DAY 1 (depart DC and arrive in Costa Rica), 03-07-08

Though we did technically depart for Costa Rica on the 7^th of March – our flight left  Dulles at 2:20am! And so we began our deeply anticipated journey south to the tropical belt and one of the world’s most biologically diverse and treasured ecosystems at 1:30 am on a dark, wet and chilly Washington night. A relatively uneventful flight to San Salvador and a connection on to San Jose – we’re now in broad daylight. One of our members somehow ended up in first class (to protect the innocent, we’ll just call him Mike – and boy did he let us know how special he was) – right out of a Sienfeld episode – the one where Elaine tries to sneak in to first class! “excuse me ma’m, excuse me… - oh, nothing for me, thank you.” Now on the ground, we are happily greeted by an animated Mario Morazon, our trusted guide and his brave driver, Dennis. On route to Jaco, toward the central Pacific coast, we stop for a quick lunch and continue our many hours of driving. Dr. Rockwood quickly points out the gumbo limbo trees, living fences made out of the tourist trees with their peeling red bark (i.e. the sunburned and peeling red tourists). Flamboyant legumes and West Indian jasmine trees line more streets. We pass the city of Athenas, reported by NGS to have the best weather in the world. Further along the roadside are the kapok, cecropia, and Cassia (i.e. golden shower trees). Fruiting trees with their large seed pods and no leaves are interspersed with yellow elder bush, and flowering fire cracker vines which eventually end at the famous Tercoles Bridge. Here, we dangerously exit the bus and run back and forth across the traffic lanes for views of the huge crocodiles waiting underneath. They make up a population of over 3,000 throughout the Tarcoles River system bordering the Carara National Park. Perhaps they are fed by tourists or find the occasional cow, but there are giants indeed and quite spectacular. Kingfishers, kiskadee flycathers, boat-trailed grackles and ctenosaur lizards catch our eye between croc viewing. Back on the road we see Coyol palms as we approach the Golfo de Nicoyo and notice the Phylodendron epiphytes on trees. We’ve arrived at the tropical destination of - Best Western? - in Jaco and everyone is happy to settle in and enjoy the beach or extremely warm pool. A few of us brave souls went straight for the ocean (with our Imperial beer) to enjoy the salty sea waves under the occasional magnificent frigate bird or platoon of pelicans. The night ended with a quick but largely discombobulated walk to a very tasty dinner. Whatever we couldn’t finish was given to the petite little gatito under our table – where one of our members (to protect the innocent, we’ll just call her Jennifer) may have gotten fleas.



DAY 2 (Manuel Antonio National Park), 03-08-08

Starting out at 6:30am we gorged on the buffet breakfast (num num) of the compulsory rice and beans, eggs of any sort, pancakes, sweet breads, endless fruit, drinks galore (great coffee), and fruit smoothies. Go Team America! Our guide reveals that Dr. Rockwood’s name in Spanish (Roca Madera) would be translated into a fossilized piece of wood. Comments deflected by the great LLR, we are now on route to Manuel Antonio National Park and pass fields with brahma bulls – quite suited to tropical climates, a couple of scarlet macaws overhead, and a pearched grey hawk on the roadside. Manuel Antonio NP is a beautiful coastal area where beaches meet the forests and allow for mangrove ecosystems. As we all trek down the path, we begin to learn about the species of such an edge environment and have close views of a mangrove black hawk, a series of long-nosed bats under a tree limb, a large bee hive, termite nests, countless new trees species, several sloths – and even one with a baby. As the group carried on uphill, three of us split off to lay on the beach and take a swim. With the clever snorkel gear we are able to see gorgonians attached to the rocks under the water. This was rightfully trumped by our two great SCUBA dives, as others went on to snorkeling. PADI offered us two sites, the first of which we felt was a bit like being in a washing machine. The visibility was bad and the surge kept us negotiating our buoyancy. Nevertheless, we did see some great critters: octopus, sea stars, king angles fish, parrot fish, blennys, wrasse, puffers, and lots and lots of little jellyfish. A few of them got us. A quick boat ride with complimentary juice and fruit brought us to our second dive at Pixie Rocks. Here we witnessed blue rayed starfish, trigger fish, a moray eel, many lobster, pocillopora coral, and all the rest of the jelly fish. This second dive was 52 minutes of calm waters and improved visibility. Joining the rest of the gang waiting for us, we stopped at a great restaurant adjacent to a local rodeo show, which happened to have a firework display that very night.

