Pura vida.

          As I sit here, red bean bun in hand (gyaahhhh dim sum) after a morning of errands in foggy downtown San Francisco, I have no -idea- where to begin. San Jose to Guatemala to San Salvador: a day of travelling, looking at the 2000+ pictures and hour of videos Moncho gave us when we left, and mentally preparing for both the United States and for functioning without the 27 people (plus Kathy, 28) that I've come to know and love so wildly over the last three months and twelve days. How I'm back already is...absolutely beyond my scope of understanding. Temperate, cool, fogged city---paved roads, traffic-light-obeying drivers...and the hills of Marin County I came to know so well this past summer. It's both weird that I'm back and weird that this is...home. This gorgeous city. 

Summary: Everything is currently disorientingly familiar. 

Like my car, Priscilla, in the driveway: or Wootsie on the bed I slept in last night, waiting for me.
I struggled a bit with my phone. Texting and power buttons and the sheer WEIGHT of the thing. So weird.

Dryers and the dishwashers: soap that doesn't smell like jasmine or come in a pasty blue cylinder. 

And...of course. Having to throw toilet paper in the toilet. I've been tricked every time there's a trash can nearby. Jeff: I know you feel me. 

.......

I'M GOING IN REVERSE.

 Let's go back to the last few days and recap the end of the best 3.5 months of my life.  

For Janessa's 21st birthday on Thursday, we had a body paint extravaganza in the upper classroom. 

...After a barbecue with our professors on the front porch. Cake, steak, and beer. We were nuts. 

And Janessa was genuis. 

Swallow-tailed kites. 

...Pomona dreaming. 

Even the weird Texan bugmen joined in! Yayyyy scientists. 

We body painted them both by the end of the night. 

Almost as good as the time they played jump rope with us. 

...Parish (scientist #1) brought a scorpion, a gold beetle, and this guy for nightly show and tell. 

He's been looking for a gold one for ages. 

Sarah, lookin' fancy. 

The gang, pre-going out. 

OH! Jeff graduated from Hope College this semester, so we had a ceremony for him and presented him with hastily-made cap and diploma, signed by Alan Masters himself. 

This is undoubtedly the best graduation picture ever taken. Of anyone. 

Skyler, getting creative. For all you LoTR fans (the ones who matter),  I don't really need to caption this. 

...bamf. 

SO WE CELEBRATED. We all managed to get our second submissions of our papers in by noon on Friday (and some of us managed to make the 9 k trek to the San Luis Waterfall for some last-Monteverde-day birdwatching and stream-scrambling). 

After that, we packed our bags and set off to San Gerardo station for one last night in our natural habitat: 

biological field stations deep in the forest: bunks and delicious tico camp food, sing-alongs by lantern-light and Flor de Cana with fresca and coke. 

...with capture the flag, heat lighting in the distance, a picture and video slide show of Moncho's design, skits by the students satirizing the professors (with love), the Jacamar I wanted to see, and the music refusing to stop until two hours after we'd been told to quiet---it was everything we all could have hoped for. 

Minus the presence of Jessica Forbes, who had to leave early, before the hike. 

Her departure brought the first tears on:  and as we worked our way through Country Roads, The Gardener, Hallelujah, Branko requesting Sheryl Crow and Johel swinging his mug to De la Cana se Hace el Guaro...more of us lost it. Gyah. Focusing. 

After a morning of gallo pinto and patacones, we walked five hours, fording five rivers to get to Lake Arenal and the volcano. It was like old times, and really reminiscent of the hikes around Eladio's:

 from the horseflies to the guans. 

Thirty minutes on the shore of the lake found me splitting a last, triumphant mango from Skyler's homestay family with Kayla's knife: covered in mud and sweat and feeling uneasy at the prospect of a single day left to be with the CIEE family. A single day in Costa Rica, that is. 

...Much of the hike was spent making plans for summer to meet up. Reminiscing. 

[[BLAH I CAN BARELY HANDLE THINKING BACK ON THIS RIGHT NOW]]

....ahem. 

