We’ve only been here for a few days, but it feels like weeks have passed. Each day contains so much that it’s almost impossible to remember which day was which. I’m super grateful for the travel journal assignment, as it’s keeping me responsible for recording this trip, and by the end I’ll have a comprehensive log of each day. That being said, I’ll do my best to summarize that work in this blog for a more palatable and concise description of what I’m up to in the jungle. I will do a brief overview of every day, and the. Go into more detail about the topics that really interest me here.
The first day was definitely an adjustment period. Between the early start time, the lack of sleep for the plane ride the day before, and the novelty of the whole experience, I was a little overwhelmed. Breakfast is at 6:30, so I set my alarm for 6:00 and rolled out of bed a few minutes later. Breakfast was sausage, beans and rice, and a piece of some sort of French toast. Honestly, the food here has been one of the best parts. Beans and rice, when done right, simply don’t get old. We started the day after breakfast with a birding tour, and I went with a guide named Jainer. He was an expert at mimicking bird calls to get them to turn, and I was amazed at his spotting abilities. The highlights were the mealy parrots, the great green macaw, the great carasau, and the many different types of toucan. Another thing on the hike that I didn’t expect was the sheer number of poison dart frogs. Strawberry or blue jeans dart frogs are very prevalent, and are very easy to spot. On our hike, we saw one or two every couple of feet. Tuesday was also the day we saw the most sloths. We saw 2 on the nature hike, and 1 more while crossing the bridge later. They are surprisingly fast, I mean very slow and lethargic, but if you turn around for a minute or two they can just straight up disappear. At the end of the day, we had a guided night hike, with lots of amphibian appearances and a few exciting moments. We saw a cool species of bullfrog called savage’s thin toed frog, a red eyed tree frog, and a Mexican tree frog. About half of the way through the hike, we started getting swarmed by this non aggressive type of bee. They just kept climbing up our shirts towards our skin, and our guide Kenneth had no idea what kind they were. Right as we were about to leave, I brushed one climbing up my shirt with my arm and it stung me right on the ribs. It was remarkably painful, but subsided after only a few minutes. After we booked it away from the bees, we noticed a fer de lance sitting right on the trail. These snakes are super well camouflaged, and responsible for more than 80% of the snake related accidents in Costa Rica. This forced us to turn around and walk back through the bee infested area, luckily without any more stings. After this hike, we went straight to bed, which was remarkably easy. Even with the thin mattress and lumpy pillow, I slept like a baby.
The second day felt much more normal. After one day of extremes, I felt adjusted to the schedule and pace of our program. Breakfast was the same time, and after hanging around for a bit, we headed to the classroom for Dr. Washerman’s first lecture. He covered the Anthropocene, the concept of planetary health. The most interesting part of the lecture was his focus on latitudinal gradients. Biodiversity, rainfall, temperature, and productivity all become more intense the closer you get to the equator. Tuesday was also the day I found the species I am most interested in, the Machaca. I stopped on the bridge to watch fish, as one does, and took notice of a very prevalent nut eating fish. They competed fiercely for anything that fell into the water, and it was intriguing watching them swarm anything that hit the water, and carrying them away from the group before deciding whether or not to actually eat them.
Machaca have been a major facet of my experience here. Everytime I pass over the bridge, I stop to watch for a few minutes. I have talked with a woman, Dr Kellie Huhn from the air, who has an ongoing project studying how they are agents of seed dispersal. I talked with her for more than half an hour about different studies, and about what she does back in the states. Apparently one of her hobbies is buying land set to be developed in important wilderness corridors, and restoring it. She makes a profit by taking any houses on said land, flipping them, and then selling them with an acre. I got her email, and am consideration coming back to la selva next summer as a research assistant on her project. She has funding from the department of defense, apparently they are looking at seed dispersing fish and their ability to reforest riparian areas as a way to break ISIS’s monopoly on water in parts of Africa. It seems like a v cool email, and she seemed like a very cool project, so I’m interested to see if that opportunity goes anywhere.
The last few days, I’ve sort of fallen into a routine. Wake up at 6:00 or earlier if an activity requires, head to breakfast, and then go to class. From class, I either head into the forest to look for animals or watch machaca, doing as many as 3 hikes a day, or go to the library to work. I show up to lectures, participate in activities, and spend as much time as I can enjoying the jungle and our time here. However, I threw a wrench in that equilibrium Saturday morning. Our group was participating in a howler census, a 30 year anniversary follow up of the first census done at La Selva. I was put in a group we later affectionately dubbed the “midnight mountain bike crew,” with Vijay, Dylan, and Eric. We were the furthest afield, almost 7 kilometers out into the jungle, so we rented bikes Friday afternoon to help ease the journey. Waking up at 2:15, I rolled out of bed and loaded my bag. I blearily stumbled to the cafeteria only to find earlier groups had drunk all the coffee. After this realization, I showed up at the trailhead early, and poked around for 15 minutes before everyone else showed up. We booked it 5 or so kilometers along a concrete trail, only to find that the trail turned to dirt a kilometer before it was marked as one on the map. We ditched the bike and began our slog through the dense jungle with patches of mud almost up to our ankle. Dylan and I arrived at our spot only a few minutes late, and waited 40 minutes before we heard the first howls. We diligently marked them on our map, pushing through sleep deprivation. A little after 5:00, the first of the flies arrived. They were big, meaty creatures, and exceptionally loud. They did circles around our heads, leading to many a vulgar exclamation. After 20 minutes of trying, I managed to knock one into the creek and a fish promptly ate it, but it had little effect on the swarm. After putting up with them for 45 minutes, we made the decision to pickup and move further up the hill. A few followed, but compared to the cloud of them at the bottom it was almost heaven. The howler monkey calls waned off around 6:30, and Dylan and I passed the last 30 minutes by flipping our water bottle onto one of the milled logs that served as a bridge when the valley flooded. Dylan managed to get 3 in a row, but I never exceeded 1 at a time.
This time in Costa Rica has been intense and memorable, and it’s very difficult to fit it all into one short blog post. Hopefully I’ll be able to go into more detail, supported by my travel journal, when I see everyone upon my return.
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