Business Trip

David says:

Yesterday was Taiwanese culture day in la plaza de cultura downtown San Jose. It seemed very appropriate because Friday night Sarah and I got together with a Costa Rican friend of Matt Chitwood who Matt met in Taiwan. We met Jose and his family and went out to dinner with them. It was great to make the connection.

We came into San Jose Friday morning because our 13 SNU students are joining LASP for their cultural trip to Limon to study racial equality in Costa Rica. It should be a great trip for them. And Sarah and I needed to come in to San Jose to rent a car until our Isuzu Trooper is released to us and also to buy the next round of food supplies. We are now responsible for purchasing the food for the student group. We are hoping that we can limit it to a trip into the city once every two weeks. Anyway, we can’t pick up the car until Sunday morning so we are using the extra time to see some movies and enjoy being in the city. Friday we saw Children of Men, which was an interesting movie. Last night we got together with Sophia, my Costa Rican sister, and her friends to see Babel. This is also interesting and well done. Today we will make several stops on the way out of town in order to pick up a number of different supplies for the students.

Interesting Cultural Tidbit: I learned this today in a taxi ride when I was sneezing. If you sneeze once they say “salud” (health), if you sneeze twice they say “dinero” (money), if you sneeze three times they say “amor” (love), and if you sneeze a fourth time they will say “perdio todo” (you lost it all). It’s pretty funny when you get the sneezes.

Funny Story: On Friday night we spent the night at LASP’s sabbatical house. On Saturday morning when we left we put the keys on the table as we locked the front door behind us. The thing about front doors in Costa Rica is that they are preceded by a carport gate that is locked and then a driveway gate that is locked as well. So when we locked the front door with the keys inside and then realized the carport gate was locked, we realized that we were locked out of the house but also locked into the carport. We were in trouble and it felt like we were caged animals in a zoo. So the next 20 minutes consisted of Sarah and I finding wide enough openings in the gate that we could possibly squeeze through. We ended up being able to push the gate open enough that we could crawl 10 feet up and through a small hole. I passed all of our stuff through the hole to Sarah and then followed. It wasn’t too hard and it didn’t look too suspicious since we were trying to break out and not in.

People everywhere!

Sarah: Whew! Quite a bit has happened since we last wrote. Our busyness has picked up enough that it’s been difficult to stay on top of blogging. We promise to at least TRY to do a better job, for those of you who are faithful in looking for updates from us. :)

First, our boss (Wes) flew in from Southern Nazarene University (SNU) to help prepare for the semester program for the SNU students. David met him in San Jose and they did some looking around to price items that would help us set up our new kitchen facilities. They arrived here in San Gerardo de Dota around the same time we were welcoming our first group of the year to QERC. They were a group of 18 from Spring Arbor University, and David got to do the hosting for the few days they were here. He led them on hikes and was even their guest speaker. They were a fun bunch of students who were spending a few weeks in Costa Rica traveling around and learning about different ecosystems and organizations throughout the country. It was good preparation for our new students to come!

While they were here, and the few days we had to work with after they left, David and Wes spent the majority of their days in the bodega (our garage/storage area), turning it into a functional kitchen. To this day I still can’t believe they accomplished it, but with David’s organizational skills and Wes’s gift in electrical work, it is finished. It will be great to have use of this new kitchen, so that the students can have a hand in preparing their own meals, and so that they don’t become tired of the repetition of eating at the restaurant every day.

During this time, our students arrived in San Jose. David, Wes and I drove into the city to pick them up last Monday and we spent the rest of the week going through an orientation with the rest of the students who also arrived to participate with LASP (Latin American Studies Program). We will be doing some traveling and listening to some guest speakers with them throughout the semester, so it was a good experience both groups to meet and get to know each other a little bit. Plus, the LASP staff does an incredible job of preparing students to fully experience another culture, so it was great for our students to be a part of that training. I stayed with the students the whole week, while David and Wes returned to finish the kitchen and make sure everything was in order for our arrival.

We arrived here at QERC a week ago on Friday night and dinner was even ready for us in our new facility. Everyone got settled in and after a quick intro to QERC and a short debriefing of orientation, we all were able to sleep peacefully here in the valley. Saturday the students had a short Spanish interview with their new Spanish teacher, Paola, and then were able to relax and do some exploring to finish off the weekend.

