History of Costa Rica: Part 1

I started to write a post on the health system here, but realized that without a history of the country, things would not be in context.  So, even though I’m more of a biologist than a historian, here it goes (many thanks to our professor, who though a physician by training, seems to be an expert in everything, including history;  I’ve used the outline and basic information he gave us to construct this post!):

A short history of Costa Rica…

Like North America, people reached Central America by way of the Bering Strait at some point between 12.000 and 8.000 BC.  Since Costa Rica is part of an isthmus, it has been affected by both North American (the Mayans) and South American (the Amazonians) influences.  Organization of small local governments occurred between 12.000 and 1.500 BC.

Then, in 1502, Christopher Columbus bumped into Costa Rica on his 4th trip to the New World.  At this point, there were over 400.000 indigenous people living in Costa Rica.  Between 1502 and 1570, the conquistadors and their associated disease had killed thousands of indigenous people.

Spain ruled through the “Audiencia de Santiago de Guatemala”, which extended from southern Mexico to Panama.  Then the Kingdom of Guatemala evolved, then Costa Rica was more or less in two parts: Costa Rica and Nicoya (the northwestern peninsula and surrounding area).

Though Costa Rica is know well-known for bananas and coffee, these crops are not actually native to Costa Rica.  The first crops included corn and beans.

As in other colonies, certain populations were exploited for slavery.  In Costa Rica, the exploited populations were the indigenous communities where the conquistadors had already killed many of the people.  Only 7.000 indigenous (of the original over 400.000 pre-Columbus population) survived by the year 1611.  Pablo Presbere helped the indigenous to lead a revolt against the Spainards, but was sentenced to a grisly execution in 1710:

“Given the testimony and the other evidence…I do hereby condemn…Pablo Presbere…to be…placed on a pack mule and led through the streets of this city while a crier declares and describes his crimes.  Outside the walls of this city, he shall be tied to a post and have his eyes gouged out, ad modum beli [in military mode] and then shot by crossbow, since we are without an executioner who knows how to apply the garrot.  Upon his death, he shall have his head cut off and placed high upon the post so that all might see it.”   Don Lorenzo Antonio de Granda y Balbín, 23 June 1970

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  And this was in place of “the garrot”, which was the execution practice of sitting one on a chair and applying a tourniquet to the neck and continually tightening it…

Back to history: the colony continued to grow throughout the 1700s and 1800s.  Coffee plants were introduced in the late 1700s or early 1800s and quickly became a major crop.

In 1821, some Mexicans decided that the did not appreciate being ruled by the Spainards, so they started the Mexican War of Independence.  The result was that Central America declared independence on 15 September, 1821.  In Costa Rica, they like to say that “independence arrived by horse” because Costa Ricans didn’t get the official news until 13 October 1821 when a horseman brought the documents.

Costa Rica was still in two parts-the main part and Nicoya.  Nicoyans signed a petition to be annexed to Costa Rica, and on 25 July 1824, Guatamala ratified the Act to allow Costa Rica to look as we know it today…..

Now that I have Costa Rica looking the way that it does today,  I’ll leave you waiting for the rest of the history until the next post!

Pura Vida

I’m currently working on two (maybe three) longer blogs that are taking a while to compose.  So, I’ve decided to write a quick one about Spanish in Costa Rica.

There are two things that you hear only in Costa Rica: “pura vida” and “mae”.

Pura Vida: a catch-all phrase that can mean just about anything, depending upon your inflection and face when you say it—”pura vida” translates literally into “pure life”, and is more or less the equivalent to how Disney’s “The Lion King” explains “Hakuna matata”–no worries, no cares.  But pura vida is more….it’s used in almost every situation…even when it may not appear to make sense…

Ask a person how they are, response : “pura vida”

Ask a person if they had a good day, response: “pura vida”

Tell a person you’re sorry to hear that their pet died, response : “pura vida”

Ask someone if they want gallo pinto with that breakfast order, response : “pura vida”

You are leaving, and say goodbye, response: “pura vida”

Such a simple phrase can be so complex for us Gringos!

“Mae”: Has been described to me as most closely related to “dude” in English.  I guess if you’re from the West Coast this makes more sense.  Maybe in the the rest of the US “man” or “guy” makes more sense…

¿Cómo estas mae? = How are you, dude?

¿Q’ mae? ~ What’s up dude?

Mae, eso mae tuvó un cuchillo mae. = Dude, that dude had a knife, dude.

You might laugh at the last one, but I’ve heard more “mae”s littering the Tico talk than there is human trash in the ocean (you may know it’s bad, but have you checked this out?  http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm).  It’s interesting to see the age gradient that occurs with this, also.  The older generations never use mae, but college-age Ticos use mae all of the time!  Pura vida is used by all generations, but mae seems to be concentrated in the younger.  Both are only found in Costa Rica….

¡PURA VIDA, MAE!

More Nicaragua!

As part of our “Nicaraguan experience”, we also did some obligatory sight-seeing, including a boat tour on Lake Nicaragua and a visit to one of the many volcanoes.

Boats

There were enough of us to take three boats, and the boats looked like this:

Nicaraguan boat tour

It was a clear morning, and the water was calm on the Lake.

Lago Nicaragua

We meandered through some of the small islands located on the edge of the Lake.  The islands are mostly owned by rich families that have profitable businesses or companies.  Though the names had no meaning to us, the tour guides knew the name of each family that owned each house.

He pointed out the national flower of Nicaragua, the Sancuanjoche:

Sancuanjoche

We also passed by a small island inhabited by monkeys (there is a caretaker that brings them food, otherwise there’s not enough fruit on the island to sustain the population).

