Penas Blancas

Its been a week since I made it out of the cloud forest valley alive. It has definitely been one of the highlights of my entire trip so far. Last Sunday half of the group hoisted our backpacking packs into taxi vans that dropped us off at the entrance to the Monteverde Cloudforest, while the other half began their homestays in houses throughout Montevderde, or in a little fishing village four hours away called Cuajiniquil. It was really strange saying goodbye. After having been thrown together for six weeks without a single day of separation, we suddenly wouldn’t all be together again for almost a month. For the Penas group, we would be backpacking 16 km into the reserve into an area closed to the public to stay in a small cabin manned by Eladio Cruz. Eladio was a familiar face as he had hosted us in Guanacaste and cooked for us every night there. Words don’t really describe the coolness of Eladio Cruz. He is an old, shy, solely Spanish-speaking, renowned Tico naturalist, who knows the cloud forests here like no one else. Numerous species of flora and fauna have been named after him, either because he had a hand in discovering them or because one of his cool biologist companions did.

But it took us ten miles to get to Eladio’s mystical cabin in the middle of the rainforest. For the most part it was all down hill, as we were traveling into a valley, but I was in rainboots so it wasn’t necessarily easier, and I slid down many a moss-covered slope or wet rocky ravine. I spent the better part of my travels debating with both my fellow travelers and myself whether or not the boots were worth it. When it came to crossing flooded streams I was clearly the winner over the hiking boot enthusiasts, but by the time we reached the cabin my feet were so torn up my choice was definitely put into question. I was part of the first cluster to make it to the cabin, and I can safely say we were all exhausted by the time we reached the bright green cabin. It didn’t help that most of us had gone out the night before, wanting to celebrate before we all separated. I think everyone questioned that decision at least once by the time we reached Eladio.

I was thinking about writing up a post before I left about all the things that could possibly kill me while I was in Penas, but in retrospect its probably for the best that I didn’t do so until now, from the safety of my room in Monteverde…or else I’m pretty sure Mom or Emily would have tried to book me a plane back to California. Our main adversaries on the trip were:

 1. The fer de lance…the most venomous snakes in Costa Rica (2 of which I encountered on night hikes),

2. The eyelash pit viper (several of which I encountered)

 3. Pretty much any other snakes

4. A rickety bridge we had to cross over a river that could support only one person at a time.

5. My personal favorite: the “assassin bug” or “kissing bug”, a large nocturnal insect which is notorious for biting people’s lips in the middle of the night and transmitting the Chagas disease by defecating on the wound. The Chagas is transmitted into your bloodstream and eats away at the tissues in your heart causing you to die of cardiac arrest about twenty years after you are bitten. NICE. (Luckily no encounters with the Assassin bug, as I was COMPLETELY obsessive compulsive with the mosquito net I slept under. I did however wake up from one or two nightmares completely convinced I had been bitten and was going to die immediately from some intensified version of the disease. )

But the unforgettable experiences far outweighed the risks of the trip. Even just the cabin itself was amazing. We had no electricity-so no lights or hot water, and the place was crawling with insects, but the PORCH made just about everything worth it. I don’t think I will ever find another porch like this. The bird watching I did just sitting down on the floor of that porch was some of the best I’ve done in Costa Rica. The forest it looked out to was just so incredibly beautiful. It also gave us a safe viewing spot for the insane rainstorms that hit toward the end of the trip.

The night hikes blew my mind. Things I never imagined I would actually see in real life were commonplace in Penas at night.

The Tabanid flies. Though these little blood sucking demons not only covered me in bites during the day, but decided to fall by the hundreds onto our candle-lit dinner table at night, I can’t help but look at them in retrospect as humorous. I will never forget the night they were so bad that literally the entire table covered their heads with sweatshirt hoods or rain jackets and just yelled constantly as one by one flies bounced off our heads and into our soup. Most of us were completely hysterical before dinner was even over.