This past week has been busy as the students have been taking their Spanish classes and getting involved studying their other classes through SNU. Most have been working on getting their research projects set up, and will hopefully begin their research soon. We also have been getting all ready for another group to join us! Talk about a full house--last night a group of students from Calvin College arrived to stay for a few nights. We are packed in and have NO extra space--our guys from SNU are even sleeping at another facility up the road! The leader of the Calvin crew is Dave Warners, who spent his sabbatical here a couple years ago. His family lived here at QERC for 6 months, so it has been great to share stories and learn from his wisdom--Dave is a true field biologist.

Anyway, with so much action going on, we are excited to be a part of these new developments, and are really looking forward to seeing how our SNU students adapt to the culture and jump into getting involved in the community this semester!

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano y Felicidad

Sarah says: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! This is a bit late for Christmas greetings, but the last post was so long that we thought it would be a bit overwhelming to add any more. :)

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day doing the Hille traditions, with the exception that it was warm and sunny here instead of snowy and cold. We ate a Christmas Eve dinner together and then opened gifts that night. We all took our turns secretly filling each others’ stockings with gifts we had gathered over the past year, and then Jordan, Rusty, Jenna, David and I fell asleep out in the lounge area upstairs watching “Elf”, for another Hille Christmas Eve tradition. Christmas Day we woke up and all had fun opening our stockings, and headed out for a hike late morning (not a normal tradition!). Everyone made it to the waterfall and we took turns carrying the kids so they could experience it too.

The day after Christmas some of us took off on another short hike to see more of the cloud forest here in the valley. We saw some beautiful birds along the way. Anthony Chamberlain and his family, plus some extended family (11 total) came in the afternoon to stay overnight as well. It’s a blessing that we have a big building and can host lots of people at a time, so friends of ours can feel free to bring their families to see this part of Costa Rica.

On the 27^th we got up early and left QERC, with a stop at our friend Mirian’s house for breakfast again and some more good looks at the quetzals. From there we headed on to Manuel Antonio, where we spent the rest of our time with the Hilles. After a quick lunch, David and his parents and Rusty and Jenna took off to do a zipline, while Jordan and I stayed back with Gracelyn and Gabriel. While we had fun playing in the pool and taking naps, the others were flying from tree to tree. They came back with hours of stories and convinced Jordan and I that we might even be up for it someday.

The next day we got up early and headed into Manuel Antonio National Park. Right away we saw iguanas and an agouti, and after hiking around a little bit we saw white-faced capuchin monkeys and a number of 3-toed sloths. After hiking up to the lookout, we spent quite a while on the beach swimming in the ocean. Once we felt like we were hungry enough to leave the park, we headed back to the hotel. As we were hanging out in the afternoon, Jordan spotted some squirrel monkeys on the rooftops. We headed over to check it out and a nice family gave us bananas to feed to them! That night we ate dinner at a restaurant that was made out of an airplane where we were able to see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Friday we got up and left, and stopped near Jaco beach to take a tram ride through the jungle. It was a beautiful view, and one last hurrah before reaching our final destination of San Jose. For our last night, we went to Fogo Brasil, a Churrascaria. David and I have been to a Churrascaria actually in Brasil and we were excited to experience it again. It’s an all you can eat buffet, and the waiters will continually bring out different kinds of meat until you tell them you’re full. It was a fun way to spend our last evening together.

The Hilles left on Saturday, and David and I found ourselves back at QERC alone once again. New Years came at an interesting time for us, as we were kind of looking forward to some down time and sleep! We were able to make it to midnight, and finally found a channel on TV around 11:30 that was showing New Years celebrations. Today it was back to work, as we have some new and exciting changes happening here at QERC. In just one week, 12 students from Southern Nazarene University (SNU) will be arriving in Costa Rica to spend a semester studying abroad. They will spend the majority of their time here at QERC, and will be joining LASP (the program David and I studied through 5 years ago) for certain activities and excursions. Before the students come, we will also be hosting a group of 18 students from Arbor Spring University to spend a couple days here at QERC. So, David and I are finding ourselves with quite a bit to do in the next week! We are excited to see these new changes take place at QERC and are thankful that we can be a part of it.

May God bless every one of you as this New Year begins!

