Classroom Costa Rica

Personal Firsts

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Dinner at a homestay in San Luis.

Ajinai: Since we didn’t do much today but travel, I’m writing about the homestays we did a couple days ago. My home stay was with a 16-year-old girl named Jenifer and her 8-year-old brother, Rego. Mesa and I were together, and the first thing the two kids asked us was if we liked horses. When we said yes, they asked us if we wanted to ride them. Mesa and I said yes, totally unsuspecting of what was to come. As it turned out, to ride the horses we had to catch them first. Jenifer ran up the hill and we, not knowing what else to do, followed her up. She turned around and started speaking Spanish to Mesa at about 20 miles per hour, then ran up the hill again. Mesa found this funny, and in a few seconds we were both laughing. Jenifer was confused, so Mesa tried to explain that she didn’t understand…

Getting ready for a kayak adventure

Taylor: Yesterday we went kayaking to go snorkeling. The water was choppy, and the waves were very high. On our way out to the little island the waves kept crashing on us and it was hard to paddle. When we got there we had to land one at a time so we didn’t crash into each other. When we did start to go in, a wave crashed on us and so we crashed into a clump of rocks and almost fell out. When we got there we all just looked around and collected seashells and coral. While we were looking around we also saw seven iguanas.

I didn’t get blisters until we started heading back. They switched us around so I was with Lucas instead of Heather. He was a really fast paddler. The waves got bigger. Once we got near to the shore, the waves started to crash again and we did too. They told us to turn so we wouldn’t crash but that just made us flip the whole kayak. Once we got out from underneath the kayak, my flip-flops fell off and one floated away and washed up to the shore. I thought this kayaking trip was really exciting and I think the next class should do it again.

TIco Adventure Lodge

Marcus: We came to the Tico Adventure Lodge in Samara—it is very nice. Good clean rooms with privacy and great scenery because of the amount of trees. The whole class went in the pool to clean off and refresh. We woke up and went to the beach early in the morning, and it was so warm you could jump right in. The water was at least 70 degrees, clear, blue, and wavy. The water was really salty and made your skin sting. We came back for lunch and I am writing by the pool in the blazing sun. We just saw a lizard on a leaf above my head. I am amazed by the biodiversity even in a crowded area. I am looking foreard to kayaking to a reef off the beach and snorkeling.

Catching the big kahuna

Lucas: I was so pumped because we rented surfboards. We got in the water and almost at once our eyes started to sting. I caught the first wave and missed the second. From that point on I hardly missed any, except for the big Kahunas that I actually was pretty good on. I remember this big curl: I felt like I was floating. I am so proud of myself. I gave Tim some pointers on how to catch a wave and after a while he was surfing. Hardly anyone else got up, except for our pro, Elissa. The waves were amazing, like the Endless Summer’s “perfect wave.” I think I died and went to heaven. I bet you I will come home looking like a red beat (from the sun, that is–ed.).

Scott: The zipline was fun. The longest one was one mile long. It took 40 seconds to get across. We could not see much because we were too concentrated on our speed.

Getting ready to zip

Max: The first zipline was fairly small, so you could get used to flying through the trees, but they got progressively longer. On the sixth zipline, we saw that the ground dropped away halfway to the next stop. As I soared over the clearing, it seemed to be a 200-foot drop to the ground. Not a good thing to think about when you have a fear of heights. None of the other ziplines compared to that one, except the last. We had to go two at a time to not get stuck in the middle. It was 600 meters long and 100 meters tall. I want with Philip, and as we flew down the zipline, we were breathless, literally. The air was whipping back at us and we could barely speak, breath, or comprehend anything at all. We started slowing down at the half-way point, and we thought, this isn’t good. Turns out, we stopped about 400 feet early, so we had to be pulled to the platform by the guide. We talked about the zipline almost the whole ride to the Jico Adventure Lodge (about 3.5 hours–ed.)

Gilbert talks about Finca la Bella.

Heather: Today we went to the coffee farm. We met this guy, Gilbert, who told us the story of his coffee farm and how he became a coffee farmer. Then he showed us around his coffee farm. He had done something that I have never heard of: he put citrus trees by the coffee trees for shade and for a little bit of flavor. Then he took us to a place where he crushed some sugar cane to get juice. Then he poured each of us a cup. It was okay: it had a hint of corn taste in it. Then he took us back and we asked questions.

Estamos nadando en la catarata.

Rose: The whooshing sound hit my ears as I walked up the small hill before me. As my feet moved me closer and closer to the noise, my heart beat faster and faster. At the top, my feet stopped. A gasp escaped my lips. In awe, I stared ahead as torrents of water fountained down from the rocks above. My head tilted upward ad I tried to find where the sky began and the waterfall ended. Struck by the beauty, I thought about how perfect everything seemed: the delicate balance of rock, water, flora and fauna…Minutes later, I watched as my bare feet stepped cautiously into the cold water. Slightly surprised by the overwhelming cold, I drew back. I realized that the only option was to plunge into the water and immerse myself in the brilliant, freezing liquid. So I did. I jumped in and came up seconds later, struggling to breath. The water felt amazing. I enjoyed the waterfall, even though after being in it I felt numb.

Shawna: Today we had several activities. To start with, half the class went birding first thing in the morning and a few of us went milking. It was really fun. I am not the book-reading type. I like to be one of those people who learn by seeing the object that they are studying or learning about. Because, when you are in a classroom, you can’t see what you are learning about. And when you are outside, or even out of the country, you can see the object. So being in Costa Rica is a little different from reading a book about it or learning about it on the computer.

