Back!

So…apparently the last time I made a post on here was in early September. Considering that is now late October, I think its fair to say that I really dropped the ball on this blog. Still, I need some sort of documentation of the incredible time that I’ve been having here in addition to my simple note in my iPhone.

Our crocodile encounter was not our last run in with Costa Rica’s most dangerous. On our hike to Playa Llorena (which looked straight out of a postcard by the way), we practically hiked right over a Coral Snake. You do not mess with these guys, especially when antivenin is at least 3 hours away (and you usually die within 5-6 hours). Of course, our TAs tried to catch it, but it managed to swim down a river and evade them. 

They may only be a few feet long, but respiratory failure begins at three hours.

This place was amazing.

Also, fortunately, (or unfortunately?) the park guard told us that on the day before we arrived, he saw a mountain lion sitting on one of the picnic tables. Just hanging out, you know, doing Mountain Lion things, 10 meters from where we would set up camp a day later.

Quick question: if you had daily access to a large, flat beach, what game would you play on it? If you said soccer, you would be correct, but unfortunately we didn’t have a ball, so we had to settle for Ultimate Frisbee. Despite all of the hate that I’ve built up for it while at Vassar, it’s actually quite fun to play. But maybe that’s just because it was we were on a fantastic beach. Either way, it was something to do to keep me in pseudo-shape.

Apparently I will never be a photographer.

Although my iPhone takes some pretty badass night shots.

While at Corcovado, we boated out to a nearby island to learn about island biogeography. On the way there though, we got to see some Megaptera nouvaeangliae, or as normal people call them, Humpback Whales. We also got to go snorkeling around the island, which was, as you can probably guess, amazing.

I promise you that's a whale.

As we were leaving Corcovado by boat, the waves suddenly became very, very high. The other two boats made it out just fine, but we weren’t so lucky. As we were leaving the beach, we were faced with a wave that was a few feet higher than our boat. Our insane (but experienced) driver decided that he had to gun it into the wave. Despite everyone being thrown out of their seats and the windshield shattering, everyone on our boat started laughing as soon as we emerged on the other side of the wave. Sure, our bags got soaked, but who cares? We had just challenged Mother Nature to a fight and won. The rest of the ride back was great as well, since we got to see our friends Megaptera nouvaeangliae again.

After Corcovado, we had a one-night stay at a hotel. The hotel was great; it was located on the water and had great accommodations. Quite frankly though, there were only two things I cared about there, and that was that it had warm running water and beds. I probably missed those things the most during our first week in the wild. Of course, I’d gladly go back to Corcovado, but those two things are something you should never take for granted.

It was probably a five star hotel, but warm water was all I cared about.

However, this was not something to get used to. We were soon whisked off to another national park named Santa Rosa. Unlike Corcovado, which was a premontane wet forest, Santa Rosa was a premontane dry forest. Granted, we came during the wet season, so it still rained more than anywhere else in New England. Having to set up tents in the rain during the night is quite the annoying task, let me tell you that much. When we woke up the next day, however, we found that Santa Rosa was as incredible as Corcovado in its own ways. On one day, we had to determine the frequencies of different behaviors in a butterfly species, Anartia fatima. Call it science if you want, but my partners and I were basically running through high grass with butterfly nets for three hours. During our stay in Santa Rosa, we took an even longer hike (28 kilometers) to an even better beach (Playa Naranjo). It was there where we finally managed to get out TAs to play Ultimate with us. It was also there where I realized I had underestimated the athletic prowess of Branko, who is, in fact, very, very quick. Also, as a lesson for the future, it’s best not to try and push through Mancho to get to the Frisbee, as he’s built like a brick wall and I am definitely not.

This is the greatest thing to see after 28 kilometers.

Apparently that claw can hold on to you even after its severed.

Playa Naranjo. Population: Us.

After Santa Rosa, our teachers had one last day of awesome planned for us. We traveled to a just recently declared dormant volcano where our TAs gave us 5 hours to just run free. We headed over to mud pits, but that was in no way the main attraction. After a long hike, we made it to the world’s most beautiful waterfall. See the picture below.

Told you.

Ok, well this has gotten pretty long and I need to start finding leaf-cutter ant colonies for my independent research. I promise I will get this up to date eventually.