Where the Wild Things Are

Sarah: The Osa Peninsula was fabulous. I’ll try my best to do it justice in this blog. We had the best time—it was so beautiful and wild and adventurous…the list could go on. We were the good kind of exhausted all week long—the kind of exhausted you get when you’ve had the longest most full day and you’re so hungry that everything tastes gourmet and anything feels good to sleep on. It was as if all of our senses were completely enriched for the entire week just because of all we saw and did. First off, let me explain that we were in San Jose on Saturday doing grocery shopping and taking a girl to the doctor because she blew a hole in her eardrum, so I was able to upload pictures without it taking hours. Thus all the pictures in this entry. :) AND…David is working on a recap of his first two weeks with the ESC (Environmental Science Concentration), so that will come soon as well.

So here goes…Monday morning we left at 3 a.m. on a bus down south. We arrived at the town of Sierpe in time for breakfast, all of us exhausted from very little sleep, and sweaty from all of a sudden switching to a very hot and humid climate. But that was only the beginning. After breakfast we got on a boat and met up with our biologist for the week, Pablo. Within our 2 hour boat ride to our destination, we stopped at some mangroves. They were fascinating. The students got out and walked along the root systems of the mangroves while Pablo taught about them. The rest of the boat ride was beautiful, and we even saw dolphins along the way.

We arrived in the Osa Peninsula at the Campanario Biological Research Station. Nancy, a North American, is in charge of the research station and was there to greet us as we stepped off the boat—the only way to get to this part of the country. She gave us the ins and outs of the facility—they use all solar energy, use all their rain water for showers, and recycle and compost everything—obviously, no trash trucks are able to make it out to that area—and Nancy also gave us the “be careful of poisonous snakes” talk. I was excited! Though we’d already had a long day, it was only noon. We ate lunch and had a quick rest before setting out for our first hike. Our group was split up into two groups for almost the whole week to make it easier to see things while hiking. Already on our first hike we saw lizards and spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys off in the distance. After a short talk by Nancy that evening, we were all too happy to crash in our beds.

Tuesday was our big hiking day. My group went on a long 4 ½ hour hike in the morning. We saw lots of birds, learned about all kinds of trees, and quite possible sweat more than we ever had in our entire lives. In the afternoon we switched, so my group had 2 activities. We hiked to this new “challenge” that they have set up—on one of their very large trees they have a very skinny ladder leading up to a platform very high off the ground. We got strapped in and were belayed up the tree, and after resting for a while and enjoying the view, we rappelled back down. It wasn’t quite as adventurous as the high ropes we did while working at Mission Springs, but it was still a rush for me being afraid of heights. The other part of our afternoon was hiking over to this VERY large tree, complete with a hole that we could climb down into. We took turns and took a flashlight down with us and were able to see a few roosting bats inside the tree trunk. Pretty cool.

Tuesday night we walked over to some bat caves nearby and waited until dusk when they all came out. And out they all did come. We saw thousands of bats flying out of the caves, and one of our projects was to catch about 10 of them. We took the 10 back with us and weighed them and recorded information about them, and almost everyone got a chance to either touch or even put gloves on and hold a bat! By this time if there was a student who wasn’t hooked on the trip before, they were at that point. Even in spite of the intense humidity and heat and long days with full schedules.

Wednesday we got up early and took a bus down along the coast (beautiful boat ride!) and were dropped off at Corcovado National Park. This is some of the most untouched land in all of Costa Rica and is known as the most biologically intense place on earth. We set off in our two groups, with only the intention of exploring and seeing anything possible. Our day started off great when we came across a troupe of squirrel monkeys (my favorites!). Those were the only kinds of monkeys the students hadn’t seen yet, so that was a real treat. We also got to see some large crocodiles swimming toward us in the river. Other than that, we really hit home on the mammals. We saw lots of monkeys (spider, squirrel and howler), coatimundis, a tamandua (type of anteater), agoutis, and the kicker—we saw a tapir. This is related to a horse, but looks like a mix between a horse, pig, and elephant. We first saw its tracks along the beach by the river, and our guide followed them until he found the tapir sleeping in a thicket. All of us crawled into the thicket a little bit, until we were about 5 feet away from the sleeping tapir. I think it looked like a small deformed elephant!

Thursday we got up and took another boat ride out to an island, where we got a chance to do a lot of snorkeling. It wasn’t the most colorful I’ve ever seen, but we saw some exciting things. Almost all of us got to see a sea turtle swim right past us, which was especially neat for the students who had seen sea turtles laying eggs on a beach only weeks before. And three people, David included, saw a shark. Out of the 5 man-eating sharks in the world, 4 of them can be found in the waters around that island. Not usually in the reefs where we were snorkeling, but nearby! And David happened to see a shark swim pretty much right under him...not a man-eating one, but a large one anyway. What a thrill.

So that about sums up our trip to the Osa Peninsula…I can’t believe we got to go to a place like that! Now that we’re back, the students are realizing they only have about 3 weeks left here in Costa Rica. Most of them are stressing about getting all their work done, so we had a meeting last night to help organize and plan what the next 3 weeks will look like. And after a few weeks of early mornings and early-to-bed evenings, their sleeping schedule has completely switched. On top of that, we are starting to transition back into a time where it is only sunny here in the mornings and a good chance of rain in the afternoons, so it is good that everyone is used to taking advantage of the morning hours. We’ll see if that kind of schedule can continue for them for the rest of the semester…