Wednesday, August 4, 2010

It's been awhile: La Finca de Victor Torres, Proyecto Independiente, y La Visita de Brandon

NOTE: MORE Pictures Coming Soon!

Friday 7/16
- 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.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Around the Station: July 14th - the morning of the 16th

July 14th
- We're resting up from the big hike
- Had a lecture and then mostly discussed our projects with advisors all day. So far, I haven't made any drastic changes to my project idea - still looking at using macroinvertebrates to determine water quality along a stream that runs through several different land uses (including forested, urban in the form of a mechanical discharge point, and coffee farm).
- Went out for pizza with Alex and some other students - mushroom and onion! My favorite! And Alex and I split a plate of french fries. Not very healthy, but opportunities for pizza and fries are few and far between.

July 15th
- More lectures and more work on our projects! Proposal is due tomorrow at 7am
- We were told Spanish was delayed until 3pm rather than 2:30. Apparently that wasn't actually true. Oh well, shortened Spanish class! We also got to find out about our homestay families. I'm living in Canitas. My father is 71 and a farmer and my mother is 64 and a housewife. They have one son who is 39. No idea if he lives with them or not.
- Finished up the project proposal and packed a little at night

Morning of July 16th
- Today is the big day! Or well...one of the big days since there's been a few of them lately. I'm off to live with my host family for 17 days! It's a little nerve-racking. I doubt they'll know much English so I guess I'll be forced to improve my Spanish. No internet and limited phone usage. I'm allowed to receive calls there though, so I'll probably call tomorrow (when I come back to the station) to give Mom and Dad the phone number (and a few words in Spanish about how to ask for me!)

Sorry there's no pictures! There hasn't been much to document!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Peñas Blanca - My Condensed Jumanji Experience: July 9th to July 13th

July 9th
- Today is the big day. The big day of the big hike. Let's get psyched up. 10 miles - something a car could drive in 10 minutes, but over terrain so rough that horses have to take a different trail half the way. On foot, it will end up taking us about 7 hours (including breaks for lunch and snacks). Begin at about 5200 feet in elevation, end about 2300 feet in elevation. There's an awful lot of ascending in order to descend 3000 feet. Just for reference, Salisbury, MD is 26 feet above sea-level.


Ellie and I before beginning the hike


Elevation in the first portion of the trail


Apparently the trail was closed? That didn't stop us


- Depart at around 9 am from the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Break at Refugio Aleman (The Germans) around 12:15 pm. Arrive at Refugio Eladio in Peñas Blanca around 4 pm with sore blistered feet, mud-covered legs and a pack that feels ten times heavier than when I left.







After climbing up another hill with no idea how much farther you have to go, this is the most beautiful site you can see.

- We took our shoes off to cross a few rivers on the way. The first time, I successfully threw my shoes across a fairly small river. The second time, I took mine off and had decide to carry them across because the river was larger and faster moving. Ellie unfortunately tried to throw her shoes across one at a time. The first one bounced off a rock and was down the river and out of sight in a matter of seconds. She did the rest of the hike in Chaco sandals.


Ellie with her lonely shoe

- Once at the Refugio, we played cards and rested the rest of the evening.

July 10th
- Pancakes for breakfast/Panqueques para desayuno
- Orientation hike around Peñas Blanca - wore my Keens since my feet are blistered and I don't want to put them in those hiking boots ever again. Saw some huge orb-weaver spiders. The big orb-weavers are the females and the small spiders surrounding her on the outskirts of the web are the males (prospective mates). The males are cleptoparasites and steal food from the female. Sometimes if the males get too close, she will eat them. She will also cut large thrashing insects from the web so that they do not destroy it.



Fruiting body of an orchid


So yea, I may have worn the same clothes for 4 days


- Feddi showed up in the late afternoon - He's an interesting character/birder extraordinaire. His shoe busted within the first mile, so he walked the rest of the way without a sole on one of his shoes.


This is Feddi

- We read about and then went out to collect lianas (woody vines) and vines to give a presentation to the rest of the group after lunch and poster-making.
- Again played cards for awhile. Cards are universal - something everyone does when they're bored and without electricity. At one point, we played with one of the hosts, Tony, who knows less English than I do Spanish.
- Heard the story of how Eladio (our other host) helped save and conserve Peñas Blanca. The area was being mined by Canadians and Costa Rican people were moving in to work for the mine and to raise cattle. Many were hoping that the more that moved there, the more likely it would be for them to get a school, clinic and other infrastructure. Eladio was living there part of the time and raising cattle. Some conservationists convinced Eladio to sell them his land in order to conserve it. He then worked with them to help convince other Costa Ricans that this was the best option for the area (since the mining company left and the area was not good for agriculture). The conservationists began adding more and more land to the conservation area and continue to today. Eladio still has permission from the conservationists to bring in student groups throughout the year and use the the Refugio.

July 11th
- Woke up at 6 am to bird watch off the porch - I am not a good bird watcher. I prefer them to come to me rather than actively look for them. I don't have the patience and crappy binoculars doesn't help with that. However, I did manage to see quite a few birds during that time and Feddi identifies them as fast as they hop from tree to tree.
- Went birding in the forest with Moncho and some other students - I saw lots of birds, but not very close up because my binoculars aren't very good. Most of them moved to fast for us to identify, but we managed to get some down. We were looking to gather species richness information by recording different species we saw in the primary growth forest.


Bird watching





A jelly covering produced by the plant's roots to protect against parasites


It's hard to tell, but this is actually a large tree that fell down over the river and is now used as a bridge to cross the river - talk about eco-friendly corridors!

