Long time no blog! Apologies for the delay; I have been so busy with wrapping up the semester that I totally forgot to write about classes ending and what finals are like here in Monteverde!

On the week of April 1st, we had our Independent Research Project proposal workshop all day on Monday, where we went over what a scientific project proposal looks like and what our professors are expecting of us. On Tuesday, we had a field techniques class where we learned about forestry, specifically making a plot and measuring the height and DBH (diameter breast height) of trees within that plot, and how these measurements differ in a forested location versus an agricultural location. In the afternoon, we had all Spanish class to prepare for our debate the next day. On Wednesday, we wrapped up Tropical Community Ecology with our last class, where we discussed a variety of articles we read for homework over the weekend. Adri surprised us with delicious ice cream at the end of class, which was so nice! In the afternoon, we had our debate which actually turned out a lot better than we anticipated, because our professor Eva, structured it really well with her asking questions and each side answering with their own assigned opinion. On Thursday, we were given all morning to work on our proposal, which I spent attending a seminar on bat acoustic analysis that Adri assigned to me, and writing up my methods and materials section. In the afternoon, we took our Spanish Finals for our last class, which was pretty easy. We had a section on desde versus hace, irregular verbs, writing out numbers, a reading portion, and a short essay about our experience in Costa Rica. Eva also gave us a few tries on the grammar portions. Finally, on Friday, we had all day to work on and turn in our proposal. I am planning on studying bat acoustics here. It was long, hard work, but I managed to get it in on time! In the evening, my friends and I threw a surprise wedding for our friends, Evan and Liam. We had been planning it all week, but they had no idea! Each person of our friend group got a role to play, and Kira and I were the parents of Evan the bride. Also, every student from the Ecology program and the Sustainability program showed up! It was amazing! We had the wedding right before dinner and Evan walked down the aisle to Linger by the Cranberries. At dinner, we did speeches and enjoyed some hamburgers. It was such a beautiful, hilarious event!

Everyone at the wedding and the lovely couple front and center!

The next week was finals week. We had all day to study on Monday, which I spent mostly on the Tropical Diversity final that was the next day and because it was the class we haven’t had for a week. On Tuesday, we got back feedback about our proposals and our last Conservation Series where we talked about the beautiful experience it is to learn about Tropical Ecology and how connected all of us ecology students feel to tropical ecosystems after a semester of learning and living within them. It was a heartfelt, bittersweet class discussion. On Wednesday, we had our Tropical Diversity final which was the toughest of them all, but I still feel like I did pretty well. On Thursday, we had our Tropical Community Ecology final which was closed note this time, but it felt as easy as it would be with notes anyways! And lastly, we had our final Practical Exam on Friday where we were tested on all of the species we learned in San Gerardo, Palo Verde, and Cuajiniquil. I had my meeting about my independent research project with Adri, because I am planning on investigating the affects of anthropogenic (human-made) noise pollution on insectivorous bat activity, through setting up audio recorders and discovering what I hear each night for 2 whole weeks. After my meeting, I had lunch, and packed my bags for our last weekend trip to Playa Hermosa!

A beautiful sunset at Playa Hermosa

When we arrived to Playa Hermosa, we got settled into our Airbnb called the Purple Mansion, a cute little house just down the road from the beach! We made some pasta for dinner before heading down to the beach to watch the sunset. When the sun did set, we created a small fire pit and hung out together for the night. It was so fun! The next day, we went swimming in the ocean and I learned how to surf! Although I fell so many times and got a few bruises from the board hitting me so many times, I managed to stand up a few times! It was so awesome! We picked up some pizza for lunch and enjoyed laying in the sand. Afterwards, we collected seashells before heading back to the house to take showers and naps. Edie and I made quesadillas and guacamole for dinner and we headed to town to check out the night life. We stumbled upon a nightly surfing competition, where five different guys were surfing the biggest waves I have ever seen! It was so crazing! Because I won the March Madness bracket for our program, the boys got me some free drinks and the girls and I danced the night away together. In the morning, we packed up and cleaned the house before returning back to campus for the start of our Independent Research Project.

It feels pretty weird to not be on our normal, busy class schedule anymore, but I am super excited to see how everyone’s research projects turn out! I am currently working on my last week of data collection and organizing everything for my paper and presentation. Also, starting tonight, I am going to be staying with a cute family right here in Monteverde and I am excited but also nervous because of the language barrier. On Sunday, I am planing on writing about my research experience as well as my homestay! Until then 🙂

Hello to my small (but mighty) blog fanbase! You are not on the wrong website! I changed the setup of my blog, because it is a lot easier to work with compared to the last setup. Hopefully it’s a little easier for you to navigate too.

