4/4/09 Sat
Today! I woke up cos I had to pee and I heard the weirdest sounds@ Chewbacca and an unidentified alien were doing their best to prevent me from leaving the tent. The role of Chewy was played by howler monkeys (!) and the alien turned out to be cicadas. Or katydids. I did eventually make it out of the tent to pee in the forest.
After showering in the flooded bathrooms (btw, double ply tp is sooo clutch). Chris taught me some knots while we set up a tarp.
Then we went on a bug walk with Pati. It was really fun. We caught bees and wasps and dragonflies. No tapirs though.
Lunch and soccer! Soccer was fun. During lunch, about 150 tiquitos moved into the camp next to us. So much for my shitting privacy. Tomorrow I have to wake up early to shit before they do, among other things.
On Frank’s walk we saw some antplants. Neato. He said tomorrow we could use our free time to wait at a waterhole to try and see tapirs! Sweet. I hope we are lucky enough to see them. Frank usually gives a heavy talk. Sometimes they make me sad. They make me feel uncomfortable about the state of the environment. But usually instills a little hope in me by the end. We can’t keep fucking up the environment and not notice what’s going on. Change has got to happen. It is happening. Will I heed the call? I’m such a dweeb.. Tomorrow = shit, howlers, tapirs!
4/5/09 Palm Sunday
Right now I’m sitting at a water hole with Ryan and Francis, Frank’s son. We’re waiting for tapirs. Que emocionado! Just now a troop of carablancas came by and an inquisitive young’un just gave us a look over. He couldn’t have been more than 4m away. This place is freakin sweet.
Today was incredibly eventful. Woke up. BAM two deer cross our (Randall and my) path. We were headed for the Chewbacca noises. BAM Howler monkeys. They were traveling together. A male with big white cherry calls, several females with infants, and a couple juvenile males. They have a way of pulling the branches of the next tree close to them in order to make progress in the canopy. Once in a while, an infant would try to climb on his own, but when he was tired or stuck, mommy would come and he’d hop right back on. On the walk back BAM, two agoutis.
Went on a walk with Fede to the Camosa. I guess this park used to be Hacienda Santa Rosa and a battle was fought here (for 15 mins) with Willaim Walker’s army. We went to a cool lookout point BAM volcanoes. Come back down the hill BAM carablancas. YES! I did it! I found them! They were just how I hoped they would be. They were eating figs and hopping around the Fabaceae (booyah) tree. They were very close to the ground and were playing and running and jumping and string and making faces and pooping (fig seeds!).
We got back and fucked around a bit. Climbed a big tree, played soccer, played goaltimate and the corral where the goal was in the middle of the corral instead of at one end. I had to play in my boots, so my feet are killing me.
On the way to the waterhole BAM spider monkey BAM agouti BAM carablancas. One more BAM to go. Gotta check that tapir!
Did I mention that about 150 Costa Rican highschoolers camped next to us last night. They were the reason I got up early to shit. But they stayed up all night because they were jacked up on energy drinks. They were apparently really loud, but I’m a heavy sleeper so I didn’t notice. They were so annoying, their teachers decided to cancel their field trip. Oh well. More shits for me.
This just in. No tapirs. Oh well. We got back and played a fun question game where I learned that some people pull down their underwear to piss. I find that weird because there’s a fly on every pair of boxers in the world. I thought using it would be natural. I guess not.
Tomorrow I’m in a group studying seed predation on Fabaceae. Yay? The other group is researching howlers… FUCK!
FEET HURT. TIRED. SLEEP.
4/7/09 Tues
Missed yesterday. Nothing much. Fabaceae suck and so do group projects. We had to collect lots of fruits and open them to count seed predation. Sometimes whole moths would be there in the seed. Dead.
Today was way better. We work up early and divided into groups. We made a 13 km hike to the ocean! Playa Naranjo. It was awesome! I talked to Jerry on the way there and that was really fun. It was really hot, but since the hike was douwnhill, we arrived at the beach in 2 hours flat. ZOMGZ! The beach was AMAZING.
First thing we did was jump in the ocean and body surf for two hours. The water was nice and the waves were PERFECT.
