Sunday, Feb 15: Corcovado

Today was our first full day in Corcovado. I woke up around 6, which is when the sun comes up. I thought it was too early, since breakfast isn’t till 7, but mornings are very beautiful. We faced west, so there was no sunrise, but it’s so peaceful in the morning. It’s great to just walk on the beach. A lot of other people were up too. Nights are really hot and humid, and half the time I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I went the bed because I’m sweating so much. There’s so much dew we all thought it had rained.

After breakfast we set up a makeshift classroom in the shade so Alan could lecture us on plant leaves. It’s really cool to have to stop lecture to watch the scarlet macaques fly overhead, or because there’s a coati (really cute mammal) walking behind us. After lecture we split into three groups to go on hikes in the forest. First I went with Alan and Yemen. We saw some 800 year old trees and boat billed herons. Next was with Anjali and Pablo. We saw a small lizard, a golden orb weaving spider, leaf cutter ants, and termites. After lunch we had a group lecture before the third round of hikes. We learned about some trees, including the mango and wild cashew. Apparently both those plants are toxic, especially if you are allergic to poison ivy, which of course I am. The only reason humans can eat mango is because the poison goes away as the fruit ripens. Lecture was interrupted by a tiger heron this time. Very pretty. After lecture was a hike with Tania and Moncho. Tania kicked our asses up the steps on the path, holy crap. I had trouble keeping up. There were huge ant hills along the path. At the top was this dead, hollow tree. It was really big. Moncho went inside and caught and bat. It had really sharp teeth and tried to bite him. It was really cool though, we even got to pet it.

After the hikes were done we had to the rest of the afternoon free. Almost everyone hiked the the waterfall in one of the path loops. It was kind of a rough hike, but the waterfall was really cool. We could climb up the rocks to the top part and sit under the falls. After the waterfall I ran back to beat everyone to the showers. There were enclosed showers, but they were super sketchy so everyone used the outside ones. The water was cold, but since Corcovado is so hot and humid it felt really good. After dinner we had a really boring reading assignment, then Luke and I went to the lagoon to see the caymens. We shined our flashlights so we could see the eyes reflect back. We were really lucky to see them, but I wish we could see more than two red dots moving in the water. It was still pretty cool though. After that I started making flash cards for all the species I need to memorize. I hate latin nomenclature.