Quetzal country.

I find myself wondering if I didn't actually die a few weeks back and land myself in Shangri-La.

I find myself wondering if I'll do even the tiniest shred of justice in this attempt to convey the last two weeks to you. 

I find myself sitting crosslegged on a yellow couch surrounded by poster-sized field guides of highland tropic animals, plants and insects: the sound of the first rain I've experienced in Costa Rica coming in through the window like the numerous fantastically alien moths that want the light of this upstairs classroom, like the frogsong rising as the forest relishes the rain. Everyone else is asleep, and I'm playing catch-up at two in the morning because I couldn't possibly close my eyes with so much LIFE around me. 

Here are some numbers. 

16 days.

203 species of birds (alone).

172 pages written in a 200 page journal.  

1500 + meters above sea level at the field station in Monteverde, our "home base". 

One helluva time. 

These people are -biologists-. We are all so absurdly electrified by the forest, our insane teachers, this cool mountain air after two weeks of hothouse greenery, the nights spent crashing around the beaches or singing under headlamps and stars---heck, even learning the hundred species names and histories we have to memorize for our first exam---

Breathing. Yes. 

Let's start from where I left off, shall we? Weak-willed readers turn away now: there's about to be an ultra-marathon of captioning.  I have to catch up. Also, if you're just in to people pictures, those are all on facebook. Divide and conquer?

 The day we left San Jose, we visited the national church at Cartago. This is where many of the Catholic-nation natives gather to celebrate La Virgin de los Angeles in the fall.

 There is a fountain there that is supposed to have healing powers. People bring tokens to offer to the virgin...

The church has an entirely stained-glass and mahogany interior, but I was most struck by a smiling cop that leaned in to the fountain to cup his hands for a stray dog to drink, and these little kids filling bottles to take away.

Onward to the central valley and an insane amount of land devoted to coffee, sugarcane, banana, and pineapple plantations. The sound of the crickets was deafening, but they weren't half as permeating as the sticky heat of irrigated tropical lowland in dry season sun.

 So. Many. Pinas. 

 So...this is lecture for our Tropical Diversity class. We hike or walk places, and then stand and take notes as people give species reports on different plants or animals. 

 Pina, pina, pina.

 Our TA, Moncho. Basically the best TA ever. 

 And some more teachers! In the front is Alan, the program director, and to his right is Broko, a professor. Marisela is another TA, lurking in the back there.

Andddd of course after we have species reports on fruit, we have to sample...
Also...people seem to have a thing for photobombing. Friend/tentmate Roxanne with all the grace, right there.

(Mango season is now until mid-April. I'm definitely dreaming.)

 Sandiaaaaa, te amoooo

And here's our first sunset! Groggy bus window shot on the way to Cierpe.

...Cierpe being the stepping stone to one of the most beautiful places I have seen on this earth: 

Corcovado National Park. 

Alan, contemplating intricacies only a practiced tropical biologist would be capable of imagining. 

Here we are at the river delta, after a day of climbing on mangrove roots (tapping in to our inner, lower primate--dear god, that was fun) and doing species reports on the water. Lunching, swimming, running on the beach. Don't -even- get me started on food. Seriously. I won't stop ranting, so instead I'll just refrain. Ask if you want to be jealous. 

Feets.

 Fast forward to the station at San Pedrillo: temporary residence of Dalia, the godliest of godly Costa Rican cooks, and Frances, the volunteer who made odd dinner alarm noises and gave nicknames out like smiles. 

 Yeah...we beach camped for five days. 

 So this is us setting up camp in a dream.

...and then having a hermit crab race. They were -everywhere-. On your books, distracting you at lecture---under the kitchen sink, in the palms, the grass, on the beach...you get the idea. And we were never unamused. 

We all decided the winner's crab would get a pina colada.

 That's my champ, right there, shortly before crossing the finish line. 

Where's my pina colada, people? Step it up. 

 Classroom in San Pedrillo. I guess we also had a projector and a sheet to go with the station, but that was it. The best. 

Every sunset seems to induce picture-taking behavior in awed, temperate climate dwelling college students. 

I -LOVE- isopods. I'm always pulling these out of the sand where the waves break back in California, and I continued the trend here. They have some kind of leopard pattern. 

Interlude: during this trip I feel like I've become an -actual- birder, which is an addiction that is not easily cured, I hear from Joel, our last professor. I've grown to love the weight of the binoculars on my neck, or the Rambo-esque strapping of field-guides and day packs and water bottles to my person: and it seems like me and my peers are all in deep: we're distracted by EVERYTHING because it's all so interesting.

Biology problems are the best problems. 

Yeah, this happened, I guess...but you should have seen the stars. Or been there to lay on the sand and get nervous about the tide's proximity to our tents, but not really nervous because you were too busy singing while Bronko, Matt, or Skyler played guitar. 

There was a waterfall on some of the trails. I guess I should note that we saw a tapir in the first five minutes of our first hike. Or that I came upon a puma taking a drink from a stream one morning. Or that I saw a white-crested coquette hummingbird: basically the equivalent of seeing the Pokemon "Mew".

 I went there. 

And this is the part that's impossible to convey. There's too much sunlight, too many flashes of wings, too much green and movement and cicada song to even begin to describe in wimpy photographs. 

This is a fer de lance. You should not ever get close to the fer de lance. 

But seeing one just sitting on the trail next to a group of geriatric British tourists asking one another for "sun cream" and "insecticide" was still really, really cool. 

