Osa Adventures

Sarah: Our adventures down on the Osa Peninsula with Matthew and Cassie were…well, adventurous. These pictures can't do it justice. And remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge it if you want an even closer look at anything. :) The week started last Monday, when we got up early to drive all the way down to a small town called Puerto Jimenez. The actual drive took 7 hours, though the day was much longer with stops to eat and to look at birds. We arrived mid-afternoon with both our headlights out and a flat tire, so we took a bit of time to fix up our car. There aren’t many trips we take that go without a few car problems, and we were glad these were easily remedied.

Early Tuesday morning we got up and were driven to the beginning of a long day. The driver couldn’t take us very far, and dropped us off right alongside a river. It was a beautiful morning as we started off, crossing the river back and forth a number of times. We were told it was going to be a muddy hike, and that was a correct statement. 10 minutes into the hike we had mud almost up to our knees - which definitely made the hiking go a lot slower! Finally after 4 hours of hiking, 10 kilometers later, we arrived at the first ranger station. At this point, we paid our park entrance fees for the next few days, and took a short break for some tortillas and peanut butter before starting our hike through Corcovado National Park – one of the most wild, diverse areas in the world. We were already tired from the first 10 kilometers, and had another 17 to go! From this point on, we were hiking through the forest, transecting the park until we reached the ranger station located on the ocean, on the opposite side of the peninsula.

Overall, our hike on Tuesday took 12 hours, we hiked 27 kilometers (about 17 miles), crossed about 40 streams or rivers, saw lots of monkeys and lizards and frogs and peccaries (pig-like animals) and agoutis (larger rodents, with a rat-like face and moves like a rabbit) and toucans and scarlet macaws, and did plenty of bird watching. We arrived at La Sirena ranger station along the beach a little after 6 pm, JUST in time for dinner – which was a good thing because we were almost completely delirious! Had we arrived a few minutes later, the doors would have been closed and we would have had to eat a few more tortillas and peanut butter. As it was, we enjoyed a really good meal of rice, beans, meat, veggies, and fruit juice (the food MIGHT have tasted so good because of the fact that we had only eaten tortillas and peanut butter...). We were completely exhausted, had lots of sore muscles, a number of blisters, and had sweat through our clothes, so after a nice cold shower, we fell asleep quickly.

The next day we enjoyed a relaxing morning, nursing our wounds and sitting on the porch of the ranger station before hiking around on the trails close by. We headed along the beach to the river mouth, and saw 2 crocodiles and a bull shark swimming around. As we hiked around a bit, we saw all 4 monkeys within a matter of a couple hours and also a number of agoutis hopping around in the forest. After dinner we went out in the dark and walked a short walk to the beach, and ended up seeing a tapir feeding in the brush. Those animals look like dwarfed elephants or rhinos, and can weigh up to 800 pounds. Needless to say, it was impressive to see one walking around a short distance from us.

On Thursday we got up early to begin our final hike. Instead of going back the way we came, we hiked all the way along the beach about 15 kilometers. It was a beautiful hike, though we had to be careful to cross over rocks and walk along the beach when the tides were high! And although it was a much shorter hike than the first day, we weren’t completely recovered and it felt long and tiring in the sand. We were thrilled to arrive at our place to stay that night, which at that point looked like paradise! We stayed in tent cabins right along the beach, complete with hammocks and views to see both the sunrise and the sunset along the water.

Our adventures ended on Friday, when we walked the mile out of the beach (we had only been at places only accessible by boat), and met up with our taxi driver in a small town who would drive us the 2 hours back to our car. Turns out our taxi was a truck with a couple of benches in the back, which would have held a total of 8 people comfortably. It was also the public transportation for the people who lived along the road, so at one point we had 20 people in the back (or hanging off the side of the truck). We picked up our car and drove the 7 hours back to QERC, and were glad to sleep in our own beds that night. Cassie and Matthew and David and I LOVED the adventure.

