Back to Normal… You know… Homework in Paradise…

We are back in Monteverde for a month now before traveling abroad again on field trip. Writing this entry now a week and a half into the studies, I am thinking the month shouldn’t be too difficult. My time is occupied mostly by my internship with the local organization, PRONATIVAS. I work every morning usually from 8-12, documenting native and exotic species of plants, and will be preparing a native plant garden design for the CIEE Study Center, where I am staying.

I am thinking that I am well qualified for this position, with my design background as well as native plant usage in previous jobs. A few of the challenges I am presented with are as follows. I do not know the native flora of Costa Rica and thus have to look up every plant that I want to put in the garden. Willow Zuchowski is the director of PRONATIVAS and an expert on the native flora of Monteverde, if not Costa Rica and much of Central America. She has been a great help in the identification of plants, and I am very thankful for this.

Cecropia... This could be my favorite understory tropical tree. One can never have too many favorite trees. Don't you agree?

The second challenge has been to prepare the base map for the CIEE Study Center. Did you know that Central Americans do not construct buildings on a north-south axis… let a long square with each other. Of course I did not bring down any surveying tools with me, so I am having to get creative with a 30 meter long measuring tape in order to figure this puzzle out and then get it in to AutoCAD. But that is done now, thank goodness. Now onto real design. I am getting excited.

This is my make-shift workstation in our computer lab/classroom. Almost feels like home (and by home I mean the Design Building of ISU).

I have also had Spanish every Tuesday, Thursday afternoon which is much more manageable than the everyday classes we had before the trip. Spanish has also become a lot more enjoyable because we are familiar with our professor, Evelyn, and she enjoys our random tangents (but I assure you, we still speak in Spanish on these tangents, mostly).

My other classes are few and far in between it seem, Monday and Wednesday afternoons for maybe an hour or two. But I feel they will be picking up here soon because we have two tests within the next two weeks.

I also started my Costa Rican Natural History class last Saturday. This class takes me into the "Bosque" (woods) for about 8 hours at a time on Saturdays/Sundays, where we talk about the native flora and fauna interactions.

A millipede on the hand is a creepy feeling...

These are "dancing lady" orchids...

I think this may become my favorite class, not only because I get to play in the woods, but also because the professor, Mark Wainwright is extremely knowledgeable. Even with this knowledge he does not ram information down our throats, but instead asks us to think through the natural processes with him to find the answers that he want to give. I will have this class again this Saturday and then an overnight at San Geraldo Reserve over Easter weekend. I am a bit disappointed that I will not be able to go to the Easter Vigil Mass because of this, but I think God will provide me with an equally spiritual experience. I will let you know how it goes.

Last Friday we went out for some sushi... this was only my second time in my life to eat sushi, so I tried a bunch of different kinds. There was salmon, red snapper, avacado, and something else I can't remember. Sushi isn't too bad, but I don't think I will go out of my way to eat it. Too expensive!

Finally, I wanted to show you the amazing sights of the Selvatura Canopy Tour that I went on this last Sunday with the rest of my group. I have been ziplining in Costa Rica twice before, on the other side of the mountain, but those ziplines do not compare to Selvatura. What would you say to 1km (1000 meters or 3280 ft) of cable stretching over 200 ft above a large valley and lush rain forest? That was just one of 13 cables that I got to fly down.

And on top of that, it was the most surreal experience because of the clouds and mist that were blowing around. On the launching platforms, I would watch my friends disappear into the mist, maybe never to be seen again. Who knows what was on the other end. Then whenever it was my turn I would find myself completely cutoff, by mist and clouds, from the outside world as I soared above and through the treetops. Maybe all I can say is that this was better than Pandora… I promise you. I am definitely thinking about going back.

Oh and I nearly forgot. Once finished with the zipline portion, we could go to the Tarzan Swing! No this is not your ordinary rope swing… Check out the video of me below before you read further.

You have to climb the tall tower, then get clipped onto the supporting rope, and as they open the gate all you can think of is, “……………………WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I DOING UP HERE?…………………………(then a slight nudge from behind)………… :O ……….…………. HELP!” Your legs give way your stomach jumps to your throat, and you free-fall. Well the free-fall only last a 10-15 feet before the rope catches you and swings you way out into canopy, then to return. As you return you hear all your friends laughing because of your girly scream, but you don’t care because this could be the most thrilling thing you have ever done.