Island of Monkeys

After making sure that all our bags were zippered shut and asking if anyone was afraid of monkeys, he navigated us close enough to the island for one of the monkeys to jump onto the boat with us!  She went through the boat, smelling and looking for food.  She was unsuccessful until she reached the bag of our professor, who had an apple in her bag.  The monkey unzipped the exact pocket where the apple was and then sat munching contentedly.

A munching monkey

After floating on the Lake and having a close encounter with a monkey, we set off for one of the parks where there is a volcano.

Volcano

We then went to the Masaya Volcano National Park.  There was a museum with information about Nicaragua, its history and geography:

Map of Nicaragua

After the trip through the museum, we moved on to…..

Volcano Masaya

We rode the bus to the base of the hill, and were told that we could spend no longer than 20 minutes to climb up and down.  After a few minutes of climbing, the view was amazing….

View from the top

After hiking to the top of the hill, and being able to look into the crater below (I think it last was active in April of 2008), it was rapidly becoming apparent why the 20 minute rule was in place.  We were being asphyxiated by the fumes emitted by the crater.  The smell of sulfur permeated the air, and made it heavy to breathe.  We returned to the bus and were on our way!

Crater of Volcano Masaya

Leaving Nicaragua

We drove through the streets of Grenada early in the morning, but there were plenty of people up and about.

Grenada in the morning

When we got to the border, I had my camera out, and took some pictures of the bustle of the border.  There are many people selling various things (hammocks and pens among other things) and food (drinks, cashews, bags of snacks), including the woman who was selling these (sorry I didn’t catch the name!)…

Nicaragua border food!

Basically, a little plastic sandwich bag with a piece of cheese and some sautéd onions, with which ever condiments you like.  Though my stomach has eaten and tolerated many new dishes since my stay here, I decided to steer clear of the border food this time!

Here is a final picture of people at the border….

Nicaragua border

Nicaragua

One of my previous posts concerned going to Panama to renew my visa (90 day limit on the tourist visa when visiting Costa Rica).  Since we will be here for the Global Health semester for longer than 90 days, a trip to Nicaragua was incorporated into our schedule to allow us to renew our visas while also seeing the healthcare system in Nicaragua for comparison with the Costa Rican system ( I realize that I am terribly behind on describing what I’ve been learning in the Global Health semester, but I will post on everything shortly.)

We left San Jose at 4 am.  Early, yes, but we had plenty of time on the 6 hour ride to catch up on sleep.  It was necessary to leave early not only to be sure that we made it through the border, but also because we had an appointment with one of the health care facilities.  We traveled through the Central Valley from San Jose to Guanacaste.  Guanacaste is much flatter than San Jose, and the large pastures and distant hills remind me of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Guanacaste

Guanacaste was where I was last year for the course in Tropical Ecology that Wilkes offers.  It was nice to return and see a few familiar sites.

When we reached the border, the procedure was similar to that that I described for Panama.  Passports were stamped by Costa Rican officials, we re boarded the bus, drove across the border, got out passports stamped by the Nicaraguan officials, and then we were officially in Nicaragua!

Nicaraguan border

We drove through Nicaragua for a few hours, passing windmills (not sure how they compare with the Waymart Wind Farm, however…)

Nicaraguan windmills

A map of Nicaragua (which is North of Costa Rica)…we entered on the West side of the large Lake (Lake Nicaragua, or en Español–Lago de Nicaragua).  Fast fact from the CIA World Handbook: Nicaragua is the largest Central American country, slightly smaller than New York State.

CIA Nicaragua map

We made it to the first town we were to visit, Rivas, where we visited two of the health care centers.

Here’s one of the physician offices and patient rooms:

Nicaraguan physician office

More about health care coming up in a another post….eventually.

We then made our way to the hotel in Grenada, which was super nice (sorry I don’t have a picture).  After being piano-less for over 4 months, entering the lobby and seeing a piano made my day!  I spent a few hours sitting at the piano

The next day, we went to Managua, the capital, to visit the Ministry of Health and hear about the labs and the health system in Nicaragua.

Managua

On the way back, we stopped in Masaya at the artisan’s fair and had a chance to look at a variety of local crafts, including: clay pots, clay whistles (in the shapes of animals, and painted beautifully), hammocks, clothing, jewelry, and food.  No picture, sorry!

More about Nicaragua in the next post!

La Comida Tica (Costa Rican food!)

When the topic of food comes up, I can go on for hours.  Eating is a big deal in my house.  Chances are that if you stop by to visit we are (in order of likelihood): eating, cooking, baking, or thinking about eating.  If you step in the door to our house, you’ll probably be offered something to eat within the first 10 minutes (beware if my father offers, he’s becoming known for his strange collection of natural foods that he enjoys sharing).  In any case, when traveling, the chances to be exposed to new food are very high, and I’ve certainly come into contact with many new foods in Costa Rica….

Fruits (a great place to start)

You can imagine that in the tropics, tropical fruit is nothing short of amazing.  Though we can commonly find and buy pineapple (piña), banana (banano), and coconuts (coco) in the States, the ones here are much cheaper and much more flavorful.  Also very common here are papaya and mangos.  Fruits are frequently sold on the streets–I bought two gorgeous avacados (aguacate) a few days ago for 500 colones, for about 85 cents.  I also bought three apples for the same price.  The avacados are grown here, while most of the apples I’ve seen are imported from Chile.  I also think that it’s amusing that despite having a huge variety of tropical fruits that are imported to the US from Costa Rica (can anyone say Chiquita?), there is also at least a small degree of reciprocality–all the peaches (melocotón) that I’ve seen have little stickers that say “USA”.