An adorable female Black Spiny-tailed iguana outside of our station in Palo Verde

Last week, we went on our last field trip of the semester, which consisted of three days in Palo Verde National Park, Cuajiniquil, and Rincón de la Vieja. On Monday, we embarked on our journey to the dry forest of Palo Verde. When we arrived, it was 103ºF and really dry, which is something that we had not experienced before. We couldn’t believe we were still in Costa Rica, because it was so different from all of the other places we have been before! We went on our first biodiversity hike, where we learned about the Guayacán tree from my friend Molly. This week all of our biodiversity hikes are student-led, and each student had a species to present on. We also learned about the Palo Verde tree from Shoshi and the White-tailed deer from Ivy (yes, these deer are here in CR!) We got back to our station just in time for dinner and we went on a short night hike. The one downside to this trip is that there was no A/C, which was a struggle at night. If you do choose this program and they have a trip to Palo Verde planned, I definitely recommend taking a cold shower right before bed and going to sleep with wet hair, because it helps so much with the heat. On Tuesday, we had the whole morning packed with a biodiversity hike. Almost all the students presented their species that day. I presented on the Common Water Hyacinth, which is an invasive aquatic plant that usually lives along the marsh, but because the water was all dried up from the dry season, we didn’t see it. In the afternoon, we had discussion about our independent research projects with Adri and Miguel. I had a really great discussion about what I wanted to study with them, and it gave me a clearer path about this project. I am thinking of researching the effect that anthropogenic (human-made) noise pollution has on native frog communities in Monteverde. Frogs are really important to study as they are indicator species, which means they’re one of the first animals to be affected to disturbances to the environment, such as climate change.

On Wednesday, we packed up our sweaty clothes in the morning and headed to Cuajiniquil, a little fishing town on the Pacific Coast! Halfway through the drive, we had delicious Indian food and it was life-changing. I haven’t had Indian food in months! The coconut curry I ate was worth the heat and sweat that we went through the days before. When we arrived to Cuajiniquil, we met up with the Sustainability Program and had a talk with a marine biologist, Bea, about coral ecosystems and their disappearance due to climate change and ocean acidification. We had dinner and headed straight to bed for the big day ahead of us…snorkeling! In the morning, we got ready for a full day at the beach! Because we were both programs combined, we were split into groups for snorkeling. I was apart of the second group, so I ended up swimming with my best friend here, Grace! Afterwards, it was our turn to snorkel and we hopped on a boat and traveled all the way to Isla Muñecos, where the coral reef was. We saw so many cool fish, sea urchins, and crabs! We got back and got some lunch on the beach from Bea’s family friends which was so nice! We played some more on the beach by making some sand castles, sand pits, and swimming! Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to shower and take a quick nap before going back to the beach for sunset. It was so beautiful and peaceful after all of the excitement from the day. On Friday, we left Cuajiniquil and took a hike at Rincón de la Vieja, an active volcano that was along the way back home! We saw many boiling mud pits and sulfur springs. We also saw a Tapir, which marks the last creature on my wishlist! It was surprising, because they are usually very shy animals, but this one was so close to us on the hike! When we finished the hike, we ate some lunch, and headed back to campus for the weekend.

Grace and I swimming in Cuajiniquil, with Isla Muñecos in the background!

The next week, we had another field problem on Monday, where my group had to come up with our own research question and set it up as a theoretical project with our expected results. It was a long day of organizing and presenting all of the group’s projects. On Tuesday morning, we had our tenth Community Ecology lecture about seasonality in the tropics with Adri. In the afternoon during Spanish class, we prepared presentations about mysteries worldwide. On Wednesday, we had our last Tropical Diversity lecture with Miguel! This class went by so fast and I can’t believe we only have the final left. In Spanish, we presented about our mysteries and learned about Area 51, the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, and the Bermuda Triangle. On Thursday, we had field techniques were we practiced bug catching and setting up pitfall traps. I ended up catching the most insects in my net out of the whole class, including many butterflies, crickets, and a huge stickbug! In Spanish, we started preparing for our debate next week about the ethics of genetically modified organisms where half of the room is in favor and half of the room is against. I think most of my class is nervous for this, because we’re not that experienced in debate, let alone in Spanish! At least we have all weekend to prepare for it next week. On Friday, we had our second-to-last Community Ecology lecture with Adri, and we had the whole afternoon to ourselves to study and relax, which rarely happens! I ended up studying for the finals we have in less than 2 weeks, and then going to the river to swim with some friends! Over the weekend, we started a mural on the building of our Herbarium, because we wanted to make our mark on campus for next semester programs to enjoy! It has taken the effort of many hands to get it completed, but we’re almost there. We’re most likely going to finish it this week during study breaks, and I’m excited to see how it turns out!

I can’t believe we’ve wrapped up all of our field trips and started to wrap up our classes for the semester! It’s blowing my mind how quickly these few weeks have gone by. Next blog post, I’ll be done with Spanish class and all of my finals for the entire semester, just in time for us to start our Independent Research Project, which I’m very excited for. In the meantime, I’ll be studying away! Signing off!

This past Monday marked the halfway point for the entire semester, which is absolutely mind blowing! It is pretty crazy how fast my time here in Costa Rica has gone; time flies when you’re having fun! This blog post is going to recap March 4th – March 17th, since I am a little bit behind on blogging with the business of homework and multiple trips through the country.

