5/5/09 Cinco de Mayo. FREEBIRD!
Eladio is playing his music for us. He’s got good taste in music. FREEBIRD AGAIN! As I sit at the idnner table writing this by candlelight, there are dozens and dozens of dead tabanids are dying all around. Many of them are/were stunned by flying through the candles. Others seem to have given up. Serves the right.
Today was really, really fun. Woke up to coffee and gallo pinto. I know I sounded like I was getting tired of it on the last trip, but goddamn have I missed it. Our walk was less of a lecture today and more of an adventure. We crossed the cool bridge and crossed the river underneath it. Fue un bueno dia para botas! The river was amazing with lush greenery on either side.
There was a small river leading to the larger one we were traveling down and we followed it. About 100 or 200m upstream was a huge waterfall. Beautiful. There was a fallen log leaning up against the waterfall which split the fall of the water and kinda made it splash everywhere. We swam and climbed the Cliffside for a bit and had a lot of fun. Javier and Eladio tried to capture a rare dragonfly that was flying pretty high up the cliff.
We came back and had lunch and I played my harmonica a bit. It’s amazing how I’ve progressed in 2 days. I’ll try it out with the guitar sometime. Oh I miss the guitar… but it was good I didn’t bring it. It would have been disasterous.
We had a little discussion on the hill nearby and then caught a small bird in the mist net. OH! We caught two birds this morning. A Yiguirro (nat’l bird) and an oscillated antbird. Birds are really fun to hold, but difficult to take out of a net.
Right now we’re listening to Eladio talk. He’s telling us about how his land used to be and about how he got bitten by a terciopelo. Sheeeeeit! It’s fu too cos it’s all in Spanish. Bottomline: Eladio Cruz is the baddest ass in Costa Rica.
5/7/09 Thursday?
Tonight is the last night of our trip. Que triste. Era un Buena semana en Peñas Blancas. Me gustó muchísimo. Voy a extrañar haciendo cualquier cosa que me gustaba y no teniendo que hacer nada. Entonces, todas buenas costas tienen que terminar.
Yesterday morning we went on a hike to another river. Or the same one somewhere else, iono. It was slow going with all the biologizing. We saw a lot of cool things though. We caught a couple frogs, all multicolored and different species than the others, a trail of heavy duty army ants, another terciopelo, and lots of cool bugs.
When we reached our destination, I jumped in after Robert, who had just cannonballed and landed ona shallow rock, only to hurt my own assbone on a similarly shallow rock. Still hurts. We let the current take us a bit downstream and then ran back to do it again. Then, Athena Liana and I followed one of the inlets up the way a bit.
Got back in record time and studied for the practical test. I wasn’t too concerned about it for whatever reason. Maybe I should have been, but felt like I was prepared enough. Oh well. I spent the evening playing 22 with Javier and Jerry. And reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson. It’s about the author’s journey along the Appalachian Rail with his fat friend. The cover boasted that it was “Choke on your coffee funny!” and I wasn’t buying it, but surely enough, page 5, I choked on my coffee. It’s a good read. We spent the rest of the night telling jokes in English and Spanish. Who would have thought that badass Eladio knew so many jokes. Apparently all jokes in Spanish involve a certain Pepito. He’s just the guy in jokes I guess.
EXAMPLE: Pepito: Dad, does grandma know a lot about cars?
Dad: No, son. Why?
Pepito: Cos she’s under a bus.
Jerry told a funny one about a priest telling Pepito (so he’s caught on already) not to swear when his little red wagon wheel breaks. “Sonofabitch” he said. Instead, the priest suggests Pepito should say “God bless it”. So Pepito is pulling his little red wagon when the wheel pops off again. Pepito says “God bless it” and the wheel pops back on. Then the priest, who’s watching from across the street, says “Sonofabitch!” Hooboy. Jerry said it in such a funny way, too. The rest of the night was us watching an amazing lightning and thunderstorm.
Today was the practical. Not too bad, but that doesn’t mean I got an A. Oh well again. The cool thing about our tests here is that they’re actually kinda fun.
It was raining and lighting all morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon. Javier spotted a three wattled bellbird (Procnias tricarunculata) from like a mile away. I couldn’t even see it without the scope. I’m glad I got to see it finally. It did this weird thing with its mouth where it looked like it was yawning and sometimes it would then bonk. Javier, Emily, Berto, Jerry and I went back to the waterfall. With the recent rain the river was deeper, the crossing was harder, and the fall was huger. Javier was looking for that Odonata again, but it was absent from the waterfall. So we threw rocks. At a hole in the wall. And also at another rock.
Later on in the day I talked with Federico and Sofia about my project. I guess I’ll drop the behavioral aspect of it and just concentrate on the capuchins travel paths. I have to introduce myself to the community I guess in order to run around on their property and alert them to inform me if they see any monkeys.
Sofia confessed to me that she knows my homestay mom. They were good friends until Doña Xinia’s older son was accused of stealing motorcycles, or rather, being a contact for the theft. Nobody can prove it, but apparently he doesn’t really get paid a lot and sometimes he just suddenly has a lot of money to spend. The board of directors for San Luis tried to get him arrested, and Sofia was a member, so she was at the police station that day. She says that she really didn’t know what was going on until she got there. So now Doña Xinia resents Sofia for thinking poorly of her son. It’s sad. Sofia is really heartbroken about it.
Finally, right before bed I drew on our “thanks and goodbye poster for Eladio and Javier”. I drew a cross made from a guitar and machete, cos that’s how Eladio knows me best. I guess I’m a little proud of that.
5/8/09
Sheeeeeit I’m tired. And Tigre is a nuisance. A very cute nuisance! Who just drooled on my bed. Gross. Well now. Today was a day to remember.
We woke up early and packed to start our very long journey home(stay!). Bdamn! It was a moutherfucking long walk. I did the first portion pretty much solo. I was pretty quick even though I took the time to sacar fotos de yo at picturesque locations. I stopped for a minute at El Alemán and started a signup sheet so that Fede and Sofia would know if anybody didn’t make it (hehe).