Also, although we seem to eat a lot of watermelon here, I must say that I enjoy the flavor of the watermelon in the States much more than here.  It’s not bad here, just not as good as at home.  Though perhaps my happy memories of watermelon are also linked to the memories of sitting in the backyard with my family, spitting the seeds into the grass.

There are many tropical fruits here that I have never encountered (or very rarely) in the US….mamón, plantain, jocote to name a few…again, sorry I don’t have pictures.

Also, instead of having what are referred to in the US as “lemon” and “lime”, there are the “limon” (which is what the word implies, a sort of a cross between a lime and a lemon) and “limon dulce” (which is yellow and reminiscent of what is considered a lemon in the US).  Mandaríns are common, though much bigger than in the US.  There are many orange groves, and the orange juice here is wonderful.

Many of the fruits are used for making refrescos and batidos.  Refrescos are unsweetened (usually-add your own sugar) juices of just about anything with a drop of juice to be squeezed.  They are sold everywhere, and we’ve gotten to sample quite a few of them, as they are served regularly with meals at the stations.  Batidos are like milk shakes, though they can be made with milk or water, again with just about anything that can be considered a fruit or vegetable.

There is a particularly interesting refresco that it took me a few looks before I decided I would try it:

Refresco: eyeballs or frog eggs...which do you think?

The little floaty things that look exceptionally like amphibian eggs are actually the seeds of the fruit that is used to make the drink (though I am not sure of the name of the fruit at this time).  After questioning several times about the identity of the little floaty things, I tried it, and it’s now one of my favorites.  Though I’ve never had “bubble tea” in the US, I’ve heard several people describe it, and imagine that drinking this refresco is similar to drinking the ‘bubbles’ in bubble tea.

So, what does a typical meal in Costa Rica look like?

This is breakfast:

Desayuno

Breakfast is awesome.  Fresh fruit (varies depending on which area of the country–may include, but is not limited to: pineapple, papaya, bananas, watermelon, avacado), eggs, bread, and gallo pinto.

Gallo pinto is a very Costa Rican dish, and the Ticos are very proud of it.  However, if you are anywhere with both Ticos and Nicos (Nicaraguan natives), you do not, under any circumstances bring up the topic of where gallo pinto was first made.  There have reportedly been many arguments over who “discovered”/”invented” this tasty and filling breakfast dish.  Gallo pinto is made over the course of a night and morning.  The beans and rice are cooked separately the night before, and then cooked together the following morning with onions and cilantro (here, culantro).  Gallo pinto is a traditional breakfast dish.

This could be lunch:

Almuerzo

I got this when out one day.  Another great thing about traveling in Costa Rica is that it’s insanely easy to get a filling meal for less than $3.  This lunch was ~$2.54, including a refresco.  It consisted of rice with chicken (arroz con pollo), French fries (papas fritas, literally “fried potatoes”), and ensalada Ruso (“Russian salad”, which was something like potato salad, though also with beets, which added an interesting color to the plate!).

Here’s another lunch possibility:

Almuerzo 2

Mango juice (nectar de mango) and an empanada, which is kind of like a pierogi!  Empandas can be fried (as this one was) or baked (slightly less fat?), and are usually filled with some sort of meat.  This wasn’t my lunch, but the lunch of a friend–that day, I got this:

Almuerzo 3

Because I really like gallo pinto, I’ll eat it at anytime during the day, not only at the traditional breakfast time.  This dish included gallo pinto, cheese, cabbage salad, and maduros (fried ripe plantains).  Our third companion that day got this:

Almuerzo 4

Coffee (cafe) and a stuffed, fried yucca ball (which I think is yuquita).  Coffee is a huge industry here, more about that in a later post.  The little fried yucca ball was stuffed with meat:

Yuquita

Yucca is fairly common here.  It’s a root, and when prepared, it resembles a very fibery potato in both taste and texture (but with more fibers), lots of starch.

Now that I’ve covered breakfast and lunch (and since dinner is generally very similar to lunch), it’s time to move on to dessert!….

Dessert

A typical (and very, very tasty) dessert is tres leches (three milk cake):

Tres leches

The recipe calls for a mixture of three milks (evaporated, sweetened condensed, and igular) to be poured over the cake after it’s baked and allowed to soak into the cake.  The cake is then frozen or refrigerated overnight, then topped with whipped cream immediately before serving.  After clogging your arteries beyond belief, it can be said that this cake truly is “to die for”!

Other deserts include: galletas de amor (“cookies of love”) and, following the tradition of including rice in the diet as much as possible-rice pudding (arroz con leche).  The love cookies are sandwich cookies-there are two sugar cookies in fancy shapes that are filled with dulce de leche (sweet of milk).  Dulce de leche is similar in taste to caramel and is made by heating sweetened condensed milk (either on the stove top or in a pressure cooker).  It’s included in MANY desserts here.  you can even buy little cans of it to send in lunch boxes with cookies or crackers for dipping!

Other foods

Cacao will get its own post in the future.

I said before that empanadas are usually filled with meat–they are when they are being eaten as a course or side dish–however, they may also be found stuffed with fruits.  Empanadas stuffed with guanabana or pineapple are especially my favorites.  They are baked and sweet.

There are also many, many types of snacks that can be purchased just about anywhere.  Fried plantains and fried yucca chips are more common that potato chips, though just as unhealthy!  There are also O’s made of corn flour that I’ve become fond of, though I can’t remember what they are called!  They’re in this picture, along with a pineapple, avacado, and some tasty pineapple empanadas:

Snack time!