The rain: I really don’t know if I’ll ever see rain like this again. The first night it started I sat straight up in bed thinking that a tree had fallen on the cabin, but when the noise didn’t subside, I realized that it was in fact rain POUNDING on the tin roof. Doors started slamming with the wind (this is at 3am mind you) and several of us got up to watch…which really wasn’t necessary since the rain would continue on just as hard throughout the morning and about half the day. Since a hot shower was nonexistent anyway, some decided just to take advantage of nature’s amenities…

The trip back was quite a different trek than the one going into the valley. It rained almost the entire hike, and most of it was uphill. I didn’t fall as many times (probably because I had more sleep) but my feet were KILLING me by the time I reached the end. I was with the first group that made it back again but our level of exhaustion was ten times that of when we reached Eladio’s. When we made it to the information sign the five of us hugged and screamed. It reminded me a lot of (Paden you can probably guess) arriving at the ferry after our insane day of hiking on the last day of wilderness orientation. Not as many miles but I think this trek was equally difficult, and the excitement at seeing the end just as rewarding.

Regreso del Bosque Nubioso y Vivo con Mi Familia Nueva

So its around 6:30 am and I'm sitting in my brnad new bed in my very own brand new bedroom in my brand new home in the house of the Castillo Moreira family. Its amazing to have a little space for myself but also a little strange and sad after living with a big group of people for so long. I met my family yesterday after returning from the cloud forest via an epic rainy uphill 10 mile hike (I'll get to that later). I was able to take a quick shower at the institute, get dressed and was then shipped off to my family's house after a few goodbyes. To be honest I was terrified. This has been the part of this EAP experience that I've had by far the most anxiety about, mostly because my spanish is awful, and because I'm awkward enough meeting new people when we speak the same language. When the van pulled away, it was literally the first time I'd been alone, without at least one of the same 30 people I've been used to seeing every day, and it was a weird, weird feeling, but it subsided a little when I met my parents. Marianela and Tarcicio are artists and have their own gallery down the street from their BEAUTIFUL home. Marianela only speaks Spanish and Tarcicio speaks a tiny bit of English-enough to help me out sometimes- but prefers Spanish at all times. They are very sweet and welcoming. Upon inviting me in, I was offered some amazing pineapple tea, sat down and began my first very awkward conversation/charades show with my new parents. For some reason, even after 3 weeks of Spanish classes, it was nearly impossible for me to string together a real sentence. It might have been a combination of nerves and exhaustion, but I still felt pretty stupid. My brother and two sisters filtered in from school and were all very sweet. Huayra is fourteen, Ipsilan is twelve, and Gudari is ten. I've done an excellent job of butchering all of their names so far but they've been extremely patient with me. All three of them speak English, and Huayra definitely prefers it, which is a little bit of a relief, but Tarcicio prefers that everyone speak Spanish to help me learn-which is also good. After introductions and some more attempts at conversation, I was able to unpack and settle into my new room for a little while. My room is probably the most amazing part of this set up. I have two giant windows that look out over the family's garden and can see into Monteverde. The sunsets are incredible and sitting at my desk for a time period of about thirty minutes I saw an emerald toucanet and three bird species I'd never even seen before. After settling in, I went downstairs and watched TeleTico with my brother and sisters for a while. I don't understand Wizards of Waverly Place in English so watching it dubbed in Spanish was even more interesting. We then had dinner, which was amazing-with more great tea, potatoes, rice, and a kind of vegetable stew, and coconut bread. I've loved the food on this whole trip, but this change of dinner staples was a welcome one. Dinner conversation was much less awkward and afterwards I played chess for about an hour with Ipsi and Gudari. Both of them are much better than I am, and after being completely shown up by the giggling chessmasters I went to bed. I'm very excited to get to know the family better. Since being back, I've chatted with a few of my friends about their homestays and they're all having amazing times. I'm still missing everyone a little, and curious about how everyone from the Penas group's first night went. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon. I dont have access to a camera usb cord right now but I should be able to get one from someone...eventually. Today the goal is to get in some more preliminary research on the manakins and to spend some more time with my family. I dont have quite enough energy or time right now to write about Penas (I can hear my family awake downstairs) but I will try to devote my next post to it because it was an incredible, incredible trip. Its good to be on my own but its giving me more time to miss everyone -from home as well as here. Love you all