Monteverde life!

I have a few blogs written but I don't get internet where I am staying so there will be a lot of blogs in a short amount of time!

We've been in Monteverde at the biological station for a few weeks and we go to class a lot! It’s like normal class in the classroom too. We also have Spanish 3 days a week. Spanish class is extremely difficult only because I don't speak Spanish at all and my Spanish teacher doesn't speak English at all! It makes class very hard! Apart from going to class we study. I have 2 or 3 quizzes per week and usually at least one test on the weekends. We stay really busy! We've went on a few small adventures. We went to a coffee farm and to a dairy farm. They were both interesting and I got to show off my milking skills!! We took a long walk to this really cool tourist place. It was for our insect diversity day. We went to a giant butterfly garden and saw a huge collection of dead bugs. My favorite part of the trip was when we got to go to the reptile and amphibian part of the zoo. They had lots of snakes and frogs but I couldn't hold any of them. On the way to the trip we had to cross these really high bridges! It was a little scary but SUPER cool. 

We also went on a few adventures of our own. This weekend we went horseback riding through the mountains. I had such an awesome time but I am feeling the effects of being on a horse for hours. Today we went to a strangler fig, a strangler fig starts out as kind of a vine around a tree then it grows and grows until it covers the host tree. The host tree dies and the fig tree becomes hollow inside. That makes it an awesome climbing tree! We climbed inside of the tree and right up to the canopy of the forest. The view was amazing! I have a few more tests and lots more Spanish classes then we’re heading out on our second field trip to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. It should be pretty cool!

Me inside of the strangler fig tree

Horse back riding in the mountains 

The strangler fig 

A humming bird sitting on my finger

My friend Katie and myself eating sugar cane

The walk to the mountain in Monteverde

Field trip one part two!

After a restful but short night at the hotel we were back on the bus to see another type of forest. It was a transition forest between the wet forest and the dry forest. The weather was SO much less humid and the forest was beautiful! I had a very special lunch date in this forest. It wasn’t a pygmy it was an iguana! He really wanted my salad so I decided to share a little. It was about 4 feet long and I was pretty satisfied with him being the biggest reptile I would see that day. Little did I know we were headed to a river full of massive crocodiles! There were over a dozen in this little area under a bridge! Gram would have been scared but not as scared as mom would have been once we arrived at our destination! We got to Santa Rosa National park after dark. The first thing they told us before we got off the bus was “ watch out for fire ants, they will attack you and it will hurt. Try not to set your tent up on a nest of fire ants” Well since I had never seen fire ants before I was more than cautious about where I was going and where I was going to set up my tent. While setting up my tent I noticed about a dozen little sparkles in the leaves on the ground. Being curious I walked over to them with my flash light meanwhile noticing that these little sparkles were everywhere! As it turns out every single one of those pretty little sparkles were none other than the eyes of a tarantula. And by tarantula I mean at least two inches big AT LEAST!! They were everywhere! I had to fight one off with my tent pole because it wouldn’t get out of my way. Oh and also I was wearing flip-flops. I was really hoping that one of those spiders wouldn’t crawl all over my feet. I got my tent set up, put on my close-toed hiking shoes and headed off to hear the lecture for the night. I was informed that none of the species of spiders or scorpions were poisonous. We were also told that there were probably frogs in the toilets and not to freak out. Obviously, I head straight to the bathroom to check for frogs and sure enough there were 5 tree frogs under the lid of the toilet. They weren’t in the toilet bowl which was awesome because it meant that we didn’t have to pee on them. They were also all over in the showers. On the way back from the bathroom exploration I caught the biggest toad I have ever seen in my life! It took two hands to hold on to him!

