Peacing out again for a while...

Hola amigos y amigas! ¿Qué hay de nuevo con ustedes? Um...so I thought I would post real quick before we head off for 2.5 weeks on our next field trip. Tomorrow morning, we're backpacking up the mountain, through cloud forest, over the continental divide, and then down the Atlantic-side slope to a place called Peñas Blancas (en "el bosque eterno de los niños" reserve), which is the wettest rainforest in Costa Rica (real hardcore jungle). Then, we make our way towards the coast to south of Tortuguero where we're going to search for nesting sea turtles. Then we go down to Panama (we have to leave Costa Rica to renew our tourist visas, which is a great excuse) to Bocas del Toro to snorkel and chill on beaches. Um...yeah it's an okay life, I guess... Pahahaha! Let's see...today we finished some pretty brutal midterm exams (it's ridiculously hard to concentrate on lecture notes in a place like this)...then I had to talk for 30 mins in spanish about U.S. influence on Latin American cultures--gaaah! Um...oh and then this afternoon a crapload of army ants attacked the station, destroying all the wasp nests, which really pissed them off and they were flying around everywhere, obviously pretty distraught that their larvae were being devoured by hordes of ants whose life strategy is basically to go around with a ginormous army eating everything that moves. So freaking cool! Anyway--I'm probably going to have no internet access until early April (all the supplies for the first place gets there on horses...if they avoid the snakes...muahahaha...we actually still haven't seen a poisonous snake...although they tell us this will be the place...sweet!). I hope all is well and happy spring soon!

P.S. FELIZ CUMPLEANOS, TOUSSAINT!!!

El Bosque Nuboso y mas...

Hola y’all! Yeah—turns out I’m a pretty crappy blogger, um-yeah. …The internet here at the station is really slow, and most days it’s not even worth trying. Anyway—so we’ve been at the Monteverde cloud forest for a little over a week…it’s pretty amazing. The porch overlooks mountains of cloud forest, and in the distance we can see the Golfo Nicoya and the Península Nicoya and the Pacific Ocean. Today we had our first lab practical, walking around outside identifying plants and animals and stuff like that…but then I went on a hike (the trails are 10 feet away) up to the ridge (which is the Continental Divide in the Cordillera Tilarán) and it was a real cloud forest day—the trees up there are covered in mosses and epiphytes to the point where you can’t see the trunk, and today there was a good bit of mist/cloud blowing through making the bigger trees bend and creek. I took a nap at a little overlook that pointed down the Eastern slope toward the wettest rainforest in the country (where we’re going to be backpacking in less than two weeks). Let’s see—what else…we started 3.5 hr/day Spanish classes Monday (4-people per instructor), and I had the buena suerte to be in the group being taught by an incredibly attractive half-Tica/half-Belgian woman…needless to say, I’m working very hard on my Spanish (which has gotten pretty good, I think—had a pleasant conversation with our van driver Gilberto the other day on the way to a shade-grown coffee plantation. P.S. It turns out shade-grown coffee, while better than nothing, is often pretty exaggerated as far as its ‘amazing’ environmental-friendliness…or at least the plantation we visited was somewhat underwhelming…supposedly it’s pretty good coffee though, and most coffee here is harvested through Costa Rican-run coops, which is pretty awesome). A couple days ago we went on the all-famous rainforest zip lines—they were unfreakingbelievable! We had harnesses with caribeners that hooked onto metal cords strung between platforms dotted throughout the rainforest and the guides shoved us off each platform. To break, we had to grab and pull down on the steel cords with reinforced work gloves—pahahaa! There were 15 separate ziplines, some of which were more than 400 feet long and >250ft high!!! Crazy…and then there was a big tarzan swing thing where they pushed you of a 50ft platform and you swung out over a long drop a couple times. So that was freaking awesome…Been waking up to howler monkeys each morning, and I’ve developed a pretty darn howler call myself. Short lesson: do the breathing-in-style pteridactyl call but as low-pitched as you can and kind of barking-ish—I’ve gotten them to call back to me a couple time (although, I’m hesitant to do it too much, as they throw fruit and some times excrement when they get mad). Tonight we’re going to a bar called “Moon Shiva” for an open mic (our TA is going to play a little I think)—last time we went there a Colombian named Andrés was playing a pretty mean latin guitar. I realize that there’s a whole 2 weeks that I haven’t talked about where all kinds of awesome schtuff happened, so when I get a chance (…um…not sure when…) I’ll give you guys a few highlights. Happy…um…March? Hope all’s well! Ciao!