Santa Rosa National Park

Lots of pictures to share!!

We spent Thursday leaving Isla Violin and heading up north to the Guanacaste dry forest. En route, we stopped at the Museum de Esferos (perfectly spherical stones) and the Rio Tarcoles, which had an oddly high density of crocodiles. We arrived to our camping spot in Santa Rosa National Park, ate dinner, set up our tents and promptly went to sleep. 

The next few days were filled with learning about and living with plenty of different animals, plants, and insects. We hiked around, did another group project (and presented on the same day!), had a free day to ourselves, and went snorkeling! Accomplished quite a lot in the 5 days, and it went by so fast!

White face capuchin monkeys visited our campsite a few times to eat from the compost pile. They were so cute and photogenic! Super fun to watch.

RIDICULOUSLY LARGE AND SCARY LOOKING WASP (Polistes), and a friendly stick bug. Seriously, these wasps would always hang out around the sink and any water source, which made it hard to do simple things like fill your water bottle, brush your teeth, do laundry or wash dishes. TERRIFYING, but luckily, I didn't get stung.

Some mornings, I woke up to the calls of howler monkeys. Other mornings (and often throughout the day), I suffered the noise of all the cicadas in the area screeching in unison. The sound could easily be part of some horror movie. It was very unnerving and honestly, it was the worst part of my trip thus far. I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of the buggers, but I did get to enjoy a stunning sunset from the nearby lookout!

My group project this time was about Pseudomyrmex ant queens colonizing new acacia (Vachellia) seedlings. Ant acacias are a textbook example of mutualism: ants protect the plant from herbivores, and the plant provides shelter and food for the ants. The picture shows the Beltian body formations on the tips of new leaves. In addition to collecting nectar from the plant's extrafloral nectaries, the ants harvest the Beltian bodies for the protein and lipid content. This time for the group project, we came up with a question, collected and analyzed data, created the poster, and presented all in the same day. It was pretty intense, but again, a great learning experience. After the presentations, Bryanna (another student) brought us a snake to admire and touch! It's really impressive how much experience and expertise the other students bring into the program; I love the variety of passions and interests from all my classmates!

These iguanas (Ctenosaurus similis) weren't shy of the camp either; I would encounter at least one every day, and it's incredibly entertaining to watch them run. They're fast, but they move their legs in such a comical manner. The picture on the right is the bat cave that we visited on a bird and mammal workshop day. Going inside the cave was ill-advised since there was a black fungus that causes damage to your lungs if inhaled, but we saw, heard, and smelled plenty of bats from just sitting outside.

There was a building pretty close to our campsite, and it was a classroom for teaching visiting schoolchildren about conservation, biology and the forest. I really liked that the park was used for more than just camping, and having the education facility and program available contributed in such a positive way to the community. The room was filled with posters, books, specimens and tons of awesome material for learning science, it made me happy to see all the resources available for education. 

We went snorkeling again, this time in the Santa Elena Bay! I got a chance to use the underwater camera, but I have to say, it's surprising difficult to take good pictures underwater. Sea urchins and balloon fish were the most abundant and easily seen organisms. I got plenty of practice with free diving, and I hope to improve even more! I still haven't seen an octopus yet either, so there shall be more chances for me to see one.

Alright, so it may seem like there is something horribly wrong with the scorpion, but fret not, because all the little things on top are the babies of the mother! Previously I would have reacted with mild disgust, but now, I have learned to change my descriptions to beautiful, gorgeous, majestic, interesting, cool, and other such positive adjectives. Even the cockroaches received praise, since their transparent wings looked so leaf-like and fragile. BIOLOGY!

Aside from all the interesting organisms and lessons we learned about, my favorite thing about Santa Rosa was the amazing tree in our campsite. It was so fun to climb, and it was also so aesthetically pleasing; it reminded me of bonsai trees. I'll miss Santa Rosa, but the cicadas are too strong of a deterrent for me to return. Someday I'll learn to appreciate all sounds of nature, or develop better mental control and focus to tune out the noise. Once I figure something out, I'll come back and fully enjoy the dry forest. But for now, we prepare for Monteverde in the cloud forest!