Modeling Our Way Through Peru (first week and a half of Peru)

After a 17hrs in the bus from Costa Rica to Panama City, a mountain of border crossing scares where we didn´t have the right papers, buying these papers from the window of bus in the back of a building, and a sleepless night in a freezing airport, we made it to Lima where we were picked up by our first couch surfing host, Jose. He lives with his family, who also happens to love to cook Peruvian cuisine for all their guests. Good thing I am not trying to be a vegetarian on this trip, because Peru loves meat and that is what we have for every lunch and dinner.

Jose showed Christina and I all around Lima, and one night we were able to take a bus to a mountain and see all of Lima at night. Jose also is the owner of Destination Peru, a tourism business, so in trade for being showed all around Lima with our personal guide, Christina and I took photos with a blue Destination Peru sign at every beautiful place we visited. We felt a bit silly at times, but being able to meet Jose and his family, and being shown around Lima was all worth it.

Really ready to leave the city, Christina and I successfully navigated the insane city buses of Lima, and made our way to Miraflores where we would spend the day and take a bus to Tingo Maria, our next destination, that night.  Miraflores is a really wealthy  part of Lima on the ocean, and incredibly beautiful. We met with another couch surfing host who showed us around, and we finally got to ride in one the mototaxis. There are a three wheeled motorcycle with a shell on the back, what putter around on all the cities of Peru.

We arrived that night to our bus station, which of course was in the middle of nowhere and a bit sketchy. It was supposed to be a 12 hr overnight bus, but the bus ended up being 2 hrs late and then showed up to our destination 3 hrs late. This was a problem because we were staying with another couch surfing host who we had told we would meet at 700 am, and no way to let hime know where we were. When we were almost to Tingo Maria, we got stopped in traffic, and our entire bus was swarmed by women trying to sell food, and then a man got on the bus pointed at us, and told us to come with him. I was not for it, but Christina got out to talk to him, and he apparently was our couch surfing host, we all headed down the road, and then cross a bridge into the jungle (the whole time I was not really sure about this who thing), then we arrived at the Tingo Maria National Park headquarters, where we were going to be able to stay for free in one of their cabins.

Tingo  Maria used to be a really scary drug trafficking area, but now that the gangs are all gone, it is a really safe and beautiful area  in the jungle. Unfortunately, it is still has a bad reputation, and by having us come stay with them via couch surfing, was the park staff´s way of bring tourists back into Tingo. For three days we stayed at the headquarters with the rest of the staff. They were an incredible group of people, and every day  they had planned for us walks to waterfalls, caves, and plantations.

Every meal was also provided for free, and everyday we got to eat mountains of Peruvian dishes Similarly with our stay with Jose, they wanted to have photos of Americans visiting the national park so they could spread the word that it was safe to come again. Christina and I must have had hundreds of photos taken of us and Julia (a park volunteer from Brazil) smelling flowers, holding coco fruits, jumping into waterfalls, holding butterflies. It was so much fun, and visiting the park with the park rangers had some huge benefits.

On my favorite day, we visited the Cueva de la Lechuza, a really huge cave filled with parrots and in the very back a bird called a guacharo. They look a bit like owls, are nocturnal, and nest in the roof of the caves. When we reached with end of the path, there was still about 200 feet of cave, and Juan Carlos, another of the park workers, told us to jump the  gate and walk to the back of the cave. We ground was covered in about 3 meters deep of seeds from the fruit the guacharo´s eat, and thousands of giant cockroaches. It felt right out of Indiana Jones as we crunched our way across seeds and bugs with giant birds screeching a clicking our heads.

There is so much I can´t possibly right, but I am running out of internet time,

Kate

Tea, craters, and Peru (photos)

The volcano that I could not see, I hiked the like lump next to it. Doesn't look impressive, but I was definitely sore the next day, so that volcano must be a monster.

 Ecstatic bush woman cheering my one my way.

 The trail to the lake

We made a nativity scene! A few blistered fingers and lots of moss all over the house, we made something special.

Tea, craters, and Peru

Yesterday was the last day of semester! Very bittersweet, with the majority of my wonderful friends leaving to start their lives back in the states. I got to have one last hurrah, and decided to do a solo trip over out Thanksgiving break and hike the Cerro Chato crater next to the Arenal volcano. The Arenal volcano is HUGE, and I was staying in the town right underneath it…however, it poured the entire time, and I never actually saw the volcano. 

