Directed Research

Hemispherical canopy photo

Thursday the 18^th we left for our directed research (DR) field work. For Gerardo’s DR, we got to go to two different locations on the Caribbean slope, Manu where we were for our first trip, and also a farm called El Zota. But before we even got to leave we had to not only pack up our stuff for the trip, but we also had to pack up almost everything in our rooms because the staff scheduled a fumigation to get rid of all the assassin bugs while we were gone. So my life was in two backpacks and a very large black plastic bag. After we were all packed up, we split up for the car ride because only a few could fit in the car Gerardo was driving and the rest of us had to go in the taxi they hired for a two and half hour ride. It was nice recognizing everything as we got closer to Manu, although it was weird because that was where we started our trips and now we got to end there, but without the whole group. We did a little bit of field prep (labeling the jars for the macroinvertebrate sampling, making tags for the palm and collecting supplies) before we actually went out and started collecting our data. Since it was later in the afternoon, and there is always a good chance of rain then, we only worked on the palm data. We measured the height, diameter, number of leaves and number of developing leaves on the palms in the open areas around Manu and also some in the forest. After the measurements were taken we also got to take the hemispherical photos with the fisheye lens. I got to do about half the photos in the open areas which was a pretty cool experience. The process was more detailed than I expected because you had to point the top of the camera due north, then make sure the tripod was level based on two levels that were built in and then most importantly, get out of the photo and snap the shot. It took me probably close to 45 minutes to take about 15 photos. After I finished, Coral and I had been told to meet the group in the forest to hand off the camera, but we had very vague directions and wandered around in the forest for a bit before we heard the group yelling for us. Since not everyone was needed for the photos, I was able to head back to the rooms. During that time I went down to the little swimming hole they have at Manu to check it out, but I didn’t get in past my knees. I wasn’t thinking about how it wasn’t very hot anymore and the sun was out. We had dinner at our normally scheduled 6.00 and didn’t have any more DR requirements, so we all brought out our sleeping bags and watched a couple of episodes of Planet Earth before going to bed at a pretty early hour.

Macroinvertebrate sampling

Friday was our full day at Manu for sampling macroinvertebrates in the Rio Santa Clara. I woke up to the sound of something hitting our window, but I couldn’t figure out what it was as I sat in bed and listened for almost 20 minutes. I finally got up and realized a little bird was flying into our window repeatedly and then sitting on the ledge before going at it again. Different alarm clock than I’m used to. To collect the macroinvertebrates, we split into groups of three so each could have a net. One person would hold the net and the other two would lift up rocks and stir up the water and push it over the net to catch everything (living and non-living) we stirred up. Then we would take the net out and, quite often while we were standing in the river, we would pick out all the macroinvertebrates we could see squirming around with our tweezers. I was again soaked up to my waist, although I fared better than some others in the group who fell all the way in the river. To collect five samples from four different microhabitats (deep and shallow pools and rapids) it took us almost three hours. When we got back, Gerardo declared the time before lunch nap time. It was nice to have a break and then lunch before we went back out to do more sampling at a section of the river further downstream. This time, instead of walking to the river, we had to drive. We thought we were going to have to take two trips because there were 11 of us and only a five person car. That didn’t matter though, the car had a big open trunk area in which we squished five people. It must have been quite a sight to see 11 people pile out of this car, all with rubber boots on and carrying nets, sampling jars and tweezers. We finished our sampling at that site in under two hours, which was good because we came back and got started identifying all of our newly acquired macroinvertebrates. As someone who does not have a background with macroinvertebrates, it was overwhelming to sit down with loads of little bugs and try to identify them based on physical traits that I could often not distinguish. We only identified to the order level, because with our lack of good microscopes and limited time, we weren’t able to identify to the family level. After staring at the macros for so long, I thought I would be talking in –teras the whole time because of all the dipteras, plecopteras, tricopteras, coleropteras and ephemipteras that we identified.

Pond at El Zota

Only slightly flooded path

Saturday morning I woke up to not only the bird flying into the window, but also a howler monkey in the distance. Our data collection for the day was for the palm part of DR. No more getting soaked in a stream looking for little bugs. Instead, we got soaked in the forest while doing a transect study and searching for Euterpe precatoria (palm trees). We had to measure a 50 meter distance from the edge of the forest in, and then 1.5 meters on either side of the line we looked for E. precatoria. It required a lot of bushwhacking and staring up into the rain trying to count leaves on the tall trees. Even though I ended up soaked again, it was pretty fun. Since I was already cold and wet, I took a cold shower to make everything better. After lunch we packed up and moved to our next site, one that we hadn’t been to before. It was a long, bumpy ride from Manú to Finca El Zota, but it was worth every head-rattling bump. When we pulled up to the farm, the pastures, pond and house were bathed in the late afternoon sun. It looked like the most gorgeous, tranquil place. The owners of the farm, Carlos and Nuria Chavez, were very welcoming and were very patient while we all got excited about seeing toucans in the tree next to the house and toucanets on the plantains out front. We were told that space was going to be tight, so we brought tents and set one up in the front yard. While it was still light out, Carlos took us to the garden and we were all in heaven. They had green beans, cilantro, cassava and lemongrass that we harvested among other things. The sun was still out and consequently we were all in great moods. On the way back from the garden we saw some of the cows, chickens and goats they have on the farm. Since we had time and daylight, we went for a walk to see some of the palms that Nuria planted on the farm. As palms aren’t very small and cute, we were all probably more excited to see the green and black dart frogs that were all over. When we got back, Maranda and I helped Nuria with dinner. We made delicious chicken (not from the farm unfortunately), mashed potatoes, chayote, carrots and heart of palm, green beans and plantains. As if that wonderful home cooked, homegrown meal wasn’t good enough, we finished it off with fresh brewed lemongrass tea. As we drank our tea, Nuria told us the story of how they started the farm, down to the little details about their oldest son sleeping and playing with the goats when he was young. By this time, the nice weather was over and it started to rain. I was glad at this point that I wasn’t one of the people sleeping in the tent that night.

Sarah and I milking a cow!

