Rural Livin'

The field station managers of QERC (where I'm living and working): David and Sarah Hille, with cutest daugher ever, Adel.



YIKES!


Buenas! This past weekend was a complete blast...Will and I visited a Tico friend we met who works at the Savegre Lounge: Roy. He lives about 2.5 hours south in the small farming village of Santo Domingo. Here's a brief synopsis of our stay with Roy and his familia.


Will and I at the waterfall.


Friday: drove through San Isidro to get to Roy's...he seems to know everyone...very popular guy...couldn't believe how so many people in a distant city knew him. On the way to his house, we drove past this bizarre-looking, steep sided hill with doors/entries cut into it...bewildered, I asked Roy if he knew what it was...we ended up getting a tour of Costa Rica's first (and probably last!) man-made cave system/underground maze of tunnels, museums, bedrooms, terrariums, etc.


The intricate interior of the cave system the guy carved out...


Basically this old Tico guy, instead of picking a normal retirement activity like golf, has spent the last 3 years digging this maze of tunnels under his house as a tourist trap...very impressive but VERY weird. He kept trying to convince us that it was completely safe, but we saw pools of water everywhere and signs that it might not be as structually sound as he thinks...


The weird underground maze of tunnels we encountered...Ticos have some interesting ideas to get a buck or two!


anyways...after that strange encounter, we continued on to Roys...he's got a very small but well-loved house he built: no hot water, no stove, outdoor shower spigot, etc. All you need though...He and his family took Will and I in with open arms...we were welcomed like long-lost family...unbelievable. Spent most the night speaking in Spanish with Roy's wife's family next door...amazing people. And there was this Peace Corps guy my age from Georgia staying with them, so we looked like bearded Gringo brothers...it was a riot.


CABAGATA!


Saturday: woke up to a sweet breakfast of tamales before riding in the back of the family truck to a big hill with a vast lookout. WAY COOL. Then we went to a beautiful hidden waterfall (but getting there required about a .5 mile hike through a manure infested paddock...wohoo) where we jumped in and took waterfall showers...soooo cool! Afterwards, we went down to watch Roy and his town compete against another town in a heated soccer match...Roy scored 4 of the 5 team goals...SICK! Way fun chillin' with the locals and speaking Spanish. Then there was a HUGE dance that night in the town...it was a fundraiser to raise money to finish the new town hall/community building. Lot's of salsa, meringue, reggae-tone, etc...pretty fun! Didn't leave until one in the morning or so...TICOS KNOW HOW TO DANCE!


The dance crew...minus Will...good times!

Sunday: Helped the locals get the soccer field ready for the big championship game in the morning...we then watched the game (Volcan vs Tambor)...GREAT game...lot's of headers, shots on goal, PKs, etc...there was a massive crowd, police to control any riots that break out (they did last year apparently), and the full shebang. Eventually had to head for the bus to get back to San Gerardo, and it was hard to say goodbye to Roy's awesome fam...I felt like they were my family after being there for just 48 hours...unreal. On the way back, Will and I didn't realize we boarded a non-stop bus to San Jose...one that was technically not supposed to stop at all along the way...of course, we needed to get off about 1/3 of the way at the top of the valley we work in. The bus driver was pretty unwilling to stop, and at the most important moment, I blanked on my Spanish and couldn't remember how to get him to stop...fortunately, it all worked out despite the fact that we went blazing past the bus stop.




My Tico buddies: Johnny, Jessica, and Johnathan. LEGIT.

Oh, and Roy has two brothers-in-law that are my age...twins. They were AWESOME...both enrolled at the National University of Costa Rica in San Jose...both were trying to practice their English as I was working on my Spanish. Way cool to meet some cool guys my age and gain insight into life for a guy that age here. Really hit it off with them and already looking forward to going back to Santo Domingo next summer!


Our mode of transportation for the weekend...open air all the way.

Weekend Festivities

Emerald Tucanet chillin' by the research station



Tool Yee, the hummingbird whisperer...