Jerry, Christina, and I walked the second half of the trail together. FUCK. I forgot how far down we walked to get here. That shit was ALL. UP. HILL. In my botas, too. Botas, once again, invaluable, although a bit painful. So yea. We left at 730AM, reached Alemán at 930AM and reached recepción at 12PM. Jesus. 15km uphill with a backpack. I’ll never stop bitchin about it, either.
Got back and waited for the others. While we waited we grabbed a Coke and then chilled in Blanco with Erick. We beat the next group by about 45 mins. Yea. Got back to el Instituto and showered and interneted. Heard about the fire in SB. Shit. Heard that we can’t drink on IV beach anymore either. Double shit. Talked to Erica, awesome! I miss that chica.
Finally got to… homestay! I’m living with Doña Xinia, if you remember. She’s really nice! Man, I’m relieved. Her boyfriend Vichi is a bit distant, but whatever. We had dinner and watched TV, cos that’s what they do. I tried to bring Sofia’s name up in a good way. I said that she said that Xinia’s nieta es muy lindisima. It didn’t go over badly. But later, when Raul’s wife came over (who is really small and young looking) Xinia mentioned that I knew Sofia and I guess nothing happened, but I felt a little nervous or awkward, hehe.
They have a super friendly cat named Tigre, and 3 dogs named Yogi, Osito (little bear) and Pirraña. Guess what he’s like. I really like their house. It’s really humble. Lots of bichos. Corrugated tin roof. Not so complete walls. Sweet! I’m a temporary Tico.
5/10/09
I’ve really enjoyed spending the past two days here in San Luis. I go to bed early and wake up early. The area itself is very pretty, the company is good, and the internet is only a mile away if I need it.
Yesterday I went exploring. After picking up some essentials in Cerro Plano (long walk there. Cool rides back) I went to the University of Georgia. Chris had told me that morning that he’d be on the Buho trail, so I went to find him. He was studying Euglossine bees, so I had fun catching them while talking to Chris. We planned to go to the waterfall after lunch and set tentative plans for going to Chanchos to see the band play (which, coincidentally se llama Chanchos de Monte). I ate lunch at my homestay and met Chris, Aly, and Christina so we could go waterfalling. Along the way we fed a worm to some army ants. Game over work. They swarmed him, took off his head, and brought him back to their live nest. Brutal.
Waterfalling was fun. A weinerdog followed us the whole way there. He smelled like dead animal, but that’s because he had just rolled in a dead animal. Waterfall = magnificent. We went swimming in the icy water and Chris brought the god in too. He didn’t really apprecieate being that cold and puted and shivered when he got out.
Dinner, Chanchos, Erick’s an asshole b/c he said that he couldn’t get me weed, but that I could ask one of the bartenders downstairs. Thanks for telling me that 5 weeks ago. Fuck it, I’m over it.
I woke up the next day (today) a bit hungover but went out looking for monkeys anyway. It was a kinda half hearted, halfhungover, half really fucking tired effort, but I did walk all over today. I’m thinking about changing my study from mamíferos a zompopas. Leafcutter ants. Cos they’re everywhere and easy to manipulate. I’m going to talk to Fede about it tomorrow at 1PM. Gotta remember.
When I got home for dinner I talked with Zinai about Eduardito. Oh boy. It was a bit heavy. Xinia almost cried. She told me about how she always tried to give Eduardito what he wants because he’s all she has left. Her other two children and their families are never too far away, and of course, there’s Vichi, but Eduardito is special to her. Around the same time her husband died, Eduardito was about 6 and was having problems in school. He was a bully and didn’t do his work. Xinia didn’t know what to do. Luckily her friend helped her put Eduardito in a private school in Santa Elena called Escuela Creativo. And he’s blossomed, but it’s always very expensive. Next year is highschool, colegio, and it’ll be even more expensive, and she doesn’t know what to do.
She always wants Eduardito to be happy. He asked his Mom for a computer, so she got a loan and bought one off an Israeli family that was moving. She always tried to get him the clothes and shoes that he wants.
Don’t be fooled though, this isn’t just a givegivegive relationship. Eduardito knows how hard his mother works and never demands things. He’s a good boy, a good student, and a good son. He always wants to help his mother out and his mother always wants him to be happy.
While I was listening to Xinia, I couldn’t help but think of my laptop in the other room, or my new boots on the porch, or my car back in SB. Man, do I need to put things in a better perspective.
I played with Loandri for the rest of the night and taught Eduardito some guitar chords. He like the band shirt that I got for him. I think.
5/11/09
I had trouble waking up today. I was so warm in bed and I didn’t want to walk to la Estación en la lluvia so I vowed several times to get up a few minutes later.After I got up and dressed, I left expecting to walk all the way to la Estación in the rain. Lucky for me, I saw Kelsey waiting at Finca La Bella and caught a ride in her cab. Sweet.
I basically fucked around all day with the internet and did some ant research. I think I’m going to study how leaf cutters like to use pipes and sand as highways. So I talked with Fede about it and worked out the kinds. He’ll buy me some manguera finquera on Thursday and drop it off so tomorrow I have to go scout some colonies.
After I got back (Kelsie cab again) I played futbol with Eduardito and his uncle and his cousin. We screwed around and played Liga until it was dark. It’s beautiful out here, esp at sunset. Did I mention that we were playing on a pasture field? A homemade soccerfield on the parsture. So wooden posts and lots of cowshit.
After dinner I went to Jerry’s house to play cards with him and Chris. Very fun. We played outside. Good times in San Luis. Claro.
5/12/09
Bugs have invaded my room! Wasps, giant flying beetles, moths! Send reinforcements!!
5/13/09
Shit. Last night was intense. Those bugs were EVERYWHERE. Or at least more everywhere than usual. Yesterday involved finding hormigueras and playing soccer Eduardito, his cousins, drunk cheating cousin Colqui, and Aly.
SHIT. BUGS ARE BACK. TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!
