Cabo Blanco

After spring break ended, I went back to my host family for one last night.  The Sunday that I arrived in San Jose, my family was having a giant party with all of their relatives to celebrate Andres’s birthday.  By the time that I got back to the house, most people were gone, but my host mom had saved me a ton of food and a slice of cake.  After eating so well in Panama with my dad, it was nice to have another really good meal before heading back out to a field station.  I had to pack away most of my stuff that night because I could only bring what I could carry comfortably in my backpack to Cabo Blanco and Monteverde.

To get to Cabo Blanco, we drove by bus for a few hours, took a ferry ride across the Gulf of Nicoya, drove in a bus for a few more hours, and then hiked the last 30 minutes into the station.  Cabo Blanco is an absolute nature reserve, which means that access is quite restricted.  A small section of the park is open to the public, a small section comprises the biological station that is open to a few school groups each year, and the rest of the park is restricted.  The park is right on the coast, so the water up to one kilometer off of the shoreline is also protected.

Sunset at Cabo Blanco

 I think the concept of an absolute nature reserve is really interesting.  The park was started by a Swedish couple who immigrated to Costa Rica in the 1960s.  Their philosophy involved protecting the pristine beauty of nature without allowing any humans to disturb the area.  To me that seems hypocritical and misguided.  Since they were in charge of the park, the couple was able to access and enjoy the forest as much as they wanted.  However, by designating the area an absolute reserve, they created a large chuck of land that the local community was prohibited from accessing.  It also seems to me that the only way for people to understand and value nature is by getting to experience it.  Thankfully, portions of the park have become open to the public in more recent years.

Who wouldn't want to be able to see this face?

We spent the week learning about tropical marine ecosystems, doing an independent project, and easing back into doing schoolwork.  Since our station was only about 100 meters away from the ocean, I definitely felt like we were on an extended spring break.  Unfortunately for me, the independent project also involved the ocean.  The class had snorkeling lessons one of the first days we arrived and then went snorkeling pretty much every day during low tide.  Since I couldn’t snorkel with everyone because of my ear, I spent a lot of time sitting around in a hammock reading.  It was nice to relax at first, but it quickly became maddening to spend a whole week sitting at a beach and not really being able to do anything.

However, I was able to go tidepooling, walk around the forest, and help with a beach cleanup.  It was absolutely amazing how much trash washes up on shore.  We filled several giant trash bags with old shoes, bottles, and food wrappers without managing to get everything.  We saw a lot of cool marine organisms.  The funniest (but also most annoying) was the land crab.  They scuttled around everywhere while trying to avoid us, and they were so abundant that it sounded like it was raining outside of our classroom.  When I went to shower on one of the last days in Cabo Blanco, I realized that a crab had somehow gotten into my room and taken the place of my soap in my toiletry bag.

Sea slug!

Hermit crab feeding frenzy



Evil crabs

Although Cabo Blanco was relaxing, I was ecstatic to leave by the end of the week.  We then went to the Monteverde region, which is probably the most famous ecotourism destination in Costa Rica.

Independent Project 1, San José/San Pedro

I’ve had a crazy past week and a half (a paper, two midterms, two other assignments, moving to San Jose, meeting my host family, starting Spanish class, etc), so I haven’t really had the chance to update my blog.  Unfortunately, it’s going to be even harder over the next two weeks for me to get on the Internet.  My host family doesn’t have Internet, so I can’t update my blog at home.  My computer charger also broke, so I can’t really use my computer now anyway.  I can use Internet on the computers at CRLA where I take classes, but they are old and slow.  I also only have half an hour before and after classes, which usually is barely enough time to check my e-mail once a computer opens up.  Here are some brief updates on my independent project and on my time in San José:

One of the classes that I’m taking this semester is on scientific research.  The class involves undertaking a lot of research projects, some faculty led and some independent.  I just completed my first research project in Palo Verde.  I worked with two other people to see how spider behaviors differ in response to predators and prey.  We worked with the Green Lynx spider, which is a small, beautiful spider that is abundant in the area.  Our project basically involved poking the spiders with either a clay model bird (the predator) or with a bee (the prey) for four days.  Our results were not super clear, but we basically found very few differences in the spider’s behavior.  The project was challenging because we only had two days to come up with the idea, four days to test it, and one day to do all of the statistics and write the paper.  It was fun, but I’m also definitely glad it’s over.

