Monteverde Institute Day 2

We headed back to Monteverde Institute for a full day of activities; we were going to learn how to make guides to different flora. Willow Zucholski (I'm not sure if I spelled that right, but she was little, probably Polish lady who has done research in Costa Rica for a looong time) was our lecturer, and she has published guides to Costa Rican flora. Jeanne and Kathryn brought their books to get them autographed by her. With a name like Willow, I thought she'd be tall and long and 'willowy', but she wasn't. Just goes to show that names can be deceiving. She showed us, along with Rafa, our facilitator, how to take pictures of flora and create field guides that others can use! I really like this idea...I wish we had an environmental class at North, so I could take the kids out into the prairie and we could make our own guides...it would be so cool. We went on a fun hike...I love the hikes...then took our pictures back to the Institute to make our guides. In the real world, we would have actually found the names of the flora we took pictures of, but since we were on vacation, having a good time, we made up names...my flower had berries and was called "Julianna berrius"! :)
We had the opportunity to go to the Monteverde Cheese factory and actually ended up having ice cream! Very good and very satisfying after having fruit and rice and beans for the past few days! Later that evening, we had our final lecture from Korey about the data we'd been collecting all over the country dealing with water quality, sound quality, light quality, and soil quality, and then we had a nice discussion about the NSTA trip and what we all thought of it. I'm really looking forward to getting more involved in the International Committee which I have been appointed to. Hopefully, we'll be able to continue trips like this.
Had some good conversations after dinner with our drinks, and learned from Mike that "too much sex can make you deaf!" Huh?

Partying in Monteverde

We had an awesome time...Paulo took us out to a local establishment for some refreshment and dancing! I'm not so sure about "local"; there were almost only travelers there with us, but we had a fun time. We met some other Americans, some Dutch guys--one who had hips that could do things I had never imagined--, and the place was owned by an American from Texas. Not exactly what I'd call local, but whatever. It was a great time to be social!
The goal was to get everyone up to dance and have a good time. Tried some salsa and merengue; wasn't very good, but I had a good time dancing with Mike; then trying some of it with Paulo as well. Al even got out and danced with Jeanne, and we even got Korey and Kirk out on the floor as well! Kirk was doing some imitations of his students, and was freaking hilarious! I really want to take some Latin dance classes now that I'm home.

Leaving Arenal

After the excitment with all the monkeys and the volcanoes, I was pretty sure the rest of the trip was going to be a let down. But I'm happy to say that I was wrong. Monteverde was beautiful. It's located at a higher altitude and the weather cooled off a little! The ride to get there was interesting...we took a boat, then a 2 hour van drive on a road that's not paved for about an hour and a half. It was a little bumpy, but beautiful! We saw a ton of coffee plantations and a school that was raising money by having 2 kids hold a rope across the road and not let the vehicle pass until they donate some money! Hilarious! Must give them credit; they probably raise some money that way form all the tourists that pass through!
The town is quaint; it was founded by a bunch of Quakers ( I think) from Pennsylvania, so it has a very American connection. We arrived and relaxed for a bit. Our time in Monteverde was going to be spent at the Monteverde Institute which does research with the local environment, etc. We went to the institute to sit for our first talk, from Justin Welch who is in charge of water quality, and he was going to show us how they test if the water has little pollution or a lot. I guess it's okay to say that we didn't know we'd be performing the tests that day.
I'm not sure what possessed me to raise my hand, but when Justin asked, "Who wants to be the agitator?" I volunteered. Agitating something sounded like a good thing at the time. I wasn't aware that I'd be putting on waders and heading directly into the river! Walking in those waders was hard and I had to be very careful or my sized-too-big feet were going to send me tumbling. My job was to "agitate" any sort of living macro-organisms, and my partners were going to catch them in a net and we were going to see what they were. It was a bit gross at first, standing and reaching into the unknown water, and scraping rocks with moss all over them, but I bucked up and did what needed to be done. After all, it's in the name of science!

Holy crap!

Oh my god! Oh my god! I went for a hike today with some members of the group and we had a face off with some howler monkeys! And arenal erupted this morning when we were on it's slope! This is probably the greatest day ever!

We were walking over a suspension bridge and Mike was leading the way. He stopped us to show us that there was a monkey on the bridge. Well, it turns out there was a family of howlers that were crossing the bridge and coming right at us! Kathryn and Michelle were taking photos, I was, too, and I was trying to take video as well. They walked over the bridge and right overhead! I almost wet myself! There were 5 of them plus a baby! I wish I could post pictures right now! I got a video of the last monkey of the group coming over. Josephine kept saying, "keep your mouth closed!". It was amazing. We had a standoff with the monkeys and I think they respect us more now for holding our ground!

Arenal

Oh my goodness! We hiked up the arenal volcano today and it actually exploded when we were up there!! It was amazing to hear and see. We saw boulders falling to the side of the mountain (thank god!) and heard lots of rumbling.

I forgot to mention the other night how I got to catch and count turtle eggs falling into a nest. I gotta say, it was interesting. I had a glove on one hand and an egg counter in the other hand. As cool as it was, it felt a little...invasive, for the turtle. I could feel the chloaca opening and closing as the eggs were being dropped. I counted 102 eggs. As soon as Phoebe (we named her) started filling in sand we were up and away from her asap so we wouldn't get sand thrown at us! That night we also had encounters with Emily, Abby, and Annie ... I named them. We measured and tagged them as well.

We're just sitting down to lunch after our encounter with arenal and may go on a hike over a bunch of suspended bridges.

Arrival in Arenal

I'm sitting on the porch of our little cabin and watching Arenal, one of Costa Rica's most active volcanoes, and the coolest thing happened: I saw it light up and heard it rumble! So awesome! But I digress.
Torteguero was a ton of fun! I'm super exhausted today because I stayed up last night to do the last shift of tagging turtles. We had the option to go for a third day, an I figured I should do it since I'm here and may never get the opportunity again. I'm so hard core I volunteered for the 12-4am shift with Jeanne and Sandy. I knew I could sleep all day today because it was a travel day to get to Arenal.
Tagging turtles was a great experience. Every night I went out it rained! Crazy! It's hot so it sometimes feels good. My raincoat held up pretty good besides the amount of sand that is present. The pants too! However I'm still trying to get them dry. I hope it doesn't take the rest of the trip. I was covered in sand nearly every night but I really enjoyed my time on the beach. Did you know that where there are sea turtles there are sharks so none of the locals go swimming in the sea? It must be awful to live on a beach and not be able to go swimming! It's just too dangerous.

So after a day of travel and me being pretty crabby due to lack of sleep, we're finally at Arenal. And now I'm about ready to pass out while I'm watching the volcano from my front porch!