Day 11: Last Day in Paradise

Hola! My name is Kelsey and I am a junior at Saint Mike's currently living the dream in Costa Rica. Today was an early morning for all as the howler monkeys decided to make another guest appearance outside of our windows. The good news was that they literally acted as an alarm clock for Brianne, Emily and I as I forgot to set a real one (my bad). As the sun rose we all finished up our experiments mentioned by Jared in yesterday's post.

Brianne, Mary (aka Johnny), Amanda and I finished up on some bird observations and it seems we're followed by the monkeys that were playing close by in the tree tops behind us. But even with our loud friend we managed to get some great pics of an Aracari toucan and some gorgeous little tanagers.

photo cred: Mary

The other half of the girls finished up with their Antlions taking measurements under the raised rooms we were staying in while the "man team" finished up with their bird observations. Not only did they look at fruit preferences of birds but they also tried to avoid the local squirrel population which apparently also loves bananas. 

After all of our hard work we decided to reward ourselves with a quick dip in the pool. The Costa Rican sun claimed a few more victims as we are all slightly more pink than golden. But despite a few burns on our noses the pool time was paradise. Nick showed off his feminine side "buning" a few of the girls hair while Alex (our guide from the reserve) serenaded us with his favorite John Lennon song, Imagine. It was the perfect way to end our stay in Selva verde. 

After stuffing our faces and packing our bags we made our way to our favorite form of Costa Rican transportation- the oversized van. Once we were on the road the van, like many of our other car rides, was terrifying to say the least. We wove in and out of traffic and at one point I woke up from a nap thinking the whole vehicle was on fire. But silly me, it was only struggling to make its way up one of the many hilly roads. 

By far the most exciting part of the car ride was when traffic hit a stop to let a sloth cross the road. The little guy was slowly making his way as a local man used s broom to help sweep him along his way. When he realized that wasn't working in a time efficient manner he grabbed the sloth by a hunk of his fur on his back and flung him off the road. 

here we have an action shot by Jared

Once back in San Jose we all gave our independent project reports and learned a lot about the feeding patterns of birds in Selva verde and many of us learned what actually an Antlion is. 

Though many of us already miss the rainforest, we can all say for certain we had the best last dinner together at a local restaurant down the road from our hotel. The food was good and the conversation was great. There was even a cute cat in the kitchen we got to spot from a distance. We will all miss the #classicbill moments when we are home, but for now onto our last day as we make our way back to Boston!