DAY 3 (Palo Verde National Park), 03-09-08

With a very early rise to load the luggage atop our bus, the trip to Palo Verde National Park was underway. The transition took us from a coastal moist forest to Costa Rica’s only tropical dry and deciduous forest located in the province of Guanacaste. We passed many plantations and numerous areas of major land-use change. Much of Costa Rica is deforested, and fields of sugar cane, melons, and cattle pastures line the highway. Calabash trees are seen, remnants of old growth forests. We arrive at Palo Verde at a decent hour and immediately recognize how dry it is. The many trees of this dry forest rely heavily on wind pollination and dispersion. The Tempisque River basin is home to a large wetland area that is the view of the Palo Verde research station. Over 70% of the territory is classified as wetlands. And the dry forest surrounding the wetlands are noticably different from those in moist forests - you won't see buttress roots sytems here, there are fewer epiphytes (many of which are cactus), tree leaf size is smaller, and there is a less dense understory layer in these dry forests. As one of the three main OTS (Organization for Tropical Studies) field sites, Palo Verde is a popular destination for tropical ecologists – and so here we were. After settling into our bunk-bed rooms, we ate a nice lunch and headed off to the lecture room for a couple of student presentations and a lecture by ecologist, Alberth Rojas. The history of Palo Verde is quite fascinating, having been a cattle ranch for over 50 years and restored to a more natural system. Palo Verde eventually became a national park and a RAMSAR site in 1991 of over 20,000 hectares. It fought a cattail invasion in the late 1980s and became a site of active cattail management (use of fangeros) in 1990. Along with this came fire management planning. With most of the forest as second growth, Palo Verde contains a large number of leguminous and deciduous trees – and contains impressive numbers of overall species: 750 plants, 300 birds, 76 mammals, and 56 reptiles and amphibians. Our first evening concluded with a lecture on Lepidoptera by Dr. Rebecca Forkner and resulted in a fun night hike to seek out critters we had just learned about. We encountered scorpions and a ginormous cockcroach that was so large, it had a neck and head – and I tell you, it looked at me.



Some thoughts on the PaloVerde system: For Costa Rica, these tropical dry forests are found at the basin of the Rio Tempisque and surrounded by transitional forest of higher moisture that fringes around the Golfo de Nicoya and along the Pacific coast. Costa Rica’s tropical dry forests are semideciduous with canopy and understory (shrub) trees. A lot of the canopy trees have thin/compound leaves that tend to be deciduous in the dry season. Leguminous canopy trees are the most conspicuous canopy tree in the dry forests. The understory trees are about 10-20m tall, have open crowns and more evergreens than the canopy trees. The shrub layer is sparse, unless there are openings in the canopy allowing higher growth of the understory. In the tropical dry forests, woody vines are common, but herbaceous vines are rather uncommon. Though lianas are more frequent in the dry forests, they are much thicker in the wet forests – which is considered an excellent indicator of an undisturbed area. Epiphytes are termed occasional, having bromeliads as the most common and seen epiphytes. Epiphyte abundance and richness are not as high in the dry forest, though you may find many species of Bromeliaceae, Cactaceae, and Orchidaceae. Some observations have suggested that high numbers of arboreal mammals (mostly monkeys), which use canopies as highways, may prevent epiphyte dominance. Herbaceous and woody climbers – also known as vines, lianas, and bush rops, are integral components of these dry tropical forests. Rourea glabra (Connaraceae), Combretum farinosum (Combretaceae), and Davilla kunthii (Dillenniacea) are common at Palo Verde.



DAY 4 (Palo Verde National Park), 03-19-08

Starting early with our usual great breakfast and coffee (I'm gaining weight at this point), yellow-naped and white fronted parrots and a young tiger heron nestling keep our attention as we prepare for the morning. Also on display at the marsh were the black bellied whistling ducks, rosette spoonbills, wood storks, limpkins, peregrin, snail eating kites, egrets, bare-throated tiger heron, kingfishers, and tricolor herons.