(When I have more time, I’ll add some pictures)

I arrived in San Jose last Thursday for the start of two weeks of intensive Spanish classes.  It’s a rather strange part of my study abroad experience because the rest of my time in Costa Rica has focused on three classes related to biology and environmental science.  However, for the next two weeks I’m taking 5.5 hours of intensive Spanish class through the Costa Rican Language Academy.   It’s a change of pace to be in a city, living with a host family, and learning a language rather than living in a field station while literally spending every hour of every day with my professors and fellow students.  It’s been hard to adjust…I’ve definitely caught myself stopping and trying to identify a plant a few times.

I’m living with a host family while I take classes.  My host parents are a young couple, with a son who turned 5 just yesterday.  They are really friendly, patient when listening to me try to talk, and they also cook great food.  I can’t always speak with them very well because I can’t quite remember enough Spanish to always conjugate verbs the right way, etc.  Nonetheless, I’m doing a pretty good job of communicating with them.  My family typically gets up early everyday (even weekends!) to eat breakfast at 6:30.  They all leave by 7:00 for school and work and are home by 6:00 at the latest, depending on traffic.  They eat a big breakfast, a smaller lunch, and a really small dinner.  I’m not sure if they sometimes eat dinner earlier or if they just don’t eat dinner sometimes, but I’m occasionally the only person eating dinner.

I’m not really sure what I think of San Jose quite yet, but I do know for sure that it is a little confusing.  There aren’t really any street names or house addresses, so getting directions anywhere is almost impossible.  When I take a cab home, my directions involve turning at a random traffic light, heading towards a school, and then heading towards a different neighborhood.  However, I can normally take a bus, which makes things much easier.  The bus system is pretty similar to every other bus system in every other city.  However, I really like that the bus drivers give change back if you don’t have an exact fare.

I had a placement interview last Thursday and even though my grammar is quite rusty, I got placed in one of the advanced classes.  All of the classes are very small and I only have two other people in class with me all day.  We start class at 9:00 and go until 3:30, with a one hour break for lunch.  We spend all morning reviewing and orally practicing grammar and then we spend all afternoon discussing culture.  I’m not sure how much grammar I’m actually learning, but having to constantly talk is improving my confidence to speak in Spanish.  The class is definitely hard, but I am definitely keeping up so far.

It’s difficult to make plans without cell phones or Internet, but I still managed to explore a bit this past weekend with some friends from my program.  We went out to lunch for pizza (with real cheese that actually melts!) and then walked to a big art festival in downtown San Jose.  I bought a book in Spanish to read, although I cannot for the life of me find the book I wanted to get, One Hundred Years of Solitude, anywhere.  Sunday my host family took me to a farmer’s market that they go to every week to buy all of their fruits and vegetables.  The market was full of tons of different foods, including some fruits that I had never seen before.  Everything was really cheap and really fresh.  My host family literally filled an entire shopping cart with fruits and vegetables.  Later in the day we celebrated my host brother’s birthday at his grandmother’s house where I ate tons and tons of food.

So far my experience in San Jose has been positive but hectic.

Palo Verde

Palo Verde National Park is my home through March 10^th.  It is a reserve in the northwest of the country that has seasonal dry forest and a large marsh.  I can already tell from the few days that I’ve been here that the park is unique in several regards.  First, the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) owns and operates a field station at Palo Verde even though it is a public park run through the Costa Rican National Park Service.  OTS had to pay a fee for each of us to enter the park and there is a separate station within the park for the rangers.  The park is a very different experience than Las Cruces and Cuericí.  There was one guard at the front gate of Las Cruces (and no guards at Cuericí), but many rangers patrol the whole park at Palo Verde, including walking around our station.  There were no other visitors at Cuericí besides our class and only a couple families a day visiting Las Cruces, but there are tons of tourists here in Palo Verde.

The OTS station

Palo Verde is quite unique in its management strategy.  The park used to be part of a giant cattle ranch until it turned into a park in the late 1970s.  Cattle were removed and cattails began invading the entire wetland area at the same time.  The wetland area is important habitat for lots of waterfowl, so the disappearance of the marsh was of great concern.  Palo Verde received an executive decree in 1998 that allowed for active management to restore the marsh (most national parks cannot do much alteration to habitat).  One of the management strategies has been to reintroduce cattle into the park in the hopes that their grazing will control the cattails.  I don’t think this has been effective, but allowing nearby farmers to keep cattle in the park must go a long way in ensuring good will between the park and the surrounding community.  In that sense, I don’t think having cattle in a national park does too much harm, but it can be annoying to find a cowpie on the soccer field or to have a cow glare at you when entering the marsh. 