After such a great couple of weeks with Cassie and Matthew, we drove them back into San Jose on Saturday and said our goodbyes. At that point, we also picked up Jenna, David’s younger sister. She had been in Guatemala for the past two weeks, serving at an orphanage, and is ending her time here with us in Costa Rica for a few days before heading back to Washington. We are glad to have her with us, and we all enjoyed a relaxing day hanging around QERC today. :)

New Adventures

Sarah: I don’t have a ton of time to write but I thought I’d give a quick update anyway. I finished up my time working in the city for LASP this semester a couple weeks ago, and said goodbye to my Nicaraguan host family. I was actually sad to say goodbye and give them my house keys, even though I only stayed with them two nights a week. They were a good family, and I hope to be able to visit them when I am in the city in the future. I will continue my work for LASP next semester, but will have a different set up – I will be able to do the same work, but from QERC, so I won’t have to be in the city each week. Instead, I’ll spend about a day at the office every couple weeks or so, just to touch base. As much as I enjoyed being in the city, we’ll be busy enough with our own semester program at QERC, and I’ll be glad to be able to do the work for LASP from home.

Last week our friends Cassie and Matthew arrived in Costa Rica. We worked with them as Naturalists at Mission Springs Outdoor Education when we lived in California a couple years ago, and they are good friends of ours. The first couple days with them were a whirlwind of traveling and birding. They took a night flight here, and as soon as they got in early in the morning we headed up to La Selva Biological Research Station. Matthew is extremely into birding, much like David, so the two of them have been birding every chance they get. Cassie is like me – she enjoys the birds (especially the colorful tropical ones we have here), but isn’t into keeping bird lists and trying to find every possible species for every area we visit in the country (which is what our husbands do). Besides the birds at La Selva, the highlights for me were the poison dart frogs – both the blue-jeans frog and the black and green frog – and…a kinkajou! We were on a night hike and heard some rustling in the trees, and were able to locate it climbing up high. It looks a bit like an oversized squirrel that looks a bit like a cat.

After La Selva we headed over to Arenal Volcano. We first spent a bit of time in the hot springs, and then saw a great show put on by the volcano as it spit a lot of volcanic rocks out at night, looking like bright red lava flowing down the sides. After some more birding the next morning, we headed back through San Jose for some grocery shopping, and then on to QERC. One incredible thing I need to point out is that by the time we got to QERC, so only a couple days into Cassie and Matthew’s trip, David had already seen 20 new birds. This in itself is pretty exciting (more so for the birders who read this blog), since David had been to both La Selva and Arenal on numerous occasions. However, even more impressive is that by the time we reached QERC, Matthew had totaled about 130 new species! It just goes to show what can happen when two dedicated birders get together…

Our time at QERC has been both relaxing and productive. We’ve spent about 3 total days here so far and hiked on a number of trails. We’ve also seen some good looks at the quetzal, collected plants in the forest for the native demonstration at QERC, planted those plants, played games, visiting the local bakery, and of course more birding. We are now getting ready for the final leg of our trip. We will drive all the way south to a small town, stay overnight, and then the next morning get up and hike 12 ½ miles through Corcovado National Park, down on the Osa Peninsula. We’ll stay at a ranger’s station a couple nights, and then hike all the way back out a couple days later. It’s the most adventurous thing David and I have done since being in Costa Rica, and we’re pretty excited about it. Because Matthew is such a birder, and both Matthew and Cassie are extreme nature lovers and hikers, we are excited to experience this sort of adventure with the two of them.

Thanksgiving trip

Sarah: Lots of time has passed since we last posted an entry! Which means, we’ve been busy and have a lot to share. :) As you know, we need to leave the country every 3 months to renew our visas. Our time was coming to an end in November, and as we were planning our trip out of the country, our boss in Oklahoma decided it would be worthwhile to fly us up to Southern Nazarene University to do some promotion and planning for the upcoming semester. The way it worked out, we were able to spend about a week at SNU and then drive up to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with my family!