We began our nice hike to La Roca, an elevated peak offering great views of the marshlands and above-views of the tree canopy. We made several stops on the trail toward La Roca and came across white-faced capuchin monkeys as well as howlers. The capuchins were wisely pulling off the acacia thorns, quickly swatting off any ants that may have crawled on them, and with both hands would tare open the acacia thorn and eat the ant larvae inside. They did this quite rapidly and knew just how to negotiate the trade without getting bit. We enjoyed the views for some time and spotted some flowering bodies here and there - one of which was a nice yellow flower off of the Opuntia (prickly pear cactus) that was introduced. One of the prominent heliophile understory shrubs we noticed is the Jacquinia pungens, which is actively vegetative in the dry season - and sports its green leaves when other trees are deciduous. With its very spiny leaf tips and toxic compounds in the foliage, it protects itself from herbivory during these times. We decended La Roca to wander on to the Sendero Mapache (racoon trail) to find some incredible creatures: a large tarantula hawk, a box tortoise, and plenty of ant species interacting with aphids.  Back at camp we saw a coati mudi being monitored by a medium sized hawk. Our lunch was another great meal with lots of fruit for dessert, when one of our members declared she loved watermelon so much, she could eat an entire one at one sitting. We're not so sure about this and may present her with one in order to test this hypothesis. Back at the lecture room, we received three student presentations and later in the evening, we went out again for a great night hike. These hikes included laser-pointed star gazing by Lisa Lecivita - which was a really fantastic treat, considering we were studying ecosystmes, which can't compare to the sky above us at night. We didn't exactly begin talking about cosmic ecosystems, but the Palo Verde night sky is one to see. Our night hike was led by Alberth Rojas who took us on a narrow trail that ended with the origin of a spring. This pool of water was filled with small fish and surrounded by many cane toads (one with a huge tick stuck on its neck) as well as several frog species. On the return was saw a paraque and a couple of small snakes.

DAY 5 (Palo Verde National Park to Monteverde), 03-11-08

Starting early with our usual great breakfast, we set off to a river boat tour of the Tempisque River. We all boarded the boat and began upstream noticing crocodiles on the shorlines and trees decorated with riparian waterbirds such as the double-striped thick knee, white-throated magpie jay, stripe-headed aparrows, tail kites. A few more species seen further down the river included the bare-throated tiger heron, yellow-crowned night heron, little blue heron, snowy egrets, great crested flycatcher, kiskadees, red-winged blackbird, white ibis, spotted sandpiper, wimbrils, willets, swallows, cactus epiphytes, very large iguana, crocodile, and black and red mangroves.

On route to our next destination, we stopped at the Feline Research Center.  Numerous cats could be found here, including jaguar, pumas, ocelot, and margay.  There was even a jaguarudni.  The facility works to rehabilitate injured animals and has a population of wildlife that is confiscated by the Costa Rican government (illegal trade).  It's a very sunny day and walk about the small facility was satisfying.  It was an opportunity to get close up to some captive toucans as well - and a few very rowdy capuchin monkeys. 

We boarded the bus for a trip to Monteverde National Park and arrived for a great lunch and quick hike to the continental divide. Here you could see both the Atlantic and Pacific sides. As we ascended the trails, it was easy to notice the trees became shorter and ended with the elfin forest community at the ridge crest. Known as a cloud forest, there were no clouds to be seen, but the Atlantic side offered huge gusts of chilled winds, enough to blow the caps off your heads. Spectacular views of the forests below allowed for some great photo opportunities - and we did notice a few birds that would get swept suddenly in the gusts. The Pacific side, warmer and drier - gave us a some refuge to sit in the sun and enjoy a moment without any movement.

We enjoyed a great dinner and had a night hike where we saw tarantulas, lobster crickets, various tree frogs, sleeping birds, and many inverts. The following day was an early rise with male and female quetzal viewing (the first time I have seen a male quetzal). Cameras were all focused on the birds as we prepared our upcoming hike. We traveled over a couple of sky walk bridges that overlooked the forest canopy and spent a lot of time slowly watching other firest birds and taking pitrues along the way.

Some thoughts on the Monteverde forest system: These forests are fairly restricted to central Costa Rica, with the majority along the southwest portion of the Central Cordillera. These are evergreen forests of intermediate height with two basic tree strata (canopy and shrubs). Canopy trees are mostly between 20 – 25m tall, but some of the Quercus can be taller with a thin trunk and very large and very twisted branches which can produce an enormous crown. The shrub layer is relatively dense, 2-3 m tall. Palms are quite uncommon in these forests. The ground layer is well-covered with ferns, aroid vines, and a thick layers of moist, rotting leaves. With the increase in canopy habitat for epiphytes – many are found here.