So this is Nate, Ross, Melanie and Rob from front to back... Nate and Rob are displaying our "Extremo" gang sign... because we are all so extremo.

So I am not doing the Tarzan Swing justice, thus you will have to come to Monteverde sometime and experience it yourself. That is all for now… my heart is fluttering just thinking about the experience. I hope everyone’s spring break was fabulous. If you get the chance, post a comment telling me your favorite part about spring break. I would enjoy hear about it.

A confession to make…

I lost my Toe-ed Shoes!!! But not really if you consider that I will be getting them back in a few days… hopefully. I accidentally left them, dry out, at one of the quick overnight stops a ways back during the trip and couldn’t figure out where they were at. The good news is though that we did locate them and they are actually very close to Monteverde, so it will just take a bit of finagling to get them 40km up the mountain. No worries… they will be back in the story soon.
In any case, I have been walking around barefoot, which isn’t so bad, minus a few cuts and blisters here and there. Leaving Ostional Beach (regretfully), we started heading north again, bound for Nicaragua. Before we could cross the border though, we had to make a stop at one of Costa Rica’s geothermal power plants. This was an experience in itself. I am sure that many of you have been to Yellowstone National Park, so some sort of Hot Springs area, but have you ever considered converting the heat of the earth into electricity and using it to power our energy hungry society? This type of power is not suited for all places though, considering it takes a great amount of heat located near the surface of the earth to make enough steam. Costa Rica is fortunately (depending on how you look at it) is located along the infamous “Ring of Fire” that circles the Pacific. Without going into too much detail I will say that it was not as smell as it could have been, and is actually one of my favorite sources of power, rivaling wind generation.



Oh yeah we also had a flat tire!



So I climbed a vine while I waited. (it was about 6 inches caliber)



Very fashionable headgear!

We spend the night near the thermal plant in a small town. The hotel was very beautiful with warm pools (not from the hot springs unfortunately) and a large waterslide which we had a lot of fun with. This is also were we ate Pizza for dinner for the first time. Costa Ricans like to make their crusts very thin, and with minimal sauce, so I really enjoyed it!

The next day we were heading north again. We crossed the border at about Noon, which was quite easy compared to my adventures crossing through this boarder during my Honduran trip a month earlier. We were bound for a little place in Nicaragua called “Ometepe.” But what is Ometepe you might ask… what does it have to do with “fire over the water” as I noted in the prior blog? It’s a volcanic Island located in the middle of Lake Nicaragua made up of two volcanoes spaced about 10-15km apart. To ease your nerves, let me just say that we stayed at the base of the dormant volcano… does that make you feel better?



A wind farm alongside the lake, with the volcano in the background.

Before we could get to the hotel though, we had to take a 1hr ferry ride from the mainland to the island, and then another 45 minute van ride over very rough roads (like 15mph or less). But finally we made it to the hotel, which turned out to be more of a bunkhouse where hippies stay. Not that I have anything against hippies, but just for this case, I would say that they were smelly, noisy and ruid! Case in point, the second night we stayed there, we were kept up till 1:30 in the morning by a group of 20 or so hippies that just wouldn’t move their guitar, drinking, and smoking party away from the entrance to our room. I will quit complaining though, because overall, I would stay there again… minus the hippies.



Our first full day on the island we visited a tilapia fish farm floating a hundred meters out on the lake. So once again we were out on the water, but there were some great views of the two volcanoes from there. The fish farm was also interesting to see, due to all the large netted cages and baskets that are floating around. It kind of reminded me of the movie “Waterworld” with Kevin Costner. Pretty sweet! Unfortunately the farm is closing down due to the economic recession, but now at least I know where my Lenten fish comes from.