Around Costa Rica in 20 days

David: Our December expeditions have continued and the goal of reaching every corner of Costa Rica in one month is not far off. That really is not our goal and even if it was we wouldn’t be close, but, it sure seems like we have been traversing back and forth across the country and enjoying almost every minute of it.

On December 15^th we set out with Dad Hille, Mom Hille, and little sis Jenna to breathe in the fresh air of the Orosi Valley and pickup up some national history along the way. We visited “las ruinas” (the ruins) and Our Lady of Angels Basilica in Cartago, as well as the ruins of the first church in Costa Rica in Ujarras. The end of the driving tour left us with miles of driving through sugar cane fields to get to our night destination, Turrialba. From Turrialba we enjoyed great views of Irazu and Turrialba Volcanoes.

The volcanoes were not what lured us to Turrialba, it was the world class white water rafting that did. On the morning of the 16^th we embarked upon a world-class challenge led by our friends at Tico River Adventures. Our destination was the town of Siquirres down on the Caribbean slope and the only thing between us were the breathtaking and gut dropping class III and IV rapids of the Pacuare River. The Pacuare River is ranked in the top five for the most beautiful rivers in the world. It lived up to its hype. It was about 5 hours of virgin rainforest. When we weren’t loving the scenery we were holding on for dear life and getting drenched by pleasantly warm rapids. It was awesome and a huge thrill.

After a few mishaps and “advice” from the locals we ended up staying in a small little community called Parismina down on the Caribbean ocean. We thought we were just going to stay at a hotel at the river port city of Cano Blanco, but when we got there they said the only place to stay was about 5 minutes down the river by boat. So, in complete darkness we cruised down this river only to be dropped off in a quaint little town with no cars and all of their streets were sand. Lodging, dinner, and even where we were was all a little bit unknown, but when we left the next morning to head back to Cano Blanco, Parismina had won us over.

We met up with the Evergreen Lodge in Cano Blanco and we boarded another boat that took us 1 ½ hours into Tortuguero National Park for 3 days and 2 nights of a sweet and raw jungle experience. Tortuguero is an area that most tourists don’t get to experience and it is fantastic. Our time at Evergreen Lodge, where our cabins were situated back in the tropical jungle, included three official tours on the boat and much more time just in transit as well. We spent a lot of time on the river with our guide Willis. We saw a ton of wildlife including hundreds of water birds, a Three-toed Sloth, Howler Monkeys, White-faced Capuchins, Spider Monkeys (which are the most endangered monkey species in Costa Rica due to habitat loss), an American Crocodile, and Speckled Caimans. The mosquitoes were plentiful and viscous as well. And at the end of the day we were serenaded to sleep by the sounds of a very active jungle.

Our time in Tortuguero was definitely a highlight but it had to end for a very good reason. We needed to get back into San Jose to pickup Jordan (big sis), Rusty, and the two little whipper snappers, Gracelyn and Gabriel. We had one more little adventure in the city before we picked up the rest of the Hille fam the next morning. The five of us caught a taxi out to Tibas and had dinner with my host family from when I was a student. It turned out to be a wonderful evening and very special for me to have two different worlds collide.

The 20^th brought new destinations and new life with the Roth foursome gracing Costa Rica with their presence. We picked them up and headed straight to Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. The roads were in hecka bad condition but the drive was “Sound of Music” worthy. The Monteverde cloud forest is one of the better-known cloud forests in the country, but it is very different from where we are at QERC. We had a good hike the next morning and after lunch set off for the second highlight of the expedition, Arenal Volcano. We enjoyed 2 nights at hotel Montana de Fuego and had an up close and personal view of the most picturesque volcano in Costa Rica. Arenal is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. We were treated to a beautiful showing of lava flowing on the volcano early in the morning of the 22^nd and the rest of the day we had spectacular views as we hiked in the national park.

On the 23^rd we returned to QERC to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It was good to be home and to share our home with the whole family. For my mom’s birthday we asked Liseth to fix a traditional Costa Rican meal along with the scrumptious Tres Leches cake. It was a surprise to my mom, and Liseth, Rigo, and Jeanette joined us for dinner.