Lunch was fun, but weird toward the tend. Whatever. I didn’t’ want to get sunburned, so I opted to go for a walk down the beach with Roze instead of going for round 2 swimming immediately. I learn more about here every day. She’s a character. We looked at the surfers and Witch’s Rock, not too exciting. Then we just played around until sunset. Chris, Robert and I played birdman and that was fun. We also put Squid in a hole and made a sand squid around her. And there was a neat little driftwood fort which I almost fell asleep in.
We left after sunset. Where most people had already gone home or ridden back in the car, we had to walk 13km back in the dark. I got to talk with Fede, Dr. B, Kwai Nam, Roze, Kimmie, Chris, and Jerry. All interesting people.
It was a bitch getting home. Everything looks the same at night and we had to go uphill. Fuck. Too tired to write. Not too sunburned. Tomorrow is snorkeling..a;lksjda;sg
4/8/09 Weds
Bussed to Cuajiniquil today, the legendary fishing village. Got hella wet on a boat cos it was really windy. Snorkeled a bit and ate lunch on a tropical island. More wetness and then a short walk and then Frank bought us some booze for Lorren’s bday! Sweet. I got a little tipsy swoopin up the drinks that the lightweights left behind. Tomorrow is Monteverde! Yea! PS. More birdman and tipsy singing on the bus.
4/10/09 Fri
It’s cold out. So I’ll make tis quick. After leaving SR, we stopped by Las Pumas, an animal reserve for abused, hurt, or confiscated (endangered) animals. Lots of jaguars and ocelots and even two capuchins. Frank said he could get us an internship there. SWEET. I won’t be around for too long after the program, so it wouldn’t really be a great idea right now. Maybe next year when I have time I’ll work there for an extended period of time.
Then it was a winding dirt road to MV. Cool though. We arrived and threw our shit out of the bus so we could throw it in a small truck and then we got to ride the back of the truck the 2km up to the EBM - Estación Biológica de Monteverde.
It’s really cool. It’s a dorm-like setup with kitchen staff much like on the field trip. And they do our laundry. Cool. My room is right next to the kitchen. Cool. I’m rooming with Miles, Gerry, and Calvin. Gerry and Calvin are really interesting and intelligent people.
There’s also a small library and a computer room/classroom. We have to share some stuff with CIEE kids, so we’ll see how that works out. I’ve been looking at previous independent research projects and they all seem really cool. I hope mine will be as cool.
Today we woke up, ate, and split up into groups. I went with Pati (& Miles…). We hiked up to the continental divide and to the local TV towers where the caretaker also makes and sells his own jewelry. More walking, failed trespassing, river crevasse shimmying, and several kilometers laterally and vertically, we stopped at the Instituto Monteverde. Looks awesome! Cabbed home.
Rock concert tomorrow!
4/12/09 Sun
It’s getting harder to write in this everyday. There’s just so much writing to be done. Journal, transcribing journal, postcards, hw. To be honest, I haven’t started the hw. Too tired!
Yesterday was eventful. Went to an organic coffee farm. I was blown away! It was a large plot of land, divided up into several smaller plots owned and lived on by a family. The interesting part of this style of farm management is that they let the coffee grow naturally, in the purest sense of the word, instead of growing it in super neat rows in the sun (not natural coffee habitat). There’s kind of a loose organization. There is still a semi-regular spacing btwn plants, but there are other things interspersed there. Even though it’s a coffee plantation, it’s not a monoculture.
There are no harmful chemicals used in the production of it. Additionally, the plantation acts as an extension of the forest in the sense that lots of forest trees and weeds grow there, lots of animal life too. Deer can be a problem. And thieving monkeys!
The farmer, Hilbert, who showed us around his farm made sugarcane juice for us! We even helped a bit. We put the sugarcane through a machine once to break the cane and a second time with a narrower gap to actually squeeze out the juice. Además, cortó caño azucar para nosotros a comer. O probar.
En nla noche, la ada de cerveza nos trajo equipo. Jugamos Acey Duecey and Drunk Driver antes de caminamos a la Bar Bromelia. It was a nice little bar with a ragtag band of old gringos and a young tico. They played lots of awesome cover songs from Muse, the Hives, etc. Erick bought some of us drinks and we bought our own (guaro y Imperial!). I birdmanned Robert from outside while he was on the dance floor. We met CIEE students there too. There was a guy called Taz who had a better beard than Chris, hehe. When we left, Squid gave me a hand walking up the longass hill. Blegh.
