in climbing gear. Hahaha.  

Across the Canopy

Yeah, this was pretty tall. 

So La Selva already proves to be pretty promising! Really excited for the next couple weeks, but not the workload associated with it. Wish me luck!

Spring Break: Frogs and Fish

Spring break was immensely fun. I finally saw my parents for the first time in two months, which was pretty exciting. They were clearly very excited about what Costa Rica had to offer, and I was clearly very excited about having the week off from work. Nevertheless, we began our journey in Sarapiqui, which hosts a tropical lowland wet forest (basically your standard rainforest). This was a neat opportunity for me, as it’s one of the parts of the country that I haven’t seen yet. But I was able to draw a few parallels between the habitats that I have seen and this one. Additionally, we got to go on a boat safari (where I got terrified by a giant iguana and also got to hold a baby iguana), take a chocolate tour (yum), and simply walk around the hotel area enjoying the sites. We saw lots of frogs, and a lot of anoles. 

In addition, this ended up being one of my favorite parts of my spring break, because I ended up going on a horseback riding trip with two vaqueros here as well. I got to herd cows with them, gallop around the Costa Rican countryside and basically just be a cowgirl for around 3 hours. Pretty great in my opinion.

Next, we traveled to Manuel Antonio, which is well-known for its beaches and National Park. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE the beach. So this was also a great part of the trip as well (minus being hit on by the surf instructor who apparently remembered me from my last trip to Manuel Antonio a few weeks before). Here, we also had the privilege of doing a kayak/snorkeling tour, which was an awesome experience for me. I had never been snorkeling before, so understanding how to actually breathe took some time. But it also didn’t help that I kept gasping to myself every time I saw a really cool fish. Still, didn’t drown, and overall had a great time. We also went to go see the National Park as well. Despite my mother reading the map wrong and making us hike 1.4 km in both humid and hot weather, I actually really enjoyed the park. It’s a bit more tourist based than what I’ve seen in the other national parks, but it was still enjoyable. Not to mention, we saw three sloths (two-toed and three-toed) just in the span of the three hours that we were in the park. So that also is a pretty good day in my book as well.

A grooming station of capuchins.

A really terrible picture of a sloth. 

The view from a rock that I climbed in the Park (I miss climbing)

I returned back to San Pedro to stay at Mama Tica’s for the weekend on Saturday. I expected it to be a quiet weekend, where I could get ahead on homework that’s due in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately for me, I forgot that it was Mama Tica’s birthday, so people were pretty much in and out of the house the entire weekend. In addition, I had to awkwardly go to the party where I was introduced to her family and friends as “A girl from the United States who is living here.” So maybe I can check crashing a party off my list, but her family was very nice and I actually did have a good time.

Now I need to pack quickly for the two week excursion to Monteverde and Bocas del Toro, Panama. I won’t have access to internet there, so I will provide another update when we get to La Selva in two weeks. Hasta luego!