Pura Vida in Costa Rica!!!

In English, Pure life in Costa Rica. It has been a dream of mine to visit a tropical Rain Forest since I have taught about it for the past five years. My name is Melanie Revere, I live in Boone, North Carolina and I teach environmental earth science at Watauga High School. I spend my free time in North Carolina climbing or packing around the Appalachians and the Smokies. I also make frequent visits to my home town of Bogalusa, LA. I have spent the last five summers traveling around the U.S. learning about science through different projects like the Academy for Teachers of Science and Mathematics at UT at Knoxville and LaSIP Project CYPRESS and Life in Louisiana. I have also spent time out West climbing and taking a NOLS climbing course. When the opportunity came to apply for a trip to Costa Rica sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, I jumped on the chance. When the acceptance letter appeared in my mailbox, I was bursting with excitement at the thought of all the things I would finally see. I have taught about the Rain Forest for many years without ever having a real life experience that I could relate to my students. I had never even heard of a Tropical Dry Forest and could only picture a stand of dead trees isolated by a vast savannah. I have included journal entries and pictures from all of the sites we stayed at to try and give you an idea of the awesome experience we had there.
First Stop, Palo Verde!

After a brief time spent at the Hotel Irazu meeting our team and group leader, Jimbo Cole, we loaded up tons of equipment and lots of people into a medium sized bus and headed out to Palo Verde. Palo Verde is a Tropical Dry Forest located in the Guanacaste region. I had no clue what to expect from a Dry Forest so I was full of curiosity as we approached the site. Our long bus ride there was made even more interesting by our driver, Manuel. He is an avid birder and would stop the bus every 15 minutes to point out some bird that I had never even heard of. I kept thinking, look at all of these exotic birds! It was hard to understand the fact that I was the exotic and the birds were commonplace. We did get the chance to see the Jabiru, a bird that has finally started to recover and return to the area.

Palo Verde was WONDERFUL! The complex we stayed at was small, but included the basic amenities of cold showers and flushing toilets. The food was very tasty and the staff was friendly and helpful. The area had a large amount of biodiversity and the indigenous animals and plants had intriguing ways of dealing with the long dry season. Monkey Vine could be found everywhere and we were told that you could actually cut it open and get a lot of water out of it. Some tree trunks, like the Pseudobombax, had large green areas of chlorophyll that looked like leaves mixed in with the bark.

I was able to work on a project looking at different restoration styles for the Dry Forest. We spent a lot of time measuring tree coverage and species diversity in these different plots and were able to meet with the scientist responsible for introducing the method of using cattle in the National Park to help control the grasses that have been out competing the indigenous trees. Our resident scientist at Palo Verde, Phillipe Hensel, was very helpful during our project, bushwhacking through areas of thick brush to find our study sites and arranging for much needed recreational breaks. We had some free time in which we explored the region going on short hikes, boat rides, and horseback rides. We left Palo Verde and headed for Volcan Arenal. We were given time to swim in the hot springs and we ate lunch while watching avalanches crash down the side.

Next up, La Selva!
I had heard of La Selva before while watching the movie, Medicine Man. When the lead actress is asked about her field work credentials, she replies that she spent a month at La Selva. With this infamous recommendation, I was extremely curious about the site. It was much larger than Palo Verde, with many more resident scientists running around everywhere collecting data on their long term projects. For a brief while, I felt like the country kid thrown into the big city to sink or swim. The noise level seemed extreme after the isolation of Palo Verde. I managed to shift gears into a faster lane so I could enjoy my first visit to the Tropical Rain forest. The first thing I noticed was the humidity, and of course, the rain. The plants were so huge it was hard to comprehend. Some of the trees had buttresses that would have taken more than ten of us to surround! We were indoctrinated on the new dangers of this forest, the Terciopelo (Fer-de-lance) was exciting, if a little nerve racking to see sitting two feet off the trail that we had so blithely been hiking along. I saw many of the poison arrow frogs, especially the Dendrobates. I finally understood the need for the big rubber boots we were made to wear as we clomped around in the mud and the muck during our new study, BATS! It was a new experience to trap bats and study some of their eating preferences. It was a lot of fun and the time seemed to fly by, before we knew it we were off again.

VACATION!!!!!
All we ever wanted! For good behavior, we were rewarded with a half day of vacation. We spent the morning at Playa De Arco surfing and swimming.

Last Stop, Las Cruces!
This is our last place to go before returning to San Jose and the States. Each place we have gone to is unique in its own way. This area used to be a botanical garden and the garden has since been maintained by OTS. Our project here has dealt with water quality testing. As I write this, we are still in the process of analyzing our results.

I hope you have been able to get a feel for all of the adventures we had. We worked hard, usually from 6:ooa.m. til 8:30p.m. It was busy and we had a lot of very strong teacher type personalities to deal with. Would I recommend this program to anyone else? YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!!!!!
So many of the wonderful experiences that I have had will be utilized in the classroom! I almost can't wait for the school year to start! NOT! I want to stay in Costa Rica!
Pura Vida!!!!!
Want more information about this stuff??? Try one of these sites or email me at melwolf@aol.com.

Woodrow Wilson Foundation
National Science foundation
Organization for Tropical Studies

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
CN 5281, Princeton NJ 08543-5281 - Tel:(609)452-7007 - Fax:(609)452-0066
Technical contact: lpt@woodrow.org

	After a brief time spent at the Hotel Irazu meeting our team and group leader, Jimbo Cole, we loaded up tons of equipment and lots of people into a medium sized bus and headed out to Palo Verde. Palo Verde is a Tropical Dry Forest located in the Guanacaste region. I had no clue what to expect from a Dry Forest so I was full of curiosity as we approached the site. Our long bus ride there was made even more interesting by our driver, Manuel. He is an avid birder and would stop the bus every 15 minutes to point out some bird that I had never even heard of. I kept thinking, look at all of these exotic birds! It was hard to understand the fact that I was the exotic and the birds were commonplace. We did get the chance to see the Jabiru, a bird that has finally started to recover and return to the area.
	Palo Verde was WONDERFUL! The complex we stayed at was small, but included the basic amenities of cold showers and flushing toilets. The food was very tasty and the staff was friendly and helpful. The area had a large amount of biodiversity and the indigenous animals and plants had intriguing ways of dealing with the long dry season. Monkey Vine could be found everywhere and we were told that you could actually cut it open and get a lot of water out of it. Some tree trunks, like the Pseudobombax, had large green areas of chlorophyll that looked like leaves mixed in with the bark.
I was able to work on a project looking at different restoration styles for the Dry Forest. We spent a lot of time measuring tree coverage and species diversity in these different plots and were able to meet with the scientist responsible for introducing the method of using cattle in the National Park to help control the grasses that have been out competing the indigenous trees. Our resident scientist at Palo Verde, Phillipe Hensel, was very helpful during our project, bushwhacking through areas of thick brush to find our study sites and arranging for much needed recreational breaks. We had some free time in which we explored the region going on short hikes, boat rides, and horseback rides. We left Palo Verde and headed for Volcan Arenal. We were given time to swim in the hot springs and we ate lunch while watching avalanches crash down the side.