Snorkeling was an incredible experience! Actually, at first I struggled with my mask because my head is so damn small, but once I was able to find a child-size mask, it was an unreal experience. Viewing coral reefs is like entering a different world. The fish that live by the reef are absolutely stunning. There was this one fish (my favorite) that was blue with these bright green polka dots that glowed. We saw a sea turtle, a stingray, anemones, many cool fish, and a nurse shark (yup, that’s right, we were swimming about four feet away from a 5-foot shark!) By the way, the whole sharks can smell blood and attack from miles away is a myth, because I was bleeding right above the shark (I had accidentally kicked the reef) and it didn’t even move. But it also depends on the species, so still be careful if you ever decide to go swimming with sharks. I wish I had a waterproof camera to capture the incredible beauty of it all! Seeing such rich and unique biodiversity made it all the more devastating to know that worldwide coral reefs are fast declining due to threats such as overfishing, climate change, pollution, eutrophication, sedimentation, recreation/tourism, invasive species, and bleaching. I’m really grateful I was able to experience the coral reefs before they disappear completely, which is a very real possibility if nothing is done to reduce these jeopardizing threats to the reefs. |
| SLOTH! |
After snorkeling as we were walking back to the bus we saw two sloths in the tree! We have been looking for sloths since we first entered the country, so this was a MONUMENTAL event for the group! After watching the sloth literally do nothing in the tree for about 10 minutes (except it did move it’s arm once…SO EXCITING!), we went back to the hotel to eat lunch and gather our stuff before heading off to the Yorkin. To get to the Yorkin, we traveled up the river that borders Panama for a few hours in dugout canoes with motors. On the way, we stopped on the other side of the river, in Panama, to pee. So in the span of about a week I visited Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. That evening when we arrived we settled in and ate dinner. After dinner we talked a little about cacao production.
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| PANAMA. |
The next day we went to a cacao agro-forest to learn about organic cacao production. After lunch we went down to the river to swim for a bit and relax. Then we met back to make chocolate from cacao seeds. We each got a chance to grind the seeds to create a powder and then pass the powder through a manual machine that turns the powder into a chocolaty paste. The paste tasted quite bitter before adding condensed milk. We ate the chocolate we had made with bananas, which was a delicious combination.
The following day, we all broke into groups of 3 students and 1 teacher to conduct an experiment to compare biodiversity in agro- and low-disturbance forests. Each group studied a different taxonomic group that they studied: plants, insects, or birds. My group, which consisted of Korey, Carly, Karen and myself, studied insects.
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| most of the houses in the Yorkin looked like this |
We examined the insect biodiversity at two different habitats, a cacao agro-forestry plantation and an intervened forest interior. We conducted two different censuses at each site. Each census consisted of one minute of sweep sampling using nets done by 2 people for a total of 2 minutes of sweep sampling per site, and 15 minutes of focal sampling where we looked for insects and pursued them. In addition, I took a shit and split the fecal matter evenly between the two sites, and we monitored the poop during the censuses. During each census we captured insects and put them in kill jars with acetone. Samples we kept separate according to habitat. The samples were divided into order and then further subdivided into morpho species (which are individuals that appeared identical). We then counted the abundance of each morpho species and the total abundance and species richness from each site.
Each group spent the day doing similar experiments to study the relative biodiversity of their taxonomic group at the two sites. That night after dinner each group presented their experiments to the entire class.
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| night tour of San Jose (with our police escorts) |
The next day we left the Yorkin and headed down river to where Ronny was waiting to take us to San José. We spent the majority of the day traveling, and when we arrived at San José, we had the opportunity to shower and clean up. Once we were all fresh and clean, we went on a walking night tour of the city led by Ayal. It was somewhat of a culture shock going from a remote indigenous village to the capital city in one day, but it was super fun hearing about the history of the city and the different monuments. We ended the tour at a restaurant where we had a delightful dinner of lasagna, wine, and a mouth-watering kiwi lime dessert thing! Mmmmmm!!!
The following morning we returned to Monteverde to reunite with our host families and return to reality. As the program comes to an end, the next couple weeks will be extremely busy with final papers, exams, and presentations. It’s unreal how fast this entire program has gone by.
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