Sampling stream macroinvertebrates

Mesa: Back in Vermont, on Hogback Mountain, we did some tests on the water and looked at all the little critters (macroinvertebrates) crawling around on the bottom. Here in Costa Rica we did something similar. This time we hiked through the rainforest across a couple streams, under a barbed wire fence, through some cow poop and mud and got started. The stream itself wasn’t that much different than the one we looked at in Vermont: It was a little more acidic, but had some of the same macroinvertebrate orders and families. The stream bank, though, that was cool. We were standing under this tree that was covered with moss and epiphytes and there were vines hanging down and beautiful flowers. Someone described it as its own garden. One the bottom of a leaf there was a stick bug and at one point Bethany took a three-inch beetle off my back and put it to her ear. This particular beetle could make this squeaky noise to communicate.

We also helped pack dirt into bags. The bags are going to have tree seedlings in them and the seedlings are going to grow into a patch of forest that will give the three-wattled bellbird a migratory path. The bellbird’s migratory path through the forest was cut down for cow pasture over the past 50 years. So now I can say that I helped save the bellbird!

listening like a bat

Ethan: We started this packed day by going to the bat museum (el Museo de Murcielagos), where we had dinner the night before. The tour guide at the museum told us a lot about bats and why they’re important to humans. One exhibit showed us what it would be like to have giant bat ears. We put these tubes to our ears and we could hear people whispering at us from the other side of the room. Another exhibit showed us how many buckets of insects, whole bananas, and liters of nectar we would have to eat to eat our own weight in each. They also had a bunch of live bats. We all learned a lot about bats, and how they live.

Down "la Trocha"

Erik: Then we hiked down “la Trocha” from La Colina Lodge to the Ecolodge, about a five-mile hike down an extremely steep hill. Around half of the road was paved and half was loose rocks. I don’t know how many people really enjoyed walking down something that steep, but some of the views were truly amazing. At one point, at a curve in the road, there was a small balcony-type thing. Along with being able to see endless green hills and winding dirt roads below us, we could also see the thin white line of a waterfall. As it so happens, this is the waterfall that we will be hiking to in a day or two. After maybe a bit more than an hour, we reached the point where the pavement stopped, the walk became less steep, and we started to notice some things that we recognized from earlier in the hike, when we were looking down on them.

Finally, we reached the Ecolodge, and everybody was extremely wiped out. And what do you do when you feel like that? Play soccer of course!

Aliza: It was our first day in the Monteverde cloud forest today. We spent the day roaming the trails in search of spectacular plants and animals. We had a tour guide named Freddy who was very helpful. He knew so much about the plants and animals. We saw many things, but my favorite was the howler monkeys. We got to look through a telescope to see them. There was one with a baby on her stomach, and I was amazed that Freddy could tell how old it was just by looking. I really enjoyed the whole day and wished it hadn’t gone by so fast.

Katie: This morning we climbed a strangler fig tree at the Friends school nearby. Then we went to the Monteverde Reserve. Our group got to see five or so howler monkeys in a tree and some quetzal birds. Also we saw a leaf insect that was the same color as a leaf and clung to one, and a bug that had moss on it that blended into a fern. A while later the class hiked to the continental divide. When we got there it was so weird because when you walked to the Pacific side it was really hot, so hot you couldn’t stand it, and on the Caribbean side it was windy and nice. On the way back we had a silent walk in the cloud forest.

Morgan: Good news, we made it to Costa Rica, after spending the night at the Holiday Inn in Boston. We had to wake up at 3:30 to catch a 6:00 plane. Oh, wait, I can’t say all of us had to wake up at 3:30…some of us had to wake up at 3:00. Luckily for me I was in the 3:30 group. Anyway, the first plane we went on was two hours and then we had to sprint to the next plane, which was more than three hours. For me, being on a plane was like being in a car except your ears keep popping and the take off and landing part was nothing like a car. And then we got to Costa Rica and took a three-hour bus ride to La Colina Lodge, in Monte Verde, where we will stay for two nights.

Luci: To all the parents and whoever else is reading this blog, we have spent the whole day flying and driving to reach Costa Rica. We were on two airplane rides. We then took a three-hour bus ride to the place where we are staying for a while, La Colina (Lock-o-lena) Lodge in Monte Verde. The views were fantastic on the drive, but the drive was very long. We saw a spider monkey in a tree with a little tiny baby on her back. It was so cute! We were lucky to get to see the monkeys at that time, and many people hadn’t seen a monkey in real life before. We will probably see a lot.

We have been learning a little Spanish. Not anything new, but we had to practice because we went to a fruit market. I got two mangos for only one dollar!

As part of their preparation for the trip to Costa Rica the Junior High has been studying songbirds who migrate between Vermont and Costa Rica.   Below are a few of the many species who make the journey between North and central America twice a year every year.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

The male rose-breasted grosbeak is boldly patterned in black and white. The Rose color is easily identified on the chest of the male. However, the female is drab and striped. It kind of looks like a sparrow or finch. The bird is about eight inches long, the wingspan is about thirteen inches and its weight is about forty-five grams or 1.6 oz.

In the summer it lives in hardwood forests in northeastern United States and Canada. Their diet in the in the summer is insects. It leaves the north country around October and goes to southern Mexico and to northern South America and comes back about April.

In the winter they live in gardens and at the edge forests. Their diet in the winter is seeds and fruit.

Illustration by Morgan Adams

Text By Heather Hier