Hello all. I appologize for the long delay since the last update. Life continues to fly by down here in San Gerardo, but as we say, "pura vida"...it's all good. Since I last checked in, another entire week of research has past, and some exciting breakthroughs have occurred! After weeks of patience, without anything too exciting on the cameras, we picked up video of two more species to add to our list of northern raccoon and red squirrel: OCELOT and COYOTE! Yep...we've got multiple videos of coyotes walking past the cameras and an ocelot wandering past. It's hard to describe how big of a deal this is, but if you had been here for 4 weeks, on the trail for 4+ hours a day looking for any sign (scat, hair, etc) of large predators with nothing to show for it, you'd understand how elated we now are. We confirmed our identification of both species by consulting with local Tico guides, who recognize the animals better. YAHOO! Let's hope for more and more!


Dario and his baby cow

On a non-research note, this past weekend was San Gerardo de Dota's first annual "Horse and or Open House/Valley Day"...don't know how else to describe it. The entire community pooled together their horses and you could pay money to ride a horse through the valley trails and visit various fincas (small farms) and homes for refreshments. The whole thing was a benefit fundraiser for the community.


Official Scat Analysis...the bandana was key for the stench

The horseback riding was intense, with one significant injury (a man's horse flipped going up a steep trail and rolled down on him...the guy sustained some head wounds, but is OK), but the best part was the stop at Fernando's for Tico Karaoke...lot's of Tico guys singing Spanish pop/love songs...I couldn't resist and volunteered Jared and I to do a duet for anything they had in English...in front of the whole community. As luck would have it, they had about two songs in English: Hotel California and Tears in Heaven. We opted for Hotel California, and after a off-key performance, we were applauded and laughed at...good times. The last event of the night was a 5 hour, community-wide game of BINGO...let's just say I will never play that much bingo again!


BINGO! SOOO unlucky...you'd think the chances of winning in FIVE HOURS would increase...

Heated rounds were broken up by short acts of entertainment by community members: this one guy who looked like Napoleon Dynamite did a fire dance with twirling flaming balls, and some little girls did this cool hula-type dance. Great times...the rest of the weekend was filled with getting my butt kicked on practice GRES, devotions, pickup soccer games, improv hikes with visitors, and pushups...life is good! Take care until next time!


Game of pickup soccer ("muhangee")...fun!

La Piedra Weekend

View from the bunkhouse at La Piedra, where we spent the weekend.



This weekend (actually, less than 24 hours of it...but still) was spent at the Mora Family's organic farm (La Piedra) in the next valley over, in Providencia. What a great family: Orlando (father), Noire (mother), Nelson (son, 29), Deily (daughter, 16), and Dario (son, 8). We watched and helped to make fresh sugar cane juice and coffee...delicioso! The weekend was a real test of my Spanish...and I tried my best to use espanol solamente. The whole fam was super encouraging as I struggled to communicate, but I feel like I made some good progress, at least with confidence to try. Jared, Will and I plan on hiking the 4 hour trail over there again for a weekend to volunteer with helping on the farm.




Jared after eating a super hot pepper from the farm...if it's hot for Jared...IT'S HOT!




Common occurrence...no big deal!

Few more Photos

Butterfly vs. Beetle...it's SOO much better than cable television!



Jared demonstrates good rope climbing on the insane trail we named: DANTA'S INFERNO...see the previous blog for details



Will setting up one of the cams




Our lab for the summer...no big deal...

latest and greatest

Jared and I dissecting POOP...or technically, puma scat and hairballs...all in a day's work! Why don't they have color pictures in these poop guides?!



Jared and I on the summit of Cerro (de la Muerte)...the Mountain of Death...before descending into the valley behind and back up to get the truck...nice view of the Pacific behind us



hey yall!

Just wanted to keep an update on life in the vast and glorious jungle:
LOTS of hiking...so good though! We've been exploring new trails/steep and dangerous mudslides...


