NOTE: MORE Pictures Coming Soon!
- woke up early to finish packing and be ready to go at 8am
- watched everyone else get dropped off in Cerro Plano, Sapo Dorado, or Santa Elena (the people going to San Luis took a different van)
- Finally, Jessica and I got to Cañitas. We're living on the same farm and very close to each other. Her host father is the son of my host father - she ended up deciding to switch to a new host family a few days later because she didn't like her family and Cañitas was too far from any of her project sites.
- My farm is absolutely beautiful! It has huge gardens and a great view of rolling green hills of pasture, trees, and coffee. I live in a big pink house - pink on the outside and much of the inside. It has 5 bedrooms, a shower room, a bathroom, a huge dining room, a smaller living room, a big kitchen area and a smaller kitchen area for cooking (the smaller one is where we eat breakfast).
- My homestay family raises cows for milk, which goes to the Monteverde Cheese factory, and grows coffee for the Co-op (Cafe Monteverde). They also use the milk to make their own cheese for personal use. They also grow bananas, mango, corn, and chickens for personal consumption.
Cafe Monteverde of the Coopesanta Elena
- They have an adorable little black puppy named Lassie! She's about three months old - pretty close in age to Brandon's pups. Lassie likes to chase the chickens around the yard and drag the cats around like chew toys. She's very hyper, but so cute! They have a very mellow German Shepherd named Benji - though I think Rin Tin Tin would be more appropriate. There are also a few cats that also run around the yard.
- I hung out with Jessica and her 4 year old host sister in the morning. This made me think that maybe it was a good thing that I didn't end up with little kids in my homestay family - old people are much more relaxed and understanding about bad Spanish.
Jessica's homestay pups sleeping
Jessica's homestay dad and sister
- Went to town after lunch and scoped out some hotels for Brandon on the way. Did a bit of shopping and walked back to Cañitas for dinner. The walk back feels a lot longer than the walk to town!
- My homestay mom wasn't there when I got there because she had to go to the doctor in San Ramon for some sort of check-up. I'm excited to meet her though because everyone else's looked really friendly. Unfortunately I won't be home tomorrow when she gets back.
- My host dad was very nice and welcoming though. We had dinner together and watched some TV - something I didn't end up doing very much of because Spanish soap operas (telenovelas) are even worse than American ones. He told me a story about how a cow peed on a student when she was milking it at the farm. We talked about the different places I'd been to in Costa Rica and I showed him some pictures. He asked if I had any pets and I told him about my pets. He said he didn't like snakes and asked if I wore mine around my neck so I showed him a picture of me holding Conway like that. I also showed him some pictures of my other pets.
- Before the homestay started, I was getting nervous about living in Cañitas because everyone was acting like I was crazy for doing it. But after being there, I ended up really really liking it. The farm was beautiful and wasn't very farm from the streams I was doing my project on - in fact it borders one of the rivers. I enjoyed being out there by myself and not going to the station or town everyday.
Saturday 7/17
- Met Alex at the supermercado and Ellie at her house and walked to the station to work on our bird projects from Peñas Blanca.
- Stayed at the station pretty much all day and then got a ride with the cooks to Ellie's house
- We all went to Mata e Caña (bar) for the Chanchos del Monte show - Chanchos is a band that one of our professors plays in
Alex, Me and Ellie at the Chanchos del Monte show
The Chanchos - My professor is on the left
- Took a cab home pretty early and went to bed. Not the greatest first meeting with my Mama Tica when she brought Jessica into my room to sleep in my bed at about 4:30 in the morning because she was asleep on our front porch...oh goodness.
Sunday 7/18
- Finally had a proper meeting with my Mama Tica
- Went into nowhereville Cañitas trying to find Guillermo's farm - got completely lost and had to ask another farmer where it was. He spoke no English and had a heavy accent so he ended up walking me most of the way to Guillermo's farm.
Coffee on Guillermo's farm
- Bush-whacked through the stream area and got super dirty trying to walk on steep slopes and through forest. Couldn't find the discharge point and was really frustrated with the whole thing.
- Took a cab back from my house back to the station to talk to Brandon, work on my bird project, call Guillermo, and pick up some more supplies for my project.
- Went back to the house for dinner and some extended family was over - the amount of Spanish being spoken was a bit overwhelming for me!