And of course, I’ve eaten my fair share of tortillas while here.  It seems like each family has their own way of making tortillas, including ingredients and methods.  One of the families I stayed with was kind enough to share their secrets and I learned how to make their style of tortillas.  Here’s the necessary ingredients and equipment:

Making tortillas

Flour, water, salt, cheese.  The tortilla press, and a hot pan:

Learning how to make tortillas!

Until next time….¡Buen provecho!

Las Cruces

OTS has three biological stations in Costa Rica: La Selva (where I completed my frog research), Las Cruces (where I currently am), and Palo Verde (where I will be in a few weeks).  Currently, we are at Las Cruces, which contains the Wilson Botanical Garden.  Since the Garden is the center of the station, I’ve decided to dedicate a post to all the sites that may be seen in this small area.

One of the many parts of the Wilson Garden

The story behind the Garden: Robert and Catherine Wilson were involved in gardening in the US, but moved to Costa Rica to begin the Botanical Garden in 1962.  They began a collection of plants from around the world, focusing particularly on palms and bromeliads.  In 1973, OTS purchased the property and continued maintaining the Garden.  Today, the Garden covers 30 acres and over 30,000 species of plants, 60% of which are not native to Costa Rica.  The Garden also contains the world’s second largest collection of palms (though I’m not entirely sure who has the largest….if you find out, please let me know).

We are staying in the Wilson house, where the Wilson’s actually lived while they were here.  The ‘front door’ looks like this:

Entrance to the Wilson house

This picture reminds me of home, although this is a much “neater” version of both the usual ‘at home’ situation and the ‘here’ situation.  After the first week, this organized version of footwear becomes a mess that requires careful navigation to safely cross.  You find yourself actually contemplating whether or not you really, really need to go through the process of parting the sea of flip-flops, sneakers, cleats, and muddy boots that await your exit or entrance to the house.  It really does make me feel at home. (though my mother is probably cringing at the thought that now the whole world can potentially know that we do not have a nice neat entrance to our house! oh well…)

One of our first days here, we went on a tour of the the grounds, and now it’s time for your tour!….

Wilson Botanical Garden

We started through a portion of the Garden that contained a large tree with fruits on it.  Anyone hungry for a fig? (I have to interrupt here to say that anytime I hear the word “fig”, I’m immediately taken to the portion of the story of Beezus and Ramona Quimby, by Beverly Cleary, in which Ramona is ‘having a party’ and trying to force the unfortunate attendees to eat Fig Newtons after telling her guests that the Newtons were filled with chopped up worms, not figs.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should.  You’ll find it in the children’s section of the nearest library.)

Figs!

Our guide proceeded to explain how the fig flowers are pollinated: Figs are pollinated by wasps–sometimes the wasps are generalists, and may pollinate many types of figs, while others are specialists, and one type of wasp can pollinate only one type of fig.  The flowers of the fig are actually inside of what we would typically consider the ‘fruit’.  The female wasps exit a fig carrying the pollen from the flowers of that fig, and flies in search of another fig in which to enter and lay her eggs (I’m not exactly sure where in this process she is mated and becomes fertile, whether it’s while in her ‘home’ fig or on the fly…again, if you find out, please let me know).  When she reaches what she deems a suitable fig, she crawls inside, lays her eggs, and dies.  Therefore, many figs actually contain: pollinated flowers, wasp eggs, and wasps.  Perhaps Ramona wasn’t so far from the truth!  (Note: not all figs require this specialized pollination process, so there is a chance that the figs in Fig Newtons do not contain wasps, depending on the type of fig they use.  Please continue to eat Fig Newtons if you already do so, because I would not enjoy being accused by Nabisco if they suffer from a fall in the number of sales of Fig Newtons after this post!)

After making us seriously consider every fig we had ever eaten in the past, our guide moved us into the bromeliad section of the Garden.  Whether you know it or not, I can almost guarantee that at some point in your life, you have eaten part of a bromeliad.  While some bromeliads are epiphytic (they grow on other plants, and don’t need soil on the ground to survive), some bromeliads grow on the ground, like the common pineapple.  While the pineapples that we eat are typically grown on large plantations, we had the opportunity to see an undomesticated pineapple growing:

a tiny pineapple!

It was tiny!!  The tiny pineapple was about as big as a lemon.  The guide said that it could be eaten, but that it contains a much higher concentration of the meat-digesting enzyme than a pineapple as we know it.  Therefore, you wouldn’t be able to eat much of it before feeling like your tongue is being digested–something he had personally experience and would not recommend.

There were other bromeliads, too.  This one had a central rosette of leaves that were pink…

a bromeliad

As we went through the Garden,  I was continually being left behind because I was stopping to take lots of pictures.  Therefore, I have a picture of a very pretty purple flower, but I think I missed any explanation of what it was because I was taking pictures of bromeliads while he was ahead explaining the flower.  Here it is, for your viewing pleasure, though I’m sad to say that it’s lacking a story:

unidentified flower

We moved to the area where more large plants were growing, including the banana plants.  These are uncultivated bananas, and like the uncultivated pineapple above, they are much smaller than what we think of when we think of a banana.

Banana plant

(Incidentally, here they are “bananos”, not “bananas”)  These bananas also happened to be pink, not yellow.

a tiny banana

The tiny bananas contain seeds that are about the size of pepper corns that are dispersed by birds.  The bananas contain compounds that cause slight diarrhea, so that after the birds eat the banana and seeds, they are inclined to deposit a small heap of fertilizer containing the seeds.  In this way, bananas are quite efficient at spreading their young (even going so far as to cause the birds to include the environment suitable for the sprouting!).

tiny banana seeds

We moved to a large stand of bamboo, where the guide told us that the bamboo can grow as fast as one foot per day!  I don’t feel that I can make an even somewhat accurate guess as to how tall this stand was–just that it was HUGE!!

bamboo

We ended our tour at the ‘mirador’.  With this view…..

