La Selva

It seems that I can't really get outside of the Parque Nacional Braulio Carillo these days. I spent a day and a half at the Organization for Tropical Studies Biological Reserve La Selva, which is a fancy way of saying place for biologists and students to research. I know that Hart and Ben have both spent time here - I felt like a scientist!

Iguanas! They're everywhere!

Anyway, I went on this trip with about 20 students from the UBL, and I was the second youngest in the group. We were accompanied by four professors, two of whom were actually the trip leaders. Roy and Janet are a married couple who teach at the UBL, and Roy is somehow connected to the Costa Rica Ornithological Society - I think someone told me he was the president. We left San Jose at about 6:30am on a bus, and much of the group spent the trip singing. We arrived at La Selva by about 8:30, and took a 3 hour hike through the park, split into several groups. We saw massive spiders - the size of my palm, tons of birds, peccaries, bullet ants, leaf cutter ants, and some monkeys. (Bullet ants are one inch long. They terrify me. Their bite supposedly hurts for about 24 hours. These ants are things of nightmares.) After the hike we ate lunch, and then went to a talk about La Selva and the environment, the fieldwork that goes on there, and Costa Rica in general. It was very interesting. But even better was the fact that the room we were in was air conditioned. La Selva was incredibly hot and humid. Unbelievably so. I sweated sitting still in shade - my jeans were pretty much wet by the time the hikes were over. In the evening, we went on a night hike, which was really cool. Unfortunately, my group didn't really buy into the whole "if we're quiet we'll see more animals" bit, which I found frustrating. We did see a ton of frogs, spiders, walking sticks, praying manti, snakes, and an owl, plus a sloth! 

This is the trail we used for the night hike. It translates: Singing Frog Trail

The next day, I went with Roy as he hiked and bird watched, which was really interesting. I got to see a lot of birds, and have them identified. It started to rain at about 8:30am, but settled to a misty-drizzle, so Roy and I continued hiking. Once we got out on the trails, though, it really began to pour - we both became completely soaked. I was really glad I'd borrowed rain boots from the guides, because we were walking through puddles in places that came up to my ankles, and water was running down the trails. We got a bit turned around, and ended up being late to meet with the bus, but it was lucky I was with Roy, since Janet was annoyed with him - the "responsible" one - and not me. By the time we reached the bus, it was too late to change, so we rode the hour and a half back to San Jose completely soaked. Despite that, it was a super fun, if exhausting trip. I've discovered that I enjoy birdwatching when interspersed with hiking in the rainforest (or riding on a boat in a river, or climbing a mounting, or just about anything as long as I'm not stationary). Anyway, I think I've spent enough time in that area of the country, and I should probably branch out some.

One of the main trails; Roy and I started our hike here.