La Catarata...the waterfall...we found this one a little ways up DANTA'S INFERNO...Just before the roped section of the trail

Locals have mentioned danta (tapir...very rare and very endangered...a danta sighting might even trump a jaguar) have been on this one extremely steep, overgrown trail. We named it "DANTA'S INFERNO"...it has a big section of fixed ropes which you haul yourself up the wet cliffside with. On our first attempt at the INFERNO, Bobby got some crazy wasp sting and we had to retreat since his histamine release swelled up so bad...epic trail! we finally got it in 8 hours of hiking! woot woot!


My summer living quarters...Standing by a little casita on the Los Torres trail coming down from the peak of Cerro...looked abandoned, but fully stocked inside

We have also been re-hiking the originals from the past few weeks to monitor animal tracks/scat and swap out remote camera memory cards...it's a mind game to remember where all ten cameras are placed in this vast jungle, despite our best GPS waypoints and note-taking skills...but here's the great news: WE HAVE DEFINITE PUMA TRACKS ON MULTIPLE DAYS...and two days ago we discovered a massive hairball (yikes...it was as nasty as it sounds), which was at least a puma if not a jaguar. Tomorrow's memory card gathering should be promising!

Oh, and Jared said that I remind him of Helen Keller...uh...

Weekend Two..and more

Elevation Profile of the 10K road Jared and I ran from QERC (where we're living) to the PanAm highway...3500 vertical feet in 6 miles...boyah!




View from the summit of Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death...appropriately named...11,500ft)...we hiked all the way down to the lowest valley you can see, then back up...very tiring!




Two friends we met that stayed in the valley for the weekend...Joel and Emily. This was downstream on the Savegre, just above a huge (100ft) waterfall...unfortunately, too much mist off the falls for a good photo

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

Mucho Wildlife!

Greetings All! Today was a great day (despite the ever-so-early start). Jared, Dr. Mooring and I embarked upon a hike up the mountain to swap out memory cards in 5 of the research cameras, and along the way we were blessed with some astounding wildlife encounters!



Along a streambed, I stopped Dr. M just a fraction of a second before he stepped on a juvenile quetzal that had fallen from it's nest and was unable to fly. It was completely dazed, unsure how to react to humans, and very incapable of flight (more than a few feet of flutter). After taking tons of photos, we picked up the bird and moved it off the trail...it was really a sight to see!





While the quetzal nestling encounter was going on, Jared noticed a rustling in the tree tops pretty far away...we held perfectly still and waited as two adult Central American spider monkeys (the female with a juvenile on clutched to her underbelly) passed directly overhead...AWESOME...first monkey sightings in the valley for Dr. M and Jared, who had both been here before...it was certainly my first time. Hard to describe (especially with a grainy photo) the sense of awe and bewilderment this unexpected encounter inspired!



Jared snagged this fantastic shot of a male quetzal outside the research station.



Cool perspective of our high-elevation tropical montane cloud rain forest...circa 9,500 feet. Notice all the hanging moss, bromileads, etc...very beautiful to hike through day in and day out.




Found this incredible vine hanging off a 120ft roble (tropical oak)...so, of course, I had to swing on it and let out a massive Tarzan yell. Check out the video of it Jared posted on my facebook...it includes the consequence of the swing: careening back into the oak with a thud...well worth it!




PUMA TRACKS! NOW WE JUST NEED PHOTO EVIDENCE/visual confirmation...details hopefully to follow in the next few days!

Day One DONE and more weekend pics

A few of the research cams in their lock boxes, getting ready to be placed out in the jungle.




THE RESPLENDENT QUETZAL...right from my window! People pay thousands to see this thing, and it lives 50 feet from me...soo cool! Any name suggestions?




The TV station that interviewed us wanted some footage of the research students riding horses in the jungle...had to wear this stupendous orange helmet because they had this sense I was accident prone...





Dr. Mooring being interviewed in Spanish on our jaguar research by Tico Channel 7.




No Big Deal...just caballos en la playa...Manuel Antonio Beach...nice surf, warm water...sweeet!




Relaxing at La Mariposa (The Butterfly) Hotel infinity pool over the mighty Pacific in Quepos.




