My first days on the project

Sunday August 31.

After I arrived at the project location in the nature just outside a small village called San Miguel, I had a small dinner of rice and beans and than made a short nightwalk around the compound with the other students. First thing you learn is that whenever you go off the paved paths you have to wear boots and a light if it’s dark. There can always be a snake, scorpion or something else on your way that will bite or sting you. On the small walk we did there were several frogs, (like the poisonous strawberry frog), spiders and even a small snake eating all the eggs from a frog (see the photo on my previous blog).

After this nice first meeting with wildlife I finally could have a great sleep. Because of the little jetlag, the neverending jungle sounds and the high humidity I still woke up very early. After breakfast I was supposed to have an easy going start up on the compound, but one of the students wasn’t able to join the work in the reserve so all of a sudden I found myself going into the wild jungle.

What we had to do that day is set out the edges of a plot of 50x50 meters in a part of the 10 km² reserve area. After walking for about 30 minutes in a very uneven and slippery terrain we could start setting out the plot. The first part of it is just walking perfectly north, trying to make a small 1m wide path of 50meters long, which means cutting away all leaves and branches in that strip while trying to not remove any more than necessary. Once it’s cleared, you put a pole on every 10 meter distance to indicate the borde your making. This is very important because the plants will grow back very fast so by this way at least you can later recognise the border of the plot you made. After the first edge is finished, you make the other 3 edges of 50meter each.

Well, this all sounds funny and easy in theory, but as the surface is very uneven, slippery and somethings there’s a hole or a big tree in your way, in reality it takes a lot of time to find a square that’s possible to set out. And of course when we were halfway our first edge, it started to rain. It took 5 minutes for the rain to reach the ground passing the full canopy, but as it rained for more than an hour we got completely soaked. Putting a raincoat wouldn’t help because it’s still hot and humid, so a raincoast would make you even more wet and sweaty.

After we finished our first 50meters of the plot, we had our lunch in the rain. Lunch was mainly rice and beans again, and some left over salad from the day before. After lunch we dediced to go back to the compound, as it had just become to slippery to continue. At the farm I took a nice cold shower, but 5 minutes later I was sweating again. Being in the rainforest means getting used to the heath and humidity. And also to the rice and beans (called pincho in Costa Rica) because that’s what they normally eat here 3 times a day. It’s healthy with a lot of carbohydrates, but coming from Europe it’s quite a difference.

Because the sun sets around 5.30pm here but the humidity stays, around 8pm you really feel tired so I went to bed early. Next morning I woke up at 5.00am again because of the rain and sunlight. It looks like I also have to get used to a new daily rhythm, going with the light of day. This day we went back to the reserve, but this time we could stay on the small paths in a part of the reserve that was bought during the beginning of the project 8 years ago and has been studied since than. Our job was to determine all the butterflies and dragonflies we came across during the half day walk. It was my first experience with trying to catch butterflies. In the beginning I was always to slow, and afraid of hurting them, but after a while I learned how to catch them in a animalfriendly way. Apart from many different butterflies and dragonflies, we also saw many strawberry frogs and also some cool black-and-green frogs along the path. Beautiful but again very poisonous. Nature has evolved in a very interesting way here, with an enormous amount and variety of animals who all found a different but clever way to avoid being eaten by other animals.

In the afternoon we first got a presentation of two students who analysed the data gathered in the first year about trees in the different parts of the reserve to find out if there are big differences in the variety, density etc between these different parts that have a different history in previous landuse and potential deforestation. After the presentation we all went to the local football field to play a weekly Friday afternoon footballgame with the local people.

In the weekends there is no official research or fieldwork, so Saturday morning I went with another volunteer to a recently build birdwatchtower on an edge of the reserve, which borders Barbilla national park (a national park where hardly any people are allowed to go in, so wildlife is still quite intact there). As birds are most active right after sunrise, which is around 5am, we had to get up at 4am. That sounds early but as I mentioned before, daily timeschedules are different here so it wasn’t even that hard to get up so early. And definately worth it. For the first time since I arrived there was a clear sky and the low hanging clouds in from of a vulcano on the horizon turned beautifully pink. After the sunrise we saw many parakeets, mostly in couples but also some big flocks, with their green fluorescent coloured feathers shining beautifully in the sunlight. Next to the tower were some woodpeckers flying in and out their hole and what made me really happy was to see some toucans. So great to see them fly in the free sky and not in a small cage.

After two hours the air became to hot for most of the birds. Only the vultures appreciated it much, floating around on the thermals. We went back to the compound, had a nice breakfast (by now you can guess what it was) and then I finally could start writing this weblog. I made a beginning 3 days ago but after one hour half of the keys on my laptop didn’t work anymore because of the humidity. Luckily Maarten (the Dutch guy who started this project 8 years ago together with his partner Hanneke) went into town and could buy an external keyboard today to help me out.

In the afternoon we joined the birthday party of one of the sons from Maarten and Hanneke. Different from the Netherlands, here the parents of the invited kids all stay during the party to talk while the kids are playing and running around. The party ends with the children trying to hit a piñata while being blindfolded. When it breaks a lot of candy comes out, so of course all the children (and apparently also the mothers) were all looking forward to that final part of the celebration. Feeling lazy from the beers food and birthday cake I couldn’t avoid craving for a small nap.

In the evening we were invited at Maarten and Hanneke’s house to do a funny ‘guess the music hit’ game. We all got so enthousiastic playing it that we kept playing untill midnight. (Remember that all the days before I went to bed between 8pm and 9pm). Luckily I didn’t drink that evening and next morning I could easily wake up at normal time, although nothing was planned for that Sunday. I really enjoyed a day of hanging around, finishing this weblog report and relax.

So that’s it for this week. I realise these two reports have been very detailed so I’ll try to be more to the point next time. Tomorrow is another day in the reserve, continuing making the plot lines. Tomorrow evening a whole bunch of students from the Netherlands will arrive so from Tuesday there will be less opportunities for me to join going into the reserve to do the fieldwork.