Our time at SNU was both busy and rewarding. David spoke in a number of classes, promoting QERC and the upcoming semester program, and we met with professors often to help plan what the semester is going to look like. We are thrilled with the way it’s coming together, and though we have a lot of work to do in preparation during the next month and a half, we are excited to have more activity out here at QERC.

This particular trip to SNU was also filled with lots of fun hang-out times, as we got to see 9 of our former 13 students who were with us last year at QERC for the semester program. Since we consider them to be good friends of ours, it was really fun to spend time with them – whether it was breakfast for those that were willing to get up early, random games in the biology department with those who showed up with cards, dinners and coffee together, and more games.

We started heading north a couple days before Thanksgiving, and were blessed to have a friend let us borrow his car to make the drive. We spent one night with some friends of ours, Rachel and BJ Keeter. Rachel was a student with us in the LASP program, and we really enjoy hanging out with her and her husband.

On our way up to Iowa, passed through Kansas City and picked up my sister Emily and a special guy she brought home with her, Greg. It was great to have the 3-hour car ride with just the two of them before meeting up with the rest of the family.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, we got together with some really good friends of ours, Theresa and Jefferson Silva dos Santos. Theresa was my college roommate and is still one of my very best friends, and she and her husband live in Des Moines. It’s always great to see them, and I love knowing that anytime we see my family, we get to spend time with Theresa and Jefferson as well!

Thanksgiving with my family was a real treat. We weren’t planning on being back in the states until next summer, and we weren’t planning on being with my family at all over the holidays. It was so neat and special that we were all there together to celebrate Thanksgiving, and even to be there to help “Christmasize” the house. I love traditions, so it was great to be there for my family’s traditions over this holiday – with lots of laughter, late nights watching “The Office”, a Thanksgiving dinner with some of my extended family, lots of jello salads, the hustle and bustle of buying and wrapping Christmas gifts, and decorating the tree. We all enjoyed getting to know Greg over the course of a few days as well! As an added bonus, we experienced some REALLY cold weather, complete with a decent snowfall! It’s been quite some time since we’ve been in snow, so it was fun to be exposed to a mini-winter.

On our way back to Oklahoma, we passed through Kansas City again. This time, we had found out that one of David’s best friends and college roommates, Chad Frosland, was in town. He was a runner for an ABC cameraman for the Kansas – Missouri football game, and stayed around long enough on Sunday to have lunch with us. We were thrilled that it worked out to catch up with him as well!

We are now back in Costa Rica, and are excited to see that the rainy season is coming to an end and summer is right around the corner. And for some exciting news, my younger sister Rachel’s volleyball team made it to the national tournament!! Though they lost in the quarterfinals, they had an incredible volleyball season and made it to the Top 8 for only the second time in the school’s history. And for some even more exciting news…my sister Emily is engaged!! Greg took the opportunity over Thanksgiving to ask my dad for permission to marry her, and proposed this week. We are excited for the two of them, and are thankful we had the opportunity to get to know Greg a little bit before the wedding!

The little things in life

David: Sometimes getting the little things done in life brings a great feeling of acomplishment, like cleaning and organizing your desk or getting all the bills paid. You know, the fun things. Around QERC this is definitely true for us because little projects take even longer, and this is not soley due to the fact that I seem to find pleasure in starting many projects and drawing them out as long as possible. Our projects seem to take longer because if we need a certain size screw it might be two weeks before we get to the hardware store and then finding what you need in San Jose isn't as easy as just going to the Home Depot. On top of all this, and I say this with endearment, things just take longer in Latin America and Costa Rica is no exception. If someone tells you they will have something completed for you next week there is a good chance it won't get done for three. That's just the way things are. Anyway, I say all this to tell that you that we are excited about this new "welcome area" we have created on the front of the building. You can see in the picture that we have an information board and some beautiful and welcoming signs. The big empty spot to the right of the information board is where a really nice and big trail map will someday go. The idea is that when guests arrive or random people are coming by to check QERC out they will be drawn to this and can go look at the information board to see what student group or researcher is at QERC and what are they working on. We also will have information about the interactive educational experiences that guests and tourists can explore like our native plant demonstration and natural history musuem. And then, hopefully, a nice trail map can better encourage the adventurous to get out there onto the trails and really see the beauty of the cloud forest. So, although it is a small accomplishment, we are excited about getting this up, finally.

