Looking Back - Return to Monteverde

It felt odd to bid adieu to the rest of the students, after all we have been through, and it felt like our separation should have come with a bang rather than a whimper. I know that we will all see each other again in two weeks, but it will not be the same. We will carry with us the relationships we have built up, but the program that brought us together and isolated us in each other's company has ended, that part of our lives is over. Who can say how we will maintain contact or drift apart? I can only do my best to make this the group that I don't fall away from upon reintroduction to larger society. I hope to hold on to these memories and relationships, that we may look back on them together in days to come. If they do fade, that is why I took so many pictures and maintained this blog, to remind me of the good times we had.
Visiting Monteverde with my dad gave me a new perspective on how this all may play out. He was returning for the first time in 32 years, and marveling at how much has changed and how much has remained unchanged. He maintained contact with 2/3 of his group, I can only hope to do the same.
Returning to Monteverde felt very different, not being with the group. I walked the research trail and hiked the paths I had before with others, half feeling the presences and hearing the voices of my friends who were there a scant two months ago. I would sometimes forget myself and turn to address someone who was not there, to comment on a vine we had swung on, a view we saw, or a bird we had both admired, only to stop at the empty air. It was that transience of our time together that made this experience so special and bittersweet at the parting. One day, I too may return with another who has experienced it.
I am sure that it will all be fine, that we will remain close, and that all my insecure moping will be unfounded. To the life beyond, bolstered not fettered by memories of the amazing adventure we shared. Pura Vida.

Return to Monteverde   15-3-2014
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I hike alone, yet not alone
Accompanied by phantoms
Constructions from my memory
Of companions of days past
They point out experiences we once shared
Of views and birds and trees and trails
Memories I try to recreate
Yet come up hollow for lacking their presence.
I climb the tree and find the plots
Swing in the vine and admire the view
Encouraged by ghosts
Glimpsed between the stems
Faint calls echoing, then fade to birds
Memories only when I turn to engage.
One day perchance we will return
Reunited in our old haunts
A dream for years far off, hidden in mist
This fellowship must not be broken
We must remain strong, maintain our bonds
United in memories of this great adventure
That will not fade away
But spur us to greater heights.

Little Cayman

We arrived on Little Cayman in a tiny plane that couldn’t even fit our entire group in one trip. Little Cayman is small, about 170 residents, with a land area less than a quarter that of Kaho’olawe.

Our group split up for the initial ocean exploration, half us dove and half of us snorkelled. It was a bit lonely, as Adam and Aaron went off together as experienced divers, and Zach, Lars and Allegra were in the snorkelling group. On my dive we saw three eagle rays, trigger fish, a lemon ray, parrot fish and spiny lobsters hiding in the rocks.

Our introduction project to marine ecology involved studying the queen conch (Strombus gigas) distribution and movement. I was in the movement group, and it was quite a comedy of errors. The first day, tying the fishing line to make buoys was impossible, and were so tired from fighting the current it took us over an hour to realize we could try to tie things in the shallows before swimming them out to the deep areas. The next day the conches had moved far more than we expected, about thirty to fifty metres rather than the three to five we were told. Finding them again to measure their movement was difficult, and a few we only found by chance.

We went for an exploratory snorkel of the back reef behind the station, and immediately as we swam out we saw two stingrays and a hawksbill seaturtle. We also saw several very large spiny lobsters, a five foot barracuda and a few yellow-tailed damselfish, brilliant grey fish with iridescent spots like someone poured blue glitter on them.

On our third day of diving we went out to Bloody Bay Wall and it was amazing. At one of the sites the wall was almost sheer, and swimming over it you went from being 20 feet above coral to being able to see only endless blue below, even after diving down 60 feet. We saw a hawksbill turtle cruising around below, and a large Nassau grouper that came up to us to be petted. The regular boat was in for maintenance, so we went in one of the resorts’ boats, which had a cool second-story deck.

When I can, I have been trying to go out for a morning bike ride before breakfast. If I had my road bike on paved roads the loop of the island would only take an hour, but I’m estimating it would actually take two hours. This is a problem because there is only half an hour of actual daylight before breakfast starts at 7:00. Lars, Zack and I have also gone on a few night rides after lecture, down toward the pier where we went snorkelling earlier. On our second to last morning breakfast was delayed to brunch, so I had time to ride around the whole island, in slightly under two hours including a quick swim at the pier.

