Author: Robin

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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!

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T-4 days!

Lisa!
Lisa!

I can’t believe it’s here.  After more than a year of anticipating this dream field season… we leave in 4 days.   Lisa (my friend from master’s degree and current field assistant ) just arrived in Vancouver and we spent the day meeting the lab, packing, and experimenting with new field equipment.  Last week, I told my boyfriend that it didn’t feel like we were leaving in a week!  And he said, it will when Lisa gets there. And he was right!  Our trunks – three 50 lb. trunks (one more than we expected!), plus leftovers now being crammed into our personal backpacks – are packed. When I introduded Lisa to Diane this morning, she said ‘I guess I’ll see you on Sunday!’.  She meant, meeting us in Santa Cecilia astride her brand new ATV, ready for us to load it up and head up to Pitilla!

Yes, I still have equipment that I haven’t built yet.  Yes, my rubber boots are still 2 sizes too big. Yes, my pack is still half full of my gear from my last camping trip, and I haven’t even made my ‘remember to pack’ list. And yes, I still have no form of currency valid in Costa Rica!  BUT, my field assistant is sleeping in my apartment, I have new batteries in my camera, I have my research questions firmly in mind, and I can almost SMELL the jungle!

And we leave in 4 days!!

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Does anyone else feel that field biology is just an excuse for scientists to do arts and crafts?

Seriously – what are the main pieces of equipment you use in the field. I bet it involves hot glue, duct tape, and ziploc bags!

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The joys of field work

So, now that Andrew and I have finally wrestled WordPress into submission and I am now allowed to make posts, here I am!  I’m the aforementioned PhD candidate (thankyouverymuch) and I’ve been in the Srivastava lab for a year.  For that entire year I’ve been anticipating what I am now about to embark on…  Tropical Field Work (TFW).  Before I start, I just want to emphasize that I am NOT complaining about any of this.  Any similarities to complaining are entirely coincidental.

If you had asked me 2 years ago, I could never have imagined that I would be preparing to leave for a total of 7 months of TFW in Costa Rica and Brazil.  How lucky are we??  Going to beautiful countries, living in the forest surrounded by the sounds of the jungle, meeting new people and cultures, and not to mention skipping Canadian winter!  But as much as I have been anticipating finally getting down to the planning and execution of the trips, I have also been dreading the realities of trying to plan 7 months of TFW in 2 trips to 2 different countries, at the same time.

There are levels to this planning that you never see coming until they hit you in the face.  The research itself requires not only the usual equipment searches, shopping trips, and inventories – but how much are we allowed to bring into the country with us?  Will we need to buy equipment there?  Do we even know what it’s called in Portuguese??  And let me just ask you… have you ever needed to fill out a research permit with a spanish-english dictionary next to your keyboard?  Or tried to learn how to speak Spanish and Portuguese at the same time, for that matter?

Then there is the life I’m leaving in Vancouver that still needs to function while I’m gone.  Have you ever tried to list all the things you do every month (pay bills, rent, phone bills, water the plants, check the oil in the car etc.) without even thinking about it?  Now try and do it all without constant internet access.  One question I never thought I’d need to answer:  What do I do when I end up in Toronto for Christmas with all my Costa Rica field clothes and my ski jacket is still in Vancouver?

7 months of TFW.  It’s an adventure and a challenge.

But I’m tellin ya, the first night I’m lying in that clearing in the jungle with the latest rainstorm echoing off the field station roof and the smell of dirt, and fresh, and green all around me…  it will most definitely all be worth it.