Cloud cover and wind-driven midst are important to epiphytes – probably more so than actual rain. Small orchids, bromeliads, and ferns are common epiphytes. Large tank bromeliads are very conspicuous as well. There is also a thin layer of moss and other epiphylls on the tree trunks. Herbaceous vines, mostly Araceae, are common and near ground level. Epiphytic shrubs, such as Ericaceae, are largely restricted to the lower montane and the montane wet and rain life zones. In these forests, you will also see an abundance of epiphylls. Understory trees and shrubs have the heaviest loads of epiphylls because of provided shade and that they are slow growing hosts whose leaves are available longer than canopy leaves. Drip tips might combat such colonization. Lichens can be included, which are numerous and may even contribute significant quantities of nitrogen to tropical ecosystems. Canopy lichens occur mostly on twigs and branches in the 3-12 cm diameter range and generally do not occur in the understory. Large coiled lianas are occasional to common. Some species of Ficus (Moraceae) and Clusia (Guttiferae) are found here – and start out as epiphytes but send down woody, clasping roots that will develop around the host trunk. The host tree will often die, and after it deteriorates, the hollow shell of “anastomosed” roots will support the new independent tree. These stranglers can top the host crown with a dense monolayer of evergreen leaves.

DAY 6 (Lake Arenal and Volcan Arenal), 03-12-08

Rising early to begin this journey, the bus was again filled with sleeping bodies in need of coffee. We passed severly fragmented habitat and noticed many cattles ranches held in by the famous living fences. We reached the site of the boat ride to Volcan Arenal. Lake Arenal was enlarged to 3 times it's original size to form a basin for the hydroelectric project that now produces 70% of Costa Rica's electricity with an area of about 85.5km (33 sq. miles). It is surrounded by rolling hills that are partly pastured and partly forested. The general area was quite dominated on the east side by the obvious cone of Volcan Arenal. Our boat tour was an easy ride to the volcano where we made a quick hike to the base of the volcano. The trail itself presented a lot of exploration, but we kept hearing something odd.  Thunder was very present, but it was not from rain. Until we reached the viewpoint, we leanred that it was caused by the huge boulders tumbling down the volcano and splitting into pieces. It took a while for the sounds to travel - but we spent some time wathcing with binoculars as the trails of dust indicated which boulder would make it to the bottom first. Volcan Arenal erupted violently in 1968 and killed about 87 people.  This eruption was so catastrophic it also wiped out the town of Arenal - lasting for several days.    Arenal and the new craters formed during the eruptions and are now part of the Volcan Arenal National Park system - which forms the Arenal Tilaran Conservation Area.  The hike back revealed leaf cutter ants, very impressive Odontomachus ants (trap-jaw ants), a tarantula in a bromeliad, and various species of birds including orapendulas (we only heard them). Back in the bus, we were on route to Selva Verde - but managed to stop the bus for a view of our first toucans that were hopping around an old snag.



We arrived at Selva Verde and settled in the new very moist tropical forest. As it was getting dark already, we had to prepare for a special occasion - Dr. Rockwood's birthday. Trying to negotiate how were were going to split off, get his cake, decorate it, blow up balloons, and somehow convince a nearby birthday party musician to leave that group and join ours - was all in good fun. And it worked. He seemed surprised (he may have caught a glimpse of our party preparation) and enjoyed the festivities (with cake in his face). The cake was supposed to read "Happy Brithday Larry Rockwood", but ended up with "Larry Rock" instead. We had some small gifts and a signed card - we trust he knew how appreciated he was. Later in the night we began our independent night hikes to find red-eyed tree frogs (JS was in heaven) and fer-de-lance snakes (we have mixed reports on this - but the sightings were all really special). Our accommodations were pretty nice and the food was plentiful and delicious - just my style.



