Gracias Super Pollo

Sunday was a big day full of all the things I needed and more. The things I needed: nachos (available at an establishment in Santa Elena called Super Pollo). It can be pretty dangerous when a craving like that hits, because oftentimes, the only readily available food is some variation of gallo pinto, or beans and rice. It is somewhat widely known that Ticos aren’t huge proponents of flavor. Most meals are bland compared to their American equivalents, and even the ketchup here has less flavor. Luckily, these nachos were the exception to the rule. Amazing!

Before the nachos, though, Buck and I spent the morning exploring the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

We hiked to this small waterfall in about an hour:

 

We saw my favorite tree in the whole world, a HUGE strangler fig:

 And made friends with this little weevil:

 

His name is Scout, and he’s the only bug I will allow to crawl on me:

 

Weevils move very slowly, which makes them far less terrifying if you ask me. Buck pointed out a bunch of other unique insects, and there are pictures on facebook. The other cool thing we saw in the reserve was the Santa Elena 7 mile foot race. Four of the Naturalists and 3 UGA Costa Rica Staff ran in the race, so we waited at the trailhead to cheer them on! Vamos, Vamos! Rapido, Rapido!

Frank was a champ and finished 18^th out of 500+ runners:

(Bringing home a delicious cheese basket, no less!)

 

The remainder of the day was full of ice cream, tiger beetles, and TONS of walking. We walked from the reserve into Santa Elena, then took La Trocha back down to San Luis. There were mucho vistas bonitas, as per the usual. Still glad to be here in such a gorgeous place!

hmmm...

So, I figured it would happen...the inevitable lull in things to blog about.

Ho hum.

Don't get me wrong, because things are still fantastic here in Costa Rica. Here's just a few of the things that I can remember being excited by this past week. Go figure that all the things I remember are the things I took pictures of. HA!

White-faced capuchin spotting, once again, above the casitas:

Significantly more exciting though, was my transformation from mere girlfriend to hairdresser! haha

So here's Buck, in desperate need of a haircut:

And though you can't see it very well, this is Buck's new haircut!

(by yours truly)

 

And only Jenier and Kevin have made fun of it thus far...an accomplishment on my part, if you ask me. And anyway, from what I understood of their Spanish, it wasn't the actual haircut they were making fun of, but instead my ability to safely execute the task. They were marveling at the fact that I didn't cut Buck's ear off in the process. That would have been less than ideal, certainly.

The two of us took lunch on Wednesday at Mario and Margot's house. My favorite part might have been finding out that their 4-year-old son, and my little brother for one night in March, had such a good time that night that he cried a little when Amanda and I left. I asked in very poor spanish if he did that when all the students left. The answer, surprisingly, was no. Apparently we left a mighty impression, which was lovely to hear.

Did I mention that I finished the book Water for Elephants in my last post? Time is running away from me, and one week blends into the next.

Now I'll have to wrap up my blogging since a small winged bug just crawled under the keyboard keys. All hope might be lost for this little guy, but this last bit is taking a long time to type since I have to strategically avoid certain parts of the keyboard.

Adios residentes de los Estados Unidos!

**Holy Cow! I think it just escaped from the bottom of the keyboard! No wings left, but come on...that's still totally impressive!**

Corduroy

I forgot one very important memory that I must preserve here.

I never want to forget sitting in the library with Alex and Kelly's watershed class doing a dramatic reading of a childhood favorite accompanied by Buck on that terrible, full-of-holes guitar.

The book:

(mi favorita)

no internet for 3 days = no blogging for 3 days

The past few days absolutely flew.

With the arrival of ecology clubmates Kelly and Alex, Don Ontoniel’s retirement party, today’s wonderful weather, and the new book I started reading, I have stayed relatively busy…you know, like relative to a tica. Things are still very relaxed as my work transitions from collecting and organizing data to outlining and designing the 2011 Sustainability Report.

After work in the afternoons, it was wonderful to stay up late (10:30…HA!) and reminisce about Athens, past parties, and crazy ecology shenanigans. It was also nice to do a bit of yoga with them; although my heart aches that we neither hashed nor took an ecology calendar photo. I guess that will have to wait.

Friday, I started reading Water for Elephants, which is now my go-to procrastination tool.

Last night was la fiesta at Alvarro’s trapiche. A percentage breakdown of my time at the party would show:

So obviously, that was a great time. Then this morning, Buck and I took advantage of the beautiful day with a hike toward San Luis. It was the first time that I’ve hiked down into one of the valleys here, and I was amazed to find myself feeling even more surrounded by nature. The valley walls are steep and awe-inducing.

Luckily, on our hike, we ran into Mario and Margot with little Jorje Mario on the front of their motorcycle. They stopped and invited us to dinner on Tuesday night, proving that there are more good things to come.

 Pura Vida!

*One quick afterthought: Even if hard rain drives you indoors for an entire Saturday afternoon, don’t watch the movie Sin City. It won’t lift your spirits.

la lluvia

Oh man...the rain...