Mirador

Until next time!

STRI-Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

“The STRI Bocas del Toro Research Station is located just outside the town of Bocas del Toro on Isla Colon, in Bocas del Toro Province, Panama . Isla Colon, a 61 sq km island, is situated in the Archipielago de Bocas del Toro along the Caribbean coast just 35 km from Panama ’s boarder with Costa Rica and is part of an archipelago of more than 68 islands and numerous mangrove keys.” (http://www.stri.org/english/research/facilities/marine/bocas_del_toro/general_information.php)

I spent an afternoon at STRI with several other students from La Selva.  We had a personal tour of the property, and heard about some of the awesome research that is being done on the island:

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Bocas del Toro

We first toured the research building, and were pleased to find hundreds of O. pumilio waiting to be stared at!  They were being used for a project investigating the importance of color and call in mate selection and female preference to choose one male over another.  They were being packed up as we were there, ready to be shipped to the States the following day.  We got there just in time to see the last of them!

Terrariums with frogs lined the walls of the station

Orange frogs with black spots

Green frogs with black spots!

Despite being different colors, the frogs at STRI were the same species as the frogs I had studied at La Selva (Oophaga pumilio).  The basis of my research this summer was to try to determine why more color morphs do not exist at La Selva.  It was exciting to get to see the other morphs of the frogs!

As we continued through the property, we entered a small forest, and our knowledgeable guide pointed out many interesting things:

Bark of the eucalyptus tree

Eucalyptus leaves

Can you find the animal in this image?

As we were walking through the forest, the guide kept looking for the sloth that lives there, and we finally saw it!

Sloth-though I can't recall if it was the 2 or 3 toed variety.

Also in the forest were MANY ants.  The leaf-cutters were busy transporting leaves home to gorw their crops-they grow fungus on the leaves and harvest the fungus for food; they do not eat the leaves, only the fungus.  Apparently they have quite rigorous standards for the leaves they allow in their nests-not all leaf bits make the cut!  Surrounding the entrances to their nests are thousands or leaves that were deemed inappropriate for whatever reason.  The ants are industrious, working day and night, and only stopping if it rains very hard (they would be washed away) or is very sunny (they would fry).  I guess that with millions of mouths to feed, they have to stay busy!

These leaf cutter ants are ready do do some home decorating! (These ants are from La Selva, not STRI, because after you see a few leaf-cutters, you've seen them all, and sighting them again, in a different location loses it's novelty. These ants were taking flowers back to their nest.)

One of my favorite groups of plants is the Mimosa, a genera of plants belonging to the pea/bean family (Fabaceae).  The Mimosa are touch-sensitive, and the leaves of the plant appear to ‘fold up’ when they are touched (as you may imagine, this can lead to many hours of entertainment ).  It’s believed that this adaptation evolved to help the plants deal  with large amounts of rain-when the leaves fold and expose less surface area, they do not have to evolved strong petioles (petiole=the little “stem” that attaches the ‘leaf’ to the main stem) to keep the leaves from being torn from the plant.  When the rain drops touch the leaves, a complex system of tiny ‘water pumps’ in the petioles of the leaves cause the orientation of the leaves to change.  After the rain (or the person who immensely enjoys watching the leaves fold) leaves, the leaves will return shortly to their erect positions.

Note for the biology-minded: I did realize after writing the immediate previous section that since the Mimosa are part of Fabaceae, I actually misused the words ‘leaf’ and ‘petiole’.  I’m leaving it this way to avoid confusion among those of us who are not Dr.Klemow.

There were many individuals at STRI, and I made a beautiful video of the folding of the leaves, but was disappointed to find that this blog does not allow me to post video.  Therefore, pictures will have to do for now….

This is a normal, erect Mimosa leaf.

This is a Mimosa after being disturbed

This is a Mimosa after being REALLY disturbed

After walking through the forest, we moved on to the marine part of the Station.  There was a touching tank with many different organisms for us to handle.  The guide was initially going to just show us the tank-he said that usually the children that visit for field trips enjoy spending hours at the tank-but then he saw that we were essentially apparently a lot like a bunch of children on a field trip.  We spent quite a bit of time at the tank!  Here are a few of the things we saw:

This was a large starfish...

and on the bottom of the large starfish was a small brittle star!

Sea urchin

Another sea urchin

A very fancy lobster in hiding.

Super-cool fish that I can't recall the name of, but I think that it is invasive.

dock of STRI

Me, deep in thought about the subject of the next blog....

¡Hasta pronto!

Panama! -getting there

(Note: After beginning this post, I noticed that it was getting super-long.  I’ve divided it into two, and will post shortly another on my experiences in Panama and returning to Costa Rica.)

U.S. citizens are not required to apply for a visa when visiting Costa Rica;  instead, tourists are automatically granted a 90 visa upon entering the country.  If, however, you want to stay for longer than 90 days, you must renew your visa by exiting the country for 72 hours and re-entering (at which time you get a new visa for another 90 days).  I will be in classes at the time that my original visa from June will expire, so I left the country during the time between my programs to get a new visa.

