La Selva

Our last night in Costa Rica.  It's been more than fun.  Words can't even describe what the past few weeks have been like for me.  Enlightening, adventurous, informative, scary, uncomfortable, the list could go on.  I just want to take a second to thank everyone who gave me the opportunity to come down here.  First, my wife and kids, for letting me leave them for a month so I can come down here.  I love you and I miss you and I'll see you soon.  To the directors at the OIEC and ICLC, you have a great program.  Thank you for letting me and my companions experience Costa Rica.  To my host mom, thank you.  You were like a second mother to me.  To Ron and Laurie, who somehow managed to put up with 14 college students for a month.  It's been a real treat to know you.

On to the pictures and stories.  You can find all the pictures here.  There was so much to see and do here, it's hard to pick out any one story.  La Selva is a real research station.  You can feel it in the air.  Our guide told us that La Selva produces 2 scholarly journal articles a day.  That's amazing.  The campus is beautiful.  They have a computer lab, a small little library, washing machines that we can use ourselves (YES!), and lots of housing for residents and scientists.  The dorms are nice and clean, and they even have somewhat hot water!

The trails here are all very well maintained concrete paths.  There's a massive canopy bridge that separates the two sides of the campus, and I've seen more biodiversity on that bridge than I could describe.  A two-toed sloth, fish that are related to piranha, countless birds like toucans and parrots, and a troop of howler monkeys, complete with baby.  In the rainforest, we've seen a bunch more birds, white-faced capuchins like in Cabo Blanco, an eyelash pit viper, big spiders, millipedes, peccaries, armadillos, frogs, and I don't even know how many different kinds of trees.  It's really beautiful.

Tomorrow is our trip back home, so this is probably the last big post I'll make here, unless I get links from some of the other students to post.  I hope you all had fun following along on my adventure.

Pura Vida!