FUCK. I think they come in the room b.c I’m always the last to go to bed. There was like on giant beetle in here when I started writing and two more or even flew through the cracks in the wall. I smacked the shit out of a couple of them with my hat, but they just do die. I put a stunned one under the carpet to smoosh it, but when I lifted the carpet again, I saw it still moving. He’s gonna die,, but it’ll take a while. I’m actually under the covers with my headlamp on right now.
Yea. Last night. Spansih television news is like this: carcrashcarcrashcarcrashmurderswinefluecarcrash. People are interviewed but have no relation to the event. Somebody just died because of plane crash, so here’s his loser brother. Some people ask to remain anonymous so they aim the camera at their chests. But guess what, the person being interviewed still has crazy fingernails and an ugly dress that all her family and friends and neighbors will recognize. Great job. Who wants to be a millionaire (Quien quiere ser un millionario) is way easy, but they only go up to 25,000,000 colones. That’s like $50,000 or something. Spanish telenovelas are still cheesey, but now I watch them with people who thing they arent’. “I saw you two in the garden last night” GASP “KISSING EACHOTHER” GASP AY!
Today I tried to do my exp, but had no materials. Still don’t have them. Went to Fede’s house. Beautiful. He has a fat dog whom they’re not sure is pregnant or just really really fat. Also cards at Jerry’s again. We went to the tent he has in the back of the farm. It would have been cool to hotbox, haha.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Pura Vida Baby
4/16/09 Friday Morning
BLANCO
I’m falling behind. Gotta get around to writing in this more often. Nothing much to say, though. Lots of class. We’ve been spending lots of time in the classroom, which is surprisingly tiring. We were about half asleep most of the way through Frank and Fede’s talks. At 330 we walk to Spanish. It’s fun cos I’m in the advanced group. We just read something to stimulate conversation and then we just keep talking. It’s nice that it’s right next to the fabrica de quesos.
Yesterday was more of the same. The exact same. Except we had tostadas for dinner!
Oh. And I’ve started running. People have been running in the morning, which is hard for me cos I go to bed late. But on Wednesday I woke up at 6 and ran with Ryan, Emily and some others down the hill, a little over, back and up the hill. BITCH! Bigasshill. About a milelong, if you remember. I was proud that I made it all the way up (and down, as a matter of fact) without stopping. And I kept up with Ryan. Good stuff. And yesterday I ran back from Spanish with Ryan and Randall. Same deal, but I felt the previous day’s workout. Whoo. It is interesting to note that Chris, who bikes to and from class, raced Calvin who’s the runner (the fast one, anyway) in the group. Chris got a good headstart on the flat part from the Instituto to the gas station. And the bottom of our hill. But there was no way he could keep his lead going up that bigasshill. He narrowly lost out. But it was a good race. I’m going to start running in my boots I think. My sambsas are too lightweight for the rocky roads here.
Last night was a break in routine. We went salsa dancing. I barely finished some of my hw (fuck identifying plants. Fuck hw) and left the toher stuff to do today. A sizable group of us went to MoonShiva for salsa night. Drinks were cheap, which was good. I spent a good portion of the night hanging out at the bar. Another room had a nice television which was playing Pulp Fiction. Sweet.
Us guys were reluctant to try out our moves on the dance floor, but it eventually happened. I spazzed around and immediately regretted it, or rather regretted trying to improve salsa. Oyvey. Later on Morgan actually taught me how to dance properly. Which is actually kinda fun. Maybe I’ll keep it up. Probalby not though. She taught me how to do some basic leading like a spin or two. So I tried those out for the remainder of the night.
Highlights: Lots of smoke. Tiberones hambriosos. Bartender from Oakland. Darts. Walking home. Getting picked up half way up the mountain.
Today I finished my paper and now we’re at the fabrica de quesos! Vaminos!
4/19(20!)/09! Sun (Mon morn)
Happy Bicycle Day and then 420. Chees factory was cool. Got to eat lots of cheese. The byproduct (whey) is sent down the road to be processed by pigs. They can apparently handle the lactose very well. They eat the whey and some corn, and their shit gets filtered for the remaining corn (still pretty intact( and fed to the cows. Whooboy. Gross. And it really smelled.
We got a ride into town afterwards and I bought 2 goddamn machetes. Hellz yea. Also I met this guy that Lorren met at MoonShiva the night before. Turns out he rode a motorcycle from Oregon to CR. Sick. He was kinda lovestruck for Lorren.
Took a nap, almost slept through the night. Liz woke me up right before everybody left. Went to a festival! I heard music and paid 2000 colones to get into some place and it turned out to be completely empty except for a handful of some lonely, depressed, or otherwise weirded out tweenies. Got out of there quickly.
Carnival was fun. There were a few rides, like the spinsofastmakeyousickride and trampolines. There was a bull arena too, but there were only dancing horses that night. We soon left and went to Chanchos. Fun. Then La Taberna. Dancing! Mob dancing! Cool. I got sick of waiting for a group to leave, so I decided to walk back by myself without a flashlight. I walked about a mile and right before I had to start going up the hill, a cab stopped and beckoned me to get in. Alyssa, Lorren, Erick and his wife were already inside. GOOD SAVE.
Next day I learned how to climb a tree. Big trees. With the use of ropes and ascenders. Gotta shoot a lead weight with a fishing line attached to it over a high branch, tie a bigger string to the line and pull it back over the branch. The tie the big rope to the string and pull the rope over for the 3rd time over the branch. Climed to the top and then belayed down using a fig. 8. Sweet.
