cool sightings

Here are just a few more of the interesting species seen around base. (sorry if the pics are out of order) We have very large American Crocodiles that are often seen sunbathing on the river banks. One day we went out there and 3 huge guys were out basking at the same time! We watched them for a bit but as the boat approached to pick us up they all made their way back into the water. It was awesome. Next is the male Amazon Kingfisher, one of 6 kingfisher species we survey for. You can tell it´s a male from the rufous colored chest band while the female has a broken green band across the chest. The frog is the poster-child of costa rica, the red eyed tree frog. they are really beautiful. Finally, here is an image from one of our night cameras. Our compost heap tends to attract night-time visitors and this night we had a Kinkajou! It’s probably not good that it is coming to feed on our leftovers, but definitely makes for cool pictures in the morning!

comida tipica

I have only recently started having major food cravings which I think is pretty good considering that I have now been here for 3 full months! While we do cook vegetarian due to lack of access and no refrigeration (except for a few special occasions that they bring in meat), it is not really what I would deem healthy vegetarian. Spices are limited and so are the options for what to make. Breakfast is always oatmeal, and lunch and dinner are either pasta with something or rice with something. And that something is either simply veggies, beans, chickpeas, lentils, or soy meat. While it is great that we have those grain options, people don’t like them that much so we end up just getting a carb and veggies which is not sufficient. The rule is that you have to cook with one protein a day, but I really think it should be two. While there are some stand-out chefs that really go outside the box and cook exceptional food for what we have (like cheese-less pizza, doughnuts, or chickpea salad), usually it is pretty basic. Furthermore, we use TONS of soy bean oil here which is super unhealthy. I am craving veggie sushi, falafel, real salad, blueberries, cheese, Thai, and anything cold. Mmmmmmm.

To balance the sometimes sub-par food, we end up buying lots of snacks. That would be ok if we could purchase them for reasonable prices. However, the nearest town, Tortuguero, is ridiculously overpriced. It’s like living in an airport; tons of tourists and everything is really expensive! They do bring in a lot of American brands which is nice to have something familiar, but I bought a bag of goldfish crackers for $5. Yep, $5. Crazy. Luckily I can still get decent chocolate or I would go nuts, but that costs about $6.

Every Monday we get a shipment of fruits and veggies delivered to the river mouth. These goods come all the way from San Jose by a guy who buys them there and delivers it to local hotels, etc. via boat down the canals. A group of 4 or 5 of us meet the boat down at the entrance to our trail (about a mile walk) with a wheelbarrow and haul it back. While it seems like a lot of food when you’re carrying it, the amount has to last all week. This equals about one pineapple or watermelon shared by all per day. Plus we get bananas but those run out by Thursday. Those who know my rates of fruit consumption understand how devastating that is for me. Luckily, because our base was someone’s home for 50 years, he did plant fruit trees. I am able to supplement my diet with fresh picked treats! We normally have a team that goes picking once a week. In season right now are water apples (similar to pears) and star fruit, but I am looking forward to avocados! Also, since we live on the coconut plantation, Candido, our only neighbor who is a machete master, cuts coconuts for us. Normally we just smash them against a cement step (which you usually loose the nutritious juice) but yesterday he brought me one he had hand sliced with a machete. It looked like an egg but you could just take the top out of it and drink the juice, then it was all ready for eating. Perfect. If only my machete skills were that good.

A Note on Accents

Being one of only 4 Americans on base, I am surrounded by a wide range of accents from posh English to mumbled Scottish to Croatian. However, the vast majority are British. I normally emulate accents I hear for fun (many of you have heard my Irish one and I do a damn good southern accent). However, in this situation I feel it would be rude to attempt that, more like a mockery. However, because I pretty much live in a British colony in Costa Rica, my speech is definitely influenced by them. I could hear it well in the other North Americans when I arrived and was appalled when I could hear it in my own speech. Pretty much what happens is that we North Americans loose the monotone and replace it with this weird form of sing song. I wish I had a recording so you could hear what happens, but the intonation changes in our voices and makes everything go up and down. Weird. Also, I now say cheers instead of thank you.

Here are some pictures of some recently seen creatures. The snake is an Eyelash Pit-viper (venomous), the lizard is a Striped Basilisk, a Howler Monkey, a Boat-billed Heron, and can you spot the frog?

Base Update

The last few weeks have flown by. Yesterday morning we said farewell to our 5 week volunteers while in the afternoon we picked up 5 new volunteers that will stay the remainder of phase. We now have 28 people on base, a full house! This week will be balanced with training the new volunteers in health, safety, and all survey protocols, as well as continuing with our normal survey schedule. Needless to say it will be pretty hectic, but I am feeling much more comfortable with my role here. I have really gotten the canal birds down and am working on memorizing bird calls in the forest, which is a huge challenge! There are hundreds of bird species in Costa Rica and being able to recognize them solely from their calls would be a lifelong effort. But I am starting to pick up the more common ones.