And, you may notice that our information board currently says, "Bienvenidos Union de Ornitologos." This past weekend we welcomed the Costa Rica Union of Ornithology to QERC. It is an exciting relationship for us. They are currently planning a bird identification and natural history course for the youth of our region. We will host the course in January. We'll report more on that when it comes around. In honor of the Ornithology Union here is a picture of a Yellowish Flycatcher. Sometimes bird names are a lot simpler than you would think.

The Other Stuff

David: My parents arrived in Costa Rica on October 6th. Before we hit the road for adventures in the rain and rivers we spent some time here at QERC, in the rain. I believe that at the time it was welcomed rain. My parents seemed to really enjoy be trapped inside with nothing to do but sleep, read, eat, and watch The Office. We didn’t mind it much either except for that I had planned on working, with the help of my parents, on the native orchid and bromeliad portion of the garden outside. The rain kept us from that work outside, so we shifted our attention inside to work on a few projects in the museum, which was great. We mainly worked with some framing for pictures, a terrarium, and a cork board we are going to use for local kids to display their art and pictures of nature.

On my parent’s last full day at QERC we finally did have a break in the weather and we saw some sunshine early in the morning. We decided to take a chance on it and we took off to hike Los Robles, a longer trail through the mature cloud forest. It’s a gorgeous trail. Our goal was to enjoy the trail and collect orchids and bromeliads that had fallen from the trees as a result from the rain and wind. Luckily, we had plenty of specimens to collect. The trail was littered with debris from the trees. It is a long way to fall for these epiphytes because many of these Quercus oak trees are over 100 feet tall. Epiphytes, by the way, literally means “air lovers.” They are plants that like to grow up in the trees. Their roots do not sink into the ground but form root mats that cling onto the tree trunks and branches. They are not parasites. They do not directly get their nutrients from their host tree, but from debris on the outside of the tree or water. Their presence makes the canopies of the cloud forest appear full of life. Anyway, the hike was great and we collected more than we should have been carrying. We should have had our hands free to help us fall more graciously. The trails were really slippery. And at one point the trail completely disappeared. A huge “tree fall” covered the trail at one point and even though I’ve been on this trail many times, it was very disorientating. It took me bush-whacking for a few minutes before I could actually find the direction the trail was going. Nevertheless, we found the trail and made it down the mountain in one piece and completely soaked. Believe it or not, it started raining before the hike was over.

Jumping forward in time to after Sarah wrote about all the rains, we finished up the time with Dad and Mom Hille in the area of Arenal Volcano. We chose to stay at the Arenal Observatory Lodge which is an impressively 1.3 miles from the base of the volcano. Needless to say, we had a good view. Two fairly impressive events happened while we were there. One of them happened in the middle of the night and it was so grand that all four of us woke up immediately. It was an explosion that sounded like a car backfiring in our room. The employees at the lodge said that it was the most significant explosion in four years. And then the next morning we happen to be outside when the volcano emitted a huge plume of smoke. It was putting on a show for us. So we enjoyed a beautiful morning of volcano and bird watching. This is a picture of a Blue-throated Goldentail that Dad was able to snap. It was the favorite hummingbird of the morning.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

