Santa Rosa

            This week was pretty hectic. We came back from spring break, and then jumped into our last week of classes (we have finals next week!) and preparations for our camping trip. We had another outreach program, and I signed up to take a group of elementary school kids out into one of the forests to teach them about nature. It was pretty difficult to explain things in Spanish about trees and animals that I barely knew about in English. But we made it through, and then played soccer and Red Rover with the kids. The rest of the week before our trip was uneventful.

            This week was our last field trip before Directed Research begins. We went on a two night camping trip to Santa Rosa, which was awesome. We spent the first night in a normal camping site under giant trees. We had an orientation hike and several classes, and then free time to explore or relax. I read underneath one of the trees and took a nap. That night, we went on a night hike. We saw a lot of cool animals, including an owl, tarantulas, army ants, scorpions, moths, and more. 

We saw so many monkeys on our hike! There were even a few young ones.

Part of our campsite the first night.

           The next day, we woke up at 4:30 to hike ten miles to our other camping site. It was a lovely hike, and our camping site was really nice too. It was right next to the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. We unfortunately weren’t allowed to swim (the riptide was unbelievable), but it was nice to just wade and watch the waves. A few of us walked all the way down the beach to the La Piedra Bruja (a giant rock). The sunset that night was unbelievable, one of the best I’ve ever seen. We also walked along the beach at night, and played with the bioluminescent plankton that washed up on the shore. There was a beautifully clear night sky with so many shooting stars throughout the night. The waves were really cool to watch crest, and turn from dark blue to bright white. It looked like a white bullet shooting across the blackness. 

One of our friends who visited our campsite.

            The trip to Santa Rosa was lovely, and I am sad that it ended so quickly. The only thing I have to look forward to this week is finals and farm work. Quick exciting thing- we got a cow!! She’s really cute and has floppy ears. As the first group to have her, we have the honor of naming her! That’s all for now... have a lovely week (or two)!