Monday 7/19
- Met Guillermo at this farm and went on a walk through the forest along the stream - turns out he has a very nice trail system set up, you just have to know how to find it! Turns out the little stream is temporal and only about 2/3 of it is flowing right now, so there is a gap between where the discharge material enters and where the stream begins. This changes my project a little, but I can still look at the effects of the different land uses on the macroinvertebrate community.
- Looked at a map of the property - there's two streams that run through the property and meet on his farm. The larger stream is the dividing line between Guillermo's farm and Victor's (my host dad's) farm.
- Took a cab into town with Guillermo to get a battery for some of the equipment - thanks Pablo and Moncho!
- Walked back to the house and then to Guillermo's farm to do sample site number one where pasture and coffee border the stream and water washes down from coffee fields.
Tuesday 7/20
- Went to the farm and took 2 samples - one where the stream enters the bigger stream and one just upstream from that (where a temporal stream enters the little stream).
- Went back to the house and watched some movies because it poured all afternoon and night
Wednesday 7/21
- BRANDON COMES TO COSTA RICA TODAY!
- Went to the station to ID some bugs because it rained too much the day before to sample today
- Worked on my bird project some more
- Left station around 6pm to meet Brandon's 7:30 pm bus - as I walked up to the top of the hill before Santa Elena, I could see a bus pulling up at the station and started walking as fast as I could to try to get there before he got off. By the time I made it there, he was off and getting his luggage, but the bus was 30 minutes early!
- Went to the hotel to drop his stuff off and then out to dinner at a pizza place
Thursday 7/22
- Got up early and walked to the farm
- Gave gifts to my Tica family - a flower pot and black-eyed susan seeds, a Maryland magnet, mug and sticker, Old Bay, some of Mom's chocolate chip cake, and a toy for Lassie.
- Introduced them to Brandon and had to do some translating since he doesn't know any Spanish
- Went to the farm and got 2 more samples done on the main river - one closer to the road by Trapiche and one a bit farther downstream
- Went back to the house and watched a movie with Brandon while Mama and Papa Tico were at church
- Brandon and I ate dinner there - he experienced the wonder of Lizano on rice and beans. She made quite the big dinner for us.
Friday 7/23
- Went to Humans class at the CIEE center in Cerro Plano
- Went to the woodmill to learn about deforestation. Watched them cut down a tree and learned about how the owner gets wood and sells it. He also makes really cool wood furniture.
- Went to some crazy American guy's farm in Cañitas. He bought the farm and is replanting it to be forest by receiving Ecosystem Service Payments. He's the owner of the butterfly garden in town and must've had some money from something else because that is quite the project to undertake - buy a farm and make basically no money off of it because you're reforesting it. His house was also enormous! That alone probably offset whatever good he's doing with reforestation. I did not like how he was using Roundup to kill off all of this invasive pasture grass in order to plant forest. The grass species is definitely highly invasive, but he had treated some of his fields with Roundup 8 or 9 times in order to kill it all. He praised it for being so safe and non-toxic, but I hardly believe that. Here's some wiki info on Roundup for anyone interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)
- Went back to the center and read an article about deforestation and took the quiz
- Met Brandon at the hotel and had dinner at the Treehouse Restaurant
Saturday 7/24
- Got a ride into Santa Elena with one of my host family's sons in the super old Toyota Landrover-esque truck. Saw some gringas that had backed their SUV into a ditch. Pretty funny.
- Ellie and Alex met us at the hotel and we all got picked up by the Selvatura bus to go ziplining!!!
- Went ziplining - which is always really scary before the first line, but then ends up being really really fun. A little disappointed because you have to go in tandem on the last line (1000m long), but a guide needed someone to go with him and took Brandon. Some of the lines were really cool
and went over valleys. Afterwards, we got to go on the Tarzan swing for free. This is where you walk off of a platform and swing back and forth - not really my thing... Then we went on the suspension bridges in the park.
- We took a bus back to town and went in a few shops while Alex and Ellie showered at the hotel room
- Came back and showered at the hotel and went out to dinner at an awesome seafood restaurant with Brandon, Ellie and Alex. Then we went to Mata e Caña and saw a bunch of other people from our group. We left there pretty early though because Alex was tired and we had all had a long day.