Our free day started off with a beach cleanup on the eastern side of the island. Splashing through the shallows, grinning on a turquoise backdrop. We made the three and four person towers again, and actually got pictures this time. We also had fun jumping off the dock with varying degrees of gracefulness.

Last night there were high winds from the evening on through morning. The gusts dropped the ambient temperature, and turned up the volume on the rustling leaves and crashing waves. The wind caught doors, banished the bugs, and threw people’s hair in wild disarray. I slept on the couch in the central lounge to be close to a window listening to the wind, and also because I was up late looking through the pictures I took and didn’t want to clear off my bed.

The excitement and concentration on everyone’s face as they get caught up in reef ecology. Adam diving down to find small fish or shrimp or invertebrates. The way the current and light catch Allegra’s hair as she holds something close to her mask for a look. How graceful everyone seems in the water, sleek in black wetsuits. The way the evening sun lights people up as they emerge from the water and creates a picturesque scene as they stare contemplatively out to sea.

I saw my first shark from in the water coming back from exploring Owen Island, a nurse shark that circled around us and stayed in view for a while. On the other side of the island a five foot barracuda approached us. The shore of the island was interesting, with a long shallow sandbar stretching out into the bay. There were a lot of mangroves, but we could only find one (large) mangrove crab.

We went for a night dive, and it was amazing. The corals had their arms out for feeding, and looked very fuzzy. We also saw a huge basket star, which had caught some fish and shrimp in its own appendages. At one point we all turned off our lights, and observed the bioluminescence when we disturbed the water. The darkness made everything seem very foreign, it felt like the bottom of the sea, with our flashlights looking like angler fish or searchlights. We learned that crustaceans have red eye-shine, and cartilaginous fishes (sharks, rays, skates, etc.) have green eye-­­shine, which was very useful for the lobster survey project we did the next few nights. We conducted that on the back reef behind the station, and we saw lobsters, crabs, lionfish, groupers, turtles, stingrays, squid, and an octopus. The corners of our plots were marked with glow-sticks one night, then flashlight beams, both which loomed quickly out of the darkness when you snorkelled near them.

On our last dive we went to ‘Mixing Bowl,’ where the small wall meets the large wall, and actually has an overhanging lip, sloping in as you descend. Swimming along, right before we ascended, I looked back at Amelia and saw a distinctive shadowed shape approaching. It was a grey reef shark, about six feet long, and it hung around long enough to get a good view. On the way back we also saw a nurse shark resting. Furthermore, we saw two turtles. On the way back we dove for conches, and brought them back to the station. Lowell showed us how to extract them and filet them. I made sure one conch was extracted with minimal damage to the shell, which I am bringing home to make into a conch shell trumpet.

‘Finding Nemo’ was one of the most popular movies of this stretch, and our days were filled will references such as “Fishie, why are you sleeping?,” “You made me ink” and “Mine. Mine. Mine.” We also clicked our fingers like the crabs saying ‘Ay, ay, ay’ and re-enacted the Darla entrance with the ‘Psycho’ violin screech.

On the last morning I went for a quick swim with Becca after breakfast. We saw a small stingray. The sunrise was beautiful, as it was almost every morning, and the early morning glow illuminating the island and station looked very peaceful.

Reef Traverse

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Darkness surrounds, a smothering blanket

Uncharted depths of the ocean

Alone in space

Broken only by regular hissing breaths

A flip of fins and green sparks fill the void

Glowsticks and boundary markers looming out of the gloom

Searching beams of light catch eyeshine, ruby and emerald

Clustered beams reveal the group

Rising, shadows take form

Sleek, black explorers of the sea

Transformed for the dive

Ascending the wall

Glittering surface above, fathomless depths below.

A garden of color, swaying, branching, flitting

Suspended in place fish glide

Striped, sparkled, gleaming metallic

Rays floating, lobsters scuttling, barracuda hovering

Triangular fins heralding the approach of sharks

Squid and octopi swaying tentacles

Turtles drifting, unconcerned.