Today was EASTER. Woke up and went to Childrens Mass in town. It was quaint. The priest looked like a giant pigeon. There was tricking clapping. And a dog that wandered under all the pews. Did I mention it was a three walk to church. Oh yea. OG status.
Then we walked a long way to play soccer and Frisbee at the Quaker Friends School, or rather the Friends School, which happens to be run by Quakers. Yay.
Then Quaker cheese factory for a BATIDO DE GUANABANA! New fave fruit. Lots of writing and yea.
4/14/09 Tues
What a day. What two days. Um. Yesterday we went to Santa Elena to buy detergent and other things. I halfheartedly looked around to find the hardware store. I want a machete, but I wasn’t sure if yesterday was the best day to buy it. I’ll get one this weekend. Then I’m gonna hack some shit up.
It was also the first day of Spanish class at the Instituto. Tenemos que escuchar a una lectura sobre el Instituto y después hicimos un examen para dividirnos en grupos niveles para español. Que difícil! Entendí muchas de las conceptas del examen, pero sí hubieran hecho para una nota, yo había fracasado. Pues, se parecía que yo hice bien porque se me ponía en el nivel avanzado. Pura vida. Tuanis. Whatever!
Me encanta la clase de español! Hay sólo cinco otras personas más la maestra. Dura dos horas, pero es divertido. Es muy informal y es un gran oportunidad a practicar mi español con un hispanohablante enfrente de mis amigos, en vez de extraños. Creo que yo hablaba más en esas dos horas que yo he hablado en una trimestre en UCSB. Es completamente diferente.
Later on we had a lectura in the classroom at the Estación. It was given by the youngest looking doctoral candidate ever to grace the halls of Dartmouth University. She’s been doing research around the dammed areas of rivers in CR. She uses benthis macroinvertebrates as an indicator of environmental changes. Cool.
Today, I woke up and got right to work on our group project with Pati. It was kinda what I was working on with Mike Kuehn back at UCSB. We recorded birds (I got the bellbird! Rustyswing, BONK!) and analyzed their songs on a program called Raven that is essentially like the pro version of Syrinx (which happens to be the part of a bird that makes the vocalizations. Duh) It was a bitch getting close to where I thought a bellbird would be, but I got it done and it wqas a bitch again to analyze the data and make a powerpoint. But we (and Pati) came though and made a kickass presentation. Fuck yea.
Finished all the hw due for tomorrow. Just need to write a bunch of shit tomorrow night and get prepped for the weekend. OH! And pretty soon it will be bicycle day and then 4/20! Yea!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
More Journal. Yeaaa
3/30/09 Mon
It really stinks in this tent. It’s like a sauna. I should think about writing in my journal elsewhere, but then bugs whack me in the face because my headlamp is on. Squid and Frank have informed me that moths and the like are attracted to light because of the moon. Or not because of the moon, but rather that they use the moon to navigate and they do so by keeping the moon, a light source at an infinite (relative to the moth, I guess) distance, at a fixed angle on one side of themselves. So when they see a lightsource that is not so far away, the angle shifts and so does the moth, resulting in a spiral towards the light! Awesome.
TODAY after our dip in the ocean and breakfast, our group went to the mangroves w/ Morgan, Erick, and Chato. It was mudwrestling and mudangels for 30 mins or so and then some tidepool stuff.
Afternoon walk with Frank was fun. Caught some bees. They’re attracted to this chemical, (mañana) we’re doing a group research project on them. Eh! The details need to be worked out.
I talked to Mario and Chato for a while today. I think they like me because they showed me dirty pics on Chato’s cellphone, haha. They also told me they have liquor, but I’m too tired…
Going to bed early so I can wake up early and shit before everybody else gets up.
3/31/09 Tues
Forgot to shit this morning. Had to pull it off after breakfast. 2.5 toilets btwn 40 people isn’t too cool. We did our Euglossa bee experiment which was really cool. We got to bait, catch, mark, and release bees! And they’re a metallic color or should I say several metallic colors. The or should I say several metallic colors. The males don’t have stingers, so they were easy to andle. I totally bombed during the presentation. Whatever. Fuck. Whatever.
