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!
Showing posts with label monkeys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monkeys. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Cabo Blanco
The time at Cabo Blanco seemed to go by so fast, and the events there feel so merged together, that I'm going to just make one big photo set and tell some stories in this post. Here are the pictures.
Our first night in Cabo Blanco was hard. The conditions were much more primitive than UGA, and I don't think anyone was quite prepared for that. Then there was the spider. A big huge spider was perched on the ceiling right above Courtney's bed. Needless to say she never, EVER, slept in that bed. I found two more spiders that night, but didn't say anything to anyone (good idea, T-Fast).
Cabo Blanco is an absolute preserve, which means no tourist will ever visit it. Only students, and only a handful of students at that, ever see the inside of the park. Something like only 12 or 13 groups get in every year, so we were all very honored to be allowed in. The preserve is beautiful. The coast is rocky and has a huge tidal flat that is completely submerged in high tide. The tide pools that appear when the tide is out are filled with creatures unlike what you'd expect. When one thinks tropical anything, they think bright colors. The species living among the rocks in the tide pools here all were very well camouflaged, and very well hidden. Except for the puffer fish. Bright blues and yellows. We got to see one all puffed up. They were fascinating to watch.
The geology is very interesting as well. Lots of volcanic evidence along with some obvious sea floor sediments that have been uplifted to all sorts of crazy angles. I even saw some cross bedded sandstone layers, evidence of the beach that must have been here millions of years ago.
And the hermit crabs! Holy cow, you could sit on the beach and watch them crawl over the sand like a little crab wave. There were big ones and small ones, some with colorful shells and some with boring ones. The funnest thing to do was to let them all get moving, especially crawling up a log or something, and then wave your hand. They'd all stop dead in their tracks, even if it meant falling off the log or down an cliff they spent the last 10 minutes climbing. Mean, I know. We also had a hermit crab Olympics. There was a marathon, and sprint, balance beam, tight rope, and a tractor pull. Our crab won (good find Kat!). We named him El Gringo Furioso.
We saw lots of wildlife. A large troop of white-faced capuchins were common on almost every hike we took. A few howler monkeys and ant eaters dropped by during breakfast. There's even a red crested guan that was domesticated before it was brought to the preserve that hangs around camp. The people there named him Kevin.
On our last full day there we hiked up a stream (literally up a stream, like walking in the stream) to a little waterfall. I didn't get pictures because I didn't want to ruin my camera, which I would have. The only cameras that were of any use were the waterproof ones a few of us had. It was awesome. You could sit in the plunge pool and lean back against the water and it would hold you on your feet. It was just what the group needed after a very long few days of roughing it in the jungle. If I manage to get a hold of some pictures I'll add them to the post.
Here's a really neat shot of the beach I took.
Our first night in Cabo Blanco was hard. The conditions were much more primitive than UGA, and I don't think anyone was quite prepared for that. Then there was the spider. A big huge spider was perched on the ceiling right above Courtney's bed. Needless to say she never, EVER, slept in that bed. I found two more spiders that night, but didn't say anything to anyone (good idea, T-Fast).
Cabo Blanco is an absolute preserve, which means no tourist will ever visit it. Only students, and only a handful of students at that, ever see the inside of the park. Something like only 12 or 13 groups get in every year, so we were all very honored to be allowed in. The preserve is beautiful. The coast is rocky and has a huge tidal flat that is completely submerged in high tide. The tide pools that appear when the tide is out are filled with creatures unlike what you'd expect. When one thinks tropical anything, they think bright colors. The species living among the rocks in the tide pools here all were very well camouflaged, and very well hidden. Except for the puffer fish. Bright blues and yellows. We got to see one all puffed up. They were fascinating to watch.
The geology is very interesting as well. Lots of volcanic evidence along with some obvious sea floor sediments that have been uplifted to all sorts of crazy angles. I even saw some cross bedded sandstone layers, evidence of the beach that must have been here millions of years ago.
And the hermit crabs! Holy cow, you could sit on the beach and watch them crawl over the sand like a little crab wave. There were big ones and small ones, some with colorful shells and some with boring ones. The funnest thing to do was to let them all get moving, especially crawling up a log or something, and then wave your hand. They'd all stop dead in their tracks, even if it meant falling off the log or down an cliff they spent the last 10 minutes climbing. Mean, I know. We also had a hermit crab Olympics. There was a marathon, and sprint, balance beam, tight rope, and a tractor pull. Our crab won (good find Kat!). We named him El Gringo Furioso.
We saw lots of wildlife. A large troop of white-faced capuchins were common on almost every hike we took. A few howler monkeys and ant eaters dropped by during breakfast. There's even a red crested guan that was domesticated before it was brought to the preserve that hangs around camp. The people there named him Kevin.
On our last full day there we hiked up a stream (literally up a stream, like walking in the stream) to a little waterfall. I didn't get pictures because I didn't want to ruin my camera, which I would have. The only cameras that were of any use were the waterproof ones a few of us had. It was awesome. You could sit in the plunge pool and lean back against the water and it would hold you on your feet. It was just what the group needed after a very long few days of roughing it in the jungle. If I manage to get a hold of some pictures I'll add them to the post.
Here's a really neat shot of the beach I took.
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