Savegre Adventure Trek

David: QERC is located within Los Santos Forest Reserve. I didn’t realize how little I knew about Los Santos Forest Reserve until I just recently took a very enlightening and inspiring trek through the reserve with John Cossel. This all started because John is interested in developing a class for Freshmen biology majors at NNU that will give them an inspiring field experience in order for all biology majors (pre-med included) to have a true experience in God’s creation rather than just in the books.

His idea is to hike the students from 14,000 feet in the paramo of Cerro de la Muerte to the Pacific Ocean. This would take about 7 days, including lectures and educational field activities along the way, and would be an experience of a lifetime. So, our goal was to scout out the trail and figure out if it is possible. We hiked two days of the trail on our own because we already knew the way, and then we hired a guide for the rest of the way. That is where our adventure started.

We started at Providencia, where we drove to, and hiked three days into and out of the reserve. Our guide’s name was Rafael, who goes by Rafa, and with him we hiked between 9 to 13 miles a day. The scenery was gorgeous and we came across a lot of wildlife and many signs of wildlife. There were numerous tapir tracks and at one point we could hear and smell a good number of peccaries. We saw a lot of birds. In fact, I saw 11 bird species I’ve never seen before. And because John was looking, we saw many herps. There were some pretty cool frogs and lizards and we saw 4 different snakes. And then at the end of day we stayed with families in the middle of nowhere with no road access on their small sustaining farms. It was a pretty sweet experience. One of the coolest parts of the experience is the network of families that live within the reserve who make up COOPESAVGRE. It is a cooperation in order to help these families make a living. There are stiff rules that no one can cut down trees or alter the land within the reserve and this applies to families that had already been living there. The penalty is jail time. Most of the families survive on the subsistence farming that they already had in place, which is mostly organic.

This co-op is developing the idea of rural adventure tourism. They have created hiking routes, have local guides from their families, and have a system of home stays to supply housing as you are trekking across the reserve. They explain it as way in which they can conserve the biodiversity of the forest and still make a living. They have a lot of pride in this project and one of the things they are most proud of is that they are supplying a form of tourism that is very meaningful. Those that spend time on these trekking trails will get to know the people who live on the land and see how they live. It is their desire that there is equal sharing going on of language and culture as they have visitors travel through the wild lands they call home. If you want to check it out you can go to their website at http://www.coopesavegre.com/

Our trip was a major success. Hopefully John will now have all the information and experience he needs to put together his potential class. And I hope that we can support the families of COOPESAVEGRE in the future. It is a model of conservation that just might actually make sense and find the balance of the conservation of both natural resources and human lives. We will see, I suppose.

Franas and Monsters

David: In some circles of people Costa Rica is very well known for it’s abundance of beautiful frogs that can be found throughout the country. In other circles some do not even know that frogs are amphibians. I’m going to hope that you are in a circle somewhere in the middle. Frogs are amphibians and a biologist who specializes in amphibians and reptiles is a herpetologist. And if you are our niece Gracelyn, you mix Spanish and English and call them “franas.”

Sarah and I had the privilege of joining the Cossel family on their Caribbean quest for herps (amphibians and reptiles). We spent three nights with them on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica; I say nights because the night time is the right time for many spectacular herps. Two of our three nights were homeruns. The other just involved barking dogs, roosters crowing, and hot humid air.

One of our nights was spent at the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center. We received a private tour from one of Costa Rican’s leading frog experts. It was a five hour night hike from 9 pm to 2 am. All together we saw 11 frog species, 1 salamander, and 1 snake. Alas, it wasn’t a poisonous snake like Sarah was hoping for, it was one called a Cat-eyed Snake. The pictures here are of the Red-eyed Tree Frog, Dwarf Glass Frog, Lemur Leaf Frog, and Strawberry Poison Dart Frog. It was an exhausting yet extremely rewarding night.