THEN! ZIPLINING! WOW FUCKIN WOW! COOLEST. SHIT. EVER. The company (Extremo Ziplining) picked us up from the Estación and yea. It was a tour of sorts, meaning there were several ziplines and we followed a path. They were intense! Some of them were half a mile long., hundreds of feet off the ground and you went so goddamned fast and you had to break with your hands (which were gardeners gloves with a pad on them) and the wind was blwing and it was just CRAZY. They even had a tarzan swing. Fun. The last zipline was so goddamn crazy. You couldn’t even see people when they got to the end of the line b/c it was so far away. They told us not to brake at all because you need all the momentum you can get to make it to the other side. Otherwise you go hand over hand waaaaay above the ground. It was windy as hell though so I was twisting in the wind and in order to right myself I had to grab the line a little bit, which was scary because it caused me to brake a bit. I was really scared that I wasn’t going to make it. My god it was a RUSH and the whole 3 hour tour (I know. Gilligan had a 3 hour tour as well) was only $30. I’m going to do that again for sure.
Got back and got ready to go out again. Back to the festival except this time there were actually toros en la plaza del toros! It was cool, but the riders sucked and so did the wranglers. Whatever, still cool. Tried moonshivas for a couple mins but it was lame. So I took a scooter/trike/taxi with Melanie and Erick up the hill.
Tried to watch WallE but I fell asleep, much to the amusement of everybody else in the room.
4/20/09 For reals
Rede is lecturing right now, so I’m sorry if this seems a bit scattered, but I gotta write about yesterday in order to catch up in my journaling. UMM
Yea, woke up really refreshed. We to the fig tre! So a couple meters down the road, there is a gulley with a waterfall. Really really pretty and the other side of this super steep. IT’s almost like rockclimbing, but not so much. When you get to the top of the other side, there’s a hollow strangler fig. It’s a really big tree that has a really long tube that you can climb into. It extends for amaybe 30m and juts out over the gulley. When you get to the top, you can look down at the waterfall and the gully 50-70m below. I KNOW! IT’s so far down! You can pop out of the top of the tube and climb on top of the tube, but since I was first up, I kinda chickened out. It’s kinda hairy and the consequence of failure is a 20 story drop at least. I’ll go again soon and go with someone who has been before and we’ll see how it goes.
HW, nature study walk, and then soccer vs CIEE kids at the indoor field. I was excited to go, but I guess I fucked up a lot and that kinda got me down. After Rober’s spectacular run as keeper, I subbed for him and allowed 3 goals in about as many mins. Lame. It didn’t’ help that none of our top players were on the field at the time, so I had very little protection. Next time I came in, I did pretty well as forward, but I got pressured into being goalie in a short amount of time. No goals scored at least. At the very end of the game I kinda forced Morgan out so I could get a last minute as forward, which I guess was really bad timing. She was kinda pissed that I took her out cos she was only in for a couple mins. I was just really disappointed in having to play goalie and sucking so bad at it when what I really wanted to do was actually get in the game like everybody else. Oh well.
Came back and did hw and stuff. Doesn’t look like the weed fairy is coming today. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with the soccer game…
4/22/09
Currently watching bug movie. Kinda like the trippy part of Planet Earth rainforests. Where the bugs and plants do their crazy thangs. Right now two snails doing it in high def. Wow. It looks like two old ladies scissoring.
Hmm. Yesterday was pair projets. Sophia and I started off with a good project question. We wanted to see if altitude and production in extrafloral nectarines were correlated. But it was hella windy and apparently the wrong time of the season. So that didn’t’ workout so well. I did get to watch an ant drink from multiple nectarines, which is cooler than it sounds. Presentation went okay.
Hw and stuff
Today was lots of class. I accidentally read the daily nexus today and read an article implying that potheads are murderers because of the drug war in Mexico. I wrote a letter to the editor saying that that is bullshit cos we only buy Norcal or medical or organic. Whatever. Fuck that guy. Class, Murcielagos,. Gotta figure that out. Tonights
4/25/09
Oh shit. It’s been so long since I’ve written, I have no idea what happened three days ago. Project discussion? Woke up to ttalk in a group about what I thought I wanted to do my independent project on. I had 3 good ideas, but they just didn’t click for me. Bats and coatis and army ants are cool, but I just couldn’t get behind them all the way. We talked about them for a really long time though. Kinda didn’t do much for me. The rest of the day was free for me, so I went to Santa Elena with Chris and Ryan. I went there in my rain boots so I could test them out. FUCK they were too small and they hurt my feet the entire way down to town. We gought some booze and some mamotes! Bought them from a guy on the corner. They’re a little fruit that you crack open the skin and eat the fleshy part that surround the seed. They’re tasty and kinda fun to eat. We got one of the scooter taxis to take us up to the Estación. We were almost too heavy for it. It really is a treacherous journey up this biggassupavedhill.
Yesterday we went to the milk farm! We got to milk a cow and take some incriminating photos while drinking the milk. It tasted like warm ice cream.
Saw some cow shit.
Had the practical test. It was pretty easy but I also missed some easy questions. Whatever.
Got drunk. Yeaaa. Beer pariy came and we played beerpong and had a cake fight. Hid some pizza and went to town. Danced, played with dogs, walked home. The walk home is long and scary as fuck without a flashlight. Shit. But a taxi with everybody showed up and picked me up pretty close to the top.
Tried to watch Jurassic Park, but I was asleep on the couch before it even started. That’s where I woke up this morning.
So this morning was supposed to be preliminary observations for my experiment, but I hadn’t narrowed it down yet. So I just hung around. I hung out on the lawn with Emily and we sat and talked and ate mamotes. I got really sunburned in that short amount of time. Sun is pretty intense when you’re closer to the equator.
Climbed the fig tree again. This time I went topside. Sick. Scary. I could have gone higher, but it was still scary as fuck. I think I may have figured out what my research project will be. I read something about these 2 girls trackig capuchins and their movement through biological corridors. Yea. Sweet. Watched Air Force 1. FUCK YEA HARRISON FORD USA! USA!
4/26/09 Sun
Ehhh. I tried to do preliminary research today in San Luis. Calvin, Emily, Christina, Time and I hitch hiked (dabamos un dedo) in the back of a truck. We found finca la Bella and asked if we could look around for our animals. Hilbert wasn’t there, but some kind was. He had no shirt on and his boardshorts were hanging far off his ass. Thanks a lot America. Anyway, he showed Emily and I some trails where we could maybe see some monkeys or coatis. No dice. Fun hike though. We got back and chilled while waiting for Time. We gave up a few taxi rides to wait there, but Tim didn’t end up coming. So we walked back from San Luis. Fuck it was far. And uphill (big surprise). The whole goddamn county is like this. We got a milkshake on the way back though and I bought some cheese. Got back and did hw. Sweet. Wee fairy still hasn’t come.