My hike to the Cerro Chato crater was a muddy, windy, and wet event. My reward was being able to jump into the cold lake at the crater, eat some of my refried beans, and start the way back. It was most definitely one of my favorite trips I have done.

The hostel I was at was filled with Europeans, and we had a lot of fun trying to communicate with each other in a mix of Spanish, French, English, and Dutch. After a lot of hiking, I drank a lot of tea, reread The Alchemist (wonderful book), and wrote lots of goodbye letters to the good people who are flying out tomorrow!

 Saturday the 6^th of December, my friend Christina and I are Peru bound! Well, first we are taking an obscenely long bus ride to Panama City, and then flying to Peru. We have mountains, deserts, art, and lakes on the menu. However, we aren’t very sure of the order, so stay tuned for Peruvian tidbits and photos. 

Pura Vida!

Kate

Weekend Adventures (Photos)

  Manuel Brenes

   Zarcero
Puerto Viejo: shark just swam by!!
 Blue Crested Motmot ( I did not take this photo)

Weekend Adventures

Hello everyone, it has been a while since I last wrote. School is ramping up, I am working to finish up my summer internship project, and I decided I could also pull off writing an enormous scholarship all by December 6th. Busy past couple of weeks, but I have still managed to explore and have a wonderful time here in the land on endless summer. 

The weather is changing from the rainy season to the hot season, so the result is wind, and the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the world. My camera is coming next Wednesday, so there will be photos soon! I don't know if I talked about it before, but my technology curse continued when my camera actually broke while I was taking a photo of the LITERALLY the most beautiful bird I have ever seen in my life. Google : blue crested motmot, you will die. 

Latest adventures:

Zarcero: beautiful little dairy town in the mountains. It looked like we were in a little Alps town, and when we walked down into the dairies, it looked just like the Arcata bottoms, pine trees, fog, cow poop smell and all. Zarcero is known for their topiary, and we got to help the man who has cut those shrubs everyday for the last 50 or 60 years.

Puerto Viejo: Small beach town on the Caribbean. We stayed in a crazy art hostel with 50 hammocks that we all slept in. The beach was wonderful, but we really only had one full day, and opted to slip and slide along a mud path in the jungle for most of the day. Best memory: standing on one of the bluffs above the ocean, looking down, and seeing a shark swim by! It was not very big, but still an incredible thing to see.

Reserva Manual Brenes: This is a research base near San Ramón owned by the University of Costa Rica. It was an incredible place with the biggest insects I have ever seen. Cockroaches as large as your hand!  We went with my plant taxonomy class, and spent the day and night identifying tropical plants.

La Selva: Another incredible research base that scientists from all over the world study at. We saw so many birds. So many. Macaws, motmots, great curassow, trogons (related to quetzals), honeycreepers, manikins (the crazy dancing birds), and many more. I was in heaven at La Selva...minus the bullet ants. There were all over the trail, and were over and inch long. We think one girl in our group got stung by one, but it was never confirmed. Whatever it was, she was in a lot of pain, and I spent a lot of time looking at the ground instead of the trees when there were ants about.

Now, it is crunch time to finish everything, and then on the 6th of December I leave for Peru until the 19th of January. Feeling VERY lucky with what I have been able to see in such a short period of time, and where I am headed.

Pure Vida!

La Comida de Costa Rica

I have discretely been taking photos of things that I eat at home. I LOVE Costa Rican food, which is 90% rice and beans. I thought that after a summer of eating pounds of dried beans, I would be sick of them. But, no, mixed with rice, they are perfect mix of quick burning carbs and protein that keeps you full all day long. 

Lets start with dessert. This is arroz con leche, and I would eat it every single day for all meals if I could. Recipe: Rice, milk, cream, butter, butter, butter.

Every single morning my host mom has breakfast and lunch waiting on the stove. I then can  eat breakfast, fill a container with rice and beans, and I am good to go for the rest of the day.

 Mangoes! When I fist got here, we had a mango tree in the back. This was the result.

 This is the fruit basket and my lifeline.  It is conveniently right next to my room, and therefore always empty.

 Because I need more fruit, here are some pictures of strange things at the fruit market. These are wonderful, but I forget what they are called.

 Homemade tortillas! Besides rice and beans, these are by far my favorite. I put sliced up banana on them, and my whole family looks at me like I am a weirdo.