Lauren and I making queso palmito

Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of rain. It appeared that it rained all night and I was still glad that I wasn’t in the tent. I helped in the kitchen again cutting the cassava bread (pan de yuca) and somehow I was put in charge of making the coffee even though I have had a total of two cups of coffee my entire life. After we finished eating breakfast it was still raining, which thwarted our plans to go measure the palm seedlings and take the photographs. So instead we did farm chores, although we were probably more of a hindrance than a help. We all got to milk cows and a few people collected eggs. During the time that all eight of us milked two cows (with the help of Carlos Jr.), Carlos Sr. had milked at least 10 cows. It was a fun experience, but milking cows is not my calling. We also got to go see the pigs and their organic fertilizer system, which was really neat. As it was still raining pretty hard, we put off going into the forest once again. This time we got to help make cheese (queso palmito and queso presado). The first stage of making queso palmito, which is just string cheese, was to add whey to the milk and stir in a couple of cultures before letting sit for a few hours. While we were waiting for the cheese, we had another delicious meal of rice, beans and meat, yuca, plantain salsa, salad and platanos dulces (sweet plantains) for dessert. It wasn’t until we were finished with our meal that we realized the delicious meat we were eating was veal. There were quite a few of us that wished we hadn’t just eaten the meat and enjoyed it that much. After having helped Nuria so much in the kitchen, there were a few of her recipes that I wanted to make sure I got before we left. I now have the recipes for her delicious pan de yuca, salsa de platanos and platanos dulces. I know what my next experiments in the kitchen are going to be. Since we were still stalled out waiting for the rain to let up, Maranda and I got to go help Carlos herd the terneras (calves) back to the corral. On our way back from a successful cow herding, we met up with the rest of the group. Gerardo had apparently decided that we needed to go out and collect the data even though it was still raining pretty hard. Even with rain boots, a rain jacket and an umbrella, I was soaked by the time we got to the forest edge. Then the real fun started. We had to walk along a flooded path in the forest (sometimes the water was up to the top of my rain boots) and try to find the palm seedlings that had been marked by previous groups. We found most of the seedlings, measured them and didn’t have a dry piece of clothing between any of us. When we got back and dried off a bit (nothing is ever completely dry in Costa Rica) we got to help finish up the queso palmito. To do that, Nuria added boiling water to the milk/cheese that had solidified while we were gone and mixed it all together. Then she rolled the cheese out to about ¼ inch thick and cut it into strips. She then showed us how to salt it and roll it into a ball. We all got the chance to roll our own ball of queso palmito, which was really fun (and delicious)! We had to wrap it up and let it sit in cold water before it was ready to be eaten. We then had more free time since it was still to rainy to take the photographs. We started working out what our specific DR topics were going to be and more importantly we set a time with Gerardo when he promised to take us to Harry Potter 7. I got to help with dinner once again and Maranda and I made some mora (blackberry/raspberry) juice. Nuria surprised us when she brought out a bowl of corn and a grinder. We had been talking about chorreadas, a type of corn tortilla/pancake, with her earlier but we didn’t think we were going to actually get to make them. We got to grind the corn and then she mixed is with sugar, a little salt and some milk to make a batter. She showed us how to pour a spoonful onto the griddle and spread it out thin enough to make the chorreada just right. We had the many fruits of our labor for dinner – queso palmito in a casserole, chorreadas and mora juice. We had another homebrewed mint tea after dinner as Nuria told us about the uses of palms for over 30 species. I wish I was more interested, but by the time my watch said 9.00 I was ready for bed.

All decked out in our rain gear

Our DR group with Carlos and Nuria

Monday was a sad day, as we had to leave and head back to the center. Gerardo and three of the people in the group went out to take the photos of the canopy above the seedlings since it finally stopped raining. Those of us who didn’t go to take the photos had a nice relaxing morning. After the photo group came back and we had breakfast, we all went back out to see the frogs that were out along the edge of the forest. Carlos and Nuria’s other son, Bernie, took us over to the forest edge where we saw loads of strawberry dart frogs, green and black dart frogs, some type of brown frog, bats and one of the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. I’m still kicking myself that I forgot my camera on that excursion. Good thing everyone else took lots of pictures. We came back with  a flower called clusia, that has a center that is sticky enough to trap ants, and enough time before lunch to have Nuria show us how to make baskets with palm roots. It was a pretty simple process and we all got to make our own little baskets for our keepsakes. We had our final meal at El Zota and were all very sad to have to leave so soon. We got back to the center late that afternoon and even though we all still wanted to be at El Zota, it was nice to only have Achim and our DR groups at the center. The rationale for our coming back early was that we had a lot of data analysis of the photographs to do. Let the craziness of DR begin. 

Week and a half of finals, DR prep and a weekend away

Friday the 5^th was Visitors day.  We had a total of one visitor on campus. The landslides, torrential rain, and the resulting national emergency probably didn’t make it easy for people to visit. We had our Spanish class in morning at farmers market in rain. There was loads of fresh produce , delicious looking food, and gorgeous flowers and I would like to go back when don’t have to ask vendors questions for Spanish.

Coffee we picked on Melvin's farm

Saturday brought one of the most unique experiences that I’ve had here. Our outreach in the morning involved us going to the coffee farm of one of our security guards to help him pick coffee. The coffee was ripening faster than he had expected and he didn’t have a lot of help to collect the coffee berries before they all fell. We were all prepared to pick in the rain because the weather had been so bad, but luckily it was sunny. We spent a solid three hours picking coffee in pairs, working our way down a row. Julia and I finished one row and had a basket and a ¼ of coffee berries. Achim, one of our professors, optimistically told us that if we were actually working on a coffee farm we would have made an entire three or four dollars between the two of us for all our work. I guess that’s a summer job that’s better that I don’t have. We walked away from the morning with not only a great experience, but also with orange stained hands, to prove that we picked the coffee.

At the butterfly garden at INBioparque

For the day on Sunday I went into San Jose to visit teacher Cris, our good friend from Costa Rica that we met when we came down here the first time to set up the exchange program. She had plans for us to go to INBioparque, which was a sort of nature park/zoo/farm/exhibit. Interesting to see such educational park in San Jose. We saw lots of iguanas, butterflies, caimans, turtles, frogs, snakes, birds and of course all the normal flora. I felt almost like an expert because I had seen much of the flora and fauna and was able to identify some of it. We at a late lunch at INBioparque and then Cris dropped me off at bus station so I could get back to work. Back at the center and back at work, I finished last FEX, for NRM.

