The final few nights in La Selva were amazing. We played cards with other groups and got to know each other better. It is very bittersweet to be leaving but I’m super excited to see the new places. La Selva has been amazing with the wildlife and meeting new people. One of my favorite things was playing soccer with other groups and the field station staff. We ended up meeting Zari from another group and we played cards with him a lot over our time there. The data collection has been a bit rough because of all the rain but we have pushed through it in order to increase our total collection. Just the other night after dinner a group of us went to watch the sunset which was amazing.
One of my favorite things has been going to the farms nearby to learn about sustainable farming. I found the methods that they use super interesting especially when compared to the giant mono-crop non-organic farms. The pineapple farm is probably my favorite just because I love pineapple. I loved picking the plant right from the ground and eating it there. The pineapple based foods were also super good such as the dried pineapples and the Piña Coladas. The plantain farm was also super cool. I loved getting to eat the food that we helped make. My favorite part of that was finding mimosa pudica. This is a plant that reacts when you touch it. I had a blast watching it react and learning why it happened. On the final day of going to the farms we went to a chocolate farm. This one was cool because we saw a fer-de-lance snake. I loved seeing how chocolate was made while also getting to help a bit in the process. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the bitter start but as the process went on we got to eat chocolate covered pineapple which was incredible.
Waking up early for the bus ride was hard, especially because we had played cards the night before with a group from another school. On the bus ride there we saw a lot of banana plantations. I knew that there were a ton of banana plantations in Costa Rica but just seeing the size of it opened my mind a lot. I think it is hard to realize the vast scale of things until it is right in front of you. After learning about the processes that they use and the vast amount of pesticides I am going to try and eat more organic fruits and vegetables. One of the things that interested me most is that the pineapple plantations burn the crops after they get the first fruit from them, even though it is illegal. This scares me because the plantations have so much power on the Costa Rica economy that they cant enforce certain rules out of fear of losing plantations or making the companies super mad. The burning the crops reminded me of slash and burn farming methods in the rainforest. I hope that in the future we can find ways to enforce laws while also keeping everyone happy.
Before we began the large bus ride we stopped to get second breakfast at a bus stop thing. This was very interesting to me because the area was so different from La Selva. During the boat ride we were with a bunch of other people. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this new area because it felt like a tourist trap. I love ecotourism because it helps with the earth more than building things on the protected areas but this place felt like tourism first, nature second. Although the place felt weird to me I still had a great time at the pool and had one of the best lunches yet, pasta with white sauce, onions, garlic, and mushrooms. I enjoyed being close to nature and seeing white-faced capuchins and spider monkeys. During one of the meals the white-faced capuchins came super close to us and grabbed some food off of another table. Even though this was cool to observe I started to think about why they would do this. In La Selva we did not see many monkeys near human structures so why would they come so close in a place like this? I realized that the monkeys might not have enough space in the part of Tortuguero we were in. This made me sad because human impact caused these monkeys to seek out food that is not natural for them to eat.
In Tortuguero we went on a boat ride through the river system. I enjoyed this a lot even though there were a lot of other boats out there with us. We saw lots of birds and even a super cool porcupine. During this trip I noticed that a lot of the animals were not scared of humans. This shocked me because even birds I see in a park are scared of me. I believe that they are so exposed to humans and used to their presence that they no longer have fear. This saddens me to see because it means that the birds could be easily hunted by illegal poaching or other dangers. We also went into town during one of the days. This was a very interesting experience to me because it reenforced my idea of this place being very touristy. They only had one grocery store but tons of places selling shirts and souvenirs. I hope this is because the people are able to live on local produce and fruits and not rely on grocery stores but it does not seem too likely. In town we also talked to some students from a local university about the turtle season. They told us that lots of people come to see the turtles but when it is not turtle season a lot less people come to see the nature. I found this super interesting because I had not thought about traveling during a certain time just to see an event in nature.
Leave a Reply