- Later, we compiled our data with the data of the other groups - another group in the primary forest, and two groups in the secondary forest. Once back to Monteverde, we will have to do a lab write up on this information.
- Our free time in the afternoon was mostly dedicated to...you guessed it! Cards! Ellie taught me a new game that is like a 2 person version of Euchre.
- That night we heard the story of how Eladio picked up a snake that he thought was a Fer de Lance mimic, but it turned out to be the real thing and bit his hand 3 times. He had to go to a clinic and was then taken to a hospital by plane. His finger turned into a huge blood blister and against his doctors wishes, he cut it in the shower to drain the blood and venom out. Although the doctor did not want him to do this, it may have saved his finger. Eladio asked to be transferred to another hospital closer to Monteverde and eventually convinced the doctors to let him be moved. The car that was supposed to take him to the hospital was late and so he decided to take a bus to Monteverde. Unfortunately, he had an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and had to go back to the hospital.

July 12th
- Fungal Diversity Day!
- Began the day with a lecture about fungus and were then sent out on a fungus scavenger hunt. We were given 13 different kinds of fungi to find, and Ellie and I tied with another group for first place with 7 different types of fungus. Our prize is a free beer back at the station.


The basket of fungus Ellie and I collected


Super awesome puff-ball fungus that I found


Then we got artsy in our picture taking

- We had fungus presentations in the afternoon. For this, we had to do a skit about how puff-ball fungi dispersed their spores. We wrapped a sheet around us (creating the puff-ball) and threw rice out (spores) whenever wind, water or an animal brushed up against us (dispersal mechanisms).
- During free time in the afternoon, Ellie and I walked to the river to relax and take pictures.





- That evening, a few of us worked on a thank you poster for Eladio and Tony. I drew a tree and Ellie and Bridget added leaves to it for everyone to write their names in. Mackenzie added a bird to it also. Eladio hangs all the posters that groups make him in the Refugio.
- We saw a fat paca eating the compost and a coral snake mimic crawled under the house. Feddi pulled it out for us to see once he determined that it wasn't poisonous.

July 13th
- Hike out aka emerging from the game Jumanji like Robin Williams - the walk made it feel like we were there for 30 years, rather than 5 days. Over 20 miles of hiking through the jungle, no shower and swatting at horse flies (tabanos) the size of birds will do that to you.


Big hills


Bromeliad


Crazy caterpillar


Nyssodesmus python - Millipede

- I wore my keens out and Ellie wore my boots. They're so old that the heel has now broken off and my keens are also starting to rip - those I'm either getting fixed or replaced. How many pairs of shoes can one trip destroy?
- Ran up some of the hills towards the end, excited to be out of the forest soon.



Ellie passing out when we reached the sign - almost to the end!


WE MADE IT!!!

- Took the taxi back to the station, unloaded the gear, moved back into my room and called Mom, Dad and Brandon

Macroinvertebrates, Midterm, and Milk: July 6th to July 8th

July 6th
- Diversity Indices Day - sorted and identified the macroinvertebrates we collected and did a field problem data analysis set
- Watched Good Will Hunting with Alex and Ellie
- STUDIED for the midterm
- It seriously rained the entire day

July 7th
- Midterm at 10am - took it in the library with Ellie. It was a super hard exam with really complex multiple choice questions!
- I walked to Spanish early to stop at a little shop at the bottom of the hill from the station
- Spanish class in the afternoon - unfortunately I don't feel like my Spanish has improved greatly. I'm starting to think those classes in college were a bit of a waste since they were hardly ever focused on conversational Spanish. I feel like I'm just not cut out to learn other languages. Hopefully the homestay will help me improve.

July 8th
- Humans in the Tropics today
- First we went to a small-scale farm that had pigs, cows and chickens - the owner used to have about 20 cows and sold his milk to the cheese factory in Monteverde, but this was no longer economically viable for him so he sold most of the cows. Now he has about 5 cows that he milks and then turns the milk into cheese at his house and sells it to a local bakery. He can get more money for the cheese than he could for the milk.







Colorful eggs from their chickens - definitely didn't know chicken eggs came
in so many different colors





Some clover pictures for Mom


- Then we went to the cheese factory. Downstairs they have a dairy where I got a strawberry milkshake. We took a tour of the cheese factory - it was a pretty intense set up for such a small factory, high emphasis on sanitation whereas the old man just made the cheese in a barrel in his shed. The factory has very strict regulations and testing measures for the milk that they make into cheese. We listened to and watched a slideshow on the history of the cheese factory and how it was started by the Quakers that moved down during WWII. We got to taste some cheese and caramels made at the factory.


- Finally, we went to a pig farm that was related to the cheese factory. The pigs eat the weigh that is left over from making the cheese (along with corn mixed in). The pigs are then killed to sell as food. The idea is that the pigs serve a purpose in breaking down the wastes from cheese production and then are also an product in themselves. The pig farm had over 2000 pigs at many different ages. There were lots of cute piglets! (I obviously wanted to take one home - they're only about $50 bucks as piglets!) A few people in the group cried because of the conditions the pigs were living in. It was a fairly clean set-up for pigs to be living in, and much nicer than some CAFOs in the U.S., but it was sad to see such intelligent and curious animals confined to little pens. The pigs can only partially digest the corn, so the undigested corn is extracted from their wastes and then fed to steers, which are also killed for food. The remaining wastes go into holding ponds and are treated similarly to waste water treatment - with an anaerobic and aerobic stage - until the biological oxygen demand is at a certain level.




I want to take this one home!


- Lastly, we went to the study center and discussed sections of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.
- At the end of the day, it was time to pack up and make the last phone calls to Mom, Dad, and Brandon before the 10 mile hike of death tomorrow! Oh goodness!