CRIRE2018

Our last day in Costa Rica was spent travelling back to the airport hotel we stayed in the first night. The trip back to San Jose was really fun! We stopped at Playa Dominical, I think thats the name of the beach. It was an interesting area. They had restaurants and hotels all along the street by the ocean. At the edge of the streets were booths of people selling souvenirs, clothes, jewelry, and other items. The beach was very rocky and the water was rough, but still beautiful. Next we stopped at a bridge where crocodiles hang out under. I have never seen a crocodile outside of a zoo, and I was so impressed by their size! They were massive! We also stopped at a souvenir shop and there were some almond trees that had scarlet macaws eating from them. The colors were so bright and gorgeous on these birds! To end the day we had one final dinner together and prepared for our trip home. Scott and Jessica did an amazing job with this trip. I made many friends and had rare experiences that I

We presented our poster today and it went really well! We practiced a lot this morning and it really paid off. I felt that every group did so great, everyone was able to do all their data collection, analysis, and poster within about six days. It was a big relief to be done, and even though I have had a lot of fun in this program, I am very excited to go home. I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to come to a country that I have always wanted to visit and spend my time here with some great people. I will never forget each person who was involved in the program, everyone was so kind to me and I feel like I made many friends. If I did not have a position set up for this upcoming summer 2019, I would definitely apply for the longer two month summer program that is held here. I can't wait to be home and spend time with my family to celebrate the rest of the Christmas holiday.

Today was focused around finalizing posters, it feels nice to be done with it. Once we finished, Celestino from the Ngobe tribe took us for a hike to look at animal tracks. He showed us armadillo, agouti, and coati trails. He taught us that the Motmots' live in burrows along stream banks and how to identify an active burrow. In the evening we did a night hike, unfortunately, we did not see anything big. However, we did see a few bats and lots of cockroaches.

Today was very chill, we did some short analysis and made some changes to our poster but other than that there was not much to get done. It was nice to relax for a day and just walk around the property. This evening I saw more Capuchin Monkeys and Toucans, it is still surreal to be surrounded by wildlife that I grew up seeing in books or documentaries. I went with a group to walk some of the garden area before dinner, we ran into an Angel's Trumpet tree. It was so beautiful, it had large pink flowers all over it. They smelled so good too, very strong sweet smell. We ended the night watching the sunset before dinner. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to be here.

Sunday was our day off from working on our projects, We had a medicinal plant walk scheduled with the medicine man, Armando, and a demonstration from the tribal artist, Victoria, from the Ngobe tribe. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well so I could not go on the medicinal plant walk. However, I was able to make it to the demonstration that Victoria led showing us where they derive fibers for weaving. She brought bromeliad leaves from Panama that were large enough for her to strip, she sat on one end of the leaf and put the other end up on a palm trunk. She said they usually use balsa wood, but the palm wood worked too. To strip off the outer green part of the leaf, she took a stick that she had cut in half length ways. After she strips off one side, she separates the fibers from the rest of the leaf. Then they wash the fibers and hang dry them, they dry white but you can use various plants to dye them a certain color. Later in the day, we took a trip to town. Having a language barrie

The project I am on is not very in depth, so this morning was not very eventful. We worked on our poster majority of the morning, later we went into the forest to collect our last few data points for our control areas. After lunch, Mo and I decided to go on a hike since we have extra time. The hike we did was about seven or eight miles through the rain forest. I was a lot of fun! Mo has never had an outdoor experience, this was his first time hiking so it was great to be able to take him out there. I hope he keeps an interest in outdoor recreation, it is such a great way for people to understand why our environment and natural systems are important when they can connect with it personally. While we were hiking we came across coatis, it was so amazing to see an animal that you only see in zoos in its natural habitat. We also saw a long black snake in the river and various types of insects. At one point on the trail, we rounded a corner and found that a large tree had fallen and it was

This morning we worked on our data and started our poster. After lunch, I went out with another group to hike to a waterfall. The trail we took was really fun, it was more narrow and overgrown and the terrain changed often. We saw a lot of new plants and a green glass frog. The waterfall was so nice and it felt refreshing to be in the water. Today was more relaxed, but I still had a lot of fun!

We spent most of today doing field work for our research project. Since we had marked all our points in the GPS, we went back to them to collect more light measurements and our data on soil texture and the depth of the A horizon or organic matter layer. To collect our soil data, we dug next to our selected clusters of ginger until the top dark organic layer was exposed and transitioned into the B horizon. We measured the depth of the A horizon and used a "hand test" to classify the B horizon as either clay, soil, or sand. To distinguish which soil texture, we grabbed a hand full of soil and rolled it into a ball then try to elongate it between our hands. If the soil did not hold a shape at all then it was classified as sand, if it stays in a ball but doesn't hold together when elongated then it is silt, lastly, if the soil is completely malleable then it is clay. A very high tech classification system. Next, we did the same measurements for two controls which were long st

Today was our first day in the field, I was so anxious to start this morning! To start off, Rodo, the biologist for the station, came out with us to familiarize us with identifying the Shampoo Ginger (Zingiber spectabile). I enjoyed learning from him, he showed us identifying characteristics other than the fluorescent, which is the colorful pinecone-like head. There is a native species of ginger called the Acostas (Renealmia cernua) , the leaves are similar to the Shampoo Ginger but the flower grows at the crown of the plant and is yellow. The most interesting way to distinguish the two gingers was through smell. If you pull off a leaf and crush it between your fingers the Shampoo Ginger smells like ginger, and the native ginger smells like cinnamon. This was so interesting to me! For our research project, we took GPS points at 20 different ginger plants that were about 60 paces apart from each other. We used the Lux Light Meter to measure how much light is hitting the center of the c

Today was so great! We started off with a tour of the botanical gardens around the station led by the biologist stationed here. He gave us a short history of the area and showed us so many types of native and non-native plants. The area we are in used to be pasture land about 60 years ago, when the Wilson's came along they planted the 2nd largest collection of plants in the world. There are about 3000 different species and 40% of them are native. This diversity draws in 415 species of birds in Las Cruces and various mammals. Then we hiked the forest to Rio Java, seeing the rainforest in real life was so different than I had expected. It was dense with vegetation and it was so beautiful! After our tour, we met with our mentors to brainstorm our projects. I will be studying the Shampoo Ginger with Mike Helm. The Shampoo Ginger is an invasive ornamental plant and there is very little known about it. We decided to do a broad study on the types of growing conditions it prefers. We will

I originally arrived to San Jose on Sunday morning around 8 AM. I think the first thing I noticed when we landed was the weather. It was so hot and humid and I absolutely love it! Winter is my least favorite season, so being here in the tropical climate feels so great to me. After I got settled into the hotel, I walked around their botanical gardens they have. I was so amazed by the diversity of plants just at the hotel. While walking around I met some other students that were also from the United States. They were on a service project and were going to clean up beaches and visit a monkey sanctuary. Around noon, I ended up sleeping the rest of the day until we all met up at 6 PM for dinner. I was exhausted after travelling so almost immediately after dinner I went to bed. However, after the stress of traveling I am so very excited about the opportunity to be here and I feel so grateful for this opportunity!

Today we took a bus to Las Cruces Biological Station. Even though the ride was long, it was so amazing to see the landscape of Costa Rica. We saw the city, towns, pineapple farms, and the Paramos. The Paramos was so unique, the microhabitats had so many different types of flora. There are also so many diverse species of flowers and so many birds! Everytime we stopped somewhere there was something new to see.