Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa was our next destination, where we camped for the last 5 nights of the field trip. We got there pretty late at night, so it was dark when we were setting up camp. Also, I haven't been camping since I was in, oh let's go with early middle school, so needless to say setting up a tent was not something I was able to do with much ease. 

It was such a luxurious camping set-up, as we had our own cooking staff! 

View of our campsite. This was the eating area / lounge / studying portion of camp. The tables in front were where the buffet-style meals were served. 

Over the next five days, we did some small orientation hikes (which of course included numerous species reports for both plants and animals), a mammal diversity day where we spent time learning about what makes a mammal a mammal, and even a long hike to a beach. 

Santa Rosa National Park

The long hike to the beach was approximately 16 miles round-trip (so long right?!). The beach at the midway point of the hike (about 11 km) wasn't nearly as nice as the one in Corcovado, but it was still pretty nifty. There wasn't any shade, so we sat in the sun almost the whole time. I went into the ocean once, mainly because the waves were a lot more intense then they seemed from the beach. I got slammed pretty hard into the sand on one, so after that I decided to be done with the water. I walked down the beach maybe 1-2 km to an estuary, which was mostly dried up since it was the dry season. But we could still see the mangroves and we got to explore a little more thoroughly than we would have been able to if it had been the rainy season. We did some species reports while in the area, which included the white-throated magpie jay and a few plant species.

White-throated magpie Jay

After that, we were allowed to walk at our own pace back up Hill o'Death (I named it, rather appropriately I think). For maybe 5-6 km, we had to walk up that hill. It wasn't horribly steep, it was just a hill that never ended. You would think it was over when it started to level out, but nope, you went around another corner and BAM, the hill lives on. I finally made it to the top, where mostly everyone was waiting for us stragglers. We were greeted with some fruit and snacks, which were much needed after the horrible hill. Most of us then went to a look-out point where we stayed for maybe 2-3 hours to watch the sunset at 5:45. It was pretty cool, but to be honest I kind of wished I had gone back instead of watching the sunset. It wasn't the best sunset I've ever seen, but I suppose it was worth the experience, right?

Sitting on the fence overlooking the forest and ocean, waiting for the sun to set.

The following day we did a mammal diversity day, which luckily involved very little walking (thank goodness after that 16 mile hike). We learned about monkeys and bats and cats and pacas and agoutis. In the afternoon, we went to visit a little bat cave, where we saw two species of bats:

It was definitely a fun day of learning, to say the least! On one of the last days, we did a small research project in groups, which I shall promptly talk about in another post! 

The following day we did a little mini research project. We were split into four groups, and each of the groups was given a different research project to investigate that day (I'll talk about this in another post).