Sunday 7/25
- Got up pretty late and went to brunch at Cafe Monteverde with Brandon.
- Then we went to the Serpentario to see some snakes. They had some really cool poisonous ones and some really big boas.
- Walked to the station and stopped at some stores along the way. One store had a purse that was made out of an E.T. record cover! It was so cool, but they were selling it for like $60 and I would probably never use it so I didn't get it. I did find a freshwater pearl necklace strung the way the one Grandpa got Mom though! I also got Charles Kitten a little present!
- We went on a short hike through the forest so that Brandon could see what a cloud forest looked like.
- Walked to the co-op and cheese factory, but both were closed so we decided to eat at Tramonti's which ended up being a very nice, delicious Italian restaurant that was reasonably priced. The food was absolutely delicious.
- Took a taxi to the Ranario (Frog Pond) and got to seem some really awesome frogs including red-eyed tree frogs and glass frogs.
Monday 7/26
- Saw a sloth at Trapiche on the way to my sample site
Typical Costa Rica ox-cart for transporting coffee - at Trapiche coffee and sugar cane tours
- Sampled where the bigger stream starts from two springs on a cattle farmer's property before it crosses the road near Trapiche. The river was surrounded by very meager forest and the cattle farm also appeared to have some sort of dirtbike track.
- Walked home and the family had the truck apart in the front yard. Then we walked to town and stopped at a few shops along the way. I slipped on some gravel leaving one of the shops and fell. I sprained by big toe and got a pretty good bruise on my leg.
- Went into Santa Elena so Brandon could wrap up his souvenir shopping.
- I took a cab home for dinner and had a long talk with Mama Tica.
Tuesday 7/27
- Mama and Papa Tico went out early to go to another town to buy clothes and some other stuff
- Brandon came over and we went to do some sampling. Lassie tried to follow us because there was no one else at the house - so cute!
- Walked for forever on the farm following the river downstream through coffee and pasture, climbing over barbed wire fences, until we were probably on someone else's farm. The first site was very pretty and we saw a sunbittern (bird). The second site was really hard to get to because the slope down to it was so steep.
- We walked back a different way and got to see a very pretty view of my farm.
- My family's other car was broken down on the road right before the driveway and they were having someone tow it in for them.
- Went to Morpho's for dinner and then went back to Brandon's hotel and I started watching the True Blood episodes he had downloaded, starting with season 1.
Wednesday 7/28
- Finished up shopping with Brandon and he got his final items for his family.
- Went to Cafe Cabure, where Alex's Mama Tica works, for lunch.
- Brandon and I walked to the Co-op and the art gallery to look around. We took a cab back to the hotel and hung out there until it was time to go on our night hike at Bosque Eterno de los Niños. We saw two motmots (birds) on the way there. The hike wasn't all we were hoping for, but I guess they're always hit or miss. We did see 2 tarantulas, some cool bugs, 2 perched butterflies, lots of bats, and a scorpion that glowed under the black light.
- We ate at Tramonti's again - after reading their guest book, we really wished we had tried the pizza.
Thursday 7/29
- Brandon got up at 3:45 am to catch a 4:30 am bus. I was half asleep while saying goodbye.
- I got up around 6:30am and took a cab home to drop stuff off and then went to the CIEE center for humans class.
- I couldn't get the internet to work and eventually Pablo showed up and said that the land around a bridge on the way to San Jose had collapsed last night and taken the fiber optic lines down with it. He said the bridge wouldn't be prepared for 3 days. The only other way to get to San Jose is very long and so I worried about how Brandon was going to make it there for his plane. Moncho was on his way back from San Jose and Pablo said they were letting him cross the bridge by foot.
- We had a lecture about ecosystem services and went to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. This reserve receives lots of tourists and money for its budget, but it has no interest in expanding its property. It took a 3 hour slideshow for this much to be explained basically - worst humans day ever. We saw a Resplendent Quetzal (a bird characteristic of Monteverde) while we were there. It was very pretty.
- Then we went to Bosque Eterno de los Niños and listened to Bob Law (part of the Monteverde Conservation League) tell us the story of how it was created. This forest includes the part of Peñas Blanca that we walked through.