For two hours, we threw ourselves wildly down water slides and 

hung out in hot spring hot tubs at the base of the volcano. 

Alan brought "accouterments" for our sodas, and we felt wildly under-dressed and dirty in a resort setting. 

Then there was our last sunset: seen under cloud cover, dusky red and gray over San Jose in the rain. 

We ate our last dinner at the same restaurant we ate in on night number two, before the first field trip. 

Disorientingly familiar. 

Familiar, though, in that the twenty eight---waahhhh Jess Forbes---twenty seven of us that seemed so many the first time around seemed unbelievably smaller. Our family. The people that I, to quote a journal entry on March 20th, have shared anti-itch cream, rum, and tents with--long nights studying and mangoes at breakfast with--my stories and their stories and the magnificence of a life-changing experience. 

We all drank wine, toasted each other and Skyler when his birthday cake was brought from the back--

and made our way back to Hotel Balmoral, where it all began. 

....I don't have to repeat that disorientingly familiar part again. Not really. 

         The better part of an hour was spent weeping and hugging and singing each others' and our professors' praises in the front lobby. I feel fairly bad for the hotel staff who had to deal with us: this big, blubbering, sentimental mess of biology-fueled love: the kind that runs deeper than iron-red-tropics-clay stains at the seams and knees of our garments. Honestly, the time I got to spend with all these passionate, insane, endearingly vulgar, fantastically nerdy, BEAUTIFUL, knowledgeable nature-loving people was the most self-affirming experience I've ever had. I have come back to the states tanned and a little wilder, with my eyes a little wider and my view on life more complex, more solid than it has ever been. CIEE really knows how to drive conservation and an appreciation for both life and the environment home. 

Alan's hope that every single one of our lives were changed is certainly a reality. 

      I could write for days about all that Costa Rica meant to me, but honestly, I'd rather tell you face-to-face, or in the pictures. It was more than I could have ever hoped for, and studying abroad is certainly the best academic decision I've made at Pomona. It's beyond odd that with my flight out of San Jose yesterday, I was done with my junior year of college: I am now a senior. That's just disorienting. 

So...for parting shots, I have some final stats. 

36 close friends gained. Two new families acquired.

510 bird species identified. 

Five classes taken and passed: six out of seven Costa Rican provinces visited and appreciated. 

103 of the best days of my life. 

And last but not least: an outlook on the other side that is purely Pura Vida. 

         Thanks to everybody who made this semester what it was to me: I look forward to adventuring with you all in the future, because we certainly haven't seen the last of one another. The memories and knowledge gained  will be with me forever. I can't wait to see what I can give back to the earth in the future to pay forward all the love and wonder from that unbelievable country: Costa Rica. 

...the end?

Cheers. 

And then...there were three.

This will be my final post before....my final post for Costa Rica. We're done with our finals. I just submitted my paper for a second time. It's been foggy, rainly, sunny---lovely all over. I saw black-breasted wood quail chicks this morning while birdwatching. We have a barbecue at Alan's tonight.

....IT'S OUR LAST DAY AT THE STATION. I will not spend any more time on this computer.

Even though I can practice lizard-catching for my summer job while being on it. Just caught this little guy here on the porch---as well as a silver beetle for some visiting Texan biologists who are studying how they see polarized light. Sceloporus malachiticus. (For you, Pete.)

We all got our CIEE Spring 2012 shirts, so we can officially be a cult. 

I wonder if people remember that I coined the term "Janzen Unicorn" back in Corcovado. 

(For all non-CIEE people...Dan Janzen -is- tropical biology. He postulated extinct Pleistocene mammal dispersers of fruits like mangoes: hence, Janzen unicorn dispersers. Hence the shirts.)

....AND WE HAVE THREE DAYS AND--

I'M GOING TO THE FIG TREE NOW. 

Write later. Gosh. 

Cheers. 

CPI Picnic!

The CPI homestay/student picnic: 22 students, post-four-hour-rock-concert the night before, performing Spanish songs and skits for their Tico families. 

Played some games with our Tico bros.  

We took all of the pictures. My family gave me an awesome balsa owl mask from their beach trip. 

