Day Five: The Best Day Ever

Hola! This is Brianne, a sophomore at SMC from Andover, MA. Today was a day to define other days. We woke up with clear sunny skies and enjoyed our pancake breakfast at the late hour of 7:30.  Aunt Jemima even made the long trip down to join us this morning.

Or favorite tour guide Christian also made an appearance at breakfast, telling stories of his past life working at the zip line place we went to yesterday. Apparently there was a guy who worked there named "Loco" who apparently made old ladies enjoy life. Not sure what that means, but I can't say I'm not glad he wasn't still working. 

After breakfast, the real work began. We broke into groups and began to devise our independent research projects. Here is the breakdown of proposals:

The boys, or as they like to call themselves "the man team", are looking at the epiphytic load on the trees in the elvin forest by the continental divide to see if there is a difference between the Pacific and Caribbean sides.

Team Hummingbird is planning on quantifying the "come at me bro" tendencies of three species of hummingbirds which frequent the feeders the hummingbird gallery.

Team Awesome was going to look at the communities housed by bromeliads and compare those at lower and higher elevations, until we realized that spoons and tupperware were not effective scientific instruments, and changed our study. So is life in the jungle. Now we are measuring the volume of liquid bromeliads can hold, comparing the two sites as well as height from the ground.

Much of the rest of the daylight was left to exploration, and oh did we explore. Collectively we saw 2 quetzals, a snake, 3 gangs of coatis, a kinkajou (aka Pikachu), about a million hummingbirds, an Azure hooded jay, a toucanette, army ants, a black guan, some kind of weasel, 2 squirrels, a frog, a couple Lew-dawgs (including the pelecinid wasp) and a bunch of monkeys going ape. I would call that a pretty successful day. We went from Kelsey staring out of the window yesterday saying "I'm looking for some mammals" to us not being able to get away today even if we tried. 

Kelsey, Emily and I were the first to spot the famous resplendent quetzal. Well, actually it was the tour group in front of us that told us to be quite who spotted it. Luckily they were nice and only charged us $40 for a picture through the guide's scope. 

The hummingbird team had quite the surprise when they found more than just hummingbirds at the feeders.

Kinkajou at the hummingbird feeder

Though everyone had a successful day, the boys (including Prof. Lewins) came back with the biggest find. On their way our to the continental divide, they decided to take to longest trail, which was the left-hand boarder of the park. Little did they know, their minds were about to be blown. According to Lewins, it's the best hiking trail in the reserve.  There is a beautiful waterfall they visited, but that was not the main attraction.

A gang of about 12 coati crossed their path. The coati, or coatimundi, is a member of the procyonidae family, which is the same family as the raccoon. The females and young travel in groups, while the males typically roam alone. 

After that, they stumbled upon a wilder sight and sound. So much for Monteverde being peaceful. (please excuse the language in the video)

A monkey fight broke out above their heads.

Another monkey fight almost broke out at dinner as well. As we were sitting, sipping the delicious raspberry juice, a huge group of about 25 other college students walked in. After a few questions and some quick deduction, we realized they were staying at our lodge. Our nice, private, quiet lodge. So much for running the place. But I guess so is the way of nature, and I am sure we will learn to coexist, like the hundreds of thousands of species in the cloud forest. 

Oh, and tonight Lewins chased a moth around outside for a few minutes.

#classicbill

We all send lots of love from Costa Rica and miss everyone at home!

Brianne

Day Four: #YOCRO

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… but really only the best of times.  I’m Patrick, a senior biology major from Hooksett, NH living the dream in Costa Rica this winter break! 

Starting with the fast break in the morning, a delicious coupling of rice and beans (a staple in the Costa Rican fine cuisine) with a flour tortilla and sunny-side-up fried eggs.  The sunny side of our day was yet to come, as visions of zipping through the canopy and a pitch-black stroll through the jungle crossed everybody’s minds with each bite.