The capital of Costa Rica, San Jose, is centrally located in the ‘Central Valley’ (more or less surrounded by volcanoes and mountains, check out map at http://www.duke.edu/~gar6/Costa-Rica-Map-large.jpg), and is the hub for buses traveling throughout the country.  Since both Nicaragua and Panama are both about 6 hours by bus from San Jose, it would be just as easy/difficult to travel to either to leave Costa Rica.  I chose to go to Panama because when I was studying the frogs at La Selva, I read many papers about the research of O. pumilio (my study-frog) that has been conducted in Panama, specifically at STRI.  The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) has four biological stations in Panama, one of which is located on an island off the northeast coast of the county.  The group of islands is known as Bocas del Toro, and STRI has a station on the main island.  At the station, there are many morphs of O. pumilio, not just the red and blue morph that is found at La Selva.  There have been many studies on these morphs, including the natural history, hybridization, and mate selection among the morphs.  I hoped to visit the station and get the chance to see other morphs of O. pumilio.

 

Remember these little guys from the last post?

So, after my research at La Selva was done, I and the other students returned to San Jose and began to go our separate ways.  Some went home to the States immediately after research, others were to travel throughout Costa Rica and Central America, and I headed to Panama.  This is where the saga begins….

The morning that I was to catch the bus to Panama, I woke at 4:30 to catch the 5:00 local bus to the larger bus station where I got in line to get a ticket for the Panama bus.  When it was my turn, I went to the window, and asked for a ticket to Sixaola (the Costa Rican border town).  Turns out, the last ticket was sold to the guy in front of me in line!  Fortunately (or unfortunately?) they also sell a certain number of tickets “a pie”, meaning that you don’t get a seat, but you are able to be “on foot” for the duration of the 6 hour trip.  Standing for 6 hours after getting up at 4:30 sounded like such a great option (combined with the fact that I needed to leave the country to renew my visa) that I bought the “a pie” ticket.  I’m just now wondering if “a pie” is slightly cheaper than “in a seat”, or if I paid just as much as if I had had a seat…?

The next item on the agenda for the morning was to empty my bladder before departing on a 6 hour journey on a bus with no bathroom.  This was my first encounter with paying to use the facilities.  Yes, I’m still not really sure how this works, either;  I only know that I paid something like 20 cents for a lady to hand me some TP and let me into the bathroom (in the Martz stations in NEPA, I know that tokens are required to open the bathroom, but you don’t have to pay for them, just ask for them at the desk).  In any case, the fee was paid and the bladder was taken care of.  This may be an example of Costa Rica squeezing every last drop out of the tourists that they can – money-wise, I mean.

 

HERE I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR LACK OF PHOTOS IN THIS POST (not for the last paragraph, perhaps, but in general;  I am a visual learner, so I like to have lots of photos and things to keep my attention.  However, I was not going to go around taking pictures of the bus station, buses, and TP-lady, so I have a severe lack of pictures for this post in general.  I will try harder in the future to take more pictures of mundane Costa Rican sites for your viewing pleasure.)

 

Back to the story:

Since I was “a pie”, I and the other fortunate “a pie”-ers had to wait until all the “in seat”-ers had boarded the bus.  This whole situation turned out to be dramatically in my favor.  While I was standing next to the bus, there was a group of very conspicuous college-age, non-Ticos (“Tico” = Costa Rican citizen) boarding the bus in drips and drabs.  A large group of US college students were traveling to Panama to complete a biology service project.  Their leader had boarded the bus ahead of many of them, but held the tickets for all of them.  As they tried to board in small groups every few minutes, the conductor stopped them and asked for their tickets, in Spanish.  However, it appeared that my Spanish, though fairly horrible, was better than the students’ understanding of Spanish.  I was therefore a bit of a spontaneous translator for the students, and helped many of them by explaining to the conductor in broken Spanish that they were with the group, etc.  When I was finally allowed to board the bus, I stood next to a few of the students and learned about their program (6 hours is plenty of time to learn a lot about anyone!).  Their leader was a Tica (“Tica” = female Costa Rican citizen) who coordinates a program for sea-turtle rescue in the northeast of Panama, near where I was going.  (At some point during the bus ride, I sat on the floor and caught a few zzz’s.  Sitting on the floor may sound disgusting, but after 2 months of living in the rain forest, sitting on a dry floor was a relief!  Also at some point, the bus stopped for 15 minutes at a roadside restaurant, and we could get off and stretch our legs)

When we finally arrived at the border (only 5 1/2 hours later!), I made sure to stay close to my new acquaintances to take advantage of the fact that their leader had crossed the border multiple times and knew how the whole processed worked.  She graciously took me under-wing for the process, and I am eternally grateful for her help!  I learned the following from her:

How to Cross the Costa Rica/Panama border (as a parasite of another group) (the process is slightly different for someone traveling solo who actually knows what he or she is doing!):

1) Get off the bus in Sixaola, the Costa Rican border town.  (If you don’t get off the bus, then you’re doomed to travel 6 hours back to San Jose, Sixaola is the last stop)

2) Walk to the Costa Rica border-control window and wait in line for an undetermined amount of time while people in front of you get their passports and IDs checked.

3) Get your passport checked.

4) Say good-bye to Costa Rica.

5) *possibly the most interesting part of the whole experience* Walk over the completely sketchy looking bridge to Panama.

 

The sketchy bridge, though this is from the Panama side.

 

This bridge used to be a railway, though I wouldn't want to ride on that train now!

 

The very sketchy bridge had a very nice view!

6) Say hello to Panama. 

7) Repeat steps 2 and 3, except in Panama (border town is Guabito).  Catch: in order to be granted a visa, you must show proof that you are going to leave Panama at some point.  Luckily, the nice leader put my name on the list with her other students that said I would be leaving Panama in two weeks (otherwise, I would have had to buy an $11 bus ticket that may or may not have been an actually bus ticket).

8 ) Set your watch one hour ahead (the border is a time-zone border also).

9) Get instructions from the group leader how to get to Bocas.  Say good-bye to group.