As far as general life on base, we have returned to using a generator to pump our well water and to charge equipment. It is only on a few hours a day, but I actually much preferred life without it. There is something to be said for the peace and quiet of not having any electrical related humming sounds, as well as the tranquility of just cooking dinner by candlelight. However, we still live with very little amenities and I can’t express how much I enjoy not looking at my cell phone every few minutes to check text messages!

You might wonder what we do for fun or in our spare time. Usually my free hours are spent grading work for the Biology Survey Course I run, or studying! Volunteers have a bit more time and can usually be found catching up on sleep in the hammocks by the beach. However, staff and volunteers alike hang out in the kitchen area at night. We play card or board games, sing along to music, and have impromptu toga parties with our bed sheets. Last week we organized a full-on “pub trivia night.” I must confess that I got every single question related to the United States wrong including how many points a touchdown is worth. Pathetic!

I drive a 25ft boat, really!

For those of you who are aware of my driving record (car and otherwise), I would like you to know that I am redeeming myself. As one of the 5 staff members, all of us are needed to take our turn driving the boat for surveys and to run errands, etc. And as nervous as I was, I passed my boat test and now drive the boat full of volunteers and I made them take a picture to proove it! It was really scary at first because the boat is incredibly long and when people are on it, it is very hard to see. Luckily there is a lift for the motor when we get too shallow (unlike my failed attempts to lift up the motor in Waquoit bay on the boston whaler). The narrow canals are especially tricky for turning around but otherwise you just have to avoid fallen logs. We also have to load our canoe onto the boat and drive it out to where we do surveys. Very technical! I haven't gone down the tricky canal yet where boats get stuck all the time, but I am up to the challenge!

3 things I have to share

1) We are currently collecting data on jaguar tracks in the hopes of gaining insight into the size of the Jalova jaguar population and dynamics. We have new software we are using that was originally used to track tigers in India. AWESOME. Already we are getting good data and hope that by the end of this phase we can identify individual jags. Additionally, we have motion detector cameras that we setup around jag hotspots to get pictures (you can also Identify jaguars by their roseate patterns). The very first night we put out our new cameras to be tested, we got an amazing few images of a possibly pregnant female, which was so amazing. Even cooler still is that the pictures were captured at 730 in the morning, and were retrieved by the team at 9am! They were only 1 1/2 hours away from seeing the jag!

2)I drink coffee now. This is a miracle. I have always been repulsed by coffee or anything that tastes remotely like it. However, once I relized how early I would be getting up, and how supposedly good the coffee is in Costa Rica I decided that I would start drinking it. Amazingly, I forced my way through the first cup with less difficulty and gagging than i thought. Since then I may have even begun to enjoy it! Ofcourse loads of sugar and milk are involved, but I am getting there!

3) I was stung by a scorpion. I repeat, stung by a scorpion! But fortunately there are no deadly species in Costa Rica. I made the mistake of picking up a branch during trail clearing without my gloves and I sure paid for it. As I grabbed the branch to move it off the trail, I felt a strong sting on the tip of my finger that felt unlike any bee sting or ant/spider bite I've had. The throbbing/painfully numb sensation quickly spread up my arm and even into my chest while my finger felt as if someone was continuously pricking me with a needle. This carried on for the next 12 hours with some degree of flucutation between bareable and I think my arm is going to fall off! After brainstorming what could have possibly stung me (there was only a pin prick at the site and no swelling, and i have strong reactions to bees) and hearing from other staff who had been stung by scorpions, that is how we made the decision. Always look before you touch!

A scorpion I saw in Nicaragua (Not the dude that stung me)

Life on Base

A few creatures around base






Over the last few weeks, waking up at 4am has gone from something I would normally do anything to avoid, to a daily occurance. Depending on what survey I am leading for the morning, I wakeup somewhere between 400 and 500 a.m. After I get dressed, I struggle to put on my contacts with my headlamp and pack the field kit (first-aid kit, radio, satellite phone, notebooks, measuring tools, etc.) and head over to the kitchen for breakfast. Two volunteers are supervised by a staff memmber to get up and have breakfast ready for the outgoing surveys, and they will also cook lunch and dinner for all 26 staff and volunteers. It is a lot of work, but once you get the hang of how much food you need, it normally goes ok!