The zip lining adventure started promptly after breakfast.  Our good buddy Christian (see Marc… er… Eric’s post from yesterday for more information on the legend) waved us a friendly hello and goodbye, a goodbye we hoped wouldn’t be our last.  Each zip line held beautiful views of the scenery, including some of the canopy bridges we would later walk over, and quite the adrenaline rush.  Before each run, the guides made sure to give us a hearty Costa Rican “¡Pura Vida!”  The best, most impressive zip was the final kilometer zip done in tandem.  Nick and I screamed the whole kilometer as the adrenaline bubbled over.  Some of us tropical ecologists (myself NOT included) decided to do a Tarzan Swing, essentially a 10-meter drop where the guides whack your ankles and spin you around while you pretend to have a blast.  Eighteen lines and hours of hiking later, we had successfully zipped our way through the canopy of Monteverde.

 Marci coming in hot!

 Professor Lewins too

Nick and Eric about ready for takeoff!

 The rest of the gang eagerly awaits their turn

 Kelsey's zippy run

 Amanda on the Tarzan swing

When our adrenal glands finally calmed down, we hiked through the canopy.  Although we saw no really interesting critters, not even a black guan, it was very interesting to witness the cloud forest through a different perspective.  The paths between each bridge reverted us back to the understory where we saw many floor species that weren’t easily spotted from high up in the canopy.

Crossing one of the bridges

 Stephanie kissing some hot lips

Tropical Ecology bridge-crossing exam...  Everybody passed

n the early afternoon, we made our way over to the hummingbird garden.  “How could hummingbirds not make you happy?  They’re like birds on crack!” ~ lady at the hummingbird gardens.  And happy they made us!  You could literally come within inches of touching the birds to take a picture.  Sometimes, the birds would perch on your fingers while they fed!  A picture’s worth a thousand words:

 A hummingbird on my finger!

 Jared plays the role of hummingbird perch

 Brianne helping the hummingbirds feed

After the sunset, we went on a tour with our new mother-figure Dulce (perhaps spelled Dolce…).  She was fantastic guiding us around the jungle in pitch black.  It was remarkable how she would be able to find the smallest of baby frogs, hidden spiders, camouflaged walking sticks, sleeping birds, and, wait for it… more trees!  It turns out the Dulce is a professional sloth tracker and offered to take us sloth tracking tomorrow (January 2).  Of course, Stephanie was all in on this idea, having a deep passion for the slothiest of sloths.

The cloud forest at night… Perhaps a picture of the rarest animal in the world?

On our way to dinner, we saw Dulce pulled over on the side of the road.  It turns out she had spotted a two-toed sloth chilling on the underside of a branch hanging over the road.  Dinner was a feast of soup, tilapia, and apple pie and an amazing watermelon juice leaving us both tired and desiring more…

It looks like tomorrow should hold many interesting surprises in the cloud forests of Monteverde!

#goldennugs #YOCRO

Day Three: Black Guan...It's Not Terrible

Hey everybody. My name is Mark...I mean Eric, a junior from Sparta NJ. We woke up to a beautiful Costa Rican Monday, the birds where singing, the monkeys were playing, and we had NO power. This lead us to have a little delay in having a fantastic breakfast complete with rice and beans. After chowing down on what I assume is a traditional Costa Rican breakfast, we tied our boots and packed our bags for our first day in the Monteverde jungle.

Walking outside there were tons of people awaiting entrance into the jungle, but was also when we saw him the man the myth the legend, Christian. Christian would be our very knowledgable, very friendly tour guide for the first half of the day. We started the tour with Christian explaining the history of the park and showing some awesome examples of plants. We saw some birds too like a black guan, which is basically a black turkey that lives in the canopy. For everyone wanting to know the size of a black guan, it is about big enough to make enough soup for 5. Here's a picture of me with Christian to hold you guys over until Prof. Phunk is back with our group photo.

Let me tell you all a little about the legendary Christian. He is from Monteverde so he has seen the effects of ecotourism. On one hand he enjoys teaching people all about the wonders of the forest, and the amount of money that is raised by the preserve. On the other hand, he doesn't like the amount of development need to support the growing number of staff needed to support the amount of people staying at hostels, and hotels. Not to mention he can't make as much marmalade as the number of guava trees has decreased from the development. He also highly endorses the Costa Rican beer Imperial saying "It's not terrible."