I took a chair out to the beach tonight to play guitar and watch the stars. Chris had the same idea I guess and came to join me. The stars are very bright. Or were, before the distant thunderstorm covered them. The sky lit up, sin lightning. Neat.
Tomorrow is Michael’s personal laundry day and kayak surfing. Cool. THIS SHIRT REEKS.
4/1/09 Wed
Today was nice because we got a bit of freetime in the morning. I used my freetime to go kayaking with Mario and Robert. It was really cool and we went really far; all the way around Los Violincitos. 4km. 8 including the return trip. Really tiring. Mario, reached out to me and yelled “WILLLSOOONNN!” cos I was so far behind. Even though I applied lotion around every 30 mins I still got really burned up.
After lunch we had an exercise called 20Q’s. A small group of us wandered around the mountain and thought of questions as we wandered. It was nice alone time and I got to see the other side of the mountain. A small finca there and a tea mangrove place. Very cool.
When we got back, Frank asked us for our best and worst questions. My worst one was “Do animals trip?” Somehow that segued (oh shit that’s spelled incorrectly) *EDITORS NOTE: Totally wasn’t spelled correctly!* to a discussion about our curiosity and about our roles as scientists. Honestly, it made me feel kind of stupid again.
Sunburns sucked some more and I talked to Liana. Mario and Chato wanted me to play their girl songs. Then I watched Costa Rica beat El Salvador in soccer. Cool. Right now I’m about to fall asleep in a hammock tied btwn two palm trees on the beach. Luxurious, no? Pura vida.
4/2/09 Thurs
Today was fun. Esp w/ the sunburn. Boated to Isla del Caño. It was sweet. We got to go on a neat little walk and then we got to go snorkeling! It was cool and the water was warm. Saw lots of cool fish. Lots of jack, a boxfish, and a male parrotfish! Sadly, we saw no mantarayas, Tortugas, ni tiburones. Bleh. Oh well. Next time maybe… On the way back we got soaked, gracias a Chato. When we got back we played ultimate and ate and played guitar. Fun day.
4/3/09 Fri
Bus day! We packed up, sang a song we made up for the cocineras, caretakers, and boteros (“Los caballeros y las hermanas hermosas”) and boated back to Sierpe. Got some coco juice and were on our way to Santa Rosa. There were several sketch bridges where I would look over and see no bridge at all, only water. Very narrow. CR is kinda similar looking the whole way through, but I enjoyed having a whole day to hang out with air conditioning and cushy seats. Had a picnic on a soccer field in the middle of a palm grove.
Checked out some massive crocadrilos in a river. We had to walk on the bridge which was primarily for cars, so it was a little close for comfort. We ate at another restaurant. Paid for. Sweet. When we get off the bus in SR we’ll have to set up the tents. Hopefully not in the rain. Sorry for the chickenscratch..
I still have about 6 entries to catch up on. I gotta do some hw though, so maybe I'll post them later on in the week.
Enjoy.
It really stinks in this tent. It’s like a sauna. I should think about writing in my journal elsewhere, but then bugs whack me in the face because my headlamp is on. Squid and Frank have informed me that moths and the like are attracted to light because of the moon. Or not because of the moon, but rather that they use the moon to navigate and they do so by keeping the moon, a light source at an infinite (relative to the moth, I guess) distance, at a fixed angle on one side of themselves. So when they see a lightsource that is not so far away, the angle shifts and so does the moth, resulting in a spiral towards the light! Awesome.
TODAY after our dip in the ocean and breakfast, our group went to the mangroves w/ Morgan, Erick, and Chato. It was mudwrestling and mudangels for 30 mins or so and then some tidepool stuff.
Afternoon walk with Frank was fun. Caught some bees. They’re attracted to this chemical, (mañana) we’re doing a group research project on them. Eh! The details need to be worked out.
I talked to Mario and Chato for a while today. I think they like me because they showed me dirty pics on Chato’s cellphone, haha. They also told me they have liquor, but I’m too tired…
Going to bed early so I can wake up early and shit before everybody else gets up.
