Often these days I find myself with so much to say and only a few moments in which to write it. I am sitting inside an air-conditioned building at the La Selva Biological Station just outside Puerto Viejo de SarapiquÃ. My professor Jack Longino sits across the room from me, wearing headphones. We're both working.
I've been cataloging my photos of which I have collected over 900 to date. For the first time in my life, I don't feel like I am missing an opportunity to take great pictures. I love it.
This biological station seems to have been dropped into one of the most lively places in this entire country. The first day we arrived, we saw toucans, peccaries, guans, and all manner of other critters. My classmates and I were standing on a bridge when a trogon landed no more than forty centimeters from my face. I couldn't capture it with my camera but the memory lives on in my mind. Trogons are exquisite birds, with hugely loud colors and patterning. They crowd the forests here in paradise. Collectively we've seen at least 7 different species since we arrived. All of them are mind-blowingly beautiful.
This morning we woke up for an early breakfast at 6:00 am, then headed out to the forest for nature hikes. Vipers and other more venomous serpents lurk around the trails and clearings here, so we wore rubber boots. The boots also came in handy for walking down the flooded boardwalk in the swamp where super-fragrant peace lilies grow, perfuming the entire basin with the scent of ripe peaches and jasmine. Yum. Alex wore hiking boots, so Orion gave him a piggy back ride through the 8 inch-deep wate. By the end of the hike Alex's feet were soaked anyway. This is the tropical rainforest, after all.
We toured a Dole banana plantation after lunch. Our guide told us we should buy Dole bananas and evaded most of our important questions like 'How many years can bananas be grown before the land becomes totally infertile?' No matter. These ecotragedies fix themselves after a while.
It's time for dinner, and I'll leave you here. Some photos soon, I promise.
I've been cataloging my photos of which I have collected over 900 to date. For the first time in my life, I don't feel like I am missing an opportunity to take great pictures. I love it.
This biological station seems to have been dropped into one of the most lively places in this entire country. The first day we arrived, we saw toucans, peccaries, guans, and all manner of other critters. My classmates and I were standing on a bridge when a trogon landed no more than forty centimeters from my face. I couldn't capture it with my camera but the memory lives on in my mind. Trogons are exquisite birds, with hugely loud colors and patterning. They crowd the forests here in paradise. Collectively we've seen at least 7 different species since we arrived. All of them are mind-blowingly beautiful.
This morning we woke up for an early breakfast at 6:00 am, then headed out to the forest for nature hikes. Vipers and other more venomous serpents lurk around the trails and clearings here, so we wore rubber boots. The boots also came in handy for walking down the flooded boardwalk in the swamp where super-fragrant peace lilies grow, perfuming the entire basin with the scent of ripe peaches and jasmine. Yum. Alex wore hiking boots, so Orion gave him a piggy back ride through the 8 inch-deep wate. By the end of the hike Alex's feet were soaked anyway. This is the tropical rainforest, after all.
We toured a Dole banana plantation after lunch. Our guide told us we should buy Dole bananas and evaded most of our important questions like 'How many years can bananas be grown before the land becomes totally infertile?' No matter. These ecotragedies fix themselves after a while.
It's time for dinner, and I'll leave you here. Some photos soon, I promise.
posted by cody @ 3:46 PM
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