Sarah: The last two weeks we had David’s parents here visiting. They had planned on coming back to Costa Rica to see some nesting sea turtles, so David had planned a killer trip for them. HOWEVER…though the trip was still killer, absolutely nothing went as we had planned. Key words that were used: “Wow that’s a lot of rain”, “Can you believe how much rain there is?”, “Will it ever stop raining?” “You are kidding me, ANOTHER tropical storm is hitting Costa Rica??” With that said, here are some stories from the trip:

After spending time at QERC, we headed over to the pacific coast to a small town called Mal Pais. It rained ALL DAY for 2 days straight, and we spent almost the entire time sitting around our cabins marveling at the amount of rain we were getting. Our cabins were made up of 1 solid wall, and 3 walls of screen walls – a little more advanced than camping. :) There wasn’t much do in the town so we went to a small town called Montezuma, close to Mal Pais. (At one point it took an hour and a half to travel about 6 miles – and there were no other cars on the roads. They roads were that bad, due to large potholes the size of small ponds in the way.) In Montezuma we had so much rain that the roads were all flooded and even the locals were amazed and outside watching the torrential rains keep coming. We were able to enjoy about an hour of beach time with a little bit of sun one morning! After leaving Montezuma, on our way to our next destination, we stopped by the Curu National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw monkeys, a white-tailed deer, a coatimundi, and some scarlet macaws!

From there we headed up north, to a small town called Nosara - about 10 kilometers down the road from Ostional. David wanted to take his parents to Ostional to see some turtles, so we arranged transportation for one afternoon. 10 kilometers, no biggie, right? Riiiiight. What was normally a road had turned into 2 major rivers flowing across the road, making it impassable by car. AND there were many, many smaller rivers that the cars just plow through, along with TONS of potholes, causing the cars to drive about 5-10 miles an hour at best. So one truck took us to the first major river and we walked across a foot bridge to another truck waiting for us to take us along the next stretch. He took us to the second major river, and we got out and walked across another foot bridge and the rest of the way into the small town of Ostional.

We got to the beach at Ostional and saw some newly hatched sea turtles making their way out to the ocean (pretty sweet), and then had some dinner to wait for a tour so we could see an adult nesting turtle. David had picked this beach specially, because during the month of October there is a phenomenon called an “arribada” that happens 2-3 times during that month. Each arribada lasts for a few days, and thousands and thousands of sea turtles all nest during those few days. Even when there is not an arribada, you can expect to see 10-20 sea turtles on any given night. So right before we were going to head out on a tour with our guide, the rains picked up hard, along with the wind. It felt like a true tropical storm. For two hours we walked along the beach looking for a turtle, while the rains crashed down on us. We saw hundreds of baby turtles on their trek to the ocean, and it was actually difficult not to step on them. As we were sadly about to give up on the adult turtles, we saw a mother just finishing laying her eggs and covering them up with sand. We followed her back to the ocean, and we came up to shore so we could head back to Nosara and our comfortable hotel with hot showers and a nice bed.

HOWEVER...one of the drivers had called and said that the smaller rivers had turned into semi-major rivers, becoming impassable, and there was no way for us to get back at night. We hadn't brought anything with us except cameras, so we only had the soaking-wet clothes we were wearing. We stayed in a very small, simple but clean hotel, and waited until morning to try to head back to Nosara. We were told by the locals that if it didn’t rain during the night, the rivers should be down enough that our drivers would again be able to transport us back. But…naturally, it rained hard all night because of that third tropical storm that had just hit CR. At that point, many people told us it could be days before we made it back to Nosara! (Not the kind of news we were wanting to hear at that time...) Thankfully, we contacted our drivers, who ended up saying as long as we were willing to walk a few extra kilometers than before, they'd be willing to pick us up at our pick-up points. We walked through some above knee-deep water, and our drivers drove through some large amounts of water, but we finally made it back.

As this entry has gotten quite lengthy, I’ll finish up about the rain and let David write more later about other details and stories about the trip.