Our other night of high adventure that ended in a huge success was a night searching the beaches of Gandoca looking for nesting Leatherback turtles. These turtles are the ones that can be as big as a VW Bug and are EXTREMELY endangered. Most biologists believe that they will go extinct within a decade. We found ourselves a 45 minute boat ride into the southern parts of Manzanillo-Gandoca National Wildlife Refuge and we set up for the night at a tiny little motel at the only restaurant in Gandoca. This stretch of beach is a hot spot for nesting Leatherbacks at this time of the year. So, at 8 pm we took off with a local guide with high hopes of seeing one of these prehistoric monsters instinctively carrying out nesting behavior that has been happening for many, many years. The anticipation didn’t have to build long because 30 minutes into walking along the beach we found one who was already digging her hole. She was about five feet long and four feet in width. Impressive. We stayed with her and watched the entire process. One thing that impressed me was how skillful she was with the tip of her three-foot long back flippers in digging deep the small hole she would deposit her eggs. The hole had to have been at least three feet deep. One of the highlights had to be been walking back with her to the ocean and being right next to her as she scooted into the waves. The experience was awesome. John, the herpetologist, was in herp heaven, and his family was very impressed and excited. His youngest daughter was so impacted that the first thing she did upon returning to QERC was to start writing letters to her state representatives to share her experience and urge them to take action in changing fishing practices that are needlessly killing these monstrous creations before we lose them all together. Now that is a cool story.

Another worthy story is that of Sarah being attacked by and conquering the wild world of icky biting bugs. Throughout our hiking and beach combing Sarah accumulated over 150 ticks on her body in one hour, that she then picked off for the next 12 hours, and 175 sand flea bites on just one leg. She looked those ticks and fleas in their microscopic eyes and told them where they could go and how they could get there.

SOS

Sarah: Monday I went into the city to meet up with friends from Orphanos Foundation. Grace Fragoso, Wayne Sneed, and a new staff member that I had not met, Sandi Langley, came to meet up with an organization called Viva Network here in Costa Rica. Together, the two organizations trained 7 students who were about to embark on a 2 month Summer of Service experience. I had gone with Orphanos 6 years ago to Brasil for a summer to live and work in a children’s home. Two of these students will also be going to Brasil for the summer, 4 of them will be going to 2 different children’s homes in Mexico, and 1 will be staying here in Costa Rica to work in a very poor neighborhood made up of mainly Nicaraguans.

I had a really great time being reacquainted with friends, and it was such a blessing to be a part of this training of new students who will be having a similar experience that impacted my own life so much. I had a chance to share with them about my experiences one night, and it was great to recap such a great summer. We also traveled around to a few different missions located here in Costa Rica, which could possibly serve as contacts for me in the future.

David stayed here for most of the week, and did a lot of work and spent time with the Cossels. He and John Cossel took a hike from here all the way to Providencia, a nearby valley, and were picked up by John’s wife in that town. David was able to come into the city on Thursday night and stay with some of our friends, so that he could spend a short time visiting with Orphanos friends as well and bring me back out to the valley today.

Visitors

Sarah: This has been a week of visitors. Last weekend Dr. John Cossel arrived with his wife, Ronda, and 3 kids. They are going to be here for the entire month of June. John is a herpetologist and has been hiking on the trails in search of all amphibians and reptiles. So far he has found a number of frogs, tadpoles, and a salamander—which is quite rare. Soon he’ll be heading down past the waterfall, to a lower elevation, and the possibility of finding snakes.

We also had a friend, Nicola, who we worked with at Mission Springs come visit with two of her friends from med school. They are traveling around Costa Rica for a few weeks, and decided to spend a few days hanging out with us. We had fun hiking around with them, and playing games while it was raining.

David has continued to work on landscaping around QERC and watching the quetzals fly across our lawn, and this week I have been frantically scrapbooking, in hopes of finishing this entire year’s book so any of you who are interested in seeing an organized scrapbook of our first year in Costa Rica, it will be ready for you.

Tomorrow I am heading into the city to stay for the week. I’ll be hooking up with friends from Orphanos Foundation, the organization through whom I traveled to Brasil and Mexico. They are in Costa Rica giving an orientation to this summer’s SOSers (Summer Of Service), and I am able to be with them for the majority of the week. I am thrilled for the opportunity and am excited to see some more friends.