3/31/09 Tues
Forgot to shit this morning. Had to pull it off after breakfast. 2.5 toilets btwn 40 people isn’t too cool. We did our Euglossa bee experiment which was really cool. We got to bait, catch, mark, and release bees! And they’re a metallic color or should I say several metallic colors. The or should I say several metallic colors. The males don’t have stingers, so they were easy to andle. I totally bombed during the presentation. Whatever. Fuck. Whatever.
I took a chair out to the beach tonight to play guitar and watch the stars. Chris had the same idea I guess and came to join me. The stars are very bright. Or were, before the distant thunderstorm covered them. The sky lit up, sin lightning. Neat.
Tomorrow is Michael’s personal laundry day and kayak surfing. Cool. THIS SHIRT REEKS.
4/1/09 Wed
Today was nice because we got a bit of freetime in the morning. I used my freetime to go kayaking with Mario and Robert. It was really cool and we went really far; all the way around Los Violincitos. 4km. 8 including the return trip. Really tiring. Mario, reached out to me and yelled “WILLLSOOONNN!” cos I was so far behind. Even though I applied lotion around every 30 mins I still got really burned up.
After lunch we had an exercise called 20Q’s. A small group of us wandered around the mountain and thought of questions as we wandered. It was nice alone time and I got to see the other side of the mountain. A small finca there and a tea mangrove place. Very cool.
When we got back, Frank asked us for our best and worst questions. My worst one was “Do animals trip?” Somehow that segued (oh shit that’s spelled incorrectly) *EDITORS NOTE: Totally wasn’t spelled correctly!* to a discussion about our curiosity and about our roles as scientists. Honestly, it made me feel kind of stupid again.
Sunburns sucked some more and I talked to Liana. Mario and Chato wanted me to play their girl songs. Then I watched Costa Rica beat El Salvador in soccer. Cool. Right now I’m about to fall asleep in a hammock tied btwn two palm trees on the beach. Luxurious, no? Pura vida.
4/2/09 Thurs
Today was fun. Esp w/ the sunburn. Boated to Isla del Caño. It was sweet. We got to go on a neat little walk and then we got to go snorkeling! It was cool and the water was warm. Saw lots of cool fish. Lots of jack, a boxfish, and a male parrotfish! Sadly, we saw no mantarayas, Tortugas, ni tiburones. Bleh. Oh well. Next time maybe… On the way back we got soaked, gracias a Chato. When we got back we played ultimate and ate and played guitar. Fun day.
4/3/09 Fri
Bus day! We packed up, sang a song we made up for the cocineras, caretakers, and boteros (“Los caballeros y las hermanas hermosas”) and boated back to Sierpe. Got some coco juice and were on our way to Santa Rosa. There were several sketch bridges where I would look over and see no bridge at all, only water. Very narrow. CR is kinda similar looking the whole way through, but I enjoyed having a whole day to hang out with air conditioning and cushy seats. Had a picnic on a soccer field in the middle of a palm grove.
Checked out some massive crocadrilos in a river. We had to walk on the bridge which was primarily for cars, so it was a little close for comfort. We ate at another restaurant. Paid for. Sweet. When we get off the bus in SR we’ll have to set up the tents. Hopefully not in the rain. Sorry for the chickenscratch..
I still have about 6 entries to catch up on. I gotta do some hw though, so maybe I'll post them later on in the week.
Enjoy.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Costa Rica So Far
Here is the transcript of the first couple days in CR. I still have to type up the rest so check back.
3/25/09 Wed
Yo Yo. I guess I’m doing the journal again. We’ll see how long it lasts. Right now I’m at Hotel Cacts. It’s a neat hotel. I won’t try too hard to describe what it looks like. I’ve already had trouble describing it to Morgan, so I’ll take pictures instead. I’ll say that it has a neat pool (shallow) and is pretty much open to the elements everywhere except the lobby and the rooms themselves. Kinda, I don’t know. The third floor has a sun deck (the roof with chairs on it) and a place to eat in the morning.
My flight arrived last night. One guy in the program was on my flight, too. We got a taxi and went to the hotel where we met a handful of other memberof the group. It was late and we were hungry, so we walked around and grabbed some Italian food. At least it was better than eating at Pizza Hut.