When we got back to San Jose, we found out that we are experiencing more rain here in CR than they've seen in the last 30 years. We had 3 tropical storms in 2 weeks, 18 people have died due to the storms, and many areas are flooding and have landslides - it's crazy. The roads are in the worst condition we've seen, with huge potholes, some that look like they could be ponds, and mini-rivers crossing over the roads. After dropping off the Hilles at the airport, David and I headed back to QERC, and we found out that the main highway through CR that leads back to QERC was closed due to a huge landslide. We had to take about an hour detour through some rough roads and into another valley. I came back into the city on Monday and got to see it firsthand, that not only was it just a landslide, but it took the whole road with it. The buses took us partway, and at the point where there was no road, we got out and walked along a 30-foot stretch on a path about 2-3 feet wide. On the other side of the landslide was another bus, waiting to take us the rest of the way into San Jose.

Si or No, An Important Decision

David: The big day has come and gone. On September 7th Costa Rica had a nation wide vote to either accept or reject the Central American Free Trade agreement. Costa Rica is the last of the Central American countries to decide upon this agreement. Many Costa Ricans think that the other Central American countries hastily agreed to CAFTA without truly looking at the implications. Costa Rica took the opposite route and locked up the CAFTA vote in congress for four years and when it looked like the congress would never be able to decide the president decided to put it to a popular vote and let the people decide their own fate.

The referendum vote was set for September 7th and both sides started their campaigns to convince the people to vote either si or no. The “yes” side claims that CAFTA will create more jobs, further development, improve public services, etc. The “no” side says that there are too many parts of the agreement that do not put Costa Rica and the U.S. on the same playing field and the U.S. has many more benefits from it than Costa Rica would. The kind of development that CAFTA would bring is not the kind of development that will improve the lives of the people here, only the lives of those who are already rich. In the end, the CAFTA agreement pulls rank on a country’s constitution, just as NAFTA does. If Costa Rica ratified CAFTA they would essentially be allowing their sovereign national rights be 2nd place to the rights of a trade agreement.


So, the vote was this last Sunday and we happen to be in the city in the morning and back here in the valley in the afternoon. The patriotism was impressive. We saw si and no representatives all day. We thought we would document a little of the excitement with a few pictures.

At the end of the day CAFTA was passed by just a 3% margin which represents about 50,000 people. Now begins the process of implementing the agreement. To be honest, Sarah and I are disappointed because we feel that this agreement is not in the best interest of the majority of Costa Ricans. And it does not make easier the already difficult task of protecting the environment, God’s creation. CAFTA jeopardizes the rules and regulations Costa Rica’s government has in place to protect the land, air, and water. It will be interesting to see what changes will occur in the next decade and will they be considered positive or negative. We hope that Costa Ricans will continue to exhibit the behavior they are known for, pride in their land and their quality of lives. Hopefully they will always fight to maintain this pride.

San Jose

Sarah: You all know that I now go into the city for 2 nights a week to receive extra Spanish tutoring and to work part-time for the Latin American Studies Program (LASP). Here is what that looks like: every Tuesday morning David drives me up to the bus stop, about 45 minutes away, where I catch the bus heading into San Jose. Once the bus reaches the city, I get off and take a taxi into work. I stay with a family nearby on Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights, and then after work on Thursday I catch the bus back out to the valley and David picks me up at the top of the hill. Often it works out for David to join me for part of the week as he uses the time to run errands in the city, and I always enjoy that!

My family that I live with is wonderful. They are a Nicaraguan family, and they live relatively close to the office. It’s only about a 20 minute walk for me every morning and afternoon. Aminta is my mother, and I have a brother, Sergio, and a sister, Claudia. AND a really great dog, Ramon. We usually sit around and do homework in the evenings while watching TV, both in Spanish and English. They are a super laid-back family. Aminta works incredibly hard (she works for the Nicaraguan Embassy here in CR), and she’s up before all of us cooking and usually goes to bed fairly late as well. Almost every single day, after she gets home from a long day of work, she goes to put on her red sweatpants. And almost every day, she receives a bit of mocking by her children for wearing those red sweatpants! Claudia just about had a cow one evening when she went grocery shopping in her red sweatpants! They are a very loving family, and they pick on each other a lot and laugh a lot. The dog provides for a lot of entertainment as well – he seems to think he owns the bean bag chair, and will push anyone off that tries to sit on it. He has a great personality and is a really fun-loving dog.