Monday and Tuesday were boring days, full of studying and reviews for our final exams. Wednesday brought the first of the exams, TE and NRM. Its always difficult to get right back to studying after an exam, but we still had Econ the next day, so it was back to the books. After the final on Thursday we were officially done with our three classes. Now for the rest of the time here we focus on our Directed Research course (DR), which is also four credits like the other classes. In celebration for finishing our finals, some of the staff organized a bonfire for us down in the finca. We were lucky to have such a clear, gorgeous night, as it easily could have been pouring. We even had makings for s’mores! Although it appears that there are no such things as graham crackers in Costa Rica, so we substituted lightly sweet, round Maria’s galletas. It felt just like a summer night sitting around the fire with the stars overhead, roasting marshmallows and listening to Toni and Andrew on their guitars. Defintely a pleasant way to celebrate the end of finals.

Friday , the beginning of the DR madness. We had a crazy full day of stats classes and DR stuff. Since I haven’t had a stats class before, it was very difficult to understand the information being thrown at me the entire day. After all the classes we split up into DR groups, of which there were four to choose from (NRM with Achim, TE with Edgardo, ECON with Sergio and another TE with Gerardo). I chose Gerardo’s DR, which is two-fold, looking at macroinvertebrates as bioindicators and the growth of palms in forest fragments, focusing on sustainable harvest of the palms for heart of palm. I had planned all week to go out for an early birthday dinner at La Trilla with four other friends. My plans almost got ruined with al the work that had to be done, but we made it there and enjoyed a delicious dinner of guacamole, and arroz con camarones with some wine (yes, I’m 21 now). We sat around afterwards and had some Baileys with the owner, and got some good Spanish practice in.  Everyone was exhausted and no one wanted to go out, but we saw few of the guys at Yayo’s and had a birthday drink or two with them before going back.

A weekend away for my birthday, a perfect way to celebrate. Unfortunately I couldn’t meet teacher Cris until after 3.00 in San Jose, but this meant that I was productive at center before leaving. Cris picked me up at Coca-Cola bus station in San Jose and told me that it was time for coffee, so Cris, Ana and I went to their café, Café de los Flores. Ana made me a delicious eggnog and with the Christmas decorations adorning the entire café and people walking past wearing scarves, it actually felt like it should be December 13^th, instead of November 13^th. To go with my drink, I had another drink (pineapple tea) and a sweet empanada. Since Cris and Ana own the café, we had plenty of people to visit with, which gave me some more good Spanish practice. We had some errands to run before we got back to our itinerary that revolved around food. The next order of business was a birthday dinner (number two). When I said how much I like shrimp, Cris started weaving through the labyrinth of streets to a seafood restaurant called Banco de los Mariscos. Considering how many streets we turned down and how long we were driving, I was surprised we weren’t on the Caribbean coast going to fish our seafood straight out of the ocean. We were, however, still in the San Jose area, and I had a delicious plate of camarones al ajillo, shrimp in a garlic sauce. Although I still don’t know how I managed to fit any more food in my stomach. Maybe the extra year also added some extra space in my stomach. Back at Cris’ house I got to indulge in two foreign concepts for me, TV and tennis. I watched just a little bit of a match between Federer and Monfils before going to bed.

As I promised the day before, I made (or at least started) pancakes for breakfast for Cris and Ana. We had nice relaxing morning with pancakes, fruit salad, coffee and tea. A relaxing morning is something I feel like I never have at the center. The plan was originally to go to Irazu Volcano, but the weather was not in our favor, so instead we did something equally as unique to Costa Rica – we walked around the huge Multiplaza Mall in Escazu. We picked up Cris’ mom on the way, because I guess she likes to walk around the mall. I was just so shocked at how big and American the mall was. Other than the fact the people were speaking Spanish, we could have easily been in a two story mall with a movie theater in in, in the U.S. After our stroll around the mall we had a late lunch at Soda Tapia before Cris dropped me back off at the Coca-Cola. After being away from the program and the 34 other people I see everyday, I was surprised and excited to see a few friends waiting at the bus station. There were about 10 of us that took the same bus back to Atenas and shared weekend stories. Back at the center it was time to start figuring out desserts for Thanksgiving dinner, because I was designated head of the desserts and bread menu.

My DR group

Monday morning was an interesting one. We all split up into our DR groups and did a short field experiment to figure out what need to be done and how everything will work. For our DR FEX we went to a nearby river and sampled macroinvertebrates, which meant we were waist deep in water most of the morning. When you’re up to your waist in water, mid-calf rainboots don’t do much good. We were told to wear them anyway. I don’t know how much I like the feeling of having the water inside my boots, I’d much prefer it on the outside. As I had never sampled macroinvertebrates before, this was much more fun than I expected, especially after I got over walking around with soggy socks. Gerardo also brought the camera and fisheye lens so we could take a couple of practice hemispherical photos. I have never used a fisheye lens before, but now I’m sold. It’s amazing how much the lens captures! We tooka a few photos of the canopy and then we also took a few group photos with everyone leaning over the camera. The rest of the day was not nearly as exciting, although it did involve dry clothes. We had another stats class in afternoon and then Spanish. After dinner six of us had cooking class with Socorro, one of the cooks. She showed us how to make agua dulce (sugar cane water), arroz con leche and tortillas. I love cooking and baking and learning new recipes, but I think I’d be better off not knowing what goes into arroz con leche.

Tuesday we worked on statistical analysis for our DR FEX and had a short class on how to present our DR papers. We had one more Spanish class in the afternoon and afterwards, Anna and I went out to conduct some interviews for our Spanish final project. I had noticed here that almost every house has a front porch, and on that front porch there are at least two chairs. I was intrigued by this because it seems like it is such a part of the culture here to sit on the front porch and talk with the neighbors, which is quite the opposite in the US. So Anna and I came up with some questions about the culture surrounding the tradition of sitting on porches here and went out and talked to anyone we saw sitting on their porch. This idea had initially come about because I wanted to do a series of photographs of people sitting on their porches, so I brought my camera and also took a few photos while we were interviewing.