Adorable children for days. 

And finally: reunited with the gang! I'm really going to miss my host kids. 

Apologies for the brevity. All 22 of us have been working furiously away at our research presentations this evening--to be given tomorrow at 8 AM. I didn't plan on posting, but the lovely woman who gave me the light in my eyes requested photos, and who am I to deny her on Mother's day?

Hug your mamas, people. And cheers for now. 

The Rainforest Song.

May twelfth. We have all handed in the first drafts of our research projects. We have eight days left. 

        I thought I'd give  a short update in photos outlining the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow we have our Spanish final presentation at CPI for all our homestay families, for which my class is singing "The Rainforest Song" by J.P. Taylor in...spanish. So. We spent the afternoon galavanting around in the gorgeous weather (see below) and straight-up arts and crafts-ing. It was pretty fantastic. Here are some pictures. 

^Gorgeous weather. 

Gorgeous person/gorgeous crafts. Jessica Forrrrbeeesss.

An ant, a spider, a bee, a red-eyed tree frog---

And of course, an owl. 

We pasted the lyrics to the back of the masks. 

Crafty. 

See?

AND SO IT SHALL COME TO PASS that Spanish 101, Spring 2012, will perform for a group of peers and friends and make complete fools of themselves in completely good cheer. Tonight, we are all headed to La Taverna for Imperials and CHANCHOS DEL MONTE. Their previous concert was probably the most enjoyable live music experience I've ever had, so I can't wait for tonight. We have a symposium Monday for our research projects, a Humans in the Tropics essay final Tuesday, and our Spanish final Thursday. 

And that's about it. So. 

Dinner calls. Expect updates mid-next week; we're in the home stretch now!

Nemesis birds.

        I wasn't familiar with the concept of a "nemesis" bird until Costa Rica. But approaching the second hour of my second hike in the Ecological Sanctuary just outside of the Monteverde Butterfly Garden (headed by biologist Jim Wolfe) yesterday morning...these little buggers were everywhere around me and nowhere in sight: their plaintive "muaaahhhh" and characteristic "to-le-do" coming from every thick patch of breast-height vine I happened upon. Nemesis bird: the long-tailed manakin.

Two lekking males. 

   Absurd. I would follow their calls off trail, trying desperately to be silent, and then I'd trip over a branch/get tangled in vines/crunch -all- the leaves in typical Nikki fashion, and they'd all switch from their song to these little pip-popping calls---then nothing. Gone. Minutes would pass before I'd hear them or another group in a patch further off. 

    Luckily, in the epic battle of woman vs. makanin, the ecological sanctuary offered plenty of feathered diversions to keep spirits and confidence high.  A great antshrike with critical crimson eyes, a long-billed starthroat hummingbird looking aloof in a tree stripped bare by leaf cutter ants (the clay swept clean in a five-inch-wide highway, leading away from the base), gray-throated wood wrens with stubby, bobbing tails, a shifty-looking orange bellied trogon, the shock of a blue-crowned motmot on a bridge rail, feet from where I stood---and the constant, croaking antics of emerald toucanets. An entire acre or so of angry violet sabrewings. 

...Fierce. 

   

     Birds for days, as some may say. But none so satisfying as that first glimpse of yellow feet peeking out from dark plumage in the understory, streamer tail feathers barely visible in the shadow---then the other males flanking the first, red caps and then glimpses of bright sky blue backs--seven in total on three branches, singing more or less in sync. It's amazing how much more satisfying it is to make a sighting of a bird when you've given it nemesis status. 

Birds.

         Then, of course, once I'd seen that lek, they were everywhere. I probably saw ten or so more males, and the females judging them from perches closer to the canopy--drab, with two lancelets instead of streamers for tails.What am I going to do when I leave this place ten days from now and can't blow off an entire morning drunk off forest beauty? Ten days. Not much else has happened beyond spanish class and data analysis, minus all of us looking forward to the Chanchos del Monte concert on Saturday. Goodness. 

I think it's work time. Until later...

Home.