Changes

Sarah: Well, for our last full day with our friends, we planned a trip to head to one of the highest peaks in Costa Rica, Cerro de la Muerte (Death Hill), and hike from that point all the way down to QERC. We spent the night before discussing possible animals we might see and were getting really excited for the hike. We got a ride up early morning to the top of the hill, but unfortunately, it was all cloudy up top. From that high point, we can possibly see both coasts on a clear day, but no such luck for us on Monday. Still, we began the trek down and it was fun to go through the different ecosystems. At the top is paramo, which was very tundra-like. Then we reached the elfin forest, which is a stunted forest with dwarfed trees. Finally, we reached the primary growth forest that had huge oak trees. By this point we arrived to the point where the trail connected up to a trail on our property. It was a beautiful hike; however, less than halfway through it started raining and never let up. So, we didn’t see any of the animals we were excited to see, and we ended up hiking the trail a lot faster than anticipated because of the pouring rain. As a result, we were all tired and sore the next day!

On Tuesday we got up early and packed up, and headed back toward the city. We made a short trip out of the way in hopes of seeing Irazu Volcano, but again it was very cloudy and once we got there we decided to turn around. At that point it was a sad time, as we had to take Stacie to the airport and say our goodbyes to her. It was really great for me to have a good friend here, and super fun to explore and travel with her—Stacie gets excited over EVERYTHING. :) After dropping her off, we had to say our goodbyes to Micah and Kevin and Paul. They are now off on their own traveling around the country in their own rented car. We also had a great time with them, and really it was just great for David and me to have familiar friends around to hang out with.

Tuesday afternoon we ran some errands around the city, and then our adventures continued because we went back to the airport to pick up David’s parents and younger sister Jenna. It was really great to see them and spend the evening together. Today we got up and walked around the city for a while, and eventually hit up the grocery store and made it back to QERC. It was a pretty low-key day, which was great for us all since we are all tired from traveling. It’s been a lot of fun to show family a bit of our life here and around our home in Costa Rica!

Fun in the sun

Sarah: To continue on…last Wednesday we left with our friends around midday to head south to the beach. On our way out we stopped to look at some quetzals, which are phenomenal birds. Absolutely gorgeous. We then traveled to a beach called Dominical, and arrived just as the sun was setting on the ocean. Micah has a friend who spent some time in Costa Rica, and she had a connection through a church in Dominical. We hooked up with the church and joined them for their time of worship that evening, enjoying both the Spanish and the English translations. Micah and Kevin and Paul decided to stay at the church to sleep, and David and Stacie and I opted for a super cheap hotel on the beach. We decided that we’d enjoy our time better if we had a bed to sleep in rather than on the hard tile floor of the church.

Thursday we got up and the 3 boys went surfing all morning, and Stacie and David and I headed into Hacienda Baru, a National Wildlife refuge, to do some hiking. We had a great time exploring the area, and some of the highlights were seeing a Tamandua (an anteater) sleeping in a tree, lots of basilisk lizards (commonly called the Jesus Christ lizard because they run across water), iguanas, lots of skinks, and David saw LOTS of birds. But the highlight of them all was when a 5-foot snake slithered across the trail and we got a good look at it. Stacie and I were convinced it was a pit viper, but David claims it wasn’t poisonous. Still, we got a big thrill out of seeing it so close! Thursday afternoon Stacie and David went out to try surfing with the other three boys. The water was so warm it almost wasn’t refreshing! Close to sunset we all drove back to the wildlife refuge to check out the anteater again and look for monkeys, but we missed the monkeys again.

Friday the boys got up to surf again, and we all took off late morning and headed south to Palmar Norte. There we showed up at Liseth’s in-laws again (remember when we went there a few months ago with Liseth and Rigo?). Vera was absolutely thrilled to have us all there and even had one of her daughters there to help make us a special lunch. Unfortunately, her idea of a special lunch wasn’t exactly what we would have requested to have—we ate liver!! Being the good guests that we were, we all choked it down and praised her for making such a great meal. We toured their farm again and it was great to be able to continue that relationship with them. On our way back up north we stopped at a beautiful beach—Ventanas. There was no one on the beach, and it was beautiful! There were a couple of caves that you could actually swim through, but Micah was the only one brave (or stupid) enough to try it and he came back scraped up and talking about a near-death experience. We made it to Manuel Antonio in time to find a super cheap hotel to stay in, and as we were checking out the hotel there was a group of about 30 squirrel monkeys hopping around on the roofs and trees all around us! Later that evening after we ate, we came across a 3-toed sloth crawling right above us from a telephone wire onto a tree. I’ve never seen a sloth so close, and it was great to see one active since they sleep for 20 hours a day!