Our hotel friend Isabella with the baby anaconda we found. She was AWESOME





Well, after a 5am start, we survived the day and barely beat out the rain...it started DOWNPOURING at one (ten min after we got back), enough to cause a flash flood/wall of muddy water down the Savegre River outside QERC.

Today's mission was to set out the remainder of the cameras for the phototraps, which we did. We ended up hiking about 3000 vertical feet or so up Sendero De Los Robles (Trail of the Oaks) to place the last few cameras by streams and animal tracks...hopefully we'll find something. We also collected the memory cards from the first four cameras we set up on Friday morning, so they'd been sitting out for over two days. Here's what we "caught" on film: quite a few horses being led up the trail to the moutain pasture, tons of tourists walking by (some inquisitive of the camera traps, some completely oblivious), one Mapache (common raccoon), a few night-hikers, who proceeded to shine their headlamps into the camera out of curiosity, and one tail of an unidentified mammal (possibly a small cat or member of the raccoon family). There you have it...four cameras, nearly three days. Hopefully we'll have better luck with the next batch of photos.




After arriving back at QERC today, I tested out my arborist technique (improvised on the spot, of course) for ascending into the rainforest canopy to rig up the bioacoustical recorders (aka super expensive microphones to record animal vocalizations). It took a bit of manipulating to ascend up the trees, but I figured it out...getting fun was also a challenge, but I made it! It should provide another element of awesomeness to the research protocol for the rest of the summer.

First Weekend (& other updates)

Hola amigos. Este semana fue muy fantastico! Mis tres amigos y yo fueron a Quepos, un destinacion bonito a la playa (Mar Pacifico). Excuse my week attempts at Spanish. Basically, the four of us research boys ventured off to Quepos, this GORGEOUS beach town by Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific side of the country. We had a blast. We rented this hotel room, but then were upgraded to an amazing room with a huge deck, massive window/sliding glass door with a breathtaking view, complementary breakfast, hot tubs, pools, billiard tables, etc...it was luxurious to say the least, but splitting the cost wasn't too bad. Here's a brief rundown of what I've done since the last update:

Thurs: spent the vast majority of the day just getting groceries (about 9am to 5pm)! Allow me to explain: the nearest town with gas/grocery store is about 2 hrs away (San Isidro de General). Took a while to get there, on a very sketchy mountain road with insane Tico drivers...etc. The shopping took a while to find things/ask for things in espanol. By the time we finally made it home, we were scheduled for a TV interview with New Channel 7 (the national channel) on our research, but the team never showed up. Had the standard fare for dinner (gallo pinto) and studied GRE all night (woot woot)

Friday: The TV interview was rescheduled for 8am "tico time", so they really showed up at about noon. Dr. Mooring explained our research in Spanish, and Will, Bobby and I rode horses for a scene they wanted to shoot of us riding through the jungle looking for jaguars (which, of course, is not how we do it...but riding was fun!). Post interview, finally got out on the trails and set up our first four camera traps on hotspots (clear cat (non housecat) tracks). GOT COMPLETELY POURED ON...soak through everything ("rainproof layers") except the Gortex boots. Circa 4pm the boys and I drove the 3 hrs to Quepos, our first real adventure in Costa Rica...see the following days for details

Sat: AWESOME...had a great hotel in Quepos...fantastic views, nice people, muchos gringos (way too many Americans, but oh well). Went out for dinner in an airplane-turned-restaurant (El Avion...amazing sandwhiches), live music/dancing (yes...i attempted salsa) at a local bar, hung out at the pool, walked a few miles down to the national beach. The water was very warm and the surf was awesome (just body surfed for now...rent a board later this summer), met some cool people at the hotel, watched the USA vs Ghana FIFA game (lame sauce), and generally relaxed. This howler monkey walked about 5 feet in front of me by the hotel (completely wild) and was just chilling...unfortunately, no camera. Also found/held a small anaconda at the hotel, saw a three-toed sloth from the pool, etc...very very cool spot