...So with my binoculars slung around my neck in the late afternoon, legs splattered in clay, elbows green from moss, dirt under my fingernails and rain in my hair, I returned to the station. Three plus weeks of homestay have come to a close, and although I'm going to miss the kids, the cooking, and the farm, it feels so good to be back laughing in the upper classroom with 22 people I love.

           ...The fog around the moon is currently fantastic.

Gratuitous picture of a nesting male Quetzal much like the 

one on the postcards I've sent (that I really bought for myself.) 

We have a final tomorrow for Johel's Tropical Diversity class! That after finishing a 47-question (I see you, Pomona people) take home exam for Alan's class on Sunday. As far as whatever else happened in the week between now and last post, there isn't a terrible whole lot. I have increased my quetzal sightings to seven: five males, two females. After classes last Friday, a number of us went out for dinner and proceeded to visit the four-day festival that concluded yesterday in Monteverde. A rodeo, horse shows, concerts, giant illuminated bottles of Flor de Cana drawing drunken tourists like moths to a flame, the smell of frying yucca and cornflour dough, salsa on an open dance floor and low-budget carnival amusement rides. I finished up my study last Thursday with a trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, where with a new friend and Centro Cientifico Tropical trail guide and I found a lone bare-shanked screech owl in an overgrown trail past the place where CIEE started the hike to Eladio's ages ago.

Here's what may be a steely-vented hummingbird. Saw it on my way to town with a friend right before we got rosemary grilled chicken avocado mango sandwiches with yucca chips. Nom. 

         AGES ago. Where has the time gone? How on earth is it May? I'm going to stop saying that now. We have two weeks left. TWO. Two to make the time with these wonderful people really count.

        And because this is a study abroad blog, and all of the other study abroad blogs brag about food way more often than I do, I think I'll follow suit. My homestay family actually went to the beach for the last three days I was in their house, leaving me in control of the kitchen, which was awesome. So here you go. Cooking pictures.

On Monday evening, I cooked my dad's homemade carbonara recipe for the family. Everyone seemed to love it. Lots of "muy rico" compliments and requests for the recipe. 

....the recipe was kind of hard to come up with when I didn't know the words for the cooking equipment and half the ingredients. Miming for the win. I managed eventually. 

I lied. Not all cooking pictures. This is one of the show bantams of my host dad's sister: they're the ones I talked about in a previous post when I spoke of the magical Costa Rican kid kingdom/pastureland. 

Pretty gorgeous. They had a d'uccle bantam like Twitch (one of my chickens at school), too!

And some budgies in an outside cage. They call them "pericos de amor", which is interesting. 

Terribly rushed picture of the outdoor cage. Many people in the Monteverde area have these flight cages outside for parrots. Often, they're mealy parrots: which is a local, native species.

Saturday night found me cooking homemade pesto with a strange local variety of spinach and red peppers. 

As well as traditional wedding soup with homemade meatballs. 

Things that I have adapted from my father: a love for all things soup. I ate this out of a mug for at least three meals after that dinner. Mmmm soup. 

Some salad to go with an outdoor twilight porch Italian dinner. Pretty perfect. 

The next morning, I went to the coop to get some fresh eggs from the dominique hens. 

These sweet little bananas are amazing. I'm really, really going to miss how cheap and delicious mangoes are , too. So delicious straight from the fridge. Mmmm cold mango. 

Pause. Mom, you love these. I know you. Heh. 

And finally: locally baked wheat bread from the Jimenez bakery's stand in the farmer's market Saturday morning with oil palm "butter" and guava jelly, a fried egg with gallo pinto, and plantains toasted in the toaster oven. Round it off with coffee and you're tico. 

      So there you go. Again, apologies for the pauses in posts, but such is life when you want to spend all your time in the tropics. Saying hello to the fig tree and crashing along a trail I'd never been down (somehow) near the station this afternoon in the rain was a luxury I want to take full advantage of while I'm still here. Ending up clambering through creeks and watching gangly white-throated robin fledgelings learning to fly in the understory. Perfect. 

...studying. Yes. 

Cheers.