It’s a Nature Wonderland and Theme Park!

Costa Rica, home of ecotourism, rain forest, volcanoes, cloud forest and unremarkable food. And our home away from ship for the last few days.

Having suffered from some fairly serious trip planning fatigue, Ricardo and I decided to just sign up for a S@S trip for this particular leg. It’s Costa Rica, so what you should do is take advantage of the environment and all it has to offer. And this we did. And then some.

On our first day we left the ship with seven students, two lifelong learners and the world’s greatest guide, Alex. Our first stop was the Poas Volcano which was at 11,000 feet and quite active. We hiked (strolled is perhaps the better word, but the brochure most definitely said hiked) to an area where we could see down into the crater. We had a surprisingly clear day for it and that allowed us to see the small sulphuric eruption that is featured in the photo.

From there we headed to the Waterfall Gardens which were really just a hellacious number of stairs which took you to see some fairly spectacular cascades, cool and refreshing. Before the Eco-Stairmaster, we headed to the butterfly gardens, the aviary, the hummingbird garden and the orchidarium (interesting to me only). The aviary was something. We saw several toucans up close and there were a somewhat disturbing number of macaws who were not in the least shy. One of them landed on one of our student’s heads. She was quite good natured about it but I think I would have let out a fairly girly scream. I did manage to contain myself when I got crapped on by a bird though. Go me.

After a couple more hours in the bus we arrived at La Selva Biological Reserve. This is a rainforest research center, the largest and oldest in Latin America. It is home to more than 100 species of snakes, 400 species of ants (some the size of hotwheels, I kid you not!) and 200 species of birds. It’s also the home of secondary and primary forest as well as research on the forest.

It was a lot like summer camp. There was a mess hall with extremely boring food (although today’s Yucca Pie was quite delish!) and cabins in which we slept. We had bunk beds (note to self, do not share a bed with The Kid, AKA, Squirmy McSquirm) and a rotating fan, which almost cooled us down. We fell asleep to the sounds of howler monkeys, cicadas, frogs, and parrots. It was incredibly rustic, and also very, very cool (while being unbearably hot and humid).

On our first full day at the station, we joined the “scientist for a day” group. This meant they suited us up in rubber boots (snakes and all) which chafed the crap out of my extra wide, fat calves, and brought us out into the primary growth forest. There we had to use a compass to lay a transept. This is a straight line that reaches into the forest for 50 meters. Our job was to measure all the trees larger than 10cm in width. We had to describe them, take pictures of them, and count the number of them two meters wide along the transept. We also had to take samples, label them, and then present the information to the group. Using the online database we then identified the trees and compared our transept to the other group’s so we could draw connections about the forest. We had a great time, although not everyone involved was near as dorky as we.

That night we slept like the dead.

The next day was the adventure wonderland part. We headed to a place called Pozo Azul where we had our choice of horseback riding, zip lining, or white water rafting. The Kid chose rafting, and it was a blast! Just our pace, with class 2 & 3, a snack of organic pineapple, and swimming in the river. Unfortunately, when one is, how shall we say, ample in girth, as I am, one gets bruised to hell when the river guide pulls one into the raft. The rich purple bruising on my arms, compliments the aubergine bruise on my thigh from trying to get into a top bunk to have more fan on me. This in turn is decorated with a variety of insect bites, some oozy, some not, as well as the rose colored raw flesh of my boot burns. Delightful!

On our last day (today) we had a two hour natural history walk in the forest with another of the La Selva guides. She talked to us about the secondary forest they had there. Originally it was a cocoa plantation. There are still both white and red cocoa pods growing there. We also saw more of the poison dart frogs, peccaries, coatis, birds and more.

And that has been our time here. We’ve got a one day sail until Nicaragua. And there we will part company. Ricardo has a program for his students with an author (a former vice-president of Nicaragua under the Sandanistas), so The Kid and I will be headed to a dry forest in Nicaragua called the Domitila Wildlife Refuge. Wish us luck!