4/29/09 Weds
Oh 3 days, where have you gone? It seems that I only write in here every 3 days, so I’m surprised this trip isn’t over by now. I guess I have some stuff that I can write about now. Monday was very class-y, not to be confused with classy. At night we wrote our proposals for our projects. I was a little proud of mine, although I wish I had left some time for corrections or editing. I specified that I want to do my experiment in San Luis, so I guess it’s set! I’m excited. I really want to live somewhere that’s rural. I want to milk a cow or pick fruit or plant crops, or just hang out outside the front door.
I guess I’ll say this now rather than later so this flows better, but today we actually filled out homestay questionnaires that are designed to put us in with a famly that we’d get along with. I specifically requested that my fam have a dog and a horse, so I hope that works out. They asked a lot of questions that were hard for me to answer. “Share something about your family.” Uhh.. “We get along?” I added that all family activities revolve around the dog.
My letter to the Nexus got published on Monday. Fuck that Sforza guy. He got it all so wrong and was so smug about it. I hope he was at least mildly pissed about my response.
Yesterday we had a long Excel workshop. I actually learned a couple neat tricks.
Class today. No internet. Learned a little bit of Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. We had a little study powwow where we went over lots of document. It was a rare time where a bunch of friends and I had a really serous study sesh. It’s refreshing, to be honest. Maybe I should find a study group for bio classes back home. Gonna call EK.
5/3/09
Ouch. That’s a big gap. I’ll see what I can do. A lot of people went out Thurs night to go Salsa dancing at Moonshiva. I was too tired, so I watched Ghostbusters with Noodle and Germy. Ghostbusters 2 was better.
It was the last day of Spanish class. Que triste… We have some hw though. Gotta write a paper about something we dont’ know about MV, but isn’t common knowledge. We gotta interview our fam and 2 neighbors. I think I’ll ask about Nicaraguans.
Riday we went to a farm for AgroEco. It was a prime example of permaculture. They guy who owned it was really cool. He let us eat his cabbage and carrots straight out of the ground. Delish. There was even a dog who followed us. Cute. The farmer had a crazy strangler fig and a cool tree swing. During lunch he recited a poem for us. And then he sang a song he wrote. It was beautiful. I don’t use that word too often, but that’s what it was. This guy is so in love with his farm and fam and country and countryside. Kelsy atually cried.
Saturday was our test. 8am. Fun stuff. It was pretty easy since we all studied a lot. And then again, it was all open note open computer (internet still bronken, but you could look @ the slides) and open library. It was a fun test. Long though.
Peñas blancas orientation and homestay orientation. We found out who we’re homestaying with. I’ll be living in San Luis with and old lady, her bf, and her 13 yr old son. He other children live closeby and visit everyday. The lady, Doña Xinia, makes handmade dolls and sells them in town. Kiiiiiinda creepy, but we’ll see. The other people staying in SL aren’t too far away.
Went into town and bought some botas that actually fit, as well as some “happy food” as Frank likes to call it, for the trip. Beer faerie threw us another party. This time outside, so we spent a lot of time wrestling. Also, Chris taught us a game called ULTIMATE. FUCKING. NINJA. MOVE. You take turns trying to hit eachothers hands. But it’s verry freezetagesque. Totally going to play that in SB. Apparently we were making a lot of noise and Frank’s CIEE counterpart got pissed and called Frank. We were wrestling outside when he heard Frank come, so we skedaddled.
Woke up this morning around 6. I had already packed the night before and was more or less ready to go. Except I was hungoooover. Ugh. Always on an important day. Crap. I was feeling better by the time we got to the trailhead, though.
BTW. Saying goodbye to the half of the group was a little sad. Yea. The Cuajiniquil people are going to have soooo much fun. Randall is going to live with Rodolfo near the border. I hear it can get pretty intense there.
Yea so traildead. Wow. 14 km hike. Sheeeit. I’ve never done a backpacking trip before and I guess I didn’t know what to expect. It was a long goddamn hike. It started raining too. Today begins the rainy season! Good thing I brought my new botas de hule and my poncho! CLUTCH! I walked through the mud and the many streams along the way. We stopped at a little station se llama el aleman. Fucking long hike, like 5 horas. At the end we crossed this kinda sketch bridge that went over a river. Kinda like at the end of Temple of Doom.
We finally got here and set up shop. It’s a little field station with bunk beds and a dining room. It’s actually Eladios old property. It’s really cool. Eladio is here and guy named Javier. Sofia and Fede are our instructors here. There are bugs her too (surprise!) Big, bloodsucking flies. TABANIDS. Lots of them. They’re huge. And they bite. Hard. And then chagas bugs. They’re called kissing bugs cos they bit your lips in your sleep. You may or may not get a disease from them which will kill you in 20 yrs. Great. Look for updates when im 40. Oh, and they live in the wood of the beds. Nice. EAP provided us with bugnets though. Hopefully they holdup. I moved my mattress and net outside. I’m excited to sleep outdoors and just to sleep.It’s 9pm and I’m tired as fuck… All caught up though.
5/4/09
It’s easier to remember to write in this gournal when we’re camping. Probably because I go to bed so much earlier. Wow. Just changed the batteries on my headlamp. It’s like daylight bursting forth from my forehead.
I woke up early this morning and jung out on the bench on the proch, drinking coffee. After breakfast and before orientation walk, I asked Eladio to sharpen my machete. On the walk we saw a billion butterflied. They’re really fun to catch. Also saw an anteater.