            The next day we were told that there weren’t any fire ants around and we have nothing to worry about. Our morning lecture was interrupted by some white faced capuchin monkeys. They were drinking from the water bucket right in our camp. They tried to steal our food and my clothes, but we were successful at chasing them off. The rest of the day consisted of hiking around and climbing trees. One of my friends fell out of a tree and it was the highlight of everyone’s day!  We were also given some wine during class because it was made from the species of palm that we were learning about! We were unaware that they were giving us alcohol to try and butter us up for what was to come… a 16 mile hike! We started hiking at 8 am and it took us about two hours to hike 8 of the 16 miles and our destination was a really beautiful beach. We were all feeling pretty great and no one was tired. While we were at the beach I noticed a random sea turtle crawling up the sand. Well as it turns out that was a mommy turtle heading to lay her eggs! I got to watch as she laid about 100 eggs! After she had returned to the water we noticed that there were baby sea turtles all over! The walk back was agonizing! No one noticed that the walk to the beach was slightly downhill which meant the 8 miles back to camp was entirely up hill and I was dead from running around on the beach for 2 hours! We finally got back to camp after about 3 hours of hiking. Everyone went to sleep really early that night.

 The following day was our last day on the trails in Santa Rosa. That afternoon we went on  mammal search and my group saw absolutely no mammals. But, we saw a troop of army ants crossing our path. It looked like the entire ground was moving! Also, there were tons of critters running away trying to escape the army ants. It was really cool but it kinda made your skin crawl. That night we set up a bat net and learned about them. We also caught a really cool snake called a blunt head snake.

The next day we got on a bus and drove to a volcano to hike at. The hike was really amazing and at the end of the trail there was a really amazing waterfall that we swam it! It was so cold but the water was SUPER blue and really pretty. That evening our professors took us to a very pretty beach that was full of jelly fish. They provided drinks while we watched the sunset. That night we had dinner at a sea food place (gross) but more drinks were provided! When we finally got back to camp our entire group (including the professors) had a sing along. It was interesting to drink with my teachers but we had a great time! The following we took down camp and loaded up the bus. We drove to a cat zoo that had all of the native species of big cats in Costa Rica. The highlight of the cat zoo was when the jaguar peed on someone in our group. We took the bus up into the mountains on this really twisted road. I thought the bus was going to fall off the side of the cliff most of the drive up. The bus then stopped in the middle of the street and we had to hike up to where we are staying. The hike was only 1 km (about .6 of a mile) but it is entirely uphill! We finally reached the station and everyone picked their rooms. Since then we’ve been going to classes and on hikes! That’s all for the second part of the first field trip!  

A waterfall we hiked to

The last sunset on the beach

Spider in Santa Rosa

Scorpion in Santa Rosa

A fig tree in Santa Rosa

Dry forest (Santa Rosa)

Dry forest

Santa Rosa

A baby sea turtle making its way into the ocean

This is the mother sea turtle that I watched lay eggs

The beach we went to on our 16 mile hike

A bridge in the jungle

The iguana I had a lunch date with 

Two of the big crocodiles under the bridge

The massive toad by the bathrooms in Santa Rosa

A white faced capuchin near our camp in Santa Rosa

A view from Santa Rosa

field trip part one!

the beach sunset at corcovado 

this is where we stayed, you can see our tents.

A giant tree you could walk under in the wet rain forest

the waterfall at corcovado

me holding a anole lizard that I caught

from the top of the waterfall (corcovado)

corcovado wet forest

half of a flower in corcovado

my friend/roommates (left to Right: Hannah Katie Lindsay)

A beach we passes in corcovado during the long hike

The primary wet forest of corcovado during the long hike

primary forest corocvado

the beach we went to on our long hike in corcovado

the beach after our long hike in corcovado

a basilisk lizard (it can run on water)

Another anole showing his dewlap

A fer-de-lance (venomous snake of Costa Rica)