Wednesday was a day of preparation. Prep for the DR trip, and in my case, prep for Thanksgiving as well. In the morning we had our final DR stats class and a meeting with our group. After lunch my time was devoted to turkey day, although I wasn’t expecting to be in the kitchen for as long as I was. The first order of business was to make the pie crusts, since we couldn’t find premade pie crusts here. Kevin helped with the pie crusts because he also wanted to make the chocolate pecan pie. Luckily the pie crusts were pretty simple and everything went smoothly. I can’t say the same about the rest of the afternoon though. I have never made pecan pie before, or even tried a slice for that matter, so we were hoping for the best with the recipe that Megan gave us. The filling was pretty simple, although we did have to substitute corn syrup for sugar cane syrup, a very Costa Rican addition. We filled three pie crusts with chocolate pecan filling and popped those in the oven. No major speed bumps there. Then, since it wasn’t even dinner time, I decided to get started on my pumpkin-cheesecake pie. I had to start this process the day before because we weren’t able to find canned pumpkin, so I was given an ayote, which is more squash-like than pumpkin-like. I had to slice it up and bake it in the oven, scrape it out, puree it up in the food processor and add a few spices. So for the pumpkin pie, I took out my pumpkin puree to fix the filling only to realize that our kitchen was lacking in spices, like nutmeg, cloves and ginger, which I needed for the pumpkin pie spice. After looking harder, I found some whole cloves and whole nutmeg. So, I proceeded to grind up the whole cloves by smashing, rolling and beating them with a rolling pin. I had to then dump the product through a strainer to get only the fine ground cloves. The nutmeg also posed a problem, but luckily Mayela, one of the cooks, showed us the cheese grater. So we grated the nutmeg, which was fairly simple after the cloves. I can say that this was probably the most fresh, completely made from scratch pumpkin pie I will ever make. Unfortunately, my hard earned progress was once again impeded by a lack of ingredients. I needed brown sugar but all we had was dulce, which is a type of sugar made from sugar cane. Granted, it is brown, but it is definitely not brown sugar. Luckily Victor, one of the staff, came to the rescue and said he could go to the store and get some real brown sugar for me after dinner. I conveniently didn’t have to go anywhere to eat dinner since I was already in the kitchen. As soon as the brown sugar arrived, I went back to my pie making adventure. The rest of the pie went pretty well, we only didn’t have half and half, so for the cheesecake layer of the pie I had to add in whole milk and whipping cream. Not the healthiest pie ever. When this devil of a pie was finally finished it was 9.30 pm. I had spent over 6 hours in the kitchen and had 6 hard earned pies to show for it. But instead of eating them, we had to wrap the up and put them in the freezer because it was still over a week until Thanksgiving. 

Panama

Saturday October 30^th, day one of vacation, day one of travel. Because we had classes in the morning on Saturday we weren’t allowed to leave until noon, which foiled our plans to take the 9,00 bus to Panama. We booked a night at Hostel Pangea in San Jose and almost half of the program ended up staying there. It was a fun evening as they had a Halloween party at our hostel – little did I know this was the first of many hostel parties. Some people had planned costumes, but I had to follow tradition and not figure mine out until the absolute last minute. Seeing as I had a limited wardrobe (i.e. the five days of clothes I packed for Panama) I ended up being “night”, wearing a sarong with stars and moons on it. Coincidentally, “day” was also at the party. We did not meet though, we happened to always be on opposite sides of the room. I called it an early night because we had planned on leaving the hostel at 7.30 am for day two of travel.

The entrance to our hostel, Mondo Taitu

Bridge at the Costa Rica -
Panama border

On Sunday we managed to drag everyone out of bed to grab breakfast and leave on schedule at 7.30. We had been told that the bus to Panama can fill up quickly, and it doesn’t originate in San Jose, so we got there an hour early. This probably wasn’t necessary, especially since the bus stop was on an unmarked corner in a kind of sketchy part of town. So sketchy, in fact, that we had a visit by the tourist police telling us to be careful and always watch our stuff. Everything was fine and we made it on the bus and were able to relax, until we got stuck at an accident for almost an hour that involved a truck and a bridge. The only other stop we made was to get lunch outside of Limon. The second leg of the trip ended at Sixaola on the border between Costa Rica and Panama. There we got off the bus, got our passports stamped on the Costa Rican side, then walked across a bridge that looked like it had seen better days, then had to run down to a little shack to buy out bus tickets back to Costa Rica before going to get stamped on the Panama side, then we got a sticker and paid a dollar tourist tax and then finally coordinate leg three of the trip, a taxi to the port town of Almirante. The fourth leg of the trip was on the water, a ferry over to Bocas del Toro. Finally in Bocas del Toro we walked the last part of the trip to our hostel, which was at the far end of town. Everyone we met on the way informed us that our hostel, Mondo Taitu, was the party hostel, and it definitely looked it when we got there. It had character for sure, but unfortunately along with that came a bit of dirt and grime. We were split up into two rooms and I was with Jenn, Liz, Tessa and JB in an eight person dorm room. The first night there, there were two other Australians in the room. After getting settled we walked down the main drag to grab dinner at a vegetarian restaurant we’d heard about, Natural Mystic. The food there was surprisingly good, I had a veggie bridge with yucca fries and everyone else raved about their food as well (hummus, falafel, corn tamales, coconut rice, etc.). After a long day of travel and already having celebrated Halloween the night before, none of us were so inclined to joining the Halloween party at the hostel, which was conveniently located almost directly below my room. Fortunately I was tired enough that I feel right asleep with music blasting and the one fan not on all the way.