I have seen at least a slight drizzle every day of my past week or so of time in Costa Rica. But both yesterday and today were punctuated in the mid-afternoon with thunderstorms. Today, the rain has yet to really let loose, but the thunder and lighting here are the most stirring part.

The elevation here is so high that some of the long-term residents on campus have joked about how everyone's heads are "in the clouds", and sometimes you really can feel a cloud move across the porch or through an open room. So it makes sense that thunder and lighting would seem more ominous than they do back in the states. The lighting just strikes so brightly, and the thunder claps so powerfully, since it's just above your head. Eek!

I can't complain too much. My office is open to the outside on sunny days just like these rainy ones. There's something pretty special about being tied in to nature in this way...even if I am stuck on a computer filling out Excel spreadsheets.

So for now, I say "Chao" (which is a more casual way to say goodbye that is apparently not spelled the same as it is in Italy), and head back to work...

♫ Me Gusta Maaanngooo ♫

Sunday, a small group of us went to the river (that I think was in the Guacimal region) and enjoyed some down time away from campus. On the way, we stopped at a small pulperia with a very interesting business plan. For every drink a customer purchases, the customer also gets a small plate of food like an appetizer. By the time everyone had bought their drinks for the day, we had earned approximately 20 small meals! So we sat under the hot tin roof, surrounded by risque Pilsen advertisements, and ate and ate and ate. Total, I had a chalupa, some rice soup, a bit of a pork sandwhich, and a bite of chicharones (essentially, fried pork fat).

We arrived at the river ready to relax with our very full bellies. Our first sight was a family of about 9 monkeys crossing the canopy at the water's edge, which was more than I've ever seen outside of a zoo. There were some very young ones, and I thought how nice it would be to spend a childhood jumping from tree to tree in such a beautiful area.

Here's Sheldon surrounded by the few butterflies that were left after we scared the majority away:

My favorite part of the day was learning to fly fish with Buck. I am by no means a pro, but together we caught (AKA he caught) cinco peces pequeños.

 Here's the biggest fish he caught:

It was also the cutest fish he caught:

 Walking upriver, I saw this little guy relaxing in the sun:

And to finish the trip, Jenier collected some fresh mangos, about which Sheldon was very excited! She began to sing the most beautiful song, entitled  ♫ Me Gusta Maaanngooo ♫. Expect the international release of this hit in the coming months.

After such an amazing weekend, it was difficult to get working again (especially without internet or connection to the server). I wonder if Ticos have a hard time working in such a beautiful place. I kind of just want to frolic all day every day! My motivation needs to kick into high gear pretty soon, here...as does my Spanish learning.

Oh well, Pura Vida!

free time

Since my last post I have only done a handfull of things:
I slept. I ate. I translated three of the campus's conservation documents from spanish to english.

Most importantly, I read this book:

I would highly recommend it to anyone with free time. Luckily, this concept of "free time" has really manifested itself this weekend. Never before have I been able to sit in a hammock, uninterrupted, and read a book in one day.

More free time today will mean a trip to the river. Some river I actually don't know anything about, but I am excited all the same. Plus more dancing tonight! This really is a wonderful place. Adios!

Royal Road

Today was lovely.

Maddy, Buck, and I very slowly hiked the Camino Real (or royal road) this morning and saw tons of cool insects. Luckily, I can quickly feel my hatred of bugs disintegrating. But in addition to the insects, I got my first good picture of a white-faced capuchin monkey. 

"Hola Mono!"

 I also got this nice one of some fungi:

 I'm particularly proud of this one, where I caught a butterfly mid-flight:

And finally, this is a walking stick insect (order phasmotodea):

 This is Buck investigating the walking stick insect:

And this is Buck after the walking stick insect jumped on his face:

HAHAHA

This afternoon, I got real work done too! I read last year's sustainability report and now have a detailed outline that I can adjust for the report I'm writing. Plus, dinner was delicious and we had ice cream for dessert! If you were to ask me "Como esta?" then I would probably say "Muy bien" ...probably.

Hasta luego y buenas noches, amigos y familiares!

Wallace

I forgot to mention, Wednesday morning I discovered that I have a roommate in my research casita. I saw this little guy on my window the day I moved in, and rediscovered him in the exact same spot 4 days later.

His name is Wallace:

I am sad to report, however, that last time I saw him he was flying into my hotbox, and I fear he may never return to his window dwelling. He was a good butterfly and a very inconspicuous roommate.

pizzazz

Since my last post, nearly 30% of my meals have been pizza. Granted, that's only 2 meals...but it does seem a little curious here where beans and rice are the staple foods.

Tuesday, my hard work planting wild avacado trees (family: Lauraceae) at Finca la Bella in the AM seemed to warrant a fun night out in Santa Elena. The naturalists and I celebrated a staff member's birthday at Johnny's Pizza then went to the tourist-filled bar, Mata e Cana, where I learned wayyy too much about some of the staff. haha just kidding...it was all good fun for sure! This tourist bar suffered from a serious lack of pool tables and dancing, so we relocated to Bar Amigos. Here I enjoyed mucho bailando merengue with wonderful dance partners. I've never been much of a dancer, but I LOVE merengue!