When we got back, my machete was ready. It’s really fuckin sharp. I almost wonder if I should trust myself with a tool like this. I practiced hacking shit and then at some lunch. It started raining again, so we chilled on the porch for a while. I tried to whittle something, but it was way too hard. I tried to make a crocodile, but I fucked up, so I tried to make a smaller crocodile, but I fucked up again I tried to turn it into a snake, but it ended up looking like a sperm cell. And then I fucked that up too.
Ate dinner, played harmonica, saw a terciopelo (using the machete to chop shit down) and caught a bat. The bat was really cute. It looked like it was screaming, but we wouldn’t have been able to hear it even if it was. Nightwalk was okay. Saw a frog that was thought to have been extinct for a while before it reappeared. Also saw a molting grillo (= huge). Thabanids are trying to get me in the net. I’m scared!
BLANCO
I’m falling behind. Gotta get around to writing in this more often. Nothing much to say, though. Lots of class. We’ve been spending lots of time in the classroom, which is surprisingly tiring. We were about half asleep most of the way through Frank and Fede’s talks. At 330 we walk to Spanish. It’s fun cos I’m in the advanced group. We just read something to stimulate conversation and then we just keep talking. It’s nice that it’s right next to the fabrica de quesos.
Yesterday was more of the same. The exact same. Except we had tostadas for dinner!
Oh. And I’ve started running. People have been running in the morning, which is hard for me cos I go to bed late. But on Wednesday I woke up at 6 and ran with Ryan, Emily and some others down the hill, a little over, back and up the hill. BITCH! Bigasshill. About a milelong, if you remember. I was proud that I made it all the way up (and down, as a matter of fact) without stopping. And I kept up with Ryan. Good stuff. And yesterday I ran back from Spanish with Ryan and Randall. Same deal, but I felt the previous day’s workout. Whoo. It is interesting to note that Chris, who bikes to and from class, raced Calvin who’s the runner (the fast one, anyway) in the group. Chris got a good headstart on the flat part from the Instituto to the gas station. And the bottom of our hill. But there was no way he could keep his lead going up that bigasshill. He narrowly lost out. But it was a good race. I’m going to start running in my boots I think. My sambsas are too lightweight for the rocky roads here.
Last night was a break in routine. We went salsa dancing. I barely finished some of my hw (fuck identifying plants. Fuck hw) and left the toher stuff to do today. A sizable group of us went to MoonShiva for salsa night. Drinks were cheap, which was good. I spent a good portion of the night hanging out at the bar. Another room had a nice television which was playing Pulp Fiction. Sweet.
Us guys were reluctant to try out our moves on the dance floor, but it eventually happened. I spazzed around and immediately regretted it, or rather regretted trying to improve salsa. Oyvey. Later on Morgan actually taught me how to dance properly. Which is actually kinda fun. Maybe I’ll keep it up. Probalby not though. She taught me how to do some basic leading like a spin or two. So I tried those out for the remainder of the night.
Highlights: Lots of smoke. Tiberones hambriosos. Bartender from Oakland. Darts. Walking home. Getting picked up half way up the mountain.
Today I finished my paper and now we’re at the fabrica de quesos! Vaminos!
4/19(20!)/09! Sun (Mon morn)
Happy Bicycle Day and then 420. Chees factory was cool. Got to eat lots of cheese. The byproduct (whey) is sent down the road to be processed by pigs. They can apparently handle the lactose very well. They eat the whey and some corn, and their shit gets filtered for the remaining corn (still pretty intact( and fed to the cows. Whooboy. Gross. And it really smelled.
We got a ride into town afterwards and I bought 2 goddamn machetes. Hellz yea. Also I met this guy that Lorren met at MoonShiva the night before. Turns out he rode a motorcycle from Oregon to CR. Sick. He was kinda lovestruck for Lorren.
Took a nap, almost slept through the night. Liz woke me up right before everybody left. Went to a festival! I heard music and paid 2000 colones to get into some place and it turned out to be completely empty except for a handful of some lonely, depressed, or otherwise weirded out tweenies. Got out of there quickly.
Carnival was fun. There were a few rides, like the spinsofastmakeyousickride and trampolines. There was a bull arena too, but there were only dancing horses that night. We soon left and went to Chanchos. Fun. Then La Taberna. Dancing! Mob dancing! Cool. I got sick of waiting for a group to leave, so I decided to walk back by myself without a flashlight. I walked about a mile and right before I had to start going up the hill, a cab stopped and beckoned me to get in. Alyssa, Lorren, Erick and his wife were already inside. GOOD SAVE.
Next day I learned how to climb a tree. Big trees. With the use of ropes and ascenders. Gotta shoot a lead weight with a fishing line attached to it over a high branch, tie a bigger string to the line and pull it back over the branch. The tie the big rope to the string and pull the rope over for the 3rd time over the branch. Climed to the top and then belayed down using a fig. 8. Sweet.
THEN! ZIPLINING! WOW FUCKIN WOW! COOLEST. SHIT. EVER. The company (Extremo Ziplining) picked us up from the Estación and yea. It was a tour of sorts, meaning there were several ziplines and we followed a path. They were intense! Some of them were half a mile long., hundreds of feet off the ground and you went so goddamned fast and you had to break with your hands (which were gardeners gloves with a pad on them) and the wind was blwing and it was just CRAZY. They even had a tarzan swing. Fun. The last zipline was so goddamn crazy. You couldn’t even see people when they got to the end of the line b/c it was so far away. They told us not to brake at all because you need all the momentum you can get to make it to the other side. Otherwise you go hand over hand waaaaay above the ground. It was windy as hell though so I was twisting in the wind and in order to right myself I had to grab the line a little bit, which was scary because it caused me to brake a bit. I was really scared that I wasn’t going to make it. My god it was a RUSH and the whole 3 hour tour (I know. Gilligan had a 3 hour tour as well) was only $30. I’m going to do that again for sure.
Got back and got ready to go out again. Back to the festival except this time there were actually toros en la plaza del toros! It was cool, but the riders sucked and so did the wranglers. Whatever, still cool. Tried moonshivas for a couple mins but it was lame. So I took a scooter/trike/taxi with Melanie and Erick up the hill.