 Rice and beans in the morning! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus some fried cheese which very popular here. I think this is because these cheese here is not creamy, it is very bouncy, and only softens when fried.

 Well, now I am hungry and going to go eat some tortilla outside of library so that I do not get yelled at by the librarian. She has it out for me, and I get in trouble for one thing or another every week.
                                                                       Pura Vida!!!

Photos: Panama and Tortuguero

Panama and Tortuguero

My journey started at 4:23am with a phone call from my friend who I was supposed to meet at 4:20am on the street corner to walk to the bus together. My alarm didn’t go off, and I sprinted out the door past my mom who was in the middle of making me fried plantains for breakfast. Made it on the bus and started our long bus ride to the Rio Suerte. We then got on a big river boat and made our way up the jungle canal.  I swear that our tour guide had different kinds of eyes than normal beings because all of the sudden he would point to the bushes and the boat would veer over, stop, and he would point out a green lizard that he somehow saw in the green leaves from a speeding boat. Thank goodness for his keen eyes because I got to see some amazing full grown Jesus Christ Lizards. Later in the trip we were lucky enough to see the young ones running across the water.

Our hotel was surrounded by jungle and I saw an enormous amount of wildlife by just walking around the pathways between buildings. Every morning at 5:00 am we were serenaded by troops of howler monkeys outside of our windows. It sounded like a raging war zone. After that wakeup call, I would walk the paths and bird watch.

I saw:

Keel billed Toucan, Collared Aracari, Chestnut-colored Woodpecker, The Great Curassow, Little Blue Heron, Yellow Crowned Night Heron, Boat Billed Heron, Black Throated Trogon, Slaty Tailed Trogon, Northern Jacana, Anhingas, and more that I have most likely already forgotten.

We also saw quite a few sloths, both two and three-toed sloths, caimans, a porcupine, a crocodile, and the highlight of my trip…turtles. I paid to go on a night time walk with the rangers to watch as green sea turtles hauled up on shore to lay their eggs. It was a freaking magical experience to sit on the beach with these mammoth mothers (they were huge!!) as they dug their nests, laid their eggs, buried them again, and scooted back down the beach to disappear into the Caribbean ocean.

The next place we went was Bocas del Toro, Panama. To cross the border you have to get off your bus and carry all your things across a very old bridge that spanned a pretty large river. Having to walk the border just made everything more exciting. We got onto another bus and bused to the town of Almirante where we then boated for 45 minutes to the Island of Bocas del Toro.

This part of the trip was about snorkeling and pristine beaches. By boat, we island hopped and saw some incredible marine life.

We saw:

Redbilled tropic bird, Brown Boobie, Magnificent Frigate Bird, Everyone’s favorite fish (Yellowtail Damselfish, flat needle fish, Stoplight Parrot fish (my favorite), and soooo many more.

After four wonderful days, we all woke up to enjoy our last breakfast on the balcony of our hotel in Panama. It was cloudy and I was happy to see a rain front coming toward us across the bay; it would nice to get a little drizzle. The weather had different ideas. All of the sudden we were blasted with huge winds and all the plates, cups, food trays, and part of the roof of a bar next door were blown away by the wind. It started to pour and all the cleaning ladies were screaming and running around like the world was ending. The bay got really rough which was a problem because we had a 45 minute boat road off the island. Everything was delayed until there was a break in the weather and we all loaded onto a little boat and took off through the storm. It was quite a ride and there were a lot of people who looked like they didn’t think we were going to make it.

We made it too the bus, but the entire country side of Panama had been ravaged by the storm. For miles, giant trees had been snapped in two, all the power lines were down, and the bushes were beaten up. It was quite a shock to see so much damage.

Until next time,

Pura Vida!

Photos: Muchas Gracias

Muchas Gracias!

Hola!

Last week started out with a wonderful message on my laptop saying “Prepare! The hard drive is failing!!” Lovely. I backed up my computer on my massive thumb drive (Thanks Uncle Eric!!), and tried to upload as many things to Google Drive as possible.  My computer lasted long enough for me to research and find out that you do not want to buy a new computer in Costa Rica unless you are a millionaire, and that to have my parents ship me a computer from McKinleyville to San Ramon via fedex, would cost $250 and had a fifty-fifty chance of not being stolen out of the mail.

I am just going to count my lucky stars right now.