Playa Wizard

Coconut at Playa Wizard

I started off the first full day in Panama with a run through Bocas town with Jenn. It was a good way to kinda explore the town, although it barely took us 20 minutes. When we got back, I took advantage of one of the nice things our hostel had (no, not warm showers…), free make your own pancake breakfast! Liz and I were the only ones that stayed to make breakfast, saving money and cooking too! We packed snacks/lunch and hopped in the water taxi that we had negotiated a $7 roundtrip ride to Playa Wizard with. We were all stunned as the boat came around the point and a gorgeous, deserted white sand beach with palm trees stretched out in front of us. The entire afternoon we were there, we saw at the max, 10 other people. Julia and I walked the length of the beach, with cameras of course, and soaked up the sun. We met one of the other few groups there, two Germans and an Aussie, who had been working on cracking open some coconuts for awhile and they kindly shared their success with us. It was picture perfect – eating coconut on a deserted white sand beach, so of course, I got some photos. We had a bit of a bumpy water taxi ride back, but it was worth it because we were back in time to go to a yoga class at the Bocas Yoga Studio. It was very relaxing even though I hadn’t done yoga in a very long time, and it was definitely not a beginner class. Getting a group of eight to move fast after a calming yoga class was like herding cats and resulted in us eating dinner at around 9.30 at El Limbo. I had a delicious plate of Creole style mahi-mahi which was worth the wait. The only thing that wasn’t worth it was the issue we had with the waitress thinking that some people hadn’t paid for their dinners, when they actually had. There had been rumors that there was live reggae at Casa Verde so when we were done at the early hour of 10.30, we made our way down and caught the tail end of the music. It was a cool place with a little stage area and bar right on the water. We ran into two of our friends from the program there and also the people we had met on the beach earlier. Everything pretty much died down after midnight because the bar wasn’t allowed to serve alcohol for the next day (midnight to midnight) because it was Dia de los Muertos. When we finally made it back to the hostel, Liz and I were the only hardy souls who stayed in our room and didn’t switch to the air conditioned room.

Dolphin!

Playa Red Frog

We had booked a dolphin/snorkeling/beach tour the day before for Tuesday, so we actually had a somewhat structured day in front of us, although we soon realized that the structure wasn’t very rigid. The tour that was supposed to leave at 9.30 got going around 10.00. It was a gorgeous sunny day for a tour, although sitting in the front of the boat on a sunny day resulted in a bright red scalp for me. We weren’t just lucky with the weather; we also say quite a few dolphins too, although we seemed to be a bit too close to them for their own good. After the dolphins left, we moved on to the snorkeling part of the tour. Unfortunately, my snorkeling was postponed for a bit because they didn’t have enough snorkels for everyone on the tour to go at once. Jenn asked them if our guide could grab some from one of the many boats nearby that were done with their snorkels, so luckily I didn’t have to wait too long. While I was waiting for a snorkel, I was just out treading water, without realizing that there were quite a few jellyfish swimming around. I was more than glad to get a snorkel and mask so I could avoid swimming into the jellyfish. Even with a mask this was difficult at times; at one point I looked up and saw a jellyfish not even two feet from my face. We went our separate ways rather quickly. The snorkeling wasn’t the best at this place, but we were able to see some cool coral and fish along with the jellyfish. After we decided that we’d had enough close encounters with jellyfish, the tour took us to Playa Red Frog, where we had a few hours to eat, relax and enjoy the beach. Unfortunately we had to pay and take a short truck ride to get over to the beach, which we weren’t aware of ahead of time. This was a more popular and accessible beach, but it did have a few things in common with Playa Wizard, like the white sand, gorgeous blue water, palm trees, and surprisingly the same people that we met the day before. Small world. After the beach we moved on to Hospital Point for another snorkeling excursion, this time with sufficient masks. This point was where the banana companies had built a hospital for their workers a long time ago. I think there were some cool ruins in water, but I wasn’t able to see a lot because the water was so cloudy. The water was also a lot rougher there, so I was glad when we left because I was feeling queasy in the boat and in the water. That wrapped up our tour and when we got back on to the main island around 5.00, we did some souvenir shopping and walked around town. Back at the hostel I lost my last roommate as Liz moved to the air conditioned room, but it was fine because I met a couple of really nice British girls who were travelling down from Costa Rica.  The production to get ready for dinner began and we were ready for dinner earlier than the night before. We were still all hungry and then menu at Om Café was enough to make our stomachs growl. We had a delicious meal of Indian food (chicken curry and naan for me). The lack of alcohol led to an early night for almost everyone in Bocas, which meant my room was very quiet again.

Panamanian flag at Red Frog

Bocas del Toro

Wednesday was greeted by another morning run, this time by myself though. I ran further away from the touristy area of Bocas and Isla Colon, towards the mainland. We had breakfast a German bakery where we had some delicious bread fresh out of the oven. We were able to sit outside and watch the parade for Dia de Panama, independence day. We hadn’t planned much for adventures for the day and we split up, as some of us wanted to go to the beach right away and others were planning on getting a later start. My only goal for the day was to get in a kayak. After a series of unfortunate events, this did not happen and we ended up back at Playa Red Frog. The little strip of beach by the kayak rental place wasn’t a suitable place for the people who didn’t want to kayak so we took a boat over to Red Frog and had a very similar day relaxing on the beach. This time we did see a red frog, so at least we knew we were at the right place. Back in Bocas we got ready for another yoga class, which was equally relaxing and fun as the first time. Luckily our speed after yoga was faster than the previous time and we were eating dinner at Natural Mystic (it was a day of seconds, Red Frog beach and Natural Mystic) before 10.00. It would have been nice to branch out and try something with more of a Caribbean flair, but it was nice to all be together on the last night. Our hostel was celebrating our last night with a pirate party that was going full swing by the time we got there after dinner. It started raining earlier that evening and it kept up most of the night. That was probably the only time I was glad we were staying at the party hostel, when I knew I wasn’t going to have to run out in the pouring rain when I was ready to leave. Unfortunately, everyone decided that we should still venture out into the downpour to try and go to another party. The cover charge was so high that this only resulted in a group of very wet and somewhat disappointed people returning to Mondo Taitu. I, however, was happy to be back at the hostel where I had dry clothes and a bed waiting for me. At 2.00am after being out in the rain, any bed under a roof sounded very pleasant, especially with an early wakeup call hanging over our heads.

