By Esther Daranciang, Westminster College
We spent March 13th back at our favorite research station, Piro, packing and preparing for the upcoming week deep in the jungle. During our short time back at Piro we were invited by Manuel, the turtle research coordinator, to assist in the release of Green Sea Turtle hatchlings. We spent the evening on the beach helping dozens of Squirts, who were incubated in the safety of the Osa Conservation hatchery, find their way back to the Big Ol’ Blue. Once the last tortuga found its way safely into the waves we hiked back to camp to finish our preparations for our own big journey.
Paola inspects one of the Green Turtle babies before the big release. Photo by Katie Goodwin.
For the next six nights we stayed on a former homestead of the Sanchez family, en Espanol finca Sanchez. The finca’s border is only a few kilometers away from the wild Corcovado National Park and we had heard it was beautiful and had high hopes for the diversity we would find there. The next morning we set out to hike into the property with one of the Sanchez brothers, Noel, and the aid of three horses. After climbing the first set of arduous hills, I don’t know how we would have done it with the help of our trusty steeds. About an hour into our trek, just as we were starting to overheat, we experienced our first true tropical rainstorm. I stopped every 20 minutes or so to empty the buckets I was carrying of the few centimeters of rain they accumulated and to admire the colors around me grow more lush with the rain. It also made parts of the trail where the dirt was red clay become slick, sinking surfaces. This made for some interesting downhill slides that the horses seemed surprisingly used to. The rain cleared just before we reached what we would make our home for the week.
Before hiking in we had very little idea what our living situation would be like. After crossing one last stream we walked into a clearing of banana trees with Noel Sanchez’s childhood home in the middle. It was a 15’x30’ wooden home elevated 8 feet off the ground. It hadn’t been lived in for years and was not structurally sound enough to live in, but it made for great covering for a kitchen and living space. Noel had also prepared an area where we could hang a tarp to put our tents under. After our hilly trek we were starving and Noel was also prepared for that; he had hiked in traditional Costa Rican food wrapped in a banana leaf. Bonnie, el caballero who had hiked in with the horses, stayed for lunch with us and before he left he looked us all in the eye, laughing and told us “esta loco”. As I looked out into our beautiful jungle home, I thought you had to be crazy to not want to live there.
It’s not a home without hammocks. Photo by Katie Goodwin.
We spent the rest of the afternoon settling into camp, making a pool in the nearby river for bathing and preparing for our first night of frog surveys. That night we surveyed Rio Nuevo, a river only 100 yards from camp. Noel came along to show us the way and while we caught and worked to identify frogs, he caught river shrimp, camarones, for a late night snack. We ended our survey at a 20 foot tall waterfall that had carved a deep cylinder into the rocky bank cascading into a pool beckoning all to swim in it, Noel and the two basilisks we found heeded to that call. Who knew basilisks, a type of lizard, swam? We headed back to camp to enjoy the camarones Noel caught and were able to sleep after our long day despite some of the loudest cicadas we have heard during our time here.
Noel showing us the amber accumulated on an old growth tree. Photo by Eli Brunner.
For the next five days we woke before dawn to survey for birds all over the property. This included bushwhacking through the varying terrain of the finca, walking all of the nearby streams, and tuning our ears to all of the birdsongs we heard from the jungle. Our instructor, Chris, really let loose his bird knowledge easily identifying almost all of the birds around us, but with the incredible diversity here on the Osa, there were still some that got away. We also set camera traps throughout the property at locations that Noel knew to be of high animal activity. After a good midday siesta we were ready for our frog surveys every evening.
Student Carolina May listens for bird calls from the comfort of camp. Photo by Esther Daranciang.
A pair of mating Spotted Glass Frogs found on the bank of the Rio Nuevo. Photo by Katie Goodwin.
Noel showed us around where he had spent his childhood, imparting bits of his ecological knowledge along the way. He taught us some edible plants like the Panama Hat Palm and how to extract the palm heart, palmito, out of the Walking Palm. We also learned multiple traditional methods for catching camarones as they were a great, rico, addition to every dinner. While there was sometimes a language barrier between us and Noel we all got to work on our language skills, it was all “good bueno” as Noel would say.
Taking a well deserved break during our hike out because without the aid of the horses, fuimos como los caballos.