1.       My friend Kit’s mom is flying here to visit him on September 27^th, and she offered to bring anything I need from the United States with her on the plane.

2.       SO much cheaper and SO much safer. Somehow, my computer decided to die at the perfect time.

3.       Thursday, I worked out all the fine details with my mom, sent her the address of Kits mom.

4.       Thursday night, my computer went black and I was out of touch with everyone for 4 days.

5.       Computer is in the mail, the school library lab is my new home for the next two weeks, and my whole life in on a little white flash drive. Scary.

This blog is really a huge THANK YOU to everyone helping me out. Especially you mom and dad, you are the best. J They have been dealing with bank and computer crisis’s that I have been shoving onto them for the last 3 weeks.  Turns out, the bank doesn’t like it when you do stuff from a computer out of the country.

Also, in the middle of all this, I received a slew of beautiful letters from very beautiful and wonderful people in my life. Can’t tell you how much it meant to receive so much love.

Happy belated birthday to my mother! I found a friend who let me come over and use her computer to send a birthday email.

Costa Rica anecdote: My friends and I were walking on a road trying to find a river when a little granny invited us off the street and up a little path to her house. She was so happy to talk to the Gringos and show us her farm and home. She made us fresh Costa Rican coffee, and fed us cookies. We ending up staying at their house and talking to her and her husband in the best Spanish we had for an hour. We said we would come back, but next time we would bring the cookies. Pure Costa Rican kindness, what a remarkable place this is.  

Pura Vida!

Address

PO Box
Kate Wilcox
PO Box 346-4250
San Ramon, Alajuela
Costa Rica

Physical Address (for Fedex I believe)
Kate Wilcox
USAC
Department de Biologia
Sede de Occidente
Universidad de Costa Rica
San Ramon, Alajuela
Costa Rica

Bulls, horses, and churros OH MY!

In the little over two weeks that I have been here, I have learned that Costa Rica knows how to throw a fiesta! For the last week and a half, the whole city of San Ramón has been intensely celebrating our patron saint, San Ramón. The central park is filled with food vendors selling four-foot long churros, tamales wrapped in banana  leaves, arroz con pollo, freshly made tortillas, pineapples filled with fruit and ice cream, and other very exotic sounding foods.

There are also free concerts every night, and they have been ramping up each night of the week. Last night the entire sidewalk, dance floor, street, and church steps were filled with people and we all danced the salsa, bachata, and merengue.  We (the gringo exchange students) mainly dance with each other with the occasional unsuspecting local who we wrangled into our group and made them teach us their moves. They loved us, and would laugh very good-naturedly at our attempts to salsa smoothly.

Last weekend was the parade of carretas, where the ranchers brought their best steer to pull small painted carts (carretas) through the streets. Many of these cows were HUGE, but they were very docile and some were even led by what looked like eight year olds. There was much yipping, yelling, and boot stamping. A few nights later, we watching caballeros perform intricate trotting routines with their gorgeous horses. It was very much like a horse dance in the street, and when their hooves would slip a bit on the pavement, they would spray sparks out behind them. There was even more yipping and yelling during that night.  

Yesterday was the most anticipated event of all the festivities. I say this because the fireworks started going off at 6:00 am. The ENTIRE town plus more packed into the streets and park to watch as groups of people carried litters with statue of saints on them. The saints were completely surrounded by flower arrangements, and were followed by possessions of bands, dancers, singers and supporters. The people carrying the saints could not resist the music either, and all the way down the road, you could see these saint statues bobbing up and down and spinning in circles along with the beat.

All the festivities end on tonight (Monday the 1^st) with a giant concert/town dance and a raffle for a free car. Now we wait for Independence Day on September 15^th, and the whole thing starts over again!

Classes: This week, we have also had two class field trips. One was for tropical ecology, where we went to INBIO, a research/ reserve/zoo facility. It was beautiful, and we were able to see many beautiful Costa Rican animals that I hope to actually see in the wild…minus the fer de lance pit viper) Our next trip was with my plant taxonomy class, and we drove to Cerro de la Muerte. It is called the mountain of death because of how cold it gets, not cold enough to frost, but cold enough to kill travelers before the time of cars. There was no jungle up there, and we sat in the rocks keying out the stems and leaves of the plants that were drastically different from those a few hundred feet lower in elevation. 

Pura Vida!

Photos- Bulls, horses, and churros OH MY!