Tried to watch WallE but I fell asleep, much to the amusement of everybody else in the room.
4/20/09 For reals
Rede is lecturing right now, so I’m sorry if this seems a bit scattered, but I gotta write about yesterday in order to catch up in my journaling. UMM
Yea, woke up really refreshed. We to the fig tre! So a couple meters down the road, there is a gulley with a waterfall. Really really pretty and the other side of this super steep. IT’s almost like rockclimbing, but not so much. When you get to the top of the other side, there’s a hollow strangler fig. It’s a really big tree that has a really long tube that you can climb into. It extends for amaybe 30m and juts out over the gulley. When you get to the top, you can look down at the waterfall and the gully 50-70m below. I KNOW! IT’s so far down! You can pop out of the top of the tube and climb on top of the tube, but since I was first up, I kinda chickened out. It’s kinda hairy and the consequence of failure is a 20 story drop at least. I’ll go again soon and go with someone who has been before and we’ll see how it goes.
HW, nature study walk, and then soccer vs CIEE kids at the indoor field. I was excited to go, but I guess I fucked up a lot and that kinda got me down. After Rober’s spectacular run as keeper, I subbed for him and allowed 3 goals in about as many mins. Lame. It didn’t’ help that none of our top players were on the field at the time, so I had very little protection. Next time I came in, I did pretty well as forward, but I got pressured into being goalie in a short amount of time. No goals scored at least. At the very end of the game I kinda forced Morgan out so I could get a last minute as forward, which I guess was really bad timing. She was kinda pissed that I took her out cos she was only in for a couple mins. I was just really disappointed in having to play goalie and sucking so bad at it when what I really wanted to do was actually get in the game like everybody else. Oh well.
Came back and did hw and stuff. Doesn’t look like the weed fairy is coming today. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with the soccer game…
4/22/09
Currently watching bug movie. Kinda like the trippy part of Planet Earth rainforests. Where the bugs and plants do their crazy thangs. Right now two snails doing it in high def. Wow. It looks like two old ladies scissoring.
Hmm. Yesterday was pair projets. Sophia and I started off with a good project question. We wanted to see if altitude and production in extrafloral nectarines were correlated. But it was hella windy and apparently the wrong time of the season. So that didn’t’ workout so well. I did get to watch an ant drink from multiple nectarines, which is cooler than it sounds. Presentation went okay.
Hw and stuff
Today was lots of class. I accidentally read the daily nexus today and read an article implying that potheads are murderers because of the drug war in Mexico. I wrote a letter to the editor saying that that is bullshit cos we only buy Norcal or medical or organic. Whatever. Fuck that guy. Class, Murcielagos,. Gotta figure that out. Tonights
4/25/09
Oh shit. It’s been so long since I’ve written, I have no idea what happened three days ago. Project discussion? Woke up to ttalk in a group about what I thought I wanted to do my independent project on. I had 3 good ideas, but they just didn’t click for me. Bats and coatis and army ants are cool, but I just couldn’t get behind them all the way. We talked about them for a really long time though. Kinda didn’t do much for me. The rest of the day was free for me, so I went to Santa Elena with Chris and Ryan. I went there in my rain boots so I could test them out. FUCK they were too small and they hurt my feet the entire way down to town. We gought some booze and some mamotes! Bought them from a guy on the corner. They’re a little fruit that you crack open the skin and eat the fleshy part that surround the seed. They’re tasty and kinda fun to eat. We got one of the scooter taxis to take us up to the Estación. We were almost too heavy for it. It really is a treacherous journey up this biggassupavedhill.
Yesterday we went to the milk farm! We got to milk a cow and take some incriminating photos while drinking the milk. It tasted like warm ice cream.
Saw some cow shit.
Had the practical test. It was pretty easy but I also missed some easy questions. Whatever.
Got drunk. Yeaaa. Beer pariy came and we played beerpong and had a cake fight. Hid some pizza and went to town. Danced, played with dogs, walked home. The walk home is long and scary as fuck without a flashlight. Shit. But a taxi with everybody showed up and picked me up pretty close to the top.
Tried to watch Jurassic Park, but I was asleep on the couch before it even started. That’s where I woke up this morning.
So this morning was supposed to be preliminary observations for my experiment, but I hadn’t narrowed it down yet. So I just hung around. I hung out on the lawn with Emily and we sat and talked and ate mamotes. I got really sunburned in that short amount of time. Sun is pretty intense when you’re closer to the equator.
Climbed the fig tree again. This time I went topside. Sick. Scary. I could have gone higher, but it was still scary as fuck. I think I may have figured out what my research project will be. I read something about these 2 girls trackig capuchins and their movement through biological corridors. Yea. Sweet. Watched Air Force 1. FUCK YEA HARRISON FORD USA! USA!
4/26/09 Sun
Ehhh. I tried to do preliminary research today in San Luis. Calvin, Emily, Christina, Time and I hitch hiked (dabamos un dedo) in the back of a truck. We found finca la Bella and asked if we could look around for our animals. Hilbert wasn’t there, but some kind was. He had no shirt on and his boardshorts were hanging far off his ass. Thanks a lot America. Anyway, he showed Emily and I some trails where we could maybe see some monkeys or coatis. No dice. Fun hike though. We got back and chilled while waiting for Time. We gave up a few taxi rides to wait there, but Tim didn’t end up coming. So we walked back from San Luis. Fuck it was far. And uphill (big surprise). The whole goddamn county is like this. We got a milkshake on the way back though and I bought some cheese. Got back and did hw. Sweet. Wee fairy still hasn’t come.
4/29/09 Weds
Oh 3 days, where have you gone? It seems that I only write in here every 3 days, so I’m surprised this trip isn’t over by now. I guess I have some stuff that I can write about now. Monday was very class-y, not to be confused with classy. At night we wrote our proposals for our projects. I was a little proud of mine, although I wish I had left some time for corrections or editing. I specified that I want to do my experiment in San Luis, so I guess it’s set! I’m excited. I really want to live somewhere that’s rural. I want to milk a cow or pick fruit or plant crops, or just hang out outside the front door.