Painted palm trees on the bus ride back

Thursday morning was crazy, waking up at 6.15 to get ready to leave and catch the 7.00 ferry back to Almirante. Luckily I had packed the night before, but I did have to do some last minute arranging of my bag since a few of my clothes were still soaked from the previous nights adventures. I should have expected it, but it was still frustrating trying to get everyone out of the hostel on time. At 7.00 we were all on the ferry, but in varying states of tiredness. We retraced our steps part way, taking a taxi not all the way to the border, but to the town of Changuinola, where the bus to San Jose left. We are really good about worrying about buses because we got to the bus at 8.00 and had two hours to wait. The bus driver wasn’t even there yet. We all relaxed when we got on the bus, but it wasn’t for long because we were at the border within 15 minutes and had to get out to repeat the whole crazy process. Luckily this time we were like experts and we blew through everything. Unfortunately our bus wasn’t as slick as we were and we had to stop for around 20 minutes to get a tire changed or something and we all sat on a very stuffy bus not knowing what was going on. Everything got fixed and we made it into San Jose with all wheels attached. When we got in, our taxi driver who was taking us to the next bus station told us that the buses weren’t going to make it to Atenas until 10.00 at night because it had been raining so hard and lots of roads were closed because of landslides. He tried to convince us to let him drive us all the way to Atenas, but after we saw some of the staff at the bus station we figured that we would be fine to take the bus back. We made it back to Atenas well before 10.00 pm, but the situation was worse than I had expected. There had been a couple of big landslides and by that evening 20 people had died because of the weather. From our program, the group that had gone to hike Chirripo, the highest peak in Costa Rica, got stuck in San Isidro and the conditions were so bad that they didn’t make it back to Atenas until Saturday. We hadn’t realized until then how lucky we were to make it back from Panama, and on top of everything, we had nice weather most of our trip. 

Nicaragua

Sunset the first night in Ometepe

Day one of the trip started at 2 am on Thursday 21^st when we were serenaded with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by some of the more musically inclined people in the group. It made it a bit more enjoyable for the first part of the morning, but it didn’t last long because we were ready to get on the bus by 3.00 am, but the bus was not there until 3.30. It was fine once it arrived because it was a very comfortable, if a bit unnecessary, double-decker bus that took us all the way to the ferry in San Jorge, Nicaragua. The border crossing was a bit slow, but the most commotion was caused when the bus got caught on a low hanging electrical line in Rivas. We had a two hour ferry ride from San Jorge directly to Hacienda Merida on Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. The island is host to two volcanoes, Concepción and Maderas, the former being active and the latter being a long dormant volcano. We were on the south half of the island with Maderas volcano and Hacienda Merida was a gorgeous place right on the water. We had a few short classes (an intro to our NRM FEX and TE) and then we had free time to swim in the lake, which felt wonderful and made sitting out in the sun to watch the sunset even more enjoyable. The sunset over the lake with the volcano in the distance was a perfect welcome to Nicaragua. We had all our meals prepared by the cooks at Hacienda Merida and they made us delicious food the entire time. While we were waiting for dinner it became evident that headlamps are a good item to have in the evening because of the frequent power outages. With the power out it did make for better viewing of the fireflies that were all over (I even caught one!)

Evacuation route signs that
were all over the island

Concepción Volcano

Friday morning we were all pleasantly surprised by a delicious breakfast at the Hacienda before we took off for the organic coffee farm where we did our NRM FEX. When we got on the buses to take us to the farm, we were expecting a short ride since the island is relatively small, but the conditions of the roads led to over an hour long drive that was quite an experience. Our van didn’t get stuck, but all the others did. Once at the coffee farm at Hacienda Magdalena, we split up into groups to do the data collection and we hiked up to the farm. I was in the plotting group, so we set three 20x25 m plots in the coffee farm to collect the data. I was the one taking the measuring tape out, so I walked through quite a few spider webs and slipped down many a muddy hill. After lunch at Hacienda Magdalena we took a short walk to see some of the petroglyphs in the area, but it seems like we might have been just as close to being experts on these as the guides because, unfortunately, a lot of it is still guess work. After a long, hot morning we were all looking forward to taking a dip in Ojo de Agua, a natural swimming hole on the island and it did not disappoint. Our ride back to Hacienda Merida was also quite exciting; my van had to get towed out of the mud at one point, and there were many points when the car bottomed out and I didn’t think we would make it another meter. But we made it back, and we had a lovely view of Concepción and the sun setting behind us.

Lake Nicaragua with Concepcion
in the background

When I woke up on Saturday morning I had a few presents left on my bed… I was glad they weren’t squished though once I realized that it was poop on my bed. I later asked Edgardo what had been pooping on my bed and he said that it was probably a lizard. First order of the day, after another delicious breakfast of course, was another drive around a different part of the island to San Ramón Biological station where we had two TE lectures and an NRM lecture before lunch time. One of the TE lectures was supposed to be out on a pavilion by the lake, but there had been so much rain lately that the area was flooded and we had the lecture on the side of the road/waterfront, since the two were the same thing. After lunch we hiked part way up Maderas Volcano, but not the whole trail, again because the rain had washed out the trail. It was a steep hike, but it was wonderful to get a solid hike in. Plus, the view of the lake was fantastic. We had a discussion on sustainable development once we went up as far as we could on the trail. It was an interesting discussion focused on what could be done for Ometepe Island, but after awhile all I could think about was how much I disliked whatever insect it was that was eating me alive.  After the hike we went back to Merida and watched another good sunset, but it still wasn’t quite dinner time and since we are all trained now to eat dinner at 6.00 sharp, we had to do something to pass the time. Toni brought her guitar, so she played quite a few songs ranging from La Bamba to Party in the USA (I preferred the former).

The main cathedral in the
square in Granada

Sunday was our travel day from Ometepe to Granda, and it was a bit of a sad goodbye as we got on the ferry to San Jorge. After the ferry we got on our new bus, which was an actual school bus with a driver who knew Granada well. This was a much needed improvement from taking out power lines in a ridiculous two story bus. We had an interesting lunch in Rivas at Chop Suey before driving the rest of the way to Granada. Our hotel, Posada del Sol, was the Ritz after our modest, but perfectly fine accommodations in Ometepe. The staff gave short tours of Granada so we would all know what was where in this cute colonial town since we were given free time every evening. After the tour Toni, Megan, Wes and I explored the town and saw both the touristy areas and some less touristy places, and we even made our way all the way down to the lake. Toni, Megan and I found a place called Comidas Tipicas for dinner on the main street, Calle Calzada, which had, go figure, typical foods. I tried a dish called Baho, which was beef, yucca, and plantains cooked in a banana leaf, which was simple but still pretty good. As we sat out on the tables on the street we had a lot of children come up to us begging for food or money. We had been told that this would be the case in Nicaragua, but it is always so much harder to experience and actually say no. At least we knew that we had an outreach the next day in which we would be serving food to kids at Carita Feliz, a local community center/kitchen.

