Two weeks ago we left behind the internet access and air conditioning of San Jose and went careening down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The city was rapidly replaced by leafy walls of green as our quasi-suicidal bus driver (this is actually a compliment, because all the other drivers down here are completly suicidal) deftly manuveered the vehicle down the tangle of asphalt known as the Pan-American Highway. In Sierpe we learned about mangroves, bug bites, and certain group members' inability to tolerate boats. The next day, armed with our newly acquired knowledge of who was most likely to puke over the side of the boat, we set off for the San Pedrillo station in Corcavado National Park.
Pretty much AMAZING, yep, that sums it up. We camped for 5 days along the beach and I discoverd how silly I was to have brought a winter sleeping bag... it hasn't left my backpack. There was much learning to be done, despite our classroom's existance as a tropical paradise. It turns out that this program will be a lot of work, probably a good thing, I guess.... An adequate course description might be "Knowing everything about everything". I predict some serious study time in my near future. I admit, I should have studied in Corcavado, but each night seemed better spent tromping through the rain forest harassing poisonous snakes and poking rare frogs... four nights in a row and I still haven't seen a Fer de Lance in the wild, so disappointing... but the spider monkeys, gladiator frog, tamandua, crocodile, Turnip tailed gecko, howler monkeys, rocket frogs,.......etc.... all might make it worthwhile.
Our days, and often nights, were filled to the brim with things like island biodiversity lectures, organized lizard chasing, species reports, and sunscreen application. So much to do and see, soooo little will power to sit down and put it to paper.
To sum up for the time being, the other folks in the program seem to possess an adequate amount of nerdy biologist-ness to make for a very entertaining and cohesive group. The profesors and TA s are awesome. I have decided that I am rather fond of rice and beans (also beans and rice, and beans mixed with rice, and rice mixed with beans....really the options are endless). Our first field trip continues to Carara National Park and perhaps some time in the not too distant future I might be convinced to write again (stranger things have been known to happen).
2 comments:
What's for dinner? Beans with rice 'n beans? And breakfast is leftover rice with beans'n'rice? Sweet! You will learn the ways of the lizard sauce and chicky sooner than later, I predict. You probably already know what I mean by that. I'm jealous you saw gladiator frogs, Jim talked about them in lecture today.
The winter sleeping bag will be useful when you go to the mountains. And remember the song by the Eagles: "Welcome to the hotel Corcavado. Such a lovely place, such a tiny space. Many a room at the hotel Corcavado, any time of year, I'll be raining here..."
it's called Lizano Sauce... named after Don Prospero Lizano (it's all on the bottle) and chikies are, in the words of one of my classmates, "pretty much mediocre". They sound so exciting on the package, "chocolate enrobed cookies" and yet are such a gustatory disappointment.
And, pretty much, the Herps down here are awesome. I think already I have in some way harassed about 50 species, and I have pics to prove it. Apparently Gladiator frogs are rather mean when they fight each other, using those spines to take out each other's eyes and such.
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