There was a tree full of spiderwebs. May explain the forest/tents/showers full of lovely, spindly spiders.

I kid you not. I love spiders. 

One day we took a 16 km round trip hike to a beach on the far end of the park, and it took us through some primary, incredibly untouched forest. I ended up walking for the longest out of anyone because I got slowed by the manakins and toucans. SO many pictures. I'm really trying to be brief, I swear---just too excited---

Hermit crab!

The flower of the only plant species that anyone remembered for the first week: pseudobombax ellipticum. 

Non-human mammal tracks on the beach. Yeeeeeeee forest

We used marking tape to guide us. Good call, CIEE.

The forest rose quickly above the beach-

 There were signs carved with spanish poetry and park rule warnings. 

 Distracted by all of the things. 

 Cicada shell!

The inside of a hollowed out tree--it had buttress roots, but didn't look much like a strangler fig...hmm. More studying is clearly necessary. 

So much green. 

And the beach!

There was a waterfall. On the beach. Fantastic. Think I lost a few pictures here, but it's getting late, and tomorrow there are more adventures: no time!

Friends under arches! Yayyy---Okay, cut scene---

Next day we traveled to Isla del Cano, which means "channel island." Felt like home sweet California because of the name, but a little different visually. Justttt a little. 

 Pff. Four humpback whales (two babies) decided to come say hi and breach about ten thousand times right next to our boats. It's like they were jealous of all the attention we were giving the spotted dolphins and sea turtles or something. 

 Blowhole spouting in the distance...and...

Breach!

...anddd BREACH and breach and breach. What a show. I have videos for those interested. 

 The island!

Yo heart whales, people. 

Kayla and the supercrazyaquamarine ocean.

An hour of lecture must be balanced with an hour of beach play and an hour of snorkeling, followed by avid pursuing of field guides. 

Followed by the most insanely powerful hike of my life through the twilight forest (ask me about it and you'll get joyous jibberish), to end on this beach. In this sunset. 

Corcovado: there are no words.

Friend Erica. 

Clothesline, as an example of camp. Friend Janessa slept in a hammock the entire time. Good. Call.

 Last morning. Really going to miss those morning birdwalks. Oh wait. Those are still happening. In more awesome places. 

Home sweet tent. View from the room!

After Corcovado, we stayed at a great little inn called the Pelican. They had a parrot that called out ABUELLLAAA and HOOOLAA incessantly: they also had flocks of orange-chinned parakeets roosting in the trees 30 meters away. 

The bros playing some pool. 

Oh. Hey there sunset. Erica and Audrey.

Boo.

And Audrey with the money shot. 

So then...I guess I have to explain. We ended up going to Santa Rosa national park for another five days. Santa Rosa is a dry tropical forest in various stages of recovery from former cattle pasture, so we got to see a lot of different species there. The wind was fierce at night, and the sun just as strong during the days. A few new friends and I made a haunt out of the national monument that you'll get to see in the pictures below. But first: more beach from our 26 k Santa Rosa forest-to-beach hike!

Big, open beach. Yay!

 Dead jellies on the beach, and not so dead jellies rocketing towards us at light speed as we tried to cross a path of ocean water heading in to a beach lagoon.

Apparently some super famous surfing destination? Wooo!

These snails were super fast. Crazy. 

 And crabs with flippery hindlimbs! 

A pretty sweet 180 of the beach we walked down to and back up from, but it was a bit too bright for my amateur photography skills to handle. 

Here's La Casona: the hacienda in which the players of the battle for Costa Rican national freedom from marauding Nicaraguan puppet government factions were staged. 

And the viewpoint was excellent for sunrise and sunset. I had various success with charging my camera, so I missed out on a few of the best sunset shots, but you'll get the idea. We also found a blind snake species on the steps to the mirador and brought it back in my water bottle one night! Yayyyy biology!

La Casona.

And its heroes. 

And its sunsets...

Or sunrises? I'm suddenly uncertain. Boy, is it late here! Heh.

Throughout the field trip, the professors were very insistent about us getting our sunset beach fill, or really just beach play time in general. Kickin' it after mammal diversity day, and before a crazy dinner party. Ohhh boy.

Gotta love them sunsets n'at. 

And here's a shot of the Cortes waterfall on the way from Santa Rosa to Monteverde, where we stopped for...you guessed it...more beach time before our lecture at a large cat zoo in the afternoon. Oncillas, jaguars, pumas, jaguarundis....Learning has never been so incredible. 

So much water wrestling. 

And look! A picture of me! Hehe. There was a nice trail to the top of the falls...which had cows and horses at the top, coming to drink at the edge of their pasture. Beach lunches are the best. 

I loved these scratches on the rock. No idea what caused them.

Top of the falls...and....

Friends and...

Horses with bad haircuts and...

About three hours of winding, mountain, dirt road later, we found ourselves in Monteverde. AIEEEE I wish I had more time to post more pictures, but I guess we're going to be here three weeks, and I can probably wait?

WHEW. If you made it this far, you're a total champ. And I am in serious need of some bedtime. 

Expect more updates soon, and seriously, that wasn't even half of what we did. Goodness. The twenty foot long crocs, the night hike in Corcovado, the study on Ant lions, vampire bats, trogons, tinamous....

Oh gosh, I didn't even -mention- our half day in ECMAR, a marine field research station where we saw a super rare, endemic shorebird. Joel is the bird expert. I bet he'll be super sick of me by the time this trip is over...always running over bright-eyed to interrupt his meals with some new request for identification help. 

I'm in heaven. 

Cheers.