This last week in Costa Rica has been something else. Bouncing from Torteguero to Arenal to Palo Verde and then to Monteverde felt crazy after spending so much time at La Selva, and seeing so many different things in such a short window was both exhilarating and exhausting, especially being that we had to finish our research projects. I’m glad to not have to worry about that anymore, but It’s sad that this class is over. I love being here in Costa Rica, and I really love everyone on this trip. It’s pretty amazing how close you can get to a group of people in three weeks. I cried yet again in the airport, but this time in San Jose (far better than crying in New Jersey!) because now I won’t be with the 22 people who made the past three weeks the best experience of my life so far. There are no other professors, AIs, and classmates turned friends who I would rather have gone to Costa Rica with.
In addition to the new friends, I’m also going to bring back a ton of new knowledge and memories back to the United States. Between all the animal species and ecology that I’ve never seen before, to my new understanding of ecotourism, to my new knowledge on the complexity of climate change gained from my research project, my mind is swimming.
To start, Torteguero, Arenal, and Palo Verde all had new animals and sights that I had never seen before. During our afternoon walk on our first day at Torteguero, I got to see two two-toed sloths way up in a cecropia tree, which was one of the animals I knew I wanted to see while on this trip. These sloths were also surprisingly in a tree that was right next to a turtle shaped pool and a bar, which I would not expect. I would think that sloths would not want to live right by a ton of humans and human development, but these two looked cute and cozy up in their tree. When we toured Torteguero National Park, the whole thing was done by boat because the park itself is a conglomerate of rivers, canals, and lagoons. I had never seen anything like that before, and I felt like I was in some scene out of a movie, like Jurassic Park. During the night walk we did at Arenal, I saw quite a few of the green tree frogs, which were on my bucket list of creatures to see while here, but besides that the walk felt unnatural. We went in a human-made butterfly house, walked past man made fountains, and all the paths were lined with gravel and stone along the edges. After being at La Selva, I almost feel like I have a superiority complex about hikes and the outdoors. The more human-oriented a trail or environment looks, the less I like it. I loved the elevation and canopy views from the hanging bridges hike at Arenal, but all the bright signage and paved paths threw me off. Plus, being shown a Fer-de-lance that’s in an area sectioned off by caution tape felt like being at a zoo compared to the Fer-de-lance I stumbled upon in a tree on the second day at La Selva. Palo Verde brought us back to a similar experience to that of La Selva, but with a LOT more mosquitos and a ton of crocodiles. We went on a boat tour there where we saw dozens of crocs, including a teeny tiny baby one that I (not to toot my own horn) was the first to notice.
My ability to see through the greens and browns of the tropics to find lovely little creatures is pretty good at this point. Everything around you is so much more interesting when you take in all the little details, from the environment to the communities and people Julia and I talked to while doing our research project. While walking around the tourist town of Torteguero and talking to bartenders and shopkeepers, we could see the focus and attention on pushing the environmentalism and ecotourism, from serving cocktails in coconuts to emphasizing the sustainable and handmade jewelry being sold. Every single person we interviewed there mentioned beaches and turtles, which makes sense being that their livelihoods depend on steady flows of tourists. While interviewing people in Palo Verde, which isn’t necessarily the best funded national park out there, all of them were genuinely excited to fill out our survey, and all of them emphasized the impact of climate change on the park that they love. All of these survey results, which confirmed our hypothesis that Costa Ricans are more concerned with the issue of climate change than Americans, and the conversations we had in the process of gathering these results, mean so much more when you look at the importance of the planet in people’s daily lives. Ecotourism is fully dependent on the beauty of the tropics, and work at a field station at a national park changes greatly when the weather conditions are driven to new extremes, especially when being so exposed to the elements.
In the United States, we are often sheltered from our natural environment and its changes. Opinions on climate change seem to change depending on who someone votes for each election cycle, and no one seems to care if they have to start using air conditioning earlier on in the year or turn it down a few degrees. In Costa Rica, the cultural and economic significance of the environment, the fact that environmental issues aren’t turned into political issues, and the exposure to the natural world at all times mean that the whole country cares. The whole country cares about climate change and its impacts on everyone, including the plant and animal species that live there. I really wish that I could have surveyed and talked to a bigger portion of the 5 million people who live in Costa Rica to learn more about their relationships with mother nature and climate change. Hopefully I get the opportunity to return to Costa Rica soon.
I have learned more about myself and the world in the past three weeks than I could’ve imagined. I can barely verbalize how much this has all meant to me, but this will definitely end up being the best class I will take at Indiana.
El fin… ¡Pura vida!
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