Saturday we got up early and headed into the national park with dreams of seeing more animals and beautiful beaches. We weren’t disappointed! We hiked all over and swam in the warm ocean at one of the beautiful beaches inside the park, and saw lots of exciting things. The highlights were seeing howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins (monkeys) really really close to us, a raccoon stealing some food off a picnic table, lots of lizards, tons of hermit crabs, a group of about a dozen coatimundis crossing right in front of us, another active 3-toed sloth, and a few more agoutis. It was unbelievable! Right after lunch we decided that we’d already seen everything and hiked everywhere, so we headed back to QERC. We made it back here in time to make dinner (with a minor setback of having the power go out for about an hour) and get a good night sleep.

Today we woke up and went up to the church, where there was a mass and celebration of two young people having their first communion. One of those kids was Liseth's son Diego, who was looking very handsome all dresssed up. It was a fun service to go to, and Diego was both embarrassed and proud to have us there to support him. Following the service was lunch and Bingo, but we hadn't known about that in advance so we decided to head back home instead. We ate lunch and played a game of Carcassonne, and then Stacie and I headed off for the waterfall. It was a gorgeous walk, with clouds rolling in and out. The waterfall was still very powerful and flowing with lots of water. Tonight we had a big dinner and then sat around planning our adventure for tomorrow...

Week of Adventures

Sarah: Whew! What a week. I’ll try to summarize everything that’s happened in the past week, with the hopes that this doesn’t get TOO long. We started the week by traveling back into San Jose last Monday. We were able to visit the LASP office and even sit in on one of their guest speakers (a homosexual pastor, very interesting). That evening we went out to eat with Trevor and Laura, and more of the staff came along too—the intern Christina (who happens to be from Spokane), and Krystal. Trevor and Laura treated us all to a great Italian dinner and ice cream for dessert. We spent the night at Trevor and Laura’s—they live in a beautiful house on the edge of the city, and have 5 baby kittens to play with.

Tuesday we got up EARLY to leave for Nicaragua. After a long day of travel and meeting interesting people, we made it to the beach town of San Juan del Sur. For the next 2 days we spent chilling in the small town and hanging out on the beach. We met even more interesting people, and took a trip to a nearby beautiful beach known for good surfing. It was a major surf crowd, complete with the long hair. For us, it was great to be back in Nicaragua. Though it’s so close to Costa Rica, it’s a completely different country. In this particular small town, there were plenty of people living in poverty, and there were also tourists with lots of money, some who were already purchasing property to build big houses on. Friday morning we got up early to catch the Transnica bus back to Costa Rica. We even found some of the same people on our bus back, who had done the same thing by crossing into Nicaragua to renew their visas. We met people from all over—the couple from Israel, a couple from New Zealand, a couple from England, a guy from Quebec, lots of other Canadians, and a guy we named “old man crazy”. He was our most memorable travel buddy—from New Orleans, and very quirky.

Friday we got back after a long day of travel and headed back to Trevor and Laura’s to spend the night again. Saturday we got up and they had a big breakfast prepared, and Alex came to join us. Alex was a professor when we were students, and we hadn’t had a chance to catch up with him yet. He was one of our favorites—an Afro-Costa Rican who is one of the most suave guys ever. It was fun to reminisce about our semester, and to chat more with the staff from a staff prospective. We spent the rest of the day running errands in San Jose, waiting for our first guest to arrive. Stacie flew in late Saturday night, and it was so fun to see her! We went back to the sabbatical house and stayed up late talking and catching up. Sunday morning we got up to finish some Christmas shopping in the city, and then headed back out to the airport to pick up the rest of our guests.

Micah, Kevin, and a guy named Paul who is friends with the other two flew in midday on Sunday. We packed the Volvo completely full, squashed in, and set off to our first destination. We made it to La Selva, which is a biological research station on the Caribbean side, in time to take a hike before dinner. It was absolutely incredible there. The facilities are great, and the wildlife was unbelievable. After dinner we took another really fun hike in the dark—and being in the jungle at night was like being in the 100 Acre Woods with Winnie the Pooh, complete with all the jungle sounds. Monday we got to go on a guided hike with Max for 3 hours, which was really fun since we were all or are currently Naturalists to be in the reversed role. Monday it rained the entire time during our hike, but that made it even more adventurous. Overall, some of the highlights we saw were: blue jeans poison dart frogs, a 2-toed sloth, toucans, an agouti, iguanas that jump into the river, a white bat, a snake, leaf-cutter ants, lots of parrots, peccaries, and we heard howler monkeys off in the distance. The birders of the group were in paradise, since there are about 450 species of birds in that one area. Everyone loved being there and it was fun to experience it together.