Surfacing amidst the waves

Sunrise illuminating the sea foam

Venus born again

As rock iguanas and hermit crabs watch

Turquoise waters over snowy sand

Set backdrop for more fish and conches

Or to leap in from a dock or boat

Shining sun baking skin bronze

Coconuts releasing cold water

Lights die with evening sunset

As moonrise bathes in new silver glow

And stars shine forth from velvet black

An island paradise, let it remain so.

San Jose

We were all exited to reach Costa Rica and explore. Zach and I bought machetes in the mercado central, mine has a wooden handle shaped like a boot.

During our layover hour to drop off Ryan and pick up Matt and Hannah, Allegra and I went back to the main pedestrian avenue. We got helado, mine was guanabana (saursop).

Returning to San Jose for the last time before flying out, Matt took us out for dinner. The challenge was that he gave us the address of the cantina and a few thousand colones for taxis each way, then sent us out into the night to find our own way there. Zach and I teamed up, then proceeded to be given a scenic tour of the city by the taxi driver and were swindled out of the entirety of the cash Matt gave us, arriving at the cantina after everyone else had decided on their orders. The food was great though, and we told the waiter it was Matt’s birthday (and were within a few weeks, to our surprise), so it was quite a successful farewell dinner. That last night we were up late packing, then left the hotel at 4 am to catch the flights to Miami, then to the Caymans.

La Selva

Walking out to the arboretum, Zach and I saw a Tantilla reticulate, a fairly rare small (~30cm) snake that is semi-fossorial (living under leaf litter) and usually nocturnal. It had distinct yellowish tan patches on either side right after its head. Lars and Becca also found a caecilian, a very rare amphibian that resembles a large earthworm and is fossorial. Earlier, walking around the swamp we saw two great green macaws fly overhead. We also saw several species of toucan, sloths and motmots. The peccaries are everywhere, but we didn’t see any big cats.

Today it was properly raining for a while during the day, one of the first times on this trip. It felt like being back in Hilo at a certain level. Allegra, Lars and I saw 6 or so howler monkeys climbing around on the bridge cables. A few mothers had babies that were running a short distance away, then returning. There were two males right near the center of the bridge, down low by the railing. One seemed unperturbed by our presence, we walked by it and took pictures, and it only looked at us and growled a bit. It then started walking toward the other male; we thought they might fight, but they only hugged a bit as they passed on the cable, then the first male made a flying leap to the other cable.

The river is known to get very high in floods, up within two metres of the large bridge, and flowing over two metres above the small bridge up to the river station (as a previous FSP observed). On this trip the water was very shallow, rarely over a metre, but Zach, Allegra and I went swimming anyways below the river station. It was fun splashing around in the shallows and lying on the sand. Earlier that morning most of the group went on a rafting trip 10 kilometres up the river down to the station again. We saw a lot of birds, a few iguanas and ripples from river otters, and found a deep spot with a cliff we could jump off.

Las Cruces

The Wilson Botanical Garden has about 3000 planted species, and another 100 that have spread in from the adjacent forest preserve. They also supposedly have the 2^nd largest collection of palms in the world. I was not overly impressed with their labelling, however, as it seemed that none of the trees I was interested in (I think I found a Psidium cattleianum. hiss…) nor any of the tree ferns were labelled. I found a Coffea sp., which was familiar, as well as a Podocarpus sp. That looked nothing like the ones I have in my yard. We were also all impressed with the morphological diversity of Euphorbia.

There were a few interesting bird species in the garden, especially visible from the porch outside of the dining hall. We saw Fiery-billed Araçaris, mot-mots, honeycreepers and several species of tanager.

On out second-to-last day Matt put us through a practicum of identifying the plants in the garden to family (or a few to genus). I wasn’t worried at first, got worried as it got closer, then ended up doing pretty well on the test, only misspelling a few things. I think it ended up being good that we had the practicum, as it pushed us to get out and explore the garden, although we spent probably a bit too much time inside compiling study guides.

One of the most appreciated aspects of this station was the laundry service. Many of us were down to our last outfit and has worn shirts for multiple days sweating like pig iron, so the opportunity to wash all of our clothes and have loads of fresh, clean laundry was heavenly.

One evening, before the 'What is Science?' discussion, Lars and I walked in to town, a few kilometres along the ridge. We managed to bring back two tubs of ice cream and several chocolate bars.