On our guided tour in addition to the plethora of flora we saw, we also saw tons of insects, including another giant Lew-dawg flying insect. Sadly, no one got a picture of that bad guy, but Prof. Lewins got some shots of these cool looking guys. He also got a nickname in an update to yesterday's blog...it's Bill.

                                                 Leaf Beetle                         Platyhelminthes

                                              Katydid                                       Tree hopper
We also saw my chosen organism the strangler fig, or matapalo in spanish. It is the most dangerous plant in the jungle by far in my opinion. It kills other trees. It is also one of the coolest, with a large hollow center where the tree it "strangled" was. Here's a sideways picture of a matapalo (tilt head).

After our guided hike we went back to the lodge and had a nice Costa Rican lunch, with you guess it rice and beans on the side. We then decided to hike up to the Continental Divide. We set out on our own this time. On our way up the mountain we walked through and elfin forest and emerged to a spectacular view. It was a bit windy too. Unfortunately, Mary wasn't feeling well so her and Prof Hope had to leave.

We continued on our journey without Prof. Hope. We spent a good amount of time on a canopy bridge bird watching and enjoying the sites.  After our day of adventuring, we all piled in a van and went to dinner. For dinner we had some delicious pizza, you know the flavors, cheese, veggie, meatlover. Hopefully Mary is feeling better and will be back with us shortly.

Night from Monteverde round 2 and have a Feliz Ano Nuevo.
Eric
#classicbill

Day Two: We've Only Just Begun

Good morning from Costa Rica! My name is Nick Kyratzis and I am a junior from Albany, New York and was volunteered to write the second journal entry by our very own Eric MacPherson. This fine morning I arose with the sun shinning through the shades as the birds chirped what a beautiful day it would be. As I walked through the fine, fresh buffet laid out in the Don Carlos restaurant, I opted for a bowl of cereal, a slice of pineapple, and some of the worlds greatest coffee. While sitting out on the hotel patio listening to the soothing sound of ferocious dogs barking at each other, the one and only P. Phunk enlightened us with rare species that we would encounter as we continued our journey onto the next destination.

Once we completed our fine meal and sent Kate off on her merry way to the clinic with Professor Lewis (who has yet to have a nickname), we packed our belongings onto the top of our shuttle van while our driver proceeded to cover our luggage with a tarp and some string. Oh how safe this trip will be! We departed Don Carlos hotel at 11:30 am to what would be a beautiful drive once we traveled out of the impoverished city with friendly waving citizens. As the bus drove us up and down the winding roads leading to Monteverde, the beautiful scenery caught everyone's eyes. With nearly 6 rainbows counted and multiple mountains about, we captured every sight with cameras, iPhones and photogenic memory.

After a two and a half hour travel, we stopped for food along the way at a road side restaurant. The service was wonderful with helping us understand what each dish of chicken consisted of as they served it on the side of rice and beans. Most of us chose the orange Fanta while Patrick went of the fanta that tasted like cough syrup, silly boy. We then hit the road after filling out stomachs for another two and a half hours until we reached our destination. We arrived at the La Casona Lodge where the four male students got damp beds and the females were left with no towels. There, I realized that I was staying away from the girls for time being in Monteverde.



We caught a shuttle to our restaurant Tramonti at 6:30 where Eric and I drove separately from the crew in a Nissan with the friendly couple Michael and Betty. They shared their travel experiences and hoped us a better time then they had. As we sat to eat to eat our meal, the server presented us with caprese salad as an appetizer, pasta for a main dish, and a delicious brownie with a scoop of ice cream for dessert. The dinner was wonderful with great laughs and wonderful conversations that shall not be repeated. Upon our arrival to the lodge, the professors thought it would be a good idea to go on a night hike to test out our headlamp skills. Although we didn't make it too far off the lodge property, we sure got to see some fascinating trees, plants, and bugs! As the rain pored on our heads and cameras got soaked, not a person cared and not a student refused. My favorite part of this night hike was finding the frog in a water hole, a jumping spider and the new rare Lew-Dawg.