The Spanish tutoring has been such a great experience. I meet with two different teachers, once a week with each of them. Harold and I meet Wednesday morning, and we go through some Spanish exercises using pictures or situations to get me using new vocabulary or a certain tense in Spanish. Harold keeps a sheet of paper in front of him, and every time I make a mistake, he is quick to write it down for me to see. :) Eli and I meet Thursday mornings. I always have homework waiting for me when I get into the city on Tuesday – some reading about politics, religion, or other topics – and then we use the time Thursday morning to discuss it. Both teachers draw different trouble areas out of me, and I only wish that I could meet with them every day of the week!

Work has also been going well. I work in the afternoons Tuesday – Thursday, and it’s been really great to work with the LASP staff. And I have found that I also really enjoy working on “administrative tasks”. It’s also fun being in the city. I’ve had some interesting taxi rides – most taxi drivers don’t say hardly a word, but some are fairly entertaining and seem to want to have a full conversation. One taxi driver ended up talking about how he loves languages, Portuguese in particular. I told him that I had spent some time in Brazil, and that was enough encouragement for him to speak in Portuguese to me the rest of the ride. I tried my best to respond in Portuguese, though most of what came out was Spanish with a Portuguese word thrown in here and there. He even went so far as to start singing Christian praise songs for me in Portuguese! Another taxi driver and I had a conversation about politics, languages, and economics on our ride. He actually told me he thought I was Russian…I’m not sure what that says about my Spanish accent!

Weekend Normalcy

David: Around here the weekends can easily slip into the oblivion with the rest of the week without being recognized. We don’t have anyone that makes sure we show up for work on Monday morning and stay ‘til five but in the same line of thinking there are many times that work is required of us on weekend days. For that matter, working on projects on Saturday and Sunday just doesn’t seem different from working on Monday – Friday.

Because of this, Sarah and I do our best to make a weekend for ourselves whenever we can. We sleep in, which isn’t hard. We work on whatever sounds appealing to work on. We watch movies and football and read books. On Sundays we do our best to listen to an Ipod sermon from Faith Community Church, the church we attended in Santa Cruz, CA. It is our little church service.

One of our more consistent events on the weekends is visiting the Cottage Bakery ran by Laura Saborio, our Canadian friend who is married to a tico here in the valley. They have a daughter, Erika. Laura makes world class pastries that we indulge ourselves in every weekend. She has a deck that she has turned into a sitting area that creates a neat little coffee house feeling. We always enjoy great food, beverages, and conversation.

Happy Independence Day!

Sarah: Today we celebrated Costa Rica’s Independence Day. Ana, QERC’s housekeeper, had asked David yesterday if he wanted to ride horses up to the top of the valley to the highway and watch the passing of the torch. He asked if I could come too, and her response was “Well…it’s a long way up there…”. However, I decided to brave the long horse ride and go along. The passing of the torch is a really neat tradition. A couple days ago the official torch was lit up in the Guanacaste area of Costa Rica and people have been traveling around the country, passing the torch off to different towns and cities along the way to take it to the next destination. A group of runners left this morning from Cartago at 1:00 am and the plan was to make it to the top of our valley at 7:00 am for the next handoff.

David and I met at Ana and her husband Felo’s house at 5:00 am this morning, had some coffee and a quick breakfast, and hopped on the horses. Apparently it’s an old tradition to ride all the way up the valley on horses (at least for the men to do so…part way up I realized I was the only female!), so there were about 20 of us total. The women drive up with the kids and lots of coffee and more breakfast foods. After an hour and a half ride up, we made it just in time for the torch to arrive. Along with it came the runners and a bus full of people traveling with the torch. It actually felt like Independence Day, with flags everywhere and the torch preceded by police cars waving flags and honking their horns.