I didn't do anything productive Wednesday morning to earn a night out, but Maddy, Buck, Amy, and I rode to Santa Elena anyway. We left campus to grab an early dinner there, and after some debate, decided on more pizza.

This time, though, it was way more greasy and delicious:

 Here's Maddy and Amy partaking in pizza consumption:

Oh yeah, and there were cats everywhere we went:

(Buck was thrilled!)

After pizza on Wednesday, we ended up back at Mata e Cana where we listened to ska music, got yelled at by a bartender for no reason, and tried to convince Buck to like cats. It was an...interesting evening.

Embracing the Tico Way

This morning, I made sure to fill-up at breakfast to prepare for a hike to the San Luis waterfall (the 2nd highest in Costa Rica). Just as in March, the hike was great exercise with highly rewarding views. Sadly, though, I didn't take any pictures. My lack of camera was most unfortunate when I saw what I can only describe as a chrome beetle. It was maybe an inch long, but entirely silver. Not just metallic, this thing looked like it could have been a robo-beetle. I can give ten imaginary points to anyone who can identify it without actually having seen it...GO!

After the freezing cold dip at the base of the waterfall, we hiked back and had some lunch. And oddly, I think my post-lunch vegetation was the best part of the day. From 1:00-6:00 the lovely Buck Trible and I sat around and did next to nothing. Fiddled on our computers for a bit, napped for a bit, and just before dinner I enjoyed a private guitar performance.

I've often thought that real work can always wait for tomorrow. Today was perfect :)

In-transit Oops

Yesterday began with a cup of truly spectacular Costa Rican coffee. I said adios to Hotel Milvia in San Pedro after I downed my cup and snapped a few more pictures.

My breakfast with some local kids:

The small courtyard in the middle of the hotel:

(where the rain could fall and lull me to sleep)

The entrance to the balcony:

And the lovely view:

All the UGA students (and now the Universidad de Costa Rica estudantes) met at a nearby community center for the drive to campus. While we were loading the buses, let the record show that I specifically mentioned our "professores" to the driver. He said "No...(something in spanish)...Monteverde...(some more spanish)." I attempted to clarify that we were meeting them elsewhere and I recieved a reassuring "Si!"

Never-the-less, about 40 minutes into our drive to Monteverde, our driver gets notice that we left two members of our group behind. And sure enough, our group of students had left behind the director of the UGA honors program, and the coordinator of external affairs for all of UGA honors. Oops would be quite the understatement. But once we met up with them on the side of the highway, we spent a few hours getting to know the Costa Rican students and laughing about all the ridiculous (and inappropriate) phrases in my Lonely Planet phrasebook.

As we grew closer to the cloud forests of Monteverde, we saw views like this:

Followed by views like this:

One of the things I remember most clearly from my visit in March is how small I felt driving through these gorgeous landscapes. It was very peaceful then, and it did not disappoint yesterday.

Once we arrived on campus, we had lunch then launched into research presentations from the other students. Just before dinner, Quint gave a very inspiring lecture on sustainability which only reaffirmed that I am in the right place doing the right thing with my life.

Dinner was proceeded by the requisite "baila, baila, baila!" The group was short on guys, so I learned to lead (sort of) in the merengue. Overall, a magnificent day!

Hotel Milvia y Florencia Urbina Museum of Art

Hola friends and family!

I'm happy to say that I have arrived safe and sound in the beautiful Costa Rica! My flight was uneventful, and I got through customs and whatnot with no problem. It was great to see my fellow UGA travelers so excited about arriving, and to be reminded of how I felt when I was beginning my spring break trip here. 

Johnny (our faithful driver from spring break...crazy coincidence) picked all the UGA students up from the airport and delivered them to their homestays before taking me to Hotel Milvia. The minute I arrived at this gorgeous converted house in San Pedro I was welcomed by super-friendly Ticos. The hotel doubles as the Florencia Urbina Museum of Art, where works by local artists can be bought right of the walls - in the same fashion as The Grit in Athens.

The whole place is very stimulating with a huge variety of artistic styles packed into a small building with only about 8 rooms for guests.

My room alone features some cute:

Some interesting:

 And some that I just don't care for at all:

(This one is called "Masseause #3" and is hanging directly over my bed along with its sisters "#1" and "#2".)

Outside my room, the day was pretty dreary with grey skies and light rain every 45 minutes or so. It is night now, so I didn't get a chance to snap any shots from the balcony. Maybe I can get some in the morning before my 7am pick-up for the trip to Monteverde. I will certainly need some coffee too!

The only other events-of-note today were going down the road to get dinner, being too embarrassed about my lack of spanish speaking/understanding, and just taking something to-go from the bakery rather than attempt to interact with a waitress. I ended up with a meal of orange juice, some kind of soft filled cookies, and a circular cheese and meat croissant dubbed a "tortuga" - all for 2469 colones (or about $5). Let's hope there was no actual turtle meat in that croissant.

And now, I'm in my room watching the TV. The only channel I can find in English is playing the music video for Avril Lavigne's "Complicated," so I'm going to go watch that.

...I wish I was kidding.

Buenas Noches!