We started to head back into San Jose after a good trip, and when we were about a half hour from the city, the Volvo all of a sudden quit working. It happened to be in a bad spot—right along the highway, and of course we didn’t have cell phone reception. A nice guy pulled over and David and I got a ride to the nearest restaurant, about 15 kilometers away, while the others stayed back with the car. We called Anthony, since it was his car, and he ended up driving out to pick us up and pull the Volvo back in. Unfortunately, we were planning on making it back to QERC that night, and we were delayed enough that we had to stay in San Jose for the night. The whole thing took hours, and we made it back to the sabbatical house late for a short night of sleep. Monday was a very long day!

Tuesday we got up early and headed back to QERC. We got here to find sunshine—we are now officially in the summer. After sleeping and being nice and lazy for a while, we took off for a hike late in the day. We made it to the top of the trail just as it was turning dark, and hiked down the trail in the dark. It was fun to do a night hike, and we even had a sparkle party (an activity from Mission Springs night hikes). It’s been good to have a home base and do laundry and catch up on sleep.

Today is Wednesday, and we are planning on taking off soon to spend a few days beach-hopping. We’ll keep you posted…

Weekend Report

Sarah: Here’s one last blog entry before we leave the country. Yesterday we had a group of LASP students come visit us. There was one student, Shawn, who is a student at SNU so he had wanted to come visit his campus here in Costa Rica. Trevor, who is a professor at LASP, and his wife Laura came and brought Shawn and 3 other students. We had met Laura last week (we took a day trip into San Jose to switch cars with Anthony), but it was great getting to meet Trevor and spending some time with the two of them. They have a big house in San Jose and have offered to let us stay in their guest room when we make our trips into the city. With the group we hiked to the waterfall in the morning when they arrived, and then came back to hang out at QERC and have lunch together. In the afternoon we actually hiked La Quebrada trail so they could see even more of the property and get a good feel for the cloud forest. It was really fun to host some students and it was great to take a break from working and get back out on the trails.

Today we got an invitation from Efrain and Caridad and Maria Elena to have dinner with them. It was perfect timing, because the next month will be pretty busy for us. And I would have to say that Caridad definitely outdid my meal. We got spinach and egg soup (it was really good) and cooked veggies and bread and even fresh cooked trout straight from the nearby trout ponds. It was such a great meal and it was neat to continue to build the relationship with them.

Tomorrow we leave to go back into the city, and then EARLY Tuesday morning we leave for Nicaragua (we’re talking 5:30 in the morning departure). Every three months we need to leave the country to renew our visas, so it’s coming up on that time and is really hard to believe we’ve been here that long already. We’ll be staying 3 nights at a small lazy surf town and we’re excited to do some relaxing in the sun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

David: Happy Thanksgiving! Sarah and I just celebrated our first Thanksgiving outside of the U.S. Needless to say, the pilgrims didn’t make it to Costa Rica, just the conquistadors and Spanish imperialism, so there wasn’t much of a holiday. We would have gone to the beach or something but we leave really soon for Nicaragua to renew our visas so it didn’t seem like we needed to. We’ll spend our time in Nicaragua at a beach town called San Juan Del Sur. It is a sleepy surf town.

Well, we think we might have just made the turn toward summer. Our days switched from cloudy and rainy all day to having a lot of sun in the morning and rain in the afternoons. We are still getting quite a bit of rain, but it is slowing down. The sun is warmer and the nights are cooler and those are two signs of summer.

One of the projects we have been motivated to work on since we got here has been the room that is suppose to be the natural history museum. We have some exciting plans for it and when we shared those with Efrain a while ago we could see that he was excited about them. Since QERC was built in 2001 it has been a desire of the community to have the museum for their kids to explore and for tourists to be able to look at it. Efrain wants it to be an educational tool for everyone. So, it is very exciting for us that this week one of our ideas was completed. Laura, the Canadian woman who lives in the valley, just finished building and installing a really cool shelf system. It is made out of cypress and it has a lot of character to it. It is just a shelf, but it already adds a lot to the room and it will give us the space to display all kinds of fun things.