The Sandino memorial at Laguna Tiscapa

Megan, Courtney and I in the
bell tower 

Monday morning we had a mountainous breakfast before going to Managua. Every morning in Granada we have breakfast already ordered for us at Kathy’s Waffle House. The bus ride to the ruins of the national palace at Laguna Tiscapa in Managua was relatively short. Here we had a guest lecture on tourism in Nicaragua as we sat on the floor of the old building, now converted into somewhat of a museum/memorial to Sandino. After the lecture our travels took us to the National Palace/Museum where we got a brief tour and then we hopped back on the bus only to get dropped off at a mall for lunch. It literally felt like walking in to a mall back in the U.S. which was not what most of us were expecting or wanting either. On the way our of Managua we passed by a temporary camp of  banana workers across from some government building that were in the middle of a lawsuit where they are claiming to have been harmed by some of the chemicals used on the banana plantations. Once back in Granada there was time for Megan, Courtney and I to walk over to Cathedral Merced, one of the many cathedrals in Granada. This one, however, you can pay a dollar to climb up the bell tower, which gives you a wonderful view of the city. Our timing was good too, because the late afternoon light made everything even more picturesque. There was even time to jump in the pool after we got back and before our outreach at Carita Feliz. The outreach was an interesting set up because we all went down to Carita Feliz, which was packed with kids and families, many of whom were served their only meal of the day there. The kids had a few acts for the talent show and then we had been asked to prepare a few acts as well. All of this was done before serving the meal, which was good since everything got crazy the instant the food came out. We worked in smaller groups to serve the plates of food to all 200 people, but the system didn’t work out too well because some of the people in the back didn’t get food. We were told this can happen because the kids will hide their food or find other ways to get served twice. It was crazy for about five minutes while we served the food and then another five minutes while we cleaned up the plates and then all of a sudden the place was virtually empty. We were also told we had to leave shortly after, so we didn’t get much time to interact with the kids or families there. After that experience we all felt a bit guilty going out to dinner. We ended up at Nuestro Mundo, where I got another typical dish called Indio Viejo, which was a stew type dish with chicken, tomato, yucca, garlic and some other things I don’t remember, and it of course came with rice and plantains.

The view of Granada from Catedral Merced

The view from Mombacho

View of the cathedral and
sunset from the hotel

Tuesday was the day of our big hike on Mombacho, one of the many volcanoes close to Granada. The day started off well as we saw a rainbow as we walked to breakfast at Kathy’s Waffle House. After breakfast we had a short intro for our second outreach with La Esperanza at Escuela Angelo Morales on Wednesday and then we took our bus up to the base of the volcano where we were transferred to a truck that literally drove us straight up the volcano. I couldn’t believe how steep the road was for that long. Once in the reserve we split into small groups and set off on El Pumas trail. We knew it was going to be a more difficult hike, at least in terms of what we have done so far, but what we didn’t know was how many stair this hike involved. I heard a range from 6,000-7,000 steps, and I believe it. The hike was definitely worth it, although it was treacherous at some points. Multiple people in my group fell down multiple times. I was one of the few that stayed upright. We were able to eat our lunch at a lookout point at the second highest point on the volcano, which had an amazing view. As if a hike with 7,000 stairs wasn’t enough, my group decided that when our guide told us there was about five minutes left that we should run back. And we did. And, even more impressive was the fact that no one sprained an ankle running back on the rocky trail. After our equally steep truck ride down and bus ride back we had some free time which translated into swimming time before dinner. This time I went with Lisa and Lauren to Tercer Ojo where I had a Thai Chicken salad and some delicious happy hour sangria (on the bill it was listed as “hapy sangria”). After dinner we went on a search for a bakery for a little dessert, but we couldn’t find any still open. 

The lady selling wonderful,
cheap bread on the street in Granada

Almost everyone rode two
to a bike in Granada

Wednesday morning right after breakfast we got on the bus to go to Escuela Angelo Morales. We were divided into groups with four rotations. My group first painted a very watery coat of paint on some of the classrooms and then we switched to helping lay a cement floor. Finally our last two rotations were with the kids. We were supposed to do a short English lesson with the kids for an hour (with no lesson plan or any idea of the kids’ ability level) and then we had crafts to do. The three boys I was working with didn’t have an attention span for English for longer than ten minutes, but they were very interested in making fun of and punching each other. I enjoyed this outreach more because we actually had time to work with the kids, and not just hand them food. They also all enjoyed the paper airplanes I showed them how to make. Back in Granada I finally made it to the bakery and got a wonderful loaf of bread for lunch. After lunch we had a guest lecture that we thought was supposed to be on urbanization in Granada, but it turned out to be more the history of Granada. While that is interesting, when sitting in a dim, stuffy room in the afternoon it’s not on my list of most captivating events. After the lecture there was a little bit of time to run to the market before it closed. It was quite the experience, with loads of vendors selling shoes, cheese, clothes, meat, school supplies, fruit and other knick-knacks like buttons. I was very happy with my purchases for the day, a few buttons for 20 córdoba and a sweet roll from a lady on the street for one córdoba. We also stopped by the cultural center on the way back and walked through the photo exhibit they had. None of the photos really struck my fancy artistically, but they were a good representation of Nicaragua. Dinner tonight was at a Mexican place called Los Portales where I had some chicken burritos. We had heard that there was supposed to be live music at Kelly’s Bar, but when we got there they told us they had switched it to the weekend, which was a bit disappointing.

Granada had wonderful colors!

