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.