Later that day we visited the beach on the east side of the island, and relaxed for a time. Oh yeah and climbed trees! No toe-ed shoes though :( We also went to visit a local fisherman/farmer at his home which as a great experience. I am always amazed at how open the people of Central America are to visitors and sharing their lives.
We tried to get some sleep that evening, amongst the hippie party, since we had a large climb ahead of us the next day. Our goal; to climb the dormant volcano and get into its crater. We left at 8 am in the morning being told that it would be a 4 hour climb. I like to think of myself as being quite fit, so when I hear a 4hr climb, usually I cut it down in my mind to 3 or even 2 hrs. But no, that is not the case with this trek. It took us nearly the full 4 hours, and I was pretty tired. I can only image how tired everyone else was. The trail if it could be called that started out nice in places with some vernacular steps made out of cookie cuts from fallen trees.





This is Ross, sticking his head out of the top of a tree at the top of the volcano!



The family... at the halfway point... can you see the lake down below.

Then it continually got steeper and harder to climb. In some places we were nearly climbing vertically with muddy footholds and hope that the person in front of us wouldn’t fall. Oh how I wish I could have tested my toe-ed shoes out on this trail… oh well, I guess I will have to return. We all did make it to the top though and then descended into the crater. This decent was just as tough due to steep drops and muddy slopes, but it only took us 10-15 minutes. There at the base of the crater we found a muddy/greenish lake. A couple of students tried to get out into it, but we trapped it the “quick mud” so that we had to reach out and pull them back in. I am glad I had my rope along, even though we did not have to use it.



It was a very beautiful crater though, so we spent a hour or so there eating lunch and PLAYING FRISBEE. Yeah that is right, we were probably the first people of toss a Frisbee around in this volcanic crater… it felt historic! The decent down did not take quite as long, but it was very tough on the knees to where we were all happy to be able to just sit down and relax for the evening. We even watched a movie with the class projector. I cannot remember the name but it is Argentinean and it just won an Oscar. I am sure it is good, at least the actors were pretty good; I just couldn’t understand their thick and very quick Spanish accent.

The third day, Friday, we took tour of the farm that we were staying on. I learned that it is a Cooperative that grows plantains, organic coffee and cacao (cocoa). There are also petroglyphs located on the farm that were carved into the volcanic rock somewhere around 2000 years ago. During this walk, we also noticed that the opposite volcano, called “Concepción” was a bit more active than we had assumed it would be.



Am I supposed to be this happy about a volcano that could explode at any moment? Oh wait it is!

Well, it didn’t blow while we were on the island but it did keep spewing ashes at times, which was making the locals a little bit nervous.

We left the island of Ometepe on Satuday morning by ferry again. It was an extraordinary few days that I hope I can try to relive again sometime. I think one reason it was so extraordinary was because I was completely disconnected from the outside world (no internet) for 5 full days. That was the longest stretch yet this trip. Because of this, I was able to invest more time in the other students around me and I got to know them much better. I know I keep saying it, but we are a family here, and I am going to have a hard time parting. Good thing I still have about 2 months left! This is not to say that I don’t miss any of you back home though, I do, and I really wish I could talk to you hear how you are doing. If you want to, feel free to drop me an email at any time, or let me know how you are doing by “leaving your own toe-prints.” Thanks for your prayers. Now it is time to put my nose back to the grindstone and do some homework for a month before the next fieldtrip.

I pray that all you ISU students have a wonderful safe spring break… especially those who are traveling long distances on the Honduras Service Trip and Ethan who is coming to Costa Rica. Let me know how your breaks go!

Peace and Blessings!
Cody

Ostional Beach...

To begin, I have to let you know that I am leaving a lot of beauty out of this post as far as picture go and I apologize. But I have selected the premium beauty for a taste test, you will have to visit to get the rest.

So, I am posting this now on Sunday night as I prepare to leave Ostional Beach, where I have been since Friday. The internet is good and free here at the Biological Station that we are staying at, and I have been using it probably too much. These last few days have been so refreshing, as I only have class for half the day, while I can hang out the rest. We did have class both Saturday and Sunday though… that didn’t and won’t change.

Ostional is a small beachside town on the Pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. It probably doesn’t have a population of more than 500 residents, but it is very unique.