DAY 7 (Selva Verde Lodge and La Selva Biological Station), 03-13-08

Arriving early to La Selva, we immediately saw a ton of birds and spent much of the time in one spot trying to identify many species. We split into several groups and headed on our hikes through this dense tropical wet forest. A new guide helped us identify numerous plants and animal species and gave us some background information on the La Selva Biological Station. The natural history of La Selva is fascinating: The natural vegetation of La Selva is classic tropical rainforest characterized by high species diversity and a multi-layered community with trees, lianas, epiphytes, and broad-leafed monocots. The diversity and abundance of these growth-forms distinguish La Selva from temperate forests and less humid, tropical forests. La Selva has a high percentage of epiphytes (23%) for lowland neotropical forests. Most of the epiphytes at La Selva are true epiphytes that germinate above the ground. About 25% are climbers (Philodendrons), and few are stranglers or other hemiepiphytes whose roots eventually reach the ground. La Selva trees are not particularly tall – and the primary forests are distinctive because of the abundance of one particular leguminous tree (Pentaclethra macroloba) – the Oil Tree that dominates the canopies. There is an abundance of sub-canopy palms - which are a distinctive component of this vegetation type with their large leaves (Welfia), long spines (Astrocaryum confertum), high stilt roots (Iriatea and Socratea), and attractiveness (Euterpe. Wendland palms (Welfia georgii) occur at high densities and are highly important. Particularly abundant at La Selva, are the multiple-stemmed palms (Geonoma) and dwarf single-stemmed palms (Asterogyne). Nearly every growth form (from understory herb to canopy tree) has epiphytes and epiphylls. The abundance of climbing aroids, Cyclanthaceae, other truck epiphytes, and canopy lianas are easily seen. La Selva has a “climbing palm” (Desmoncus constraricensis) – a neotropical canopy lianas, that can drape themselves over tree crowns. Most of the small plants are seedlings of trees and woody lianas (Bignoniaceae and Fabaceae) rather than herbaceous plants. Stranglers (Ficus, Clusia) are common in La Selva and are most frequent in tropical moist and premontane wet life zones, where they may end up as the tallest trees in the forest. If there is any period of a brief dry season in such forests, this tends to help increase the abundance of stranglers – since it may be ideal for seedling establishment as epiphytes (i.e. more seen in Corcovado than in La Sevla). La Selva’s intact forests and human-influenced landscapes come from a land-use history that provides a large arrangement of current habitat types: primary forest on rolling terrain, primary forest on old terrace, primary forest in swamps, open swamps, riparian zones, secondary forest, abandoned plantations, and managed
habitat.

Two nights at Selva Verde and trips to La Selva were full of incredible exlporation.  The trails of La Sevla are well maintained and make research more possible.  The general facilities (dorms, labs, offices, internet, etc) all in the middle of a rain forest are fairly impressive.

DAY 8 (Volcan Poas), 03-14-08

A drive to the Vocan Poas area was quite nice as we stopped at a small cafe that had about 10 different hummingbird feeders.  It was a hyperactively territorial environment.  Hummers are very protective of their resources (feeders) and it showed.  We all photographed numerous hummers chasing one another and feeding at every station.  At this very spot was a spectacular view of a gorgeous watefall below. 

Back on route to Poas, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch called Freddo Fresas - and boy was it good.  Particularly good were the desserts  - in which we bought many slices of pie and sent them around the table to share.  After that nice fill, we ended up in a fantastic lodge with a fireplace, a game room, and very nice quarters.  Outside, the clouds really set in and it was rather difficult to see anything at all  - this is what we imagined the could forest to be like.  We all took advatage of the lodge resource and helped ourselves to them.  Dinner was again a great one for me, but I rarely reject food, and a good night's sleep ended the day. 


The following morning began as a nice journey that all of a sudden began to smell quite bad.  The sulfur from the volcano was misidentified at first (if you know what I mean) but we all quickly realized it was the volcano.   Volcan Poas is an active volcano (andesitic stratovolcano, to be specific).  It has erupted about 39 times since 1828.  It is located in central Costa Rica and is about 35 km north of San Jose.  We hiked up to the viewing area of the summit crater to see the molten sulfur and also visited the Lake nearby.  The summit creater lake, Laguna Caliente, is the most acidic and sulfur rich lake in Central America, and perhaps even the world.  It was actually the first liquid sulfur pool discovered on earth (Jupiter's moons have some).

We returned to our Poas Lodge to enjoy a good night's sleep before the return home the next day.  That night was spent playing games, checking internet, cathing up on our journal notes and comparing photos.  It has been a truly amazing trip - and we packed in the sights given the numbers of days were in Costa Rica.



DAY 9 (depart Costa Rica and arrive in DC), 03-15-08

The big journey back home....

to be continued.