View of the marsh with lots of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

I have been told that January through June corresponds with the dry season in Costa Rica, but I didn’t understand what that really meant until arriving at Palo Verde.  Las Cruces and Cuericí were both very green, with Las Cruces receiving rainfall about twice a week and Cuericí getting a lot of fog and moisture from the clouds.  Palo Verde on the other hand is dry.  Very dry.  And hot.  It has not rained here in a while, and it is likely that the area will receive no meaningful rainfall for the remainder of the dry season.  The dirt on the soccer field is cracked and the grass is brown.  A large amount of trees in the forest have lost their leaves and the marsh looks like it is at a low level.  There have been practically no clouds overhead.  I’m incredibly fascinated what the area is like towards the end of the dry season.



View of some of the dry forest

Interestingly, the area around the park is extremely productive despite the dry season.  A lot of water intensive crops like rice, sugarcane, and watermelon are produced here.  Farmers depend on irrigation, but this seems like a low efficiency system.  Costa Rica created an artificial lake near the Arenal Volcano to create electricity through a dam, and the water flowing out of the dam is used to irrigate dry farms in the Guanacaste region that otherwise would not be able to grow the crops they do.

Rice field

This area is quite rich in wildlife, and I have already seen tons of White-faced Capuchins, two Howler Monkeys, one Spider Monkey, several Coatis, and more Black Spinytail Iguanas than I can handle.  I’ve also been able to observe the famous Ant-Acacia tree interaction firsthand, which is featured in all ecology textbooks.  Palo Verde is also quite buggy.  I am always itchy due to bug bites, and we need mosquito nets over our beds at night.  The only large animal that I haven’t seen yet that I want to is a crocodile, but hopefully that will change soon!

Two White-faced Capuchins



Black Spinytail Iguana

The next two and a half weeks will be extremely busy, with faculty-led projects starting tomorrow, then independent projects, two midterms, a plant taxonomy key, and our insect identifications all due before we leave for San Jose (and basically no rest days until San Jose).  Hopefully I can survive!

Cuerici

I spent the past six days in Cuerici, which is a field station and farm located in the Talamanca Mountain Range.  The station was a bit more rustic than Las Cruces in the sense that there was basically no heat, no phone service, and no Internet.  The station's elevation is around 2800 meters, so we definitely felt the effects of elevation.  The weather was much, much cooler than the other parts of Costa Rica I have experienced.  Nights were spent huddled around the wood stove before stuffing ourselves into our sleeping bags to keep warm.

The station has a rather interesting setup because Don Carlos, the man who manages the station, also has a farm at the site.  I think that Don Carlos would just run the station and manage the forest if he could, but from my understanding, the farm is necessary for Don Carlos to make money.  He is part of an association of seven people who have protected 200 hectares of primary oak forest.  Although he makes some money from the researchers and students who stay at the station, it is not enough income to live comfortably.  This may be an indication that small scale private reserves are not a financially sound investment in Costa Rica.

Our first day there we had a short tour around Don Carlos's property.  I can't provide much information because I slipped and pulled a muscle in my leg 20 minutes into the tour.  I had to sit out a hike the next morning, and injuring myself negatively influenced my experience at Cuerici for the first couple of days.

Nonetheless, I still had an enjoyable time and got to go on some great hikes.  We did several hikes through the forest, where I got to spend some quality time appreciating the beauty of nature. 

We went to a paramo ecosystem, which is a high elevation grass and shrubland (similar to a tundra, but in the Tropics).  It is characterized by harsh and unpredictable weather conditions (rapidly changing temperatures), intense sunlight, strong winds, and fog.  When we went, the area was covered in fog so visiblity was quite low (perhaps 50 to 100 feet).  Plants have developed many adaptations to survive the paramo, so most of te plants have a low stature to avoid the wind, small and hairy leaves, and upward-pointing leaf orientation.  Most animals only migrate into the paramo during the day to feed and then go down the mountain at night, or burrow in the vegetation.  I really didn't see many animals at all, including insects.

Example of plants typical to the paramo

I also hiked up to a lookout point in Cuerici's forest one night to camp out with a couple other people to watch the sunrise over the mountains in the morning.  We left around 9:00PM, so we needed our headlamps to help guide us through the pitch black forest.  We huddled around each other and tried to keep warm for about an hour before going to be in  shack that was open on two sides.  It was so cold!  However, the view the next morning was well worth all of the sleepless shivering the night before.

