Day 5 La Calandria to San Gerardo

Pictures to come tomorrow :-) 

We said goodbye to La Calandria and headed into the real rain forest to the San Gerardo field station.  Though only 25 minutes apart, La Calandria is on the western side of the continental divide, and is relatively dry.  To get to San Gerardo, we drove up to the top, in the cloud forest.  First however, we enjoyed ziplining and walking on the canopy bridge tour.  I don't have pictures of the ziplining, because I was on the canopy tour.  However, the students took many pictures and videos to share.  On the sky bridge we walked through the high forest canopy.  The highest bridge was a bit over 120 feet high, and 300+ feet long.  We saw a lot of bromilliads, orchids, and many, many tree species.  Periodically, we could hear our group whooping, hollering, and shrieking as they zoomed through the sky over and through the forest on the ziplines.

When we got done, had lunch at a nearby restaurant, and then loaded our day packs with all the essentials, and took off down the trail.  It's about 4-5km, or just short of 3 miles long.  Over that stretch, the trail drops 500m, for a 16% downslope.  Shortly after setting off, a caribbean rain storm caught us and DUMPED rain on us.  Luckily, most of us had ponchos and good rain gear.  However, the already muddy clay trail became an especially muddy mud wallow, tilted on it's side.  We were all slipping and sliding.  We were happy to finally get off that road, and onto the woods trail that led to the San Gerardo field station.

At the station, we listened to a frog lecture from Mark, had supper, and then Mark led interested folks on a night hike, where we found 2 orchid species, 4 species of frogs, many spiders, an Olingo (this an arboreal animal somewhat like a racoon), and many other small critters.   

The next day we had breakfast, then took off on a nature hike, led by Mark.  After about an hour, each student got dropped off on the trail, separated by about 300 feet, for a solitary forest imersion experience.  For this, Mark wanted the student to LISTEN, and draw a map of what they heard; to think up a testable question about some aspect of the forest; and to bring back something interesting.  After the appropriate amount of time, Mrs. Dr. V (who was running sweep) came along and one by one reassembled the group, ending up at the water fall where most everyone swam and stood under the thundering falls.  Eventually, we headed back for a well earned lunch.

For the afternoon, we had some quiet time, where a lot of students took advantage to write on their journals while others slept.  Eventually, (fortified by brownies and tres leche cake), we had a sharing session, where students reported back on their experiences.  

The day ended with another night hike where we spied many frog species, a snake, and many insects.  

 

Day 4 - La Calandria

Today we continued to learn about the realities of conservation work. La Calandria, the field station where we are currently staying, is part of the Costa Rican Conservation Foundation. A large part of the Foundation's work is active reforestation, They raise tress, many of them endangered species, and distribute them for free to farmers and also plant them, often with the help of volunteers. One of the tree nurseries is at La Calandria. We learned that last year, 30,000 trees were planted, with the ultimate goal of connecting all the preserves by corridors to each other and eventually to the Pacific ocean.  WSU students have been involve in this effort for nearly 20 years.

We started out today by loading 320+ trees onto a pickup to haul to today's restauration site, using a bucket chain, not a chain gang! (Yes, there are pictures, but the internet is slow today, here on the side of the dry forest).

Today's restoration site was a former coffee field. Research has shown that planting seedlings, even if you do not maintain the site after planting, still yields 50% survival and effective reforestation. Not needing labor expensive for care is a key factor in getting buy-in from landowners.

Deborah Hamilton, (Direction, Lecturer, Researcher, and President of the foundation's board of directors), met us to lead our planting effort, and to also gave us an overview of the history of CRCF and her own involvement.  Deborah has historically been one of the guides for WSU trips, but in the past few years she has been working on her doctorate in conservation.  We were ultra-fortunate that she managed to squeeze in a few moments of her time to chat with us.  Her son Liam, who we've worked with since he was little, managed today's planting effort.  

We managed to plant all our 320 trees this morning. Compared to the 30,000 trees planted in a year, or the 300,000 trees planted since 1990, this was a small drop in the bucket, but we were proud of our work.  BTW, while it is not very hot, the humidity and 4000 ft altitude do take a toll.  for many of the students, this hands-on restoration work, where they made a real difference in the world, was a very meaningful experience.

After a scrumptious lunch at the station of burritos, we next went to the hummingbird garden.  Here, Mark treated us to coffee, tea, or smoothies, and a snack.  We began learning about hummingbirds, (just imagine how impactful this will be with pictures of hummingbirds), and stopped cold when Elise and Alli spotted White Faced Capuchin monkeys!  We spend the next half hour watching the monkeys, including a mother with a baby riding around on it's back!  Very cool.  (Shut eyes, and imagine image now).  On many trips, we don't see ANY monkeys, so this was a great find, and the students (and faculty) were very excited.

We finally left the monkeys alone to go about their business, and we headed off to the orchid garden.  This is Mrs. Dr. V's favorite.  She is an orchid enthusiast, with way more than 100 orchids.  At any time of year, we'll have 5-10 orchids blooming in the house.  Before we left for this trip, all the orchids got moved outside to their summer residence, in the "outside orchidarium."  So, she was very excited to spot new orchids that we don't have, and to compare the ones we do have to her own.  Very cool.

Next, students were given a scavenger hunt and 10,000 colones (That's a lot of cash), to go into Santa Elena and buy an interesting thing to eat which they were unfamiliar with, and learn how to prepare it.   They also had time to go out to eat a the restaurant of their choice.  As we write this, they're up on the porch laughing and writing their journals.  

Tomorrow, we are heading into the jungle/ deep cloud forest until Sunday. There will not be any cell reception or internet, so do not worry if you do not hear from us for a while.

PS.  We'll upload pictures as soon as we can get solid internet service :-)