getting used to life in the rainforest

Hello again,

It has been quiet here for the last 2 weeks. That doesn’t mean nothing happened here but a lot of things I described in my previous blog, quickly became normal. After a few days I got used to the humidity and feeling a bit sweaty all the time. Also the pinto (the rice and beans) has become normal and as it’s a healthy meal, I even appreciate it now as a start of the day.

Also hearing the sound of the toucans, seeing gecko’s, butterflies and hummingbirds all around me, had become normal (although I still haven’t managed to take a photo of a hummingbird drinking from a flower). And I also still enjoy seeing the leave frogs near the pools at night, as well as the strawberry poison frogs (officially called the dendrobates pomilio). Last Friday we walked a particular part of the reserve (called a transect) to cound all amphibians and reptiles we see on that part (this is done weekly to collect data about the differences in presence/absence of different species in the different areas during the years). On that particular morning we saw 55 of these strawberry frogs in a time period of about 1,5 hours!

Another reason I haven’t been reporting these weeks is because my phone almost died caused by the humidity and heath. One morning after I made a phonecall, al of a sudden the screen didn’t work anymore, so I couldn’t see anything on the phone. Keeping it in the only AC cooled room in the whole compound for a day and night didn’t really work. Luckily one moment the light came back a bit and I could put the screenlight on almost maximum. Since then I can use it again, but making clear photo’s became more difficult and sometimes the light still disappears, so I decided to buy a new phone. Our costarican colleague told me that cellphones in Costa Rica are extremely expensive because of the import tax. He was right; the phone I decided to buy would cost me €1300 here, in NL it would only be around €900. Luckily next weekend a new student will arrive here from the Netherlands, so I ordered my phone there and she will bring it to me. How nice!

Apart from looking for a new phone, I’ve also been busy planning my mini holiday for the first 2 weeks of October. Between the projects I’m working now and the next one (the Corcovado turtle conservation) I have two weeks to travel around. There’s plenty of public transport but it is difficult to find bus schedules online and buses frequently arrive later at their destination than scheduled because of traffic jams or road construction detours. Renting a car by myself is too expensive so I do rely on the public buses.

Also I am planning the second part of my sabbitical, when I come back here after Christmas.

In the meantime I have been planting some trees along the trail through the small forest we have here on the compound and also started to put the information signs about the different animals and plants that are likely to be found and seen here on the compound and in the reserve.

Last but not least I was asked to make a nice sign to mark the end of one of the transects I’ve been writing about above, so I even had to put in practice my Waldorf creativity of the last years.

It might look like I have been stuck here in the wild for weeks. Luckily we do leave this area sometimes during the weekend. Last weekend we went to a much more touristic place at the beach, called Puerto Viejo. Although it’s only about 100km from here, it took us 3 hours to get there, taking two different buses and waiting on the bus station for an hour between both of them.

It was an experience to suddenly see more ‘gringos’ (officially the name for people from the US but used for any western tourist), because here in the village we are the only ones. With the tourists come all the restaurants serving western food, the people selling all touristy stuff, but more important, the nice vivent ambience with music played from the different bars and restaurants. Swimming in the sea is different from the Netherlands. The waves are much bigger but the current also much stronger, so we could only swim in a small area and close to the shore to be safe (which I did, because I promised Welmoed not to drown during my stay here). I even rented a surfboard for an hour to try and catch some waves (I took a few lessons 10 years ago in Sydney). I realised again how difficult and straining it is to learn surfing, though I did enjoy it in the meantime.

Well, now you are up-to-date again. I like it when you leave some comments so I know people read my newspapers and appreciate them [e-1f60a]