Obviously, my camera couldn't capture how stunning the sunrise was, but the view was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  One of the things I find so fascinating about being in the mountains is how quickly the clouds move.  Fifteen minutes later when we started hiking back down for breakfast  clouds had completely covered the entire view and we couldn't see anything.

Finally, on our last full day we did a six hour hike where we got to see a 1000+ year old oak tree and a nearby waterfall.

 Cuerici was overall a great trip and very different from the warm, tropical rainforests that most people imagine when they think of Costa Rica.  I'm so glad that I got to experience the diversity of Costa Rica's ecosystems, although I am glad to be back in warm weather and away from the cold!

Las Alturas

We went to Las Alturas yesterday for a quick overnight trip in order to see a huge forest not too far from Las Cruces.  We drove two hours to a beautiful, more rustic cabin in the mountains.  No heat, no Internet, and electricity only from 6-9PM when the generator is on.  We unpacked and then had a lecture about the area.

Las Alturas was fascinating to learn about.  It is a farm community of 49 families that is owned by a wealthy American businessman.  They grow organic produce and honey for local consumption and have a small seedling nursery.  The bottom third of the property used to be selectively logged, so the trees are grown as part of a reforestation effort.  The rest of the property is untouched primary forest that is next to La Amistad International Park, a protected area shared by Costa Rica and Panama in the Talamaca range.

Seedlings

This morning we made a two hour hike from an elevation of 1500m to 2100m.  It was obviously steep but the beauty of the forest made the hike worth it.  At first the forest looks like a typical thickly vegetated forest, but transitions into a forest dominated by oak and bamboo, and the very top is a dwarf forest with tons of orchids.

Forest at low elevation

Forest at high elevation

Around an hour into the hike, we heard the calls of White-headed Capuchins from far away.  Hearing their loud vocalizations took my breath away.  I assumed that this was the closest thing I would have to any contact with monkeys and already considered the hike to be a huge success.

However, about twenty minutes later the people in front of me stopped hiking and started staring into the trees.  High up in the canopy about 75m away we could see a Spider Monkey swinging through the trees!  The monkey was so graceful and much bigger than I expected.  The monkey was obscured by branches after about 30 seconds, swung away through the forest, and then disappeared as suddenly as we had spotted it.  Although the moment was brief, I felt like I was rooted in spot for several years.  A monkey just passed by me.  In a rain forest.  Where I had already heard other monkeys.  Life does not get much better than this.  If I could spend everyday hiking outside and getting to experince nature like this, I would be the happiest person in the world.  It amazes me that this forest is big enough to support several species of monkeys and that this individual Spider Monkey felt comfortable enough to forage near a large group of noisy people.

I spent the rest of the hike in a state of delirious happiness.  The view from the top was almost as spectacular.  All that was visible as far as the eye could see across the moutains was forest.  Pure unadultered forest.  It was a gorgeous sight.  Although I don't think any of my picture of the rain forest do it justice, I found it impossible to capture just how majestic a sea of forest actually is to see. 
Las Alturas was definitely one of my favorite trips so far.  I can only hope that the rest of the semester will be as eventful and beautiful.

Las Cruces 1

Las Cruces Biological Station & Wilson Botanical Garden is a research station 300km SE of San Jose in the Fila Cruces mountain range.  The area is 1200m above sea level, gets about 4000mm rain/year and is a Tropical Premontane Wet Forest.  Las Cruces is a small forest fragment but has a huge diversity of plants (including the second largest collection of palms in the world), birds, bats, and mammals (White-headed Capuchin are definitely present, and Squirrel Monkeys' range supposedly includes this area, but they have not been seen recently).

It took a 6 hour bus ride from San Jose to Las Cruces.  I had a delicious lunch of arroz con pollo and platanos maduros:

Everything I saw during our stops was beautiful and really different from the types of plants I'm used to seeing:

When we got to Las Cruces, we moved into the Wilson House, which is located right in the middle of the garden:

I'm in a room with 3 other guys.  I'm on top bunk:

There are so many beautiful plants just in the garden around the house (This one is a bromeliad):

Since we got here, we've been busy non-stop.  A typical day so far:
6:29 wake up.
6:30 walk to breakfast.
8:00-12:00 class time spent either in the classroom, in the garden, or heading towards the forest (generally with two half hour breaks)
12:00 lunch
2:00-4:00/4:30 class time
4:30-6:00 free time (usually spent playing soccer or running with everyone)
6:00 dinner
7:00 class time
11:00 bedtime

We don't have specific classes at specific times and all of the professors help teach every class so there is always something different happening.  I spend most of classtime furiously taking notes because lectures all move extremely quickly, so any free time between classes goes by way too fast.  We haven't had too much homework other that reading so far, but there is so little time to get it done.  We were also just given a taxonomy assignment, involving finding, catching, and identifying insects to the level of order and family on our own.  I don't know how I will find enough time to do all of it.