During the week of March 4th, we had a full day of Field Problems on Monday, which consisted of looking at the audio recordings from our San Gerardo field trip the week before in order to learn about soundscape ecology! We recorded various animal sounds using a tool called an AudioMoth that we left at a forest gap and another at a river location. We compared the sonotypes, or sounds, found at both sites to see which location was more ecologically diverse. Listening through each soundbite and figuring out if it was a different species was pretty time consuming! My group ended up with the conclusion that the gap sight had the most species. We had yoga that evening with our instructor named Kelsey, which was very relaxing after the hours of class we had beforehand. On Tuesday, we learned about the Maintenance of Biodiversity in Miguel’s Tropical Diversity Class and we did a fun activity where we went out on the lawn where there were three circles outlined on the ground at different locations. Each student threw a plastic bug, aiming toward each circle, which was a fun way to learn about species dispersal on islands! In Spanish, my group finally presented on Groundhog day and my professor loved it! She was so intrigued why people rely on a groundhog to predict the weather. On Wednesday, we learned about Herbivory in Adri’s Tropical Community Ecology class, and our activity was to find multiple plants with evidence of herbivory throughout campus. On Thursday, we got an overview of the Independent Research Project that we will be pursuing during the last month of the semester, and we learned about some field techniques that could potentially be applied to our research here. For Spanish class, we went to the river up the hill to tell ghost stories that we prepared for our professor! We all had a blast and took a dip in the water which was so nice! On Friday, we had our third Humans in the Tropics class, where we learned about the local wastewater treatment center and a composting facility in order to learn about sustainable ways of discarding waste. We also visited the community garden and a local thrift store to learn about the community efforts of Santa Elena to consume more locally and sustainably as well. That evening, some friends and I hit the road to go on our weekend trip to Coco Beach!

After a 3 hour drive, we got to Coco Beach and made some pasta and had some drinks at our Airbnb that night. We got so lucky in finding a beachfront house for pretty cheap, we had great access to exploring the shore. In the morning, we spent the whole entire day at the beach! My friends Astrid, Luke, Liam, and I walked along the entire beach to check out what it was like. We also swam for so many hours; it was so much fun! We went out to get Italian for dinner and I got some shrimp ravioli that was so delicious! On Sunday, we checked out the town and explored many cute shops. The sun was blaring that day, so we got some ice cream. I got chocolate, as I always get, and the chocolate was so delicious. It probably came straight from the Cacao tree! We also walked along the beach to watch the sunset. I found some really pretty shells that I might make into jewelry for friends back home! We ate pizza for dinner in the sand together and suddenly, these huge groups of hermit crabs came out from the sand and make their trek for the water! There were probably thousands! It was something that I have never seen before, and it was amazing! We made it back to the Airbnb to clean and pack up. Our taxi picked us up and we drove back to Monteverde for the next week of classes that were ahead of us.

Watching the sunset in Playa del Coco, Costa Rica with Kira and Astrid

On Monday, we had the whole day to prepare some project ideas for our independent research project. I am thinking of doing an acoustic analysis of either frogs or bats, and seeing how soundscape ecology is affected by human-made noise pollution. We are having discussions about our ideas with Adri and Miguel that next week when we are on our field trip in Palo Verde. On Tuesday, we learned about the biodiversity loss in our Tropical Diversity class in the morning and prepared a presentation about the provinces of Costa Rica in our Spanish class in the afternoon. On Wednesday, we learned about pollination and seed dispersal in our Tropical Community Ecology class, and our activity was to find fruits and flowers and present to the class about the ways they are pollinated or how their seeds are dispersed. That night some friends and I got together and went into town to celebrate Liam’s birthday! We made him a piñata and went out to dinner; it was so fun! On Thursday, we had another Field Techniques day where we learned about camera traps and completed an activity to see which species were found from camera traps that were set up a few years ago on a Monteverde hiking trail. There were pumas, coyotes, foxes, agoutis, coatis, and armadillos captured! On Friday, we had our last Humans in the Tropics class, where we went ziplining! We went on 13 different ziplines throughout the tour and it was so amazing! It was pouring rain and the raindrops really hurt our faces when we went really fast, but it was truly one of the coolest things I have experienced. I also did the Tarzan swing, where we jump off of a platform and a long rope swings you back and forth! My adrenaline was really high waiting in line, but I managed to do it! We had lunch and had a discussion about ecotourism and more sustainable and environmentally-friendly ways to travel. Because this class only consisted of four day-long sessions, we ended up finishing this class for the entire semester. It was a really great class and I learned so much about the community here in Monteverde through it.

Dariana and I in line for the Tarzan swing! We had a lot of nervous excitement 🙂

While these two weeks consisted of our normal class schedule, it was still so much fun and really rewarding. After these two weeks, I relaxed and recharged for our last big field trip that we were taking to Palo Verde, the dry forests, and Cuajiniquil, a beach town, the week after. I have just finished this field trip, but I will be writing about it in my next blog post! Stay tuned and ¡pura vida!