10) Change colones (Costa Rican currency) to…..dollars!  Panama uses U.S. dollars as currency, with U.S. coins and Panamanian coins similar sizes and shapes as US, though called balboas.

Now that you are properly versed in the exercise of crossing the Costa Rica/Panam border at Sixaola/Guabito (remember all the details for next time you’re in the area!), I’ll get back to the remainder of the journey of a half-asleep college student who speaks a limited amount of Spanish, but who is traveling through a Central American country where a limited number of people speak English….

The local buses in Panama are cheap (it seems to be a theme in Central American countries, where people utilize public transportation much more efficiently than people traditionally do in the US), so it cost me 80 cents to make it to the next town, Changinola.  The local buses in Panama are also variable and interesting.  The first bus I rode was what we would think of as a school bus in the US, except it was done-up as per the driver’s/owner’s imagination permitted (I sincerely apologize for lack of photo at this point, there are sometimes when I try not to look too touristy with camera and all, for sake of not being taken advantage of).  So, it was painted, and had big speakers, and the other types of things that teen-age boys in the US do to their cars.  And, because details matter, there was a proud Panama flag gracing the front dash of the bus.

After a half-hour ride, I arrived in Changinola, asked someone how to take the bus to Almirante, and found the next stop.  This time the bus was a large van that departed only when filled with passengers.  It cost 75 cents for another half-hour ride to Almirante, where the man sitting next to me was kind enough to wake me at the stop and point me in the direction of the next leg of the trip, the water-taxi.

 

Main street of Changinola

 

Getting to Bocas requires a half-hour trip via water taxi from the mainland to the island.  The taxi was $4 and the view was beautiful.  After arriving on the island, I asked someone to point me in the direction of a hostel that friends had recommended, and I was on my way to my first night in Panama!

 

View from the water taxi

ADLs

In the hospital where I work at home, patients are often evaluated on how well they are able to complete Activities of Daily Living or ADLs.  ADLs include the ability to do household chores, personal hygiene, and mobility.  I wanted to include a post on one of my typical days at Las Selva Biological Research Station, and believe that this is an appropriate title.  This post will give you a glimpse into the majority of the days of my two months of research.

All meals are served cafeteria-style in ‘el comedor’, the cafeteria.  Breakfast is served from 6-7:30, with clean-up promptly at 7:30.  Most mornings, I try to be at breakfast by 7.  Though when in the States, I typically shower in the morning, being in the tropics means sweating pretty much all the time and going into the  field just after taking a shower is counter-productive.  So, typically I just get up, change into field clothes and go to breakfast.

After breakfast, it’s time to organize the materials I need for that day, and we (Grace and I go to the field together) are usually leaving for the field (meaning forest) by 8.  Depending on how far we have to walk/bike/hike, we are usually setting up transects with frogs by 8:30 or 9.  Each of my transects have 20 frogs, and we set up 6 in one day.  Each transect takes about 1/2 hour to set up, unless the terrain is especially hilly or there is a lot of undergrowth.  

At La Selva, we divided the forest into two different types: primary and secondary.  Primary forest is also called old-growth, and is considered to have ‘never’ been cut down.  Secondary forest, on the other hand, may have been affected as recently as 5-10 years ago.  After navigating through the forest, one becomes quite good at identifying the forest type.  Primary forest has many large, old trees, with little undergrowth (smaller trees and plants that aren’t much taller than a person).  Secondary forest has less large trees and therefore much more sunlight for the undergrowth to be quite unruly.  Secondary forest is difficult to lay a transect in, and is sometimes frustrating.  We want to have approximately half of the transects in secondary forest and half in primary to account for any differences that may occur in predation, so walking through the secondary forest was necessary, though at times undesirable.

 

This is the beginning of one of my transects in secondary forest.

 

 

Depending on how far we have gone, we may make it back to home base for lunch, or may have had to get a bag lunch.  Lunch is served at the comedor from 11:30-1, but the Station realizes that many researchers need to spend the whole day in the field and it is impossible for them to return for lunch.  If we are going to be in the field all day, we can request field lunches, and take them with us.  Field lunches include two sandwiches, fruit, crackers or cookies, and a drink.  The nice thing about taking a field lunch is that you can pick a picturesque place in which to eat your lunch: one day Grace and I ate lunch while sitting on rocks in the middle of a small river, looking at the water tumble around rocks while we ate our PB&J.

 

Ate lunch overlooking this, no reservations needed.

 

 

After being the field and eating lunch, we would typically return to the forest to work on Grace’s research.  Grace is studying digit-ratios in amphibians and reptiles, two types of frogs (including the species that I am researching) and two types of anoles (small lizards).  Brief explanation: if you hold up your hand, with your fingers together instead of spread, you will probably notice that your 2nd finger is either a little longer or a little shorter than your 4th finger.  The ratio of lengths is a sexual dimorphic trait in humans, meaning that ratio is different in males than in females.  In this case, typically males have a longer 4th finger and females typically have a longer 2nd finger (don’t be dismayed if the opposite is true for you, it’s just been shown to be a trend).  This has something to do with the levels of hormones we are exposed to while in the womb.  Grace’s study is to determine if the amphibians and reptiles have a similar sexual dimorphism.

 

These are some of the frogs that we caught for Grace's research.