The food here is pretty good.  Almost every meal has some sort of rice dish and many meals have beans.  For breakfast there is also some type of bread or biscuit, fruit, eggs, and orange juice.  For lunch, there is salad (very thinly sliced cabbage with tomatoes and cucumbers), rice, a vegetable, and a meat dish.  For dinner, there is again salad, a meat dish, a vegetable, and a small desert.  For example, we had salad, lasagna, cauliflower, bread and ice cream for dinner tonight.  The meals are spaced out and there aren't any opportunities to snack between meals, so I have to force myself to eat more food at each meal so I don't get hungry.

The weather in Costa Rica is amazing.  It doesn't feel too hot or humid when just walking around, but it gets bad when hiking, even in the shade of the forest.  It is always light out by breakfast time and the sun always sets right around dinner time, so flashlights or headlamps are completely necessary to get from one place to another after around 5:45PM.  We generally all hang out in the giant common room after dark, trying to read, socialize, or get on the Internet.  Las Cruces only has a certain amount of bandwith shared among everyone who works or lives here, so we can't look at large pictures online or use video Skype during the day.

So far I am loving Costa Rica!  My goal is to start taking even more pictures (even though I probably won't be able to upload all of them).  Hopefully I will be able to take full advantage of everything Las Cruces has to offer before we leave in a few weeks.

Arriving in San Jose

I made it to Costa Rica!  The past few days have been so crazy that I haven't really had any time at all to post anything.  I was in San Jose briefly before heading to Las Cruces Biological Station.  A lot has happened, so here's a brief recap of my first day:
I flew from Miami to Chicago at 8:00 on Monday, had a three hour layover in Miami, and then flew to San Jose.  Thankfully neither of the flights was super long (and in fact the flight to Miami was slightly longer than the flight to San Jose).  I didn't sleep well the night before because I was so anxious, so I was hoping to sleep one the plane.  However, I only slept for about 20 minutes on the flight to Miami, which is surprising because I am really good at sleeping anywhere.  When I got to Miami, I walked up and down the terminal countless times because I was bored and didn't want to spend even more time sitting down.  I sincerely hope that I never have to spend too much time listening to the horrible muzak they play nonstop.  On the flight to San Jose there was an annoying little boy sitting next to me who kicked me a couple times but thankfully he fell asleep eventually. 
When I arrived in the airport at San Jose, I went through customs, picked up my bags, and set off into Costa Rica.  My first real experience in the country was being mobbed my taxi drivers trying to get me to go with them.  The next thing I noticed was how warm and humid it was! I was still wearing my sweatshirt from the airplane and I was really uncomfortable.  Nonetheless  being in San Jose was so surreal!  I still can't believe that I am actually here in Costa Rica.  It's mind-boggling!
I met 2 other guys doing the program and a TA outside the airport so we could all head to the hotel together.  Our hotel was not far away, but it took almost 2 hours to get there by van because of minor, one block long construction happening on a main street. A general impression that I get is that there are not a ton of main roads/highways in the city.  Thankfully we eventually arrived and I could finally stretch my legs after sitting in cramped seats all day long.  Most people had gotten to the hotel z lot earlier and were all out exploring.  I went with the 2 guys who took the van with me in search of food because I hadn't eaten since lunch.  It was after 8:00 and we didn't really have an idea of where we were going.  We walked around for a bit, but the only place we found was a little snack shop attached to a small indoor soccer field.  We all ordered fries to go, which came with mayo and ketchup on them.  Although I don't like mayo, I was so hungry that it tasted delicious anyway.  I went to bed soon after eating because we had to go to the OTS office the next morning.

We had a orientation inside the beautiful OTS building in the morning and got to know each other.  We ate lunch outside and I managed to get burned on my first full day there after about 20 minutes.  In the afternoon, a couple of us walked down Paseo Colon, which is a pedestrian area with tons of little stores.  We went out to a restaurant for dinner and I had some delicious sea bass.  As much fun as San Jose was, I didn't get a chance to explore much because I was only there for one day.

The next morning, we left at 8:00 for a six hour bus ride heading south through the mountains to Las Cruces, where the adventures really began...