Alright, here is your animal ecology lesson for the day titled… “what is an arrivada?” You know what a sea turtle is right. You are probably thinking about the green ones. How about a sea turtle know as the Olive Ridley? I had never heard of it but it is very unique. There are only 5 known places in the world where this species of turtle comes ashore about once a month, and lays its eggs in the sand. One of those places is on Ostional Beach along a small 5 kilometer stretch. So what would you say if I told you that at some times during the year, usually during the wet season, there are 120,000+ turtles that land over the course of just a few days? They do this every month as well, but the largest waves are at that time. This massive nesting of Olive Ridley’s is called an “arrivada” which I am thinking translates to “arrived or arrival.” It is a big deal and we have been awaiting the arrivada here for the last 3 nights. No luck though unfortunately, and we are leaving to go north on Monday morning, so unless they come in the early morning hours I will not get to experience this crazy phenomenon.

But don’t you worry… I have been blessed with a heck of a lot here in Ostional, and I will not be disappointed that I did not get to see the arrivada… it just gives me a reason to come back.

First of all, the beach is the nicest beach I have been to, ever. It is black sand, flat, medium waves, and a national refuge of some sorts so there are very few people on it. By “few” I mean just the 16 people of my program. Pretty sweet. We played around quite a bit the first afternoon.

We even got to witness the release of a hatchling leather-back turtle. See the video.

Insert pics of beach…

The first night we also went on a night hike in search of random turtles that are not a part of the massive wave… and we found 5! We lingered at just one for the entire process of digging the nest, dropping the eggs, and covering them back up, along with the exit. It was like something you would see on The Discover or Animal Planet Channel. I even got pictures in the blackness so check them out.

The second day was great too because we went on a bird hike to the estuary close by. I have never bird watched so this was also a new experience and very enjoyable, although difficult since it was for class and we had to identify particular birds.

Then Sunday came around and I took a hike down the beach to Punta India, the furthest reach of the protected beach. There were some massive igneous rock outcroppings and a large wave crashes. I got splashed a few times to tell you the truth, and was nearly swept away in one of the waves while crossing some water, but I am ok, so no worries. It was a great adventure.

We also did community service project Sunday morning that involved picking up all the trash on the beach, which wasn’t much, but still more than I thought would be there. This felt good to be able to get out there and do something productive for a change. It also reminded me of NHS roadside ditch cleaning during high school. Oh the good-ol-days.

So I must also share with you once again the beauty of the Pacific Coast’s sunsets. Out of three, this one was the best, but the others were good too. Maybe I am not really a connoisseur of sunsets but I think they look darn nice.

This blog is brief and maybe you like that more. I am not sure, so let me know what you think. I want to share more, but I need to get moving along so that I can be ready to leave tomorrow. We are going to be entering Nicaragua in 2 days and then come back into Costa Rica on Saturday. I am not going to spoil what Nicaragua will be like though… but instead I will just say that we are going to be near the “fire over the water”. I can’t wait. I’ll let you know how it goes when I return.

Peace and Prayers to all, Cody

The South Country...

So over the last week I have been traveling along the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Heading south from Monteverde I spent a few days in far southern Costa Rica in Sierpe, a quaint little town. It maybe has about 800 people or so, is surrounded on 3 sides by the Sierpe River/Estuary, and that is where things get really interesting. As by definition (I think), an estuary can flow both ways… no Mom I have not figured out how to make water flow up hill. The river is affected by the tides so it flows upstream when the tide is coming in and downstream when it is going out. That happened every day when we were there and the first time I saw it I nearly flipped. Just the concept of a river flowing backwards is peculiar to think about.

So this town also had a roller skating rink… I know crazy… I thought that Costa Ricans were only into soccer. So after dinner we showed up at this rink to do some skating, thinking that we might be joined by a couple of Ticos. Oh my were we in for a surprise. When we got there I am pretty sure every youngster from town, 6-18 was there. So not only were there over 100 kids rolling around, but they were GOOD. We aren’t talking about Cedar Rapids “Super Skate” kids or people who go to the Ogden Roller Rink. These kids were speeding around on the pretty tight circle, doing spins, backwards tricks, jumps, slides and stuff I can’t even describe. They must be there every night that it is open practicing.

This roller rink made me think once again about home little people in the US appreciate the community resources that are available. We as a western society have too much, so we don’t care for, or even use what we have. The people of Sierpe loved their roller rink. It was all they had and it brings them, or at least the children together in a drug free, energetic, blood moving way. We need to realize this again.

