Tomorrow morning two friends and I are taking an early bus to San Jose to an early bus to one of the southern-most parts of Costa Rica. Once we reach the Osa Peninsula we're going to the park National Geographic called 'the most biologically intense place on earth.' I'm going there because, among other things, I want to see cool animals. Living in the park are all four species of monkey present in costa rica (spider, white-faced capuchin, howler, and squirrel), the infamous and poisonous fer de lance snake, tapirs, jaguar, tons of birds including the harpy eagle, the largest bird of prey in the Americas, bull sharks in the rivers, 30 ft. crocodiles, the list goes on. The park also conserves a large old-growth tropical rainforest which I’m just as excited to see as the fauna. I look forward to updating everyone on what I actually see while I’m down there but more on that once I return…
The past few weeks have been exhausting and so good. After we returned from Panama, we had two free weekends in a row and a lot of data collection in the field.
I spent both of my weekends on the Caribbean coast in a rasta town of 600 called Cahuita. It’s incredible to me that this part of the country hasn’t been developed as much as the Pacific. Some people here have suggested that there’s a kind of cultural barrier in Costa Rica between the Caribbean and the Central Valley. Historically, the majority of the slave trade affected the Caribbean and for a long time, the afro-Caribbean population was restricted from traveling into the central part of the country. The division remains and though the Caribbean is even more beautiful than the Pacific, it’s relatively under-developed. I like it that way.
In time, the development will come to this part of the country and I’m sure it will come to look like much of the Pacific coast. One town down the coast, Manzanilla, only got paved roads in 2003.
Cahuita represents the common Costa Rican phrase pura vida in all ways. The people are very laid back, the beaches are beautiful, and the food and drink are delicious. Even the national park here has entrance by donation, the only park in the country where such a system exists.
Our weekends were spent with bonfires, swimming in the waves, and lots and lots of beach time. We camped at a placed called the Reggae Restaurant and chilled with the people who own the restaurant. True to its name, there was always reggae (much of it Costa Rican) coming from two massive speakers in the open-air restaurant.
After our two weekends away we had a full week of directed research data collection in the field. For my group, that meant setting up sample plots, measuring trees and coffee plants, taking soil and leaf litter samples, gps-mapping farms, eating rice, beans, plantains, cheese, eggs, and tortillas out of banana leaves, and a lot of hard, hot hours scaling steep coffee farms. We did our research on three separate coffee farms of three different types in the Atenas area. The first farm has been managed organically for almost ten years, the second was conventional, “shade-grown” (though for this farm that just meant there were a couple of trees on the property, no real shade at all), and the third was an abandoned farm which the owner had been cleaning up for the preceding three years. That last farm was absolutely my favorite: it was wild and overgrown and the hills were so steep that you couldn’t climb them without swinging on coffee plants to pull yourself up or lower yourself down the slope. We all helped out with each other’s work but my job was to take soil samples. I took 60 25 cm samples over the course of the week using two different corers (one of which I eventually shattered) and a big metal sledge hammer. Everyday was hard but it was great; I could have done with a couple more weeks of collecting data. Unfortunately, it’s over now and we have to analyze our data and, after break, write our research papers.
For now, I’m focused on the Corcovado adventure. There will be a big picture post once I get back from there!
Comments welcome as always! It’s crazy to think that I’ll be back in the states in 16 days; what a trip.
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