Other than the rain, this last week has somewhat uneventful… the calm before the storm as some would say. Next week starts our first round of test and final projects.
This is a random picture that I wanted to share for a while now. These improvised spikes are hypothesized to have warded off Giant Sloths many, many years ago... back in the days of mega fauna.
To celebrate our final week of freedom (relatively) we played soccer on Saturday morning! Tracy’s family reserved the “caja” for us just outside of Santa Elena. Now truthfully, a “caja” literally translates into “box” so I was not sure what to expect, nor did I know if we would have much tico competition. When we arrived, I saw just how much ticos love their soccer. The caja rubber padded, astro-turf, ¼ scale soccer field inside of an open aired metal shed. Somewhat skeptically, I got on the field and started to run around, kicking the ball and throwing a frisbee. It felt great, especially under with my toe-ed shoes on! You could slide, fall and kick without having to worry about getting rug burn, or terribly bruising yourself. Ticos really know what they are talking about when it comes to soccer.
We played on the field for an hour, usually 6 on 6. There were a couple of tico family members that showed up to play, but primarily we were just a bunch of gringos pretending like we knew how to play soccer. It was so much fun, and wonderful exercise. Other than biking, hiking and the like, I really haven’t had any direct physical activity while here. Although I wouldn’t call myself out of shape, I really could feel ALL my sore muscles when I woke up Sunday morning.
At one o’clock on Saturday we all piled into vans to go to our final Costa Rican Natural History class with our professor, Mark Wainwright. Our destination, Bajo del Tigre preserve. Just on the edge of Monteverde, this forested area is a mix of ancient dry forest and an old farmstead that is restoring itself to a dry forest. We were there to check out invertebrates as well as anything we could get our hands on. Here are a few picture of our bounty…
This is a weevil… a type of beetle. Look at his funny set of antlers… they aren’t really called that but look pretty sweet non-the-less.
Here is a frog we found in a small pool of water.
And another one… this one is a glass frog… see his innards?
And here is a spider. I learned that not all spiders have eight eyes, and that “daddy long legs” really aren’t spiders. They are” harvestmen,” although there is a true spider called a “daddy long leg” that doesn’t look like the ones thinks of. Just a bit of trivia for you all…
Did I mention that it was raining for almost the entire eight hours we were at Bajo del Tigre? IT was raining so much (as it does in the wet season) that some people were figuring out that their rain jackets really aren’t waterproof… I am glad I had my poncho. The funny thing is that we all went out to eat pizza and pasta at a restaurant on the way back. We were definitely underdressed and way too wet to be there, but the food was way too delicious and warm to pass up at that point.
Saturday was a very long and exhausting day, so I decided to take Sunday off, work on the CIEE t-shirt design and do my blog today… that is after sleeping in till 7am. I know it doesn’t sound like much but compared to 6 o’clock it was heavenly.
This is the artificial wetland that I showed pictures of earlier... it is halfway done. In the foreground you see the sedimentation pool and primary treatment. The back is the actual wetland that will filter the water slowly before releasing it to a stream, hopefully clean.
To all those taking finals… may the Lord be with you, and His mercy be in your professors. I am sure you will do fine! It is almost summer break!
Will you bring me back a baby spiky tree? Pretty please?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your finals went well :)