Corcovado

We hiked into the Sirena station, a distance of 23 kilometres. We saw a bunch of blue Morpho butterflies, as well as basilisks.

After Lars and I sat by the Rio Claro discussing ideas for a while, we returned along the trail, where we saw a mother and baby tapir cross the trail. The mother was larger than I expected, about 4 feet tall at the shoulder. The baby was about 2 feet at the shoulder, and speckled/striped like a fawn, probably for camouflage. On another hike on that trail we saw a fer-de-lance curled up on a buttress.

Matt showed us a swimming hole on the Rio Claro. It was 9 feet deep in the centre, and had a ledge overhanging it that most of us jumped off. Later, Matt explained that there was usually a caiman who lived down under the ledge, but it was very unlikely to attack. The next day, Lars, Allegra, Ellen, and I swam there again after taking our stream samples.

We saw a troop of squirrel monkeys, leaping around in the trees. One mother had a baby clinging to her. They seemed smaller than the ones I remember from the Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo. After seeing spider monkeys the day before, I have now seen all four species of monkey in Costa Rica.

Playa Oscura – 4/2/2014

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Crescent moon spreads silver gleam

O’er breaking waves and sandy shore

As crashing water moans and roars,

Splits sand and sea by frothy seam.

A path leads out ‘cross darkened deep

Broken by undulating swells

A faerie path across the fells

To realms one visits but in sleep.

Our searching gaze sheds pools of light

Crabs scuttle and hermits freeze

While unseen eyes look out from trees

Elusive denizens of the night.

Cheshire grin peers out from clouds

He’s seen ages come and go

Tides continue ceaseless flow

When all man builds lies in shrouds.

Driftwood logs reach for the sky

Skeletons of leviathons long gone

As time marches, progresses on

All too must pass and be passed by.

The ocean mocks our sense of time

Our scrambling toward a futile end

Of life and love or art or friend

Mean nothing more than this small rhyme.

Cuerici

At almost 9000 feet, this is much colder than the other sites. The stars were beautiful and clear because of our remoteness.

We went for a nature walk with Don Carlos, and he pointed out oaks in the primary forest that were over a thousand years old. It was sad to think of hem being cut down for things as mundane as wine barrels. We also saw a Vaccinium sp., the same genus as ‘ōhelo and family as blueberry.

Hannah, Jess, Vivek, Amelia, Allegra and I went out to try to mist-net bats. We saw some and heard some, but did not catch any in our nets. While we waited we lounged around chatting and looking at the stars. Later I laid out in the yard, in the shadow of the hill, and stargazed. Zach and Lars didn’t see me when they went out. The field station and Alberto’s house were lit up, as were the flowers on the hill from underneath. I listened to ‘Stars’ and saw two shooting stars.

We went looking for the source of a squeaking noise in the forest. I saw the glint of eyes a few times, but others maintained a view of it and saw a bushy, striped tail. We believe it may be a ring-tailed cat. Later we had a module in which we examined 3 bats that Hannah caught in the mist nets. We watched the leaf-nosed one drink sugar-water, and both species had very cute, fuzzy faces and tiny teeth.

Monteverde

Most of us went over to the hummingbird café, two minutes away from the hotel. The hummingbirds would land on your fingers if you put them near the feeders. We all did this, but Allegra was the most skilled, accumulating 5 or 6 birds at a time. She also was the only one to attract a violet sabrewing, the largest and most aggressive one. She was radiating joy and it was among the happiest I’ve ever seen her. We also observed a kinkajou go through acrobatics to drink from the feeders. It would hang upside down or lunge for the feeder, occasionally missing, swinging around and running back into the tree for a few minutes to recover from its embarrassment.

Zach, Lars and I found a giant strangler fig near one of our epiphyte plots. The tree originally hosting it had long since rotted away, leaving a cylindrical cavity two metres across and over 20 metres tall inside. The roots intertwined like jungle-gym bars, and I climbed about 7 metres up. The spaces between the roots formed windows, through which I could see out over the canopy on one side, which dropped away into a gorge. We returned with Allegra and Aaron, and Allegra attracted a bat when she climbed up. I put a piece of flagging tape at the highest point I reached climbing, at about 11 metres.