 

 

In order to complete her study, Grace has to collect 70 individuals of each of the four species.  This means that almost every afternoon, we go out to the forest to catch frogs and lizards.  The Oophaga pumilio are by far the easiest to catch, because they hop short distances and relatively slowly.  Because they warn predators of their toxicity with their bright coloration they don’t frequently have to escape predators and can take their time leisurely hopping through the forest.  The other frogs we catch are brown frogs that do not contain toxins.  Because they have no other defense, they have evolved into little hopping machines.  They can hop two or three feet in a single jump!  They blend in to the leaf litter, too, so they are much more difficult to catch.  The lizards are very speedy, but often depend upon remaining completely still to blend into the background and avoid being seen and eaten by predators.  Non-moving lizards, though hard to spot, are generally easy to catch because their eyes are on the sides of their heads.  If you approach them from behind, they never see you coming!  

After spending a few hours catching frogs and anoles, we head back to the station where it’s time to take much needed shower.  I then head to the lab to work on making frogs.  Dinner is at 6 in the comedor, and it’s nice to catch up with what everyone else did for the day.  After dinner there may be some socializing, but I generally go back to the lab to make frogs (hopefully with some helpers!).  Frog-making is a HUGE part of my research, and I’m often up until 12 or 1 making frogs.  It takes several hours to make even only enough frogs for one day in the field!  After making enough frogs for the next day, and setting up the materials I will need to take into the field, it’s time for bed.  And the next day, it’s pretty much all the same thing, though I may have to pick up frogs on some days instead o set them out.  Also, every third day, I have no transects to work.  On those days, I try to make as many frogs as possible, go out to catch small things with Grace, and help Grace photograph the feet of her catches (after loading the photos on the computer, she uses a special program to measure the length of the toes).

 

This is an example photo of how the toes were measured for Grace's research.

 

 

That’s pretty much it.  ADLs of research at La Selva Biological Station!

The Frogs

I imagine that many people reading this blog may wonder exactly what I am doing for 6 months in Costa Rica.  Though I will be here for 6 months, it is actually through two separate, though related, programs that I am able to be here.  Starting in June, and continuing until mid-August, I am participating in an REU program with OTS, which is funded by NSF.  Now to decipher the acronyms!  REU is Research Experience for Undergraduates that is funded by NSF, the National Science Foundation.  NSF provides funds for selected undergraduates to complete 8 to 10 week research projects throughout the US and throughout the world.  Undergraduate science students can apply to compete for a limited number of paid positions for summer research.  The specific program that I am involved with is through OTS, the Organization for Tropical Studies, which is located at 3 sites throughout Costa Rica.  In Costa Rica, OTS is referred to as OET, La Organización para Estudios Tropicales.

After being accepted to the program, I chose/was assigned to a mentor.  Each student has a mentor that leads him or her through the process of attaining permits, developing a scientific proposal, completing field research, troubleshooting (all science guarantees a certain amount of needed creativity!), running statistics, and completing a publish-worthy research paper.  My mentor is Dr. Ralph Saporito, a post-doc at Old Dominion University in Virginia.  Ralph studies aposematism in the dart-poison frogs of the Neotropics.  An example of a dart-poison frog is the Strawberry Dart-Poison frog, also called “blue-jeans” because of the distinctive coloration.

Strawberry Dart-Poison Frog

The scientific name of the frog I am studying is Oophaga pumilio, or O. pumilio.  Aposematism is a form of deterring predators.  The frogs sequester toxic alkaloids from the mites and small insects in their diets.  The bright coloration (think of a bright red frog against the browns of leaf litter in the forest) is believed to warn potential predators to avoid the distasteful frog.

Though only one color morph of the species occurs at La Selva, in other locations throughout Central America, there are many morphs of the same species, some orange, green, blue, and other colors.  The question that I am attempting to answer is: Why does only one color morph exist at La Selva?  Maybe predators at La Selva don’t know to avoid the occasional mutant colored morph (such as orange or blue) and eat it before the frog has a chance to reproduce and pass along its coloration to future generations?  In order to answer the question, I am making small clay frogs of non natural colors to place in the forest.  I am making red/blue frogs similar to the morph that exists at La Selva, brown frogs that represent the non-toxic frogs at La Selva, yellow frogs that represent an actual color that does not occur at La Selva, and hot pink (yes, hot pink) frogs that represent a completely fictional color.

After inspecting the clay frogs for signs of predation, we will be able to determine why more color morphs are not present at La Selva.  This experiment requires the mass production of clay frogs: 1,200 models are needed to complete 60 transects.  Every three days, I need 120 frogs to set out in the forest.  Fortunately, I have had plenty of help, and though I have spent many late nights and early mornings finishing frogs for the next day, many people have generously donated their time to help me make frogs.Every frog is handmade from start to finish, starting with a mold.  The basic body shape is created, and completely smoothed so that no marks remain on the body.

After the bodies are completely smooth, each frog gets two eyes using a Sharpie marker.  Then back and front legs are created and pressed onto the body, forming a complete frog!  I’m still unsure of how long it takes to make a frog from start to finish-we generally start a sort of assembly line, with one person completing each step.

The frog army is almost ready to go.

With the addition of the brown models, the army is ready for the field!

The frogs fit nicely on the lids that I found in the supply boxes.

Each frog is approx. 20mm in length

After the army of frogs is assembled, they are place in compartmentalized tackle boxes (no longer just for fishermen!) to keep them from being marked by each other or by rough handling.  I head out to the forest with my lab partner, Grace, where we set up the transects.

Each frog is placed in a specific location along a string transect in the forest.

Though clay frogs seem like a very serious matter, we occasionally have time for fun!

Rain or shine (remember, this is the rainforest, so more frequently, rain)

Grace and I go out in all types of weather, and often come back from the field soaked.  Most times, there’s no point to even trying to wear a poncho.  Once you’re wet, you notice it less and less and it continues to rain.  However, once the insides of the rubber boots get wet, it’s really uncomfortable, and time to head home, if possible.

Heading out, until next time!