In addition to the Costa Rican flags being flown, there were lots of signs and flags showing their position against TLC, which is the Spanish version of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). This has been a huge issue for Costa Rica ever since last year’s presidential elections, when one candidate was in support of ratifying the agreement and another candidate was against it. Costa Rica is the only Central American country who has not signed the agreement with the U.S. Oscar Arias won the election last year, and although he was in support of TLC, it has been such a huge debate in the country that it has been decided to go to an all-country vote. The vote will take place in October, and it will be the first countrywide vote since Costa Rica gained its Independence. Our valley is predominantly against TLC, since they are all small farmers and TLC would bring an influx of multi-national factory farms that would basically put them out of business.

At the passing of the torch ceremony this morning, a few people spoke about the tradition and some good patriotic stuff, we all greeted each other, and then the group left for the next town. All of us from the valley then hung around the cars and all the food the women had brought up. The ride down on the horse also took about 1 ½ hours. A couple of the kids got to ride along side-by-side or in the saddle with their fathers, including Carla, Ana and Felo’s youngest daughter. By the time we arrived back to the house, our buns had had enough of being in a saddle!

This evening we went to another celebration at the school in honor of Independence Day. We sang lots of patriotic songs and watched the school kids perform many typical Costa Rican dances. After the festivities we ate lots of typical Costa Rican foods. Last year at this time we had been in Costa Rica only a few days. We had gone to the school for the festivities, but the evening wasn’t nearly as extensive as this year’s, and we of course hardly knew anyone last year! It was such a great feeling to be a part of the passing of the torch and the school celebration this evening and feel like we are accepted members of the community here. Quite the difference one year has made!

Activity

David: We’ve had some activity out here at QERC, which is great news for the month of September. September is slow and rainy for everybody around here. But, against the normal trend, we had two groups staying with us this weekend.

The first group was seven LASP students who were simply here for a weekend to enjoy the cloud forest. Technically, that makes them tourists. But because we have such a close relationship with LASP we’ve taken the liberty to host them anyway. Nevertheless, they had a great weekend and enjoyed God’s creation.

The other group we had here was a Costa Rican married couple who are working on their PhD research. Juan and Melissa have been here in the past and will return again to complete their project. It is nice to continue a working relationship with them and see their project develop. They have chosen 3-4 communities in the Los Santos area to see if they can link forest conservation to a higher quality of living for those in the surrounding communities. It is an important idea because if well done research shows a correlation between a higher quality of living with conservation of natural environments, then communities can be encouraged to pursue conservation. Melissa works on the social aspect of the project in order to determine the quality of life within each community and Juan does the biological work to determine how much land is conserved while specifically looking at bird populations to determine disturbance of the natural environment. It is a 2-3 year project.

One of our overall goals is to make QERC an educationally interactive experience for anyone that walks onto our property whether they may be students, tourists, or neighbors. We feel like we’ve made some progress in doing this and it is a fun goal to have.

One of the projects we are hoping to have done before January is the native plant demonstration. Three sides of our building have flower beds with pretty ornamental flowers. What we are doing is tearing those out, cleaning up the beds, and replacing them with native plants that represent different areas of in the forest. The idea is that we will identify these plants, with the help of some botanists at The National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica, and put signs by the plants that have the family name, species name, and common name both in Spanish and English. We would love to see people walking around the building looking at the plants and learning a little at the same time. And when they hike in the forest the plants will catch their eyes and they will think to themselves with great satisfaction, “I know that plant. It is part of the Laladadabingbong family.”

Anyway, in the mornings we drive up into the forest and collect plants that fit into the overall scheme of our planting plan. It has been a lot of work along the way. We’ve had to redo much of the rock border and work around the rain. We just hope that all the plants make it.