At the end of the research trail we came to a viewpoint looking out through a chainsaw view down the valley. While we were there the mist lifted and we saw all the way down to the Pacific Ocean. On the way back we found a perfect vine that swung out over the trail and the slope below. We all swung on it, and it was exhilarating to swing out over the slope below.

Zach, Lars and I attempted to circumnavigate the park trail system and reach the continental divide, but we ran out of time before lunch. We did manage to find a waterfall, and considered swimming despite the sign. Later Allegra and I hiked out to the canopy bridge. We saw epiphytes in the canopy, bromeliads, orchids and others. The rangers pointed out to us a Mexican tree porcupine, sitting in the canopy of a smaller tree. On the way back across the bridge we reverted to children, running and jumping and laughing, making the bridge bounce and sway and losing our balance.

Around the hotel we saw racoons, coatis stealing garbage and a capuchin (Ryan had not seen any monkeys in his 5 years at Monteverde). We saw the same capuchin the next morning and named him Loco Koko.

Lars, Allegra and I hiked out to the canopy bridge, where we saw the porcupine again, up close on the bridge and adjacent trees. We then hiked over to the waterfall. It looked very peaceful and relaxing with its chain of pools and heavy vegetation. It reminded Allegra and me of spring in Hanover, made us homesick for campus. I’d like to swim in the pools.

On our last morning, Allegra and I hiked out to the overlook on the research trail for sunrise. The sun rose behind us, as we were looking out over the Pacific, but the sky still lit up with colours as it went from a rose horizon to the blue sky of morning. We were far removed from human activity and the lights of the town below, but the forest was already awake with birds calling and the wind in the trees of the next ridge over roaring like distant surf. The clouds were initially solely silhouettes against the sky, but as the sun rose they were lit up. The wind was strong, rushing them across the sky and spinning them off into different shapes.

Monteverde Sunrise  -  26/1/2014

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Lightening sky through the canopy

Beckons us down the trail

To open up to sweeping views

Down the valley, to ocean beyond

The birds are awake, calling

But the rest of the world yet slumbers.

A single leaf flutters down

From swaying canopy

While the wind on forested ridge

Softly roars like distant surf.

Crescent moon retreats with advance of morn

As rosy horizon grows

Illuminated in inverted rainbow.

Clouds dance, silhouetted, lit up

Swiftly carried by wind, high above, down below

Lights of village twinkle

But we observe from far above

Two souls in an engulfing forest

Contemplative, separate

Somewhere beyond the horizon is home

The path back will lead to programmed life

But now, caught in the moment, peace.

Santa Rosa

We all went swimming at the beach, a welcome respite after a week in the dry forest. The waves were great for body-boarding, similar to Hapuna on a good day. Ellen and I were the most skilled at it and could ride the waves in until the sand. Occasionally there would be larger waves, feeling like a massage if you dived under but tumbling you head over heels if you approached incorrectly. During calm stretches we played at chicken-fight, people dove off my shoulders and we made 3-person towers up on shoulders.

When we went swimming in the morning, the wind would catch the breaking waves and spread spray in a trail behind them. The spray would catch the sunlight and refract rainbows.

The first afternoon we saw a turtle on the beach nesting, and another the next day. The first night we saw a nest hatching and followed the baby turtles to the ocean. We also saw a hatchlings, of a different species, the next night, and another the last morning.

The second evening Adam led us to the far end of the beach until we hit boulders, from which we watched the sunset.

Later that evening, after dinner, Lars, Zack, Allegra and I sat out on the beach. We went around the circle asking questions about each other, and often spun off into discussions of deep and serious topics. I felt like I grew closer to each of them, that inhibitions and barriers were lowered with the night and the honest 

conversation. It was a moment of calm and contentment.

Pura Vida  -  19/1/2014

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Turquoise waves refract golden sun

Glimmering, beckoning across the sand

A sudden chill after baked shore

The foaming waves reach out in welcome

Pulling in, through ebb and flow

A wind picks up, catching spray of breaking wave

And spreading in a fan, paints rainbows in its wake

A wall of water, and another breaks

Carrying students on a wild ride

To be repeated, laughing, tumbled

In calmer waters towers

Two, three people tall and leaps from shoulders

Friends, shared experience in work and play,

Adventures of a lifetime, exotic locales

As seabirds dive and fishes fly.