Sun: woke up well rested. Another continental breakfast, then lounged by the pool the whole morning: did devotions, studied for the GRE, read up on how to get the most out of mammal tracks, etc...very productive yet relaxing. Met this FANTASTIC Chinese-American family with two cute little daughters, Isabella and Saraphia (about 6 or 7 years old)...they loved learning about animals and biology, so we basically gave little bio lessons on different insects, reptiles, etc the found...and spashed around in the pool with them. Were sad to go, but left Quepos at 2pm to drive back up to San G. Have yet to make it through a drive on the PanAmerican Highway without severe nausea/car sickness from the rain, winding road, crazy truck drivers, car emissions, etc...but oh well. Had our first dinner in the Lodge at Savegre, and then our first research team Bible study...all good to go. Tomorrow we start the research protocol, which means getting up and outside by 5am to beat the afternoon downpours (which are unpleasant to hike in and wash away valuable jaguar tracks). Better get to bed!

First hike/QUETZAL!

Jared and Will coming back from the hike...QERC research facility/home behind them.


Me at the waterfall...about a mile or so up a trail containing mammal tracks.

We also saw the first quetzal of the trip, a real treat for the first day...tourists pay thousands to get to this valley to see what I saw from my bedroom window...boo yah!

Dia Uno!

Greetings all! Today was the big travel day, leaving LAX and eventually arriving at our final destination, San Gerardo De Dota, about 2 hrs south of San Jose. In fact, I'm not really sure how long we've been on the move. The Moorings and I left San Deigo on Monday night, 9pm-ish, and met Jared at LAX at 11pm. We finally got all our heavy bags, filled with suspicious-looking metal cases, cameras, wires, and various GPS units. As you can imagine, every security and customs check point required open bags and thorough explanations of our motives for bringing such equipment internationally. All that to say, we left LAX at 1:30 Tuesday AM

The plane landed in Guatemala City, and we stayed on board as more people boarded for the continuation leg to San Jose. I saw this amazing shirt saying "Guatever"...classy. Flying out of Guatemala over green, misty volcanoes was a new experience to say the least. One of the scariest landings I've had too!

We arrived in San Jose at 9am or so. Bobby and Will were waiting at the end of international customs, so it was great to reunite as a research team without hiccups. Bobby, Will, Jared and I took a bus from the airport to downtown, got some aroz con pollo at the unique Mercado Central, then wandered around the crowded city streets looking for WiFi in order to find a rental car agency.

I learned a few valuable lessons: Mi espanol es muy pobre! Ticos (Costa Ricans) have NO CONCEPT of road rules...you're taking your life in your hands crossing the street or even walking on the side walk. When asking directions, note that Ticos can't explain where you are or where you need to go...no one seems to know streets, and everything is in reference to other buildings, etc....very confusing for the passing gringo.

To make a long story short, we finally got the rental car situated. Bobby drove, which was a trip because the drivers there are so insane and he was reacclimating himself on stickshift. We got outrageously lost in road work detours, lack of road signs, and traffic, but eventually emerged from the bustling downtown on our way to the mountains on the PanAmerican Highway.

The PanAm is a crazy road, with sheer dropoffs, drivers passing on double yellows with oncoming traffic and blind corners/hills, landslides on the road, sinkholes, etc...a hearty Tico adventure. We eventually made it (although I was a bit carsick and had a headache) to the 10km dirt road leading to QERC, our summer research facility. We met the research center directors, David and Sara Hille, then got dinner (pork chop, chicken, or trout) at the local Soda...way way cool. The last few hours will have been unpacking, cleaning up ALL my gear from a one liter shampoo bottle explosion, and preparation for bed...don't really know what time it is anymore since th redeye...

ten-four for now! tomorrow's itinerary: get up early, take a run around the valley to familiarize myself with it, watch the US world cup game, and eventually present to the village what a bunch of gringos with infrared cameras are doing in their jungle for two months...should prove to be a good first true day...peace!

New Blog!

Here's the first blogpost for the new CR Research 2010 site...hope you enjoy what's to come!