the brittle star grabbing my finger

the sunset at our fancy hotel

cerro de la muerte forest

from the river in cierpe

river in cierpe

the mangroves

a view from the ocean of the place we stayed

the view outside my tent

I have had quite an adventurous two weeks! The first week started from the hotel in San Jose. We left Wednesday morning and drove to cerro de la muerte (hill of death). It is a high elevation forest and I almost died from not being able to catch my breath at the top of the hill. We saw tons of humming birds at this forest they are a lot bigger than the ones at home and are really loud when they fly. This forest was about 50º ( which is cold in Costa Rica). After learning about a few plant species we got back onto the bus for the rest of our 6 hour bus ride. On the way we stopped at a pineapple farm. I got to see some cool frogs, toads and a tree boa. The town we stayed in was called sierpe. It was right next to a river and had air conditioned rooms!!! Sierpe was EXTREMELY humid and you would sweat even if you weren’t moving. The next morning (morning meaning 7am which is the time that I have been getting up at everyday) we got onto boats and headed out on the river. The whole morning was spent in a mangrove forest. We got to climb in the roots and jump into the river at the end. It was really cool looking and the river water was really salty. We went back to the hotel for lunch then packed up our things and got into another boat. This boat took us all the way down the river and into the Pacific Ocean. The ocean was extremely blue and we say two dolphins jumping out of the water!! I didn’t get sick on the boat at all! When we got the Corcovado there were pelicans diving into the water all around us to grab fish. We set up our tents like 30 ft. away from the ocean. Once camp was set up we had some free time to go in the ocean. The waves were so much fun! Also, fish were jumping up and hitting us. We called it getting “fished”!

            We split into groups and went on different hikes. There were lots of butterflies and lots of anole lizards. During one of the hikes we saw an anteater in a tree. During our free time we hiked to a water fall to swim and relax. That first night we had a campfire on the beach with lanterns instead of actually fire while people played their guitars and we had a sing along. It sounds lame but it was actually pretty fun! Haha

            The rest of the trip consisted of a really long hike to a beach where we saw an AMAZING waterfall! There were monkeys everywhere!! We went to an island and played in the ocean and also went snorkeling. I saw tons of cool fish including a puffer fish and a white tipped shark. Also a sea turtle surfaced right next to me and I got to reach out and touch it. That night (as if the day hike and snorkeling wasn’t strenuous enough) we went on a night hike. There were a lot of giant bugs and we also saw a caiman. There was also a huge frog called a smoky jungle frog. The hike was exhausting but it’s difficult to get a good night sleep when you’re sleeping in a tent that is full of sand from the beach!

            The last day at this beach was spent doing a scavenger hunt. We were sent out into the woods with a camera and a list of critters and things to find. We saw a venomous snake called the fer-de-lance, lots of bats, a coati, and tons of anole lizards! I also chased a caiman through the river because I wanted to catch it. It was just too fast….After our hike we went to the tide pools and look at all the sea life around there. My favorite was this brittle star fish that would coil around your finger if you put it close enough. The next day was spent traveling on boats and busses to this super nice hotel right by the ocean. It was so nice to have a real shower and a bed to sleep in! This concludes part one of the first field trip! It was absolutely amazing!!!!! I attached a few pictures for everyone!

First few days and the flight

Hey everyone!

I hope this works! I just wanted to let everyone know how everything has been going these first few days!

I got to the airport in Minneapolis at about 5 am and my flight left at 6:30 am. I sat next to the nicest old couple who said they would adopt me on the flight to Houston so I wouldn't feel sad about leaving my family. They also bestowed their blessing on me so that I would have safe travels. We arrived at Houston at around 9:40. It was 48 degrees there which a though was AMAZING until I got on my next flight to Costa Rica and arrived in 82 degrees and sunny! That flight was long but I got to fly over the ocean! When we flew over Central America all I could see was mountains and trees. There was steam coming out of several volcanoes and also out of the rain forest. The landscape was totally different than anything I have ever seen!

I landed in San Jose Costa Rica at about 3:45. It was total confusion and total chaos at the airport in San Jose. Luckily we (by we i mean Hannah who also goes to Gustavus)  had made a friend who was a Spanish major in college who was also going to my program. We found the Representative for the program and she got us a taxi which took us to the hotel.

The hotel is very nice. However, it is lacking a pool. I am in a hotel room with Hannah and another friend Lindsey who is from Indiana. We have been learning about the city and the people here. Today we had our first classes. We were sent out with a map to the local market. We were assigned an exotic fruit to find in the market. Mine was called a palmito and is from the inside of a palm tree. After we found our fruits we went to our first classes about flowers and fruits. They set up a huge table with all of the exotic foods for us to try. After that we went out to a big group dinner and drinks. I am now sitting in my room with several friends who are playing guitar and singing us a song.

Tomorrow we are going to museums. On Wednesday we leave for the Pacific Ocean! We will be there for two weeks. We will be sleeping in tents and going on boats! That is pretty much all I know about it right now but I should be able to write to everyone and let them know how the ocean is!

Also, I got a sun tan today :-)