At first light, I get my volunteers ready to go out with a brief and by making sure they have their personal equipment. The main surveys are Canal Birds (which I run), Jaguar track check, Jaguar camera setup, biodiversity assessment, and mammal tracks. Staff are trained in leading all surveys and take turns leading them. Depending on the survey you may be spending hours on the beach collecting data on jaguar tracks, paddling a canoe, or hiking through waist deep water in the forest. Needless to say, we get pretty dirty and sweaty. Lunch is at 11, follwed by our staff meeting, then meeting with the volunteers, and then out we go again in the afternoon. Also, we have night walks most days from 6-8pm. So it is possible to work from about 4am until 830 pm!

I spend my free time on the porch, taking in the breeze and either preparing lessons or studying myself. I also run the Biology Btec in which volunteers take a course to be certified in biological survey techniques. This has given me a real taste of teaching as I give assignments and even graded my first test last week on the canal birds! It is really amazing to feel that you are able to teach people what you are passionate about and help them gain skills for the future.

Also, life on base is currently even a bit more challenging than usual as our generator broke and we are still working on getting it fixed. Volunteers arrived on the 7th of January and got the full taste of living rustic! Normally the generator is only put on for a few hours each afternoon and early evening to fill the water tank and to charge our computers for data entry, radios, etc. However, since we don't even have that, we are hauling our own water from the well and bucket bathing! But I honestly do not miss the electricity at all and even prefer not having it. Luckily our coconut harvester neighbor (our one and only neighbor) has graciously been allowing us to charge our equipment at his house nightly. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to give all our presentations, enter data, or have communication.

Holiday Travels Part 2: Nicaragua

After making it across the border with little difficulty, we spent the night in Rivas which had a distinct feel from Costa Rican cities. It was a little more laid back and less touristy. Next morning we took the ferry from San Jorge to cross to the Isla de Ometepe, which is an island formed by 2 volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua. It is really beautiful. We stayed at an old farm house which is now a cooperative of coffee farmers. They produce organic shade grown coffee and run the hostel. The building is huge and somewhat dilapitated, but really cool. This is where we spent Christmas with good views and lots of gallo pinto (rice and beans). We also took a tour of the coffee plantation and the petroglyphs (rock carvings done my the mayans and incans).

Next we headed to the colonial city of Granada. I really loved it there because the buildings had so much character and the colors were so vibrant. It definately has a tourist scene (with everyone carrying the same lonely planet guide), but is still really cool with lots to do, see, and eat (Including tasting a pink coconut sweet). We also took a day trip to Volcan Masaya National Park. We got to the top of a fuming crater and were surprised at how strong the gas was. They suggest you only look for about 15 mintutes (how is this determined?) Not only was there the active volcano but a series of gorgeous inactive volcanoes and panoramic views.

After Granada we headed to Leon, which is rich in Sandanista History. We went to a museum where our guide fought with the Sandinistas and told us all about it. This is also a colonial city with the largest Cathedral in Central America, but is pretty run-down. This is where we spent New Year Eve. The main plaza was filled with families and couples eating at food stands and people watching. Everyone else was getting their eardrums destroyed by blasting music in the discos. The 1st was also when we needed to head back to San Jose via managua. Our bus was at 630 am for the 9 hour ride back. Therefore we had to get up at 330am to get the bus to managua! Needless to say there was no sleep to be had New Years Eve. The trip was amazing but flew by so quickly!

Holiday Travels Part 1: Costa Rica

This Holiday season meant another year out of the country, but I got to travel to some amazing places.I spent the first part of the trip in Alajuela, Costa Rica, which is a small city. It's actually closer to the national airport than San Jose but a lot nicer, so it made a great starting off base. I got to have my favorite "refresco de mora" which is a somewhere in between a juice and a smoothie and my flavor of choice, blackberry. There is a beautiful church there with really interesting architecture.

The next day we headed off to the Los Angeles cloud forest preserve. The views were amazing and we hiked in the protected forest. We saw some pretty birds, coati's, an agouti, and very neat plants. They also had hummingbird feeders near the lodge, and we must have spent 2 hours watching them and trying to take pictures of all the different species. There were so many of them just zipping around.

After that we moved onto La Fortuna which sits right near the Arenal Volcano. While the views are spectacular, the town and atmosphere are so touristy. People there are cut-throat for business and will try to do anything to get you to book an overpriced tour. But we managed to avoid that drama and did our own hikes. We went to a huge waterfall that you had to climb about 15 minutes downhill to reach the base where you could swim in the ice cold water. It made for a refreshing dip after the 2 1/2 km hike uphill we took to get there!

The next day we had to figure out how to get to the border of CR in order to cross into Nicaragua. It was a bit tricky because normally you take a bus all the way from San Jose but we were trying to cross over from the north. After a taxi, bus, taxi again, our taxi driver managed to get us on a international bus which meant we could make it into Nicaragua that day (for a price of ourse). This was worth it because we saved about 5 hours waiting at the border which was swamped with people trying to get home for the holidays.