I guess I’ll say this now rather than later so this flows better, but today we actually filled out homestay questionnaires that are designed to put us in with a famly that we’d get along with. I specifically requested that my fam have a dog and a horse, so I hope that works out. They asked a lot of questions that were hard for me to answer. “Share something about your family.” Uhh.. “We get along?” I added that all family activities revolve around the dog.
My letter to the Nexus got published on Monday. Fuck that Sforza guy. He got it all so wrong and was so smug about it. I hope he was at least mildly pissed about my response.
Yesterday we had a long Excel workshop. I actually learned a couple neat tricks.
Class today. No internet. Learned a little bit of Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. We had a little study powwow where we went over lots of document. It was a rare time where a bunch of friends and I had a really serous study sesh. It’s refreshing, to be honest. Maybe I should find a study group for bio classes back home. Gonna call EK.
5/3/09
Ouch. That’s a big gap. I’ll see what I can do. A lot of people went out Thurs night to go Salsa dancing at Moonshiva. I was too tired, so I watched Ghostbusters with Noodle and Germy. Ghostbusters 2 was better.
It was the last day of Spanish class. Que triste… We have some hw though. Gotta write a paper about something we dont’ know about MV, but isn’t common knowledge. We gotta interview our fam and 2 neighbors. I think I’ll ask about Nicaraguans.
Riday we went to a farm for AgroEco. It was a prime example of permaculture. They guy who owned it was really cool. He let us eat his cabbage and carrots straight out of the ground. Delish. There was even a dog who followed us. Cute. The farmer had a crazy strangler fig and a cool tree swing. During lunch he recited a poem for us. And then he sang a song he wrote. It was beautiful. I don’t use that word too often, but that’s what it was. This guy is so in love with his farm and fam and country and countryside. Kelsy atually cried.
Saturday was our test. 8am. Fun stuff. It was pretty easy since we all studied a lot. And then again, it was all open note open computer (internet still bronken, but you could look @ the slides) and open library. It was a fun test. Long though.
Peñas blancas orientation and homestay orientation. We found out who we’re homestaying with. I’ll be living in San Luis with and old lady, her bf, and her 13 yr old son. He other children live closeby and visit everyday. The lady, Doña Xinia, makes handmade dolls and sells them in town. Kiiiiiinda creepy, but we’ll see. The other people staying in SL aren’t too far away.
Went into town and bought some botas that actually fit, as well as some “happy food” as Frank likes to call it, for the trip. Beer faerie threw us another party. This time outside, so we spent a lot of time wrestling. Also, Chris taught us a game called ULTIMATE. FUCKING. NINJA. MOVE. You take turns trying to hit eachothers hands. But it’s verry freezetagesque. Totally going to play that in SB. Apparently we were making a lot of noise and Frank’s CIEE counterpart got pissed and called Frank. We were wrestling outside when he heard Frank come, so we skedaddled.
Woke up this morning around 6. I had already packed the night before and was more or less ready to go. Except I was hungoooover. Ugh. Always on an important day. Crap. I was feeling better by the time we got to the trailhead, though.
BTW. Saying goodbye to the half of the group was a little sad. Yea. The Cuajiniquil people are going to have soooo much fun. Randall is going to live with Rodolfo near the border. I hear it can get pretty intense there.
Yea so traildead. Wow. 14 km hike. Sheeeit. I’ve never done a backpacking trip before and I guess I didn’t know what to expect. It was a long goddamn hike. It started raining too. Today begins the rainy season! Good thing I brought my new botas de hule and my poncho! CLUTCH! I walked through the mud and the many streams along the way. We stopped at a little station se llama el aleman. Fucking long hike, like 5 horas. At the end we crossed this kinda sketch bridge that went over a river. Kinda like at the end of Temple of Doom.
We finally got here and set up shop. It’s a little field station with bunk beds and a dining room. It’s actually Eladios old property. It’s really cool. Eladio is here and guy named Javier. Sofia and Fede are our instructors here. There are bugs her too (surprise!) Big, bloodsucking flies. TABANIDS. Lots of them. They’re huge. And they bite. Hard. And then chagas bugs. They’re called kissing bugs cos they bit your lips in your sleep. You may or may not get a disease from them which will kill you in 20 yrs. Great. Look for updates when im 40. Oh, and they live in the wood of the beds. Nice. EAP provided us with bugnets though. Hopefully they holdup. I moved my mattress and net outside. I’m excited to sleep outdoors and just to sleep.It’s 9pm and I’m tired as fuck… All caught up though.
5/4/09
It’s easier to remember to write in this gournal when we’re camping. Probably because I go to bed so much earlier. Wow. Just changed the batteries on my headlamp. It’s like daylight bursting forth from my forehead.
I woke up early this morning and jung out on the bench on the proch, drinking coffee. After breakfast and before orientation walk, I asked Eladio to sharpen my machete. On the walk we saw a billion butterflied. They’re really fun to catch. Also saw an anteater.
When we got back, my machete was ready. It’s really fuckin sharp. I almost wonder if I should trust myself with a tool like this. I practiced hacking shit and then at some lunch. It started raining again, so we chilled on the porch for a while. I tried to whittle something, but it was way too hard. I tried to make a crocodile, but I fucked up, so I tried to make a smaller crocodile, but I fucked up again I tried to turn it into a snake, but it ended up looking like a sperm cell. And then I fucked that up too.
Ate dinner, played harmonica, saw a terciopelo (using the machete to chop shit down) and caught a bat. The bat was really cute. It looked like it was screaming, but we wouldn’t have been able to hear it even if it was. Nightwalk was okay. Saw a frog that was thought to have been extinct for a while before it reappeared. Also saw a molting grillo (= huge). Thabanids are trying to get me in the net. I’m scared!
Monday, April 20, 2009
I Hope You Appreciate Because It Takes A Lot Of Effort To Transcribe This Bullshit
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!
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 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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