Classroom Costa Rica

     I am pretty scared of heights, but I love the adrenalin rush of being so high off the ground. I sort of disappointed myself in Costa Rica when we climbed the strangler fig tree. Everyone went either all the way to the top, or about half way, and I chickened out a fourth of the way up the tree. Standing around the enormous tree made me realize that it was about twenty times my size and it would really hurt if it fell on me. The outside surroundings of the tree were surprisingly smooth, and there wasn’t any really stable branch you could climb up. All of the vines and hollow trunk made it seem bigger than it actually is. On the way down the tree there wasn’t a lot of places to put your feet or hold on to, so it was pretty nerve-racking if you couldn’t find a spot.
The strangler fig tree grows in dark tropical forests. Birds, monkeys, and bats scatter its seeds into little nooks in other trees. The epiphyte grows down until it roots, winding its vines around the host tree, and “strangling” it. Eventually the fig tree completely takes over the host tree trunk. During that process the strangler’s shady canopy steals the energy from the sun, and the host tree is losing its nutrition. But, that event takes years to happen.
All the reading I did definitely didn’t prepare me for the actual experience of being there. All the trees in Costa Rica seem even more beautiful and unreal than in where we live Vermont. The leaves are HUGE and unrealistic that you don’t know if some scientist made them or not! Every single tree we passed (except the ones covered in bugs, spiders, webs, or anything else that is gross) I wanted to jump on and start climbing! They all look like they are from “The Lion King”, the movie. One of the questions I have been asking myself is why are the strangler figs so deadly to other trees? Then I realized that evolution needs viscous deadly trees to keep the circle of life going around and around.

I was so excited just to be in Costa Rica that I didn’t want to let anything ruin my trip. Even though I am very disappointed in myself because I didn’t climb the tree all the way to the top, I am happy because I would have never known how scary it was if I had only read books about it. The only thing I am trying to say is that I am really happy I got to climb the tree part of the way up, and it’s the real experience that counts.

-Maddie

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