Today we had Liseth and two of her kids, Diego and Jeanette, over for pizza (Sarah's pizza is getting really good). Diego and Jeanette both are characters. I found out that Diego knows quite a bit about birds. He cruised through the bird book showing me everything that he sees here and it was impressive.

Dinner, connections, and beautiful birds

Sarah: We sure have had a couple of exciting days around here! Yesterday afternoon we spent putting things away and cleaning up some of our projects because Efrain and his wife, Caridad, and their daughter Maria Elena were going to come over for dinner. So, I have to admit I was a little stressed out with the idea of them coming to eat with us because I knew that the entire conversation would have to be in Spanish, and we would be entertaining them. But, out of respect we wanted to have Efrain over first before we invited any of his kids and their families over. So they arrived at 6:30 on the dot, and even brought me flowers! The whole evening was a success. We chatted for a bit while I was finishing putting everything on the table, and then sat down for a nice dinner. There were only a few times that the silence was long enough for David and I to rack our brains, trying to come up with another question, but overall it was great to have them here. After dinner we showed them some of the changes and progress we’ve made, and explained our vision for the museum, which we know is important to the community. They were very complimentary toward everything here. We feel like this was a big step in reaching out to the community and making more personal connections with the Chacones.

Today was another great day. We finally took advantage of having a car, and took off this morning to visit another biological research station nearby. We first drove to the top of Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death), and put David’s driving skills and the 4WD car to the test. Both passed, but we did get quite the ride out of it—the “road” isn’t the easiest to drive on! At the top of Cerro de la Muerte there is a point where on a clear day you can actually see both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Today, however, we were engulfed by clouds. It was still beautiful—a completely different ecosystem. Soon we plan on starting at the top and hiking down, which ends up connecting to one of our trails here in the valley.

We reached the Cerro de la Muerte research station and met the owner, Fredrico. He showed us around their small facility—very rustic and only for the hardcore biologists. It was so cold there even midday! Fredrico actually lives in San Jose (I don’t blame him) and they don’t have groups during this time of year (I don’t blame them, either). However, their property is beautiful and they get a variety of animals—he’s even seen a puma and plenty of tapirs, plus some other mammals that I’d never heard of! Fredrico even told a story that he was hiking on his trails and a tapir was in the way so he hit it on the butt to move so he could continue hiking. David and I decided we definitely want to do some hiking there in the future!

Here are some neat things about Fredrico that show what a small world this is—he has a son who lives in Polk City, Iowa and attended Iowa State University, so he’s been to Des Moines many times. This son was just offered a job through Pioneer, the company David worked at when he lived in Iowa before we were married. Fredrico also has a brother who lived in San Jose, California, for about 50 years—so he’s very familiar with the Santa Cruz area, where we lived and worked the last two years. And to make things even better, when he found out David was from Washington, Fredrico found more common ground with David by voicing his interest in Sasquatch. They proceeded to discuss folklore, stories, and tales of sightings of Sasquatch, the Chupacabra, and the Viejo del Monte. It was great to meet him and we look forward to pursuing that relationship in the future.

After we left that research station, we headed down the road to another biological station that used to be owned by Fredrico until he sold it to new owners. We briefly met with Carlos, one of the owners, who gave us a tour and explained how their field station operates. He actually lives there, and on their land they have both a farm that they live off of, and also a lot of land that they work to conserve. Their property is very simple and a bit rustic as well, but very comfortable and we really enjoyed it.

Finally, as we headed down into our own valley, we stopped at a place that has piqued our interest before. We have noticed this small restaurant that often has tourist vans parked in front with lots of people stopping by. So we stopped and met the couple that lives there, and they serve typical Costa Rican food, which attracts lots of tourists. But one of the main attractions is the fact that they have an aguacatillo tree right behind their house that many quetzals feed off of. The tree has already begun to fruit, which none of ours have farther down in the valley. So, we saw a couple quetzals super close! I was thrilled. We also saw some toucanets, another beautiful bird. This couple lays out food for the birds and they know all kinds of different whistling calls, and many birds come and eat and hang out around their property. It was great to meet them and make that connection, so in the future we can stop by and hopefully see more quetzals up close and personal!