As shadows lengthen, a walk

Down stretching expanses, empty, open

And waves sweep footprint trail clean

Travels bring shells, marine colours and shapes

Sandbars at river’s mouth and hermit crabs scuttling by tidal pools,

Mother turtles on terrestrial quests, labouring to lay in sandy nests

That will be seen by moonlight

As hatchlings embark on the long return journey

Across the wide beach to reach grasping waves

And escape to long lives in the open water,

Part of a cycle as old as time.

The setting sun dyes the clouds and waves

Glowing crimson and gold, then fading purple

As the moon unveils and rises behind mountain

A silver shine washes the tranquil shore

Gentle crash of the surf lapping at the sand

A time of reflection and peace

A suspended moment as friends sit and talk

On weathered driftwood and cooling sand

Internal walls relaxed by night, open, honest

Adjacent pieces of the quilt of Ages

A perfect ending to a perfect day.

Palo Verde

On an orientation hike we went to a lookout, a large rock outcropping looking out over the marsh. It reminded me of Pride Rock. We watched the sunset, and could see the pattern of macrophytes in the marsh and to the river beyond.

As part of our macrophyte project, Allegra, Aaron, Adam, Zach and I took night samples in the marsh, with the eyes of crocs glowing just beyond the circle of our lights. We were a bit nervous before embarking, but soon became comfortable with the activity.

The beginning of a large range of tropical fruit juices; from guava to pineapple, saursop to passion fruit, papaya and more.

A troop of capuchins came to the trees right across the road from the research station, and some on a tree inside the fence, and made aggressive faces and gestures at us.

On the last morning I started to go on a sunrise hike up to the tops of the bluffs, but I got lost in the woods in the dark half-way up and decided to watch the sunrise from the boardwalk in the marsh instead.

Marsh Awakenings  -  17/1/2014

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Morning stillness over the marsh

Night breezes off the bluffs

Counterpoint to heavy tropic heat

Full moon lies in retreat

Golden horizon silhouettes rising ducks

Chirps greeting morning and dying of night

As howlers bark from their arboreal kingdoms

An eternal sight, connections across the years

Another day, what lies in store?

A whirlwind tour of this alien land

Grab the scarce moments of solitude

Fourteen united in pursuit of knowledge

Of this new facet of our one earth

To explore God’s creation,

A chance of a lifetime.

A kite wheels, he will stay but I will be gone

The fleeting beauty of a place resigned to memories

As any experience may be

But new memories lie to be made,

And the old protected from time’s change

A string of moments, bittersweet for their nature

There remains naught but to live as they come.

Reflections on Experiences of the Biostretch

Dartmouth Biological Sciences Foreign Study Program: Studies in Tropical Ecology

Costa Rica and Little Cayman

January through March, 2014

Aaron, Adam, Allegra, Amelia, Annie, Becca, Claire, Ellen, Emily, Lars, Lexie, Maya, Nathanael, Zach

Ryan, Matt, Celia, Jess, Vivek

Each evening, from December to December,

Before you drift to sleep upon your cot,

Think back on all the tales that you remember

Of Camelot.

Don't let it be forgot

That once there was a spot

For one brief shining moment that was known

As Camelot.

–Camelot

Let the moment go...

Don't forget it for a moment, though.

Just remembering you've had and "and",

When you're back to "or",

Makes the "or" mean more

Than it did before.

Now I understand-

And it's time to leave the woods.

–Into the Woods

The roof, the house and the world you never thought to explore.

And you think of all of the things you've seen,

And you wish that you could live in between,

And you're back again,

Only different than before,

After the sky.

-Into the Woods

This is likely to be a pivotal experience in my life, I know it was for my Dad. A full term doing field ecology in some of the best tropical ecosystems, surrounded and encouraged by some of the best ecologists Dartmouth has to offer. I at least am currently only a junior, but for my senior friends this is the beginning to their last 6 months of Dartmouth. As such, each moment is bittersweet in its transitory nature. I must try to make the most of the time I have together with my friends here before we are scattered to the wide world, and to hang on to the memories that 30 years hence may bring me back to these sight and sounds.

Nathan, remember . . .