The next day, about 15 of us walked all over downtown San Jose. Lots of walking. It was nice to get to know people. Most of them (hehe). The food is pretty good and the people are really nice. Los ticos les gusta cuando trato hablar español. Anoche, mi amigo Chris (con la barba!) y yo estabamos cansados del grupo enorme, así salimos a un restaurante solos.
La redz es la suck.
3/27/09 Fri
Yesterday was really cool. We went over the course during orientation and I could not be more excited. Our homework is going to be really fun. For instance, today we’re doing research on a locally cultivated fruit. I got assigned to research the star fruit or carambola (averrhoa carambola). Además tenemos hace comprar estas frutas de una tienda en SJ y dar a la grupa una presentación corta. Que divertido! También tenemos hacer aprender sobre un animal y una planta que posiblemente vamos a ver en las selva.
We had a group lunch and went to the snakeatorium (lol). We had a lecture from this large Palestinian guy about Costa Rican snakes and then he gave us a special inside look at his serpentarium. So we got to see lots of snakes up close. Afterwards we had a massive soccer game (4 games actually) at a local futbol field (indoor)! It was a really small turf field, but it was really fun.
La redz todavia es la suck.
3/28/09 Sat
I should really get around to this befote I g oto bed. It’s harder to remember things the next morning, and it’s hard to write on the bus.
Yesterday we set out to purchase the fruit we were supposed to research. Miles, Chris , and I went to the Mas Para Menos Mercado (which is apparently owned by Walmart now.. que lastima). They didn’t have any carambolas, but we bought lots of stuff anyway. Afterwards we went to the park to eat sandwiches we made.
Then we went to this large Mercado on Avenida Central which was really neat. On the way back I jumped on a thumbtack which went through my sandal and stabbed my heel.
I ALMOST FORGOT! Chris wanted to get info about a fishing license, so I accompanied him to a tackle store. It was cool because I did a good job as a translator. The guy said that in 20 years he had never been bothered by fishing authorities in Monteverde or Lago Fortuna. Chris ended up buying some lures for really cheap.
Anyway, when we got back to Cacts from the Mercado, we had a two point five hour lecture about our fruits… yay.. Followed by an interesting lecture introducing us to Costa Rica (facts, current events, history, etc) Lebanese restaurant for dinner, packed for today and went to bed. (11:30 PM…Had to wake up at 4 AM).
3/28/09 Still Sat
OK, so I remember to write in here today. Sweet. Today was…tuanis? I hope that’s how you spell the Tico slang for “cool” that Erick taught me.
After packing our bags to be sent to Monteverde (I forgot my goddamn pocket knife in my MV bag), we jumped on a bus to go to the Osa Peninsula. We stopped in the Talamanca Cordillera para desayuno and had a nature stop too. Erick de Mexico told us that the restaurant we went to, Los Cheseperos (sp?) is taken from an old Mexican show about a grasshopper superhero who can shrink. He sounded awfully like Bumblebee man from the Simpsons, esp. cos silly things always happen to his friends or landlord or whatever.
Bus again, and then linch in sierpe. Hellza good. Then we loaded all our stuff on boats and went downriver. There were floating flowers, not anchored to anything, some birds and even whitefaced capuchins! Se llaman las carablancas. The boat ride was fun, but we ended up in an amazingly amazing (lol) place!
PARAISO! We’re set up camp right near the beach (BOYEEE!) (the water is so freakin warm BTW) and we have our own little camping area to ourselves. I’m sharing a tent with Randall, we’re bigote buddies I guess. After dinner and an introduction to the caretakers, cooks, and the area, we discovered the multitude of wildlife present at night! Crabs everywhere, toads, wolf-eyed spiders, bugs errwhere and hopefully not too many fur de lances. In the water there may be sharks and stingrays! DID I MENT- wait, yes I did. Anyway, I asked Mario and Chato, our young boteros about the carablancas and they said that they’re malos. They eat everything, even iguanas. But that’s cos they’re so smart. Sang some songs with Nicole, did some research about wild ginger and went to bed. BAM!
PS. Mexico beat CR 2-0 today. Pobre ticos.
3/29/09
WHERE TO START!? How about morning? Woke up at 6am, sweaty as hell. As I write this, I can barely stand the smell of my cotton sleeping bag liner (one use!). Swam in the very warm tropical ocean with Chris and Randall before breakfast. Tried to fish, didn’t work out so well.
