We arrived at La Selva late Monday night after waiting for a while. After a quick dinner at the cafeteria, we began the half mile trek to our living quarters with our suitcases. I was so tired I did not notice much from the walk, except the long wobbly bridge stretching over the Puerto Viejo River. I went to sleep as soon as I could to be awake and ready for the next day!
Tuesday morning we ate breakfast before a nature hike through the rainforest. There is a limitless supply of coffee here, so I was not too tired from traveling on Monday. Another pleasant surprise at breakfast was the fresh juice! There is a different flavor for every meal we have and it has become something I get excited about every day. My favorite has been the green juice (papina?) and the guava! We began the nature hike around 9. After 10 minutes of standing and listening to our guide Genesis, I thought I was going to suffocate from the heat and humidity. I’ve since adjusted to it, but it is still very hot. Genesis took us first through the secondary forest. The secondary and primary forests are classified by time from disturbance, so primary is more of an old growth forest. You can definitely feel a difference between the two forests. The primary seems a little older, quieter, and has a mysterious feeling to it. We saw many plants, my favorite being the monstera plants that grow up trees, and some cool animals and bugs. I first saw leaf cutter ants on this walk, and everyone on this trip is interested in them.
My favorite fact about them from Genesis was that when it rains they will send their leaf pieces down the little stream that is created from their path filling with water, so the leaves float to the nest and they don’t have to walk. Very clever of them. I also like the pink bananas, which are unfortunate invasive.
Wednesday was slightly less eventful. We ate our breakfast and then had project proposals with the professors. Because of our extra free time, I went on a hike with some people through the old growth forest. I saw a poison dart frog! 
They are black and green, and the green is so bright it almost glows against the darkness of the forest floor. I took another hike later in the day before dinner. It began to storm, and right before the howler monkeys started making noise. It sounds very eerie, almost like a prehistoric beast, especially when because it comes from high up and it sounds like they are all around you. But then you see them, and they are about the size of a small to medium dog and very cute. So their call is very misleading.
Thursday morning included an early bird hike before breakfast, so a 5:45 a.m. start time. We saw some cool birds, including macaws. I only saw those flying overhead, but our tour guide said they were rare so I felt pretty lucky! We watched the birds for a little while, then abandoned that for a sloth hunt! Our tour guide, Octavio, is very talented at spotting things and found one in a tree. We saw it through a telescope. While I was excited to see one, I only saw him from the back and he looked like a bush sitting in a tree, so I am hoping to see more.
Some fun things about sloths are they are super good at camouflage because they really have no other defense against predators, they move so slowly some of them grow mold, and their metabolisms are so slow they poop about once a week. They also climb down the tree to bury it, which provides nutrients for the tree. So the sloths take care of their homes. The rest of the day included classroom stuff and lunch and dinner. Before dinner, I saw a howler monkey from 10 ish feet away! It was hanging out on a tree over the bridge, and I watched it climb from the tree to the cables on the bridge with a baby on her back. That was an awesome experience, I don’t know if I will ever get to be that close to a monkey in nature again.
Friday we spent the day working on project presentation with our partners. My partner is Mahek and we are study the effects of the forest and precipitation as a method to filter pollutants from the air. That took about the whole day, and at night we went on a night hike! All of the spiders come out at night, which was unsettling to see. I will never call another spider in Indiana bug after what I have seen here. We also saw some cool snakes, mostly small harmless ones in trees. And my favorite find of the night was a teeny frog that lived in a bromeliad.
The rainforest really comes alive at night. It’s hard to see anything but it is alive with sound. Everything is making noise and moving around you, so it is an exciting experience.
Saturday and Sunday consisted of our farm tours! As much as I love La Selva, it was nice to get a change of scenery. Saturday was the organic pineapple farm. We took a tractor out into the field and were taught about the complexity of growing pineapple. Farmers must control them, because they usually fruit whenever they want to. In order to control when the fruit, the farmers spray ethylene gas over them. Normally the plant will produce that chemical itself when it’s time to fruit. I thought this was an interesting way the farmers manipulate the plant to do what they want. The pineapple was the best I have ever had.
It was plucked straight from the field, so it was a little warm from the sun, which was unusual to me but it made it taste more fresh and organic. The flavor was incredible and it was so sweet. Since the tour guide taught us how to pick a good pineapple in a grocery store, I will now be eating a lot more of them. He also gave us piña coladas at the end of the tour, made from the fresh pineapples. I think it ruined them for me because I will never have one that good again.
Sunday was the banana farm. It was ran by a woman, who’s family owned the land I think for 3 generations, and her grandmother and aunt. Bananas are as complicated as pineapples! I enjoyed hearing about her herb garden as well. She had a tea for every ailment you could ever have. There was also a citronella plant, a lemongrass plant which smelled amazing, and an aloe plant. She basically had a pharmacy on her farm. After a brief tour around the farm, we got a delicious meal cooked for us. There were arepas, (I don’t know what’s in them but they are addicting), refried beans, tortillas with some kind of rice and herb mixture, and the fried plantains! I will 100% be taking some recipes back with me from Costa Rica.
My first week here has both flown by and also felt like I have been here for awhile and settled in nicely. I love how close I am to nature everyday. The windows to our rooms are even just screens, so I am always hearing what goes on outside. I love the rainforest and
am already dreading going back to Indiana.
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