Hello from the Costa Rican Srivastava lab outpost! Just a few poctures to show the poor left-behind people that we are actually working hard here at Pitilla Biological Station. Working hard and staring at giant caterpillars. But that’s work too. Maybe. Never sure here, because everything is just so much fun!! Unfortunately, the weather is nice every day. That might sound odd, but what we really really need is a few days of Vancouverian downpour…. to fill up our dry bromeliads. How are the damselflies and chironomids supposed to lay eggs and multiply to the numbers we need for the experiment if there is no water whatsoever??? Oh well, at least these are good laundry days 😉
What a morning!
When Diane asked if I wanted to go down to Santa Cecilia this morning to pick up the *new ATV’s* (!) I obviously jumped at the chance! (You mean I get to go ATVing for half the day and still count it as field work??) So off we went, both on the old ATV that I can’t change gears properly and takes herculean strength to turn right. After a very bumpy 25 min ride into town, we pulled into Cali and Petrona’s housed to see 2 gorgeous new Yamaha ATVs parked in the yard. What a beautiful sight! The ride back up to town was one of the funnest things I have done in a long time! Racing up the dirt road which was bone dry after 3 days of no rain, plowing through mud puddles in 4 wheel drive… WHEE!! And that wasn’t even the highlight!
We stopped part way up to collect some dead leaves off a fallen tree for decomposition experiments and heard some grunting a little ways into the forest. That’s when we spotted the troupe of howler monkeys just 2 trees away! There were about 5 or 6 of them, including one youngster. We watched for about 10 minutes as they just hung out, moving between trees and munching away. One of them came right out to the nearest tree and was watching us right back!
We finally tore ourselves away from the monkeys to return to the task of ripping down the dead branch. Which involved climbing on a fallen log and jumping up and down, disturbing all the underbrush. After rather unceremoniously dismounting from the tree, I saw that we had disturbed a tarantula! It was actually pretty cute, about 5 cm long with brown furry body and black furry legs.
The rest of the ride up was uneventful in terms of wildlife, but what a ride! Under clear blue skies with a clear view of the volcanoes, tropical forest to the sides, and dry yet exciting roads – I was actually laughing to myself as we went and hoping that every day I find something to make me that happy!
Jungle musketeers
Believe it or not: we made it to Pitilla!! The 5 Srivastava lab musketeers are safe and happy in the jungle! Been running around in the forest all day, looking at things and awing and things. We saw an amazing army ant swarm with amazing ant birds all around it! I couldn’t stop jumping up and down in excitement! Right now, the big lab mum is cooking dinner for us while we are watching the sun go down behind the volcanoes. Life as a scientist…..magnifico!
Uncertainty in Costa Rica
“The latest bashing by Mother Nature left the country in a mess. Roads are blocked, some residents are homeless. Many more are in shelters. And transportation between the Central Valley and the rest of the country is hampered. A weather alert continues, and there is no sign rains will cease.”
~ A.M. Costa Rica
The good news is, we weren’t there to be caught in a landslide. The bad news is, the latest Tropical Storm to hit Costa Rica has done severe damage to all infrastructure and pretty much all major roads, including the Interamerican highway (Hwy 1) are closed, and it’s still raining. Our fearless leader, who left yesterday morning, found herself stranded in San Jose with no way to get North to Santa Cecilia and Pitilla. Last report was that she was going to catch a plane to Liberia and meet us there tomorrow.
The upshot is… no new ATV (yet), and potentially no way of getting from Liberia (where we are flying in) to Santa Cecilia and our field site in Guanacaste. I guess we’ll just have to get there and find out! T-1 day!