As the night hike came to a close, this students started dropping like the moths Steph was murdering. Some students said goodnight and others skyped loved ones, while I got stuck writing this in frustration on the iPad as Steph continues to kill moths. Well there you go, day two down and ten to go, and yes mom, I'm having fun and changing my socks regularly. One love and goodnight from Costa Rica!

Day One: Off to San Jose!

Hi everyone! My name is Stephanie and our tropical ecology class has just completed our first day of our exciting journey!! We spent almost all day traveling today and since I was the only student conscious for the entirety of it, I was nominated to fill you all in on how it went. For our 7am departure from Logan International Airport in Boston, MA, we all arrived bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 4:30am. The general consensus was that wake-up happened at 3am. After spending much time in lines and going through security we attacked all of the food vendors, threatening riots if there were no bagels. Thank goodness there were bagels...
The first exciting flight was a very turbulent hour and a half adventure to Philadelphia. We were there for approximately 5 minutes when we were told it was time to board, even though we were supposed to have nearly an hour layover. Oh well! The second flight was about five hours and for the most part people slept. During the moments of wakefulness, Jared played a successful game of peek-a-boo with the child in front of him, a lot of people read books (I saw that copy of The Hobbit Marci), and I watched the emotional roller coaster that is The Lion King. It was a long flight, but we eventually landed in sunny San Jose, Costa Rica!! We got off the plane right onto the Tarmac which was a different sort of experience.
The weather was a balmy 80 and very windy. Our van driver got us all safely to the Don Carlos Hotel, where we will spend the night tonight before going off and doing something more thrilling tomorrow. A group of us decided to go explore the nearby park, so off we went on a mini adventure. We, of course, got distracted by old timey pianos and odd looking statues, but we got there eventually. Our amazing Professor Hope regaled us with different tree names, though I might say we were mildly disappointed when he mistook an Australian Pine as a true pine tree. I will never believe a word he says again. There was some play time involved with all our learning. I climbed a tree and so Pat decided to join me. We were informed it was a fig tree and it would just be plain wrong if I didn't share that!

Sadly, Emily couldn't quite get the hang of climbing it, so we came down and played with other plants. Like the bamboo... Jared was one with the bamboo...

Well, at least the police thought we were hilarious to watch. After our jaunt outside, we all came together for a lovely family meal at the hotel restaurant. No one was willing to try the strange Fanta flavor, but I tried the Coke float and it was pretty good! 

Throughout the day, people were exchanging our dollars into the Costa Rican colones and if you give them a $20 bill, you get back a lovely green bill with sloths on it!! That's pretty awesome!!! 

This means that tomorrow, we start the day "early" at 11am for our departure to Monteverde where we will begin our work in the forest and enjoying our time in this beautiful country!

More to come from other students! I promise it will get more entertaining as we start going out of public view... But we shall see! Lots to look forward to! Stay tuned!

All about our trip!

My name is Marci, and I am one of the 12 students that will be traveling to Costa Rica over winter break along with Biology faculty Professor Hope and Professor Lewins for this year's Tropical Ecology study tour class. We are all very excited to explore the different rain forests we will visit, see first-hand the amazing biodiversity present at these sites, and experience a different culture!

We are departing for Costa Rica on December 29th, and will spend 12 days in the country visiting three different types of rain forest ecosystems: a lowland rain forest, a tropical cloud forest, and a transitional zone premontane wet to seasonal moist forest. When we visit these sites we will take guided hikes to observe the plants and animals that live there, conduct field work for short research projects on topics we are interested in, and many other awesome things. We are excited to share our experiences with you, and I and the other students going on the trip will be blogging while we are in Costa Rica!

To give you a preview of some of the experiences we will have in Costa Rica, here are some pictures and descriptions from Professor Hope taken on previous Tropical Ecology study tour trips!

Group shot from the first SMC trip January 2004 at La Roca at Palo Verde in the 
dry tropical forest area with extensive marshes

From Monteverde (the first site we will visit) from the January 2007 trip (the second SMC trip) with a couple students on the canopy bridge 

The monkey tail tree fern from Monteverde

It's going to be an amazing experience, and I know everyone is really looking forward to the trip! Talk to you again from Costa Rica!

-Marci