After breakfast (beans and rice and meat and plantains again! Who knew?) the advanced Spanish speakers (at last!) went with Sofia and Don Miguel up the mountain. Lots of plant notes and hiking, but not too much, really. Kim, Nicole, and I are thinking of writing a “mas o menos” song. Lol. After a small break and lunch (rice, beans, plantains! Again! Who knew?) we had a nature talk and walk with Fede, more Spanish! I’m getting really good at this!
What did we see? A basilisk, a murcielago, and a snake eating a frog! And I think I forgot to mention that there are bright orange and purple crabs EVERYWHERE! On the beach, by and under the tents, in the cabinas and @ the top of the goddamn mountain!
We came back and had dinner (rice, beans, FISH, plantains, WHO KNEW) and waited for our nightwalk. Nightwalk = awesome. Meowing frog. Huge! Probably meows to mimic distress cries from baby crocs. Basilisks, spiders, turtles (ALL PICKED UP AND PLAYED WITH). Wasps. Stung by one. Lame. Beach snail trying to eat a bivalve, wow. Annelids, whatever. GRAND FUCKIN FINALE: Mario, Chato y Don Miguel atraptaron un crocodrilo! Con un stick! Y mi cordón! I quickly took off my shoelace and they tied its mouth. And then they let me hold it! WTF it was SICK. Just a baby, but it was still powerful and had apparently ate the mother of the dog that roams around here. Freakin sweet. Suck it, real school. We also saw an anteater on the way back.
Tomorrow we go exploring in the mangroves, and then over the mt. to hopefully se carablancas. Then maybe fishing with Chato, Mario, y Chris.
AWESOME
3/25/09 Wed
Yo Yo. I guess I’m doing the journal again. We’ll see how long it lasts. Right now I’m at Hotel Cacts. It’s a neat hotel. I won’t try too hard to describe what it looks like. I’ve already had trouble describing it to Morgan, so I’ll take pictures instead. I’ll say that it has a neat pool (shallow) and is pretty much open to the elements everywhere except the lobby and the rooms themselves. Kinda, I don’t know. The third floor has a sun deck (the roof with chairs on it) and a place to eat in the morning.
My flight arrived last night. One guy in the program was on my flight, too. We got a taxi and went to the hotel where we met a handful of other memberof the group. It was late and we were hungry, so we walked around and grabbed some Italian food. At least it was better than eating at Pizza Hut.
The next day, about 15 of us walked all over downtown San Jose. Lots of walking. It was nice to get to know people. Most of them (hehe). The food is pretty good and the people are really nice. Los ticos les gusta cuando trato hablar español. Anoche, mi amigo Chris (con la barba!) y yo estabamos cansados del grupo enorme, así salimos a un restaurante solos.
La redz es la suck.
3/27/09 Fri
Yesterday was really cool. We went over the course during orientation and I could not be more excited. Our homework is going to be really fun. For instance, today we’re doing research on a locally cultivated fruit. I got assigned to research the star fruit or carambola (averrhoa carambola). Además tenemos hace comprar estas frutas de una tienda en SJ y dar a la grupa una presentación corta. Que divertido! También tenemos hacer aprender sobre un animal y una planta que posiblemente vamos a ver en las selva.
We had a group lunch and went to the snakeatorium (lol). We had a lecture from this large Palestinian guy about Costa Rican snakes and then he gave us a special inside look at his serpentarium. So we got to see lots of snakes up close. Afterwards we had a massive soccer game (4 games actually) at a local futbol field (indoor)! It was a really small turf field, but it was really fun.
La redz todavia es la suck.
3/28/09 Sat
I should really get around to this befote I g oto bed. It’s harder to remember things the next morning, and it’s hard to write on the bus.
Yesterday we set out to purchase the fruit we were supposed to research. Miles, Chris , and I went to the Mas Para Menos Mercado (which is apparently owned by Walmart now.. que lastima). They didn’t have any carambolas, but we bought lots of stuff anyway. Afterwards we went to the park to eat sandwiches we made.
Then we went to this large Mercado on Avenida Central which was really neat. On the way back I jumped on a thumbtack which went through my sandal and stabbed my heel.