Sierpe is located about an hour away from the coast, as the river goes. And the river goes very curvy most of the time, winding thought mangrove forest swamps. And this is why we arrived there… for the mangroves. Most likely you don’t even know what a mangrove forest is, but here is a good depiction of a “Tea Mangrove” swamp that we were in.

But why Mangroves you say? Well for the mussels of course. We went mussel hunting, and let me tell you it isn’t very easy. “Piangueros” is what they call mussel hunters because they hunt for “peanguas.” To hunt for these small shells you have to get down, sometimes on your hands and knees, and stick your fingers into the mud, between the roots of the mangroves, and down the strange holes that you find in the mud. Sometimes you are in up past your wrists in tight bundles of roots. All the time you are in a muddy mess. I must say that my toe-ed shoes were perfect for this task. Mud, water and the like don’t hurt them, and my feet were protected from the sharp, hard roots. Oh did I mention that the tide was coming in and was going to leave the land we were standing on over a meter deep in water? So it was quite an experience, and for the sake of my fingers and nails, I would choose not to do it again. But you should try for an hour if you get the chance.

After the collection, we cleaned up with a splish-splash in the estuary which was filling up with seawater and jumped into our enormous pontoon boat to count and measure each piangua. There are regulations on the size that you can take and that is no smaller than 4.7 cm wide, if I remember correctly. That is what the following picture is of.

For lunch we boated to the coast, and the small village of Boca Zacate. Let me tell you, the dining was second to none. This community, as with many of the communities along the coast, is disconnect, only reachable by boat, and actually is located within the protected mangrove zone (yes illegal, but nothing is done about it). They as a community have had some trouble recently though with drug trafficking. During multiple encounters, threats were made to the community members directly from these drug movers carrying large weapons, and at one point people were shot and injured. Although it is in justice, this community cannot do anything about it except move. The drug traders are most likely looking to this location for a relay point for drugs dropped off the coast from boats, and left tossed up on shore by the waves. This is very sad to hear, especially when many of the women who were born and raised in the community, said that they would not leave the village no matter what because of its significance. If possible, please pray for this strong individuals and their safety. They were so hospitable to make lunch for the 16+ of us that I wish I could do more than pray, but I know that prayer will be the most significant.

A panorama of one of the homes right next to the rising tide... it doesn't get much higher though, thank goodness.

This little guy lived on the beach with the people of Boca Zacate... isn't he cute.

We got back late from this adventure and most of us were pretty well sun burnt… I know I was… so we pretty much crashed at the hotel we were staying at along the Sierpe River after a bit of a lecture and discussion about the activities of the day.

Some other activities that I won’t go into detail about include visiting a hydroelectric development project in Buenos Aires, CR (not Argentina). This project was only in the design stage so there is not physical work being done, thus no pictures. I do want to say though that unless we as a civilization design better ways to dam rivers without disrupting fish and sediment movements, we should stop doing it and find other solutions to our energy problems. I was once a fan of hydroelectric at one point, but now all I can think of are design solutions to its many problems.

On the way out of Sierpe on Friday the 5^th we stopped by an African Oil Palm plantation for our Sustainability and the Environment class. This was a eye opening experience because we watched as people cut down these African oil palm fruits from 30ft tall trees. Oh yeah, since you don’t know what that is just imaging a 100+ pound mass of “hurt” with spines coming at you. It is a dangerous job, and that is just the start. Then they have to move these large fruits to pathways by hand, and then get each one up into a semi-truck bed. Thus by consequence there were some pretty muscular men working at this plantation. Now what is this palm fruit used for… everything from cosmetics to biodiesel of course. You would most likely recognize it the form of palm oil used for cooking.

Lastly, for those who went with me to CR in 2006… do you remember the alligators named George Bush and Saddam Hussein? Well I don’t think they are around anymore, or maybe they just changed their names, because no one knew when I asked. But yes we did stop to see the gators on our way north from Sierpe. Don’t we look like such Gringos in this picture!

These are some animals that I found throughout the week. The orange seed is a piece of the Oil Palm fruit too.














OH MY... ask me a about this tree, or should I say multiple trees and how amazing they were to climb. Not to mention how cool they look growing around this old bus stop looking concrete structure.

This is a Tico version of those tree faces that are found in the US. You know the ones with two eyes, a mouth and nose that you hang from trees. Can you see the eyes in this one?