- Then we went back to the study center and listed to a lady talk about the changes she's seen in Monteverde since 1981 and in the whole area since the 1940s. Most of these changes are primarily due to ecotourism.
- Went home and was eating dinner when Mauricio brought me the phone. It was Brandon, but not calling from where I had hoped...
- Turns out he couldn't get across the bridge and was back that the Don Taco after taking two taxis and walking to get through the landslides.
- He came over to the house for a bit and then we went back to the Don Taco to sort everything out in the morning
Friday 7/30
- Hung out around the hotel awhile trying to figure out plane tickets to get Brandon home. After booking a plane ticket from Liberia rather than San Jose, we went to town to get a bus ticket and were told that the bus to Las Juntas that he took yesterday (which connects with one for Liberia) wasn't running. They suggested taking the bus to San Jose (which was now running) and switching to a bus for Liberia at a stop. Although it seemed like he'd be crunched for time, we decided this was the best option.
- We went to the farm and then went to do the last two samples. Then, we went to see them milking the cows at 3pm. After that, we went to the hotel, ate pizza and watched True Blood.
Saturday 7/31
- Brandon left really early again - 6:30am bus.
- I got up later and went to meet Alex and then Ellie. We hung out at Ellie's house for awhile, but decided not to go to the waterfall since it was raining and had poured the previous night. Plus, Alex's mom said the Monteverde waterfall wasn't that great.
- Alex and I went into town and ate at a coffee shop owned by the Treehouse Restaurant.
- Ellie met us in town later and we hung out in front of the ice cream shop for awhile.
- I took a cab home and started doing some packing.
Sunday 8/1
- Got up later than I intended and had to wait an hour before a cab showed up because they were so busy. Apparently it's hard to get a cab on Sundays.
- Went to the station to drop some stuff off and ID the bugs from sites 4 - 8.
- Talked to Brandon. He finally made it home after his flight from NJ was cancelled and then he stayed in a hotel and missed the next early morning flight and was on standby for another one. Basically, he is never allowed to travel again.
- Got done at the station later than I expected and took a cab back to my house. Had dinner with Mama Tica and then exchanged Mom's chocolate chip cake recipe for her lemon dessert recipe. I had to translate both of them though, which took a little bit.
- I talked with her for a bit as she filled out Alex's survey for her project. She barely got through the second grade because she lived really far away from the school on a farm and had a lot of younger siblings. Some of her younger siblings made it through school and now one of them is an English teacher. I don't remember how far she said Victor made it through school, but it was longer than her. Mauricio (their son that lives at their house) went to college for three years and has an agricultural degree. It was kind of amazing to see that she had only made it that far in school, but had a son that went all the way through college.
- I finished up most of my packing that night.
Monday 8/2
- I had breakfast and finished putting my last bit of stuff together to go back to the station. I also took some final pictures of the farm.
- My Mama Tica gave me a pillowcase that she made for me and a totebag before I left. She told me to come back on the 13th to get some cake to take to my Mom. She bakes and decorates cakes for orders from people in the area. She really likes to bake and is very good at it. She makes lots of desserts and homemade bread.
- I got picked up abound 8:15 am to go back to the station. Once we got back, we unloaded the van and I moved back into my room with Alex and Ellie.
- I IDed the bugs from my last two sites.
- We had a lecture about how to write a scientific paper. Afterwards, I started working on entering my data in Excel.
- We had our Spanish final at 2:30 at CPI. It wasn't very hard, but my essay was pretty lame - we had the option of contrasting our Tica family with our biological family. Afterwards, we walked back to the station.
- I wrote my humans essay that is due Friday so that I could knock out my final humans essay tomorrow and then concentrate on my final project.
Tuesday 8/3
- I don't feel well today. I'm nauseas and really tired. This sucks because we have a lot of stuff to do.
- I got up to get the prompt for the final humans essay that is due today and then I went back to bed for another hour. I cranked out the humans essay and then watched some True Blood because I didn't have any energy to work on my project.
- I had lunch and then met with Pablo to talk about analyzing my data. Then, I slept away most of the day because I still didn't feel well. I got up for dinner - it was my favorite, quesadillas, but I couldn't eat much because I had no appetite.
- I did some more stuff on my data, but didn't feel well enough to concentrate on writing my introduction or anything.