Catedral Xalteva

Thursday morning we didn’t have to be at breakfast until 8.00 (instead of 7.00) so I, of course, got up early to walk around town with Romina and Toni to take photos. The lighting was good right at the beginning but then it got a bit overcast. It was still fun to explore further than I had the previous times. For our last full day in Nicaragua we had time at the artisan market in Masaya scheduled for us and then a hike in the caves in Masaya Volcano National Park. Considering the sheer quantity of the same types of souvenirs and the amount of time we had at the market, the whole thing got to be a little overwhelming. That’s when Toni and I decided to explore the park and we found a great smoothie place where we were able to sit down, not shop and enjoy our drinks (pineapple and banana with orange juice for me). To supplement our drinks we then bought plantain chips and sweet bread from vendors on the street. After the last few purchases we got on the bus to take us to Masaya Volcano for the hike. Unfortunately, once we got there we weren’t able to go to the caves for a reason that we had heard before; flooding. We still hike around by the main craters, which were really interesting because the landscape was so barren.  Everything was so dry and grassy that I felt like I was in Colorado. Our last supper in Granada was at Restaurante de las Artistas, which had really good Italian food. I saw the pesto gnocchi on the menu and it was probably the least amount of time I’ve taken to decide what I want to eat, and it was definitely a good choice. I also tried a macua, which is supposed to be a Nicaraguan drink with fruit juices and rum. My last night in Granada ended with my sitting outside watching some fantastic lightning off in the distance with the start overhead.

Volcan Masaya

Sunset at Masaya

Friday morning we luckily didn’t have to get the early start like we did going to Nicaragua. We had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast, pack and then get on the very air conditioned, very tall double-decker bus that was early this time. It was a pretty uneventful ride and the most exciting thing was probably when I realized that I had a full page of stamps in my passport. It felt weird once we were finally back at the center after having been gone so long, but it was wonderful to be greeted with a delicious meal cooked by our cooks.

Trip to Arenal Volcano

Laying out coffee beans to
dry at the organic farm

Another week just flew by. Monday was a full day of classes, but Tuesday we had a field trip to an organic coffee farm in Los Altos, just outside of Atenas. We got a tour of the actual coffee field and then we got to see how they process the coffee. It was cool to see both parts and the requirements they have to fulfill to be certified organic. As if the tour wasn’t enough, the family fed us afterwards as well; we dined on a slightly sweet bread, some sort of custard, lemonade, sugar cane, and of course coffee. I’m ashamed to say that the half a cup of coffee that I tried at the farm was the first I’ve tasted since I’ve been in Costa Rica. But I figured if there is a place to try coffee for a tea drinker, a local organic farm would be it. The coffee tasted good, although I have no standards to compare with other than the nod of approval from everyone else. I am, however, still a tea drinker. More class on Wednesday, but in the afternoon four of us reserved a tennis court at Finca Huetares just down the road from the center. Finca Huetares definitely looks like it’s seen better days, but it at least provided us with a tennis courts, four racquets (one of which was a wood racquet), and five less than new tennis balls. It was pretty weird to try and hit a tennis ball again, but it was still fun to be out on a court. We had a miraculous afternoon of dry weather, so everything was perfect! We were expecting to have to sprint back in a torrential downpour, but that never came.  We had our briefing for the field trip to Arenal Volcano and that was the end of the ‘normal’ part of the week.

Arenal in the distance (on
Saturday when it was clear)

Thursday morning we left for our two night trip to Arenal Volcano and the Tilaran mountains. We had a relatively uneventful drive to Arenal but were pleasantly surprised with the view from the lodge we stayed at, Arenal Vista Lodge. Their motto was “…It’s Beautiful” and while there is no denying that, the view could have been done a bit more justice than simply “It’s Beautiful”. We didn’t actually get to see the volcano because a wonderful weather feature called clouds, but being able to see the base of the volcano behind Arenal Lake was gorgeous. We had a TE lecture on the lawn overlooking the lake, which proved to be a bit distracting, especially when combined with sitting on some ants. After lunch at the lodge, we went to the nearest little town called El Castillo and worked on another outreach project. I was in the mural group again, but this time we were much more efficient (because we had to be) and finished the mural for Escuela El Castillo in three hours flat. All the teachers and kids that walked by gave their approval, which is always nice to hear. After finishing at the school, we were done with scheduled activities for the day and had the evening to relax.

Yes, we went up to the base of the
volcano and passed the 'danger' sign

Friday was our day for orientation hikes in Arenal National Park and to see the volcano up close. Unfortunately it rained almost the entire day, so we had a very quick hike, too some more photos of the base of the volcano and then trekked back to the dry bus. The one thing the weather couldn’t put a damper on was our trip to the hot springs at Los Lagos resort. We got a pretty good deal to be able to use the hot springs at the resort and luckily it didn’t matter that it rained the whole time for that. Los Lagos had quite the set up with a couple of pools and a pair of waterslides as well. We spent over two hours relaxing in the hot springs with the providing a bit of cool respite from the heat. After two water filled activities we were free to do what we pleased. Most of the group went out for pizza, but those of us who stayed at the lodge were treated to a very nice dinner of rice and beans (of course), good fish, plantain chips and guacamole, and salad. To finish off my relaxing day, I read most of the evening away and cracked 100 pages in Harry Potter y el misterio del principie.

The view of Arenal from
my room Saturday morning

Saturday morning found me awake at 6.00 because of the sun shining in the room. In my groggy morning state it took me a few seconds to realize that if it was sunny out then there probably weren’t any clouds, meaning the volcano was probably visible. I then jumped out of bed, grabbed my camera and went out onto our porch and sure enough I was greeted with a view of the volcano. I promptly took my camera and wandered around to take 30+ photos of the volcano before breakfast. That was a good thing, because shortly after we sat down for breakfast the clouds rolled in again and we didn’t see the entire volcano again. We packed up and moved out of Arenal Vista Lodge and made a few stops on our way back to the center. The first was a visit to a wind farm near Tilaran, which is just on the other side of Arenal Lake. It was pretty amazing to stand under the wind turbines, and very windy. One of the EcoEnergia employees showed us the control room and gave us a bit of information about the wind farm, and then we also had a field lecture about renewable energy. So, yes, I did just have class sitting under wind turbines in Costa Rica. The next stop was lunch in Tilaran where we went to a buffet and souvenir shop combined. It was definitely an overload on food, which was a shame because the desserts looked delicious. After lunch we got back on the bus for the last stop before heading back; Las Pumas Rescate, a wildlife rescue not far from Tilaran. Unfortunately I got sick after lunch and wasn’t able to go to, but I heard it was amazing, but also pretty sad. After that we started on the last leg of our trip and got back to the center in a few hours. Now we’ve got another short week at the center coming up before we leave for our weeklong trip to Nicaragua at 3.00 am on Thursday.

Me standing in front of the
turbines