I ALMOST FORGOT! Chris wanted to get info about a fishing license, so I accompanied him to a tackle store. It was cool because I did a good job as a translator. The guy said that in 20 years he had never been bothered by fishing authorities in Monteverde or Lago Fortuna. Chris ended up buying some lures for really cheap.
Anyway, when we got back to Cacts from the Mercado, we had a two point five hour lecture about our fruits… yay.. Followed by an interesting lecture introducing us to Costa Rica (facts, current events, history, etc) Lebanese restaurant for dinner, packed for today and went to bed. (11:30 PM…Had to wake up at 4 AM).
3/28/09 Still Sat
OK, so I remember to write in here today. Sweet. Today was…tuanis? I hope that’s how you spell the Tico slang for “cool” that Erick taught me.
After packing our bags to be sent to Monteverde (I forgot my goddamn pocket knife in my MV bag), we jumped on a bus to go to the Osa Peninsula. We stopped in the Talamanca Cordillera para desayuno and had a nature stop too. Erick de Mexico told us that the restaurant we went to, Los Cheseperos (sp?) is taken from an old Mexican show about a grasshopper superhero who can shrink. He sounded awfully like Bumblebee man from the Simpsons, esp. cos silly things always happen to his friends or landlord or whatever.
Bus again, and then linch in sierpe. Hellza good. Then we loaded all our stuff on boats and went downriver. There were floating flowers, not anchored to anything, some birds and even whitefaced capuchins! Se llaman las carablancas. The boat ride was fun, but we ended up in an amazingly amazing (lol) place!
PARAISO! We’re set up camp right near the beach (BOYEEE!) (the water is so freakin warm BTW) and we have our own little camping area to ourselves. I’m sharing a tent with Randall, we’re bigote buddies I guess. After dinner and an introduction to the caretakers, cooks, and the area, we discovered the multitude of wildlife present at night! Crabs everywhere, toads, wolf-eyed spiders, bugs errwhere and hopefully not too many fur de lances. In the water there may be sharks and stingrays! DID I MENT- wait, yes I did. Anyway, I asked Mario and Chato, our young boteros about the carablancas and they said that they’re malos. They eat everything, even iguanas. But that’s cos they’re so smart. Sang some songs with Nicole, did some research about wild ginger and went to bed. BAM!
PS. Mexico beat CR 2-0 today. Pobre ticos.
3/29/09
WHERE TO START!? How about morning? Woke up at 6am, sweaty as hell. As I write this, I can barely stand the smell of my cotton sleeping bag liner (one use!). Swam in the very warm tropical ocean with Chris and Randall before breakfast. Tried to fish, didn’t work out so well.
After breakfast (beans and rice and meat and plantains again! Who knew?) the advanced Spanish speakers (at last!) went with Sofia and Don Miguel up the mountain. Lots of plant notes and hiking, but not too much, really. Kim, Nicole, and I are thinking of writing a “mas o menos” song. Lol. After a small break and lunch (rice, beans, plantains! Again! Who knew?) we had a nature talk and walk with Fede, more Spanish! I’m getting really good at this!
What did we see? A basilisk, a murcielago, and a snake eating a frog! And I think I forgot to mention that there are bright orange and purple crabs EVERYWHERE! On the beach, by and under the tents, in the cabinas and @ the top of the goddamn mountain!
We came back and had dinner (rice, beans, FISH, plantains, WHO KNEW) and waited for our nightwalk. Nightwalk = awesome. Meowing frog. Huge! Probably meows to mimic distress cries from baby crocs. Basilisks, spiders, turtles (ALL PICKED UP AND PLAYED WITH). Wasps. Stung by one. Lame. Beach snail trying to eat a bivalve, wow. Annelids, whatever. GRAND FUCKIN FINALE: Mario, Chato y Don Miguel atraptaron un crocodrilo! Con un stick! Y mi cordón! I quickly took off my shoelace and they tied its mouth. And then they let me hold it! WTF it was SICK. Just a baby, but it was still powerful and had apparently ate the mother of the dog that roams around here. Freakin sweet. Suck it, real school. We also saw an anteater on the way back.
Tomorrow we go exploring in the mangroves, and then over the mt. to hopefully se carablancas. Then maybe fishing with Chato, Mario, y Chris.
AWESOME
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