a LONG walk in the woods

Sunday, June 18

This weekend, in honor of our guests from Maryland, our course coordinator Anibal (from the Institute) offered to take us on an overnight hike to his family’s old finca (farm) in the now abandoned town of San Gerardo. San Gerardo “was” a small, remote farming community on the Caribbean slope of the Tilaron Mountain range, about 10 kilometers from where we live in Santa Elena, on the Pacific side of the continental divide. San Gerardo is located in the Arenal National Park and the Bosque Eterno de Los Ninos (Children’s Eternal Rain Forest), and the lands were purchased from most of the residents as part of the Arenal Dam & Reservior project in the 1970’s. A few private land-holdings still exist, but they receive no services (like schools, water, health services, etc.) because the government declared the area “protected” from development. Anibal’s family maintains a few pastures and is allowed to remove timber from their land if it falls naturally, plus they use a fairly rustic structure as sort of a “cabin” in the rainforest, just like half of Syracuse owns a place in the Adirondacks or the Tughill. The big attractions of the hike were to visit a place that is totally removed from the “tourist” frequented trails of Monteverde, to see several remote waterfalls, to see new wildlife, and hopefully (if the clouds part for awhile) to see the Arenal volcano, about 12-15 kilometers farther to the east.

The toll for the trip—it's a good long walk. the walk begins with about 7-8 km downhill early Saturday morning carrying food, sleeping bags, and dry clothes, and then know that there’s 7-8km of steep uphill for the way back! Between students, faculty, and Anibal’s various friends and family, about a dozen of us struck out on foot in the mist from the Santa Elena Reserve visitor’s center at 7:00am. The trail, almost a rough road, suitable for 4-wheelers or trail-bikes, switchbacks down the mountain through dense cloud forest. Birds, which are abundant everywhere in Monteverde, were even more so along the trail. By the end of our day, I’d counted eleven new species of birds I’d never even seen before!

We arrived at the finca by about 9:00am, and after a short rest, headed out into the forest to find the waterfalls. Waterfalls are quite abundant in the Monteverde area. With the mountainous geology being fairly young, the terrain is naturally well suited; add 2.5 meters of rainfall per year and you have a perfect recipe. Almost every stream, creek, or small river drops of a waterfall every kilometer of so, and some are quite spectacular, dropping 10, 20, sometimes even 30 meters or more. The waterfall we set out to see was on a branch of the Rio Negro, one of the rivers feeding Lake Arenal to our east. We hiked in about a kilometer or two, following rough trails and occasionally bush-whacking our way through jungle reminiscent of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with a machete. Anibal and his cousin Jorge (a local guide) only got lost once on the way to the main waterfall, finding a second, smaller one that they had forgotten. After 30 minutes of searching for the “right” trail we were back off through the jungle, first on a barely discernable track, then up the streambed with no trail at all! About ½ kilometer up the final stream, we reached a series of beautiful waterfalls, ranging from small trickles to great torrents running through narrow gaps in the rocks. Each ranged from 5 to perhaps 15 meters (50’) high. The final waterfall, and the largest, could only be reached by climbing a sheer cliff about 8 meters high. I hear my brother and his family of rock climbers snickering, and this wouldn’t have been too bad, were it not for the 100+ years of moss, lichen, and algae growing on everything! Fortunately, Anibal brought a rope (we all vaguely wondered why we might need that when we started out), and everyone was able to scramble up after he had scouted the route up and secured the rope at the top. Of course coming down was even more fun!

At the top, under the splash and the spray, a gorgeous waterfall plunged into a deep pool, and all the young and foolish members of the group went for a swim in the +/-65F water. I was chilly and wet enough without immersing myself deliberately! We ate a damp picnic lunch at the waterfall as the day's rain began to fall, and then headed back to the finca to dry out and rest before anyone turned hypothermic.

As my guests the Sullivans were planning to leave the next day, they decided to hike back out to civilization that afternoon, and after inspecting the sleeping arrangements (sleeping bags on rough wood floors), I decided that wasn’t such a bad idea  After waiting the worst of the daily downpour (have I mentioned it rains even MORE on the Caribbean slope?), we said our farewells to the group at about 3:00pm, and Jack, Maggie, Jorge and I headed back up the mountain in the rain. So… we’ve already walked 12 or 14 kilometers on the day, and now we’ve got 6-8 more to go, all uphill, with about 400 meters of elevation change. Uhg. Fortunately, about a third of the way up, the rain stopped, and the clouds and mist actually began to clear. About half way, we were greated with a fantastic view to the east over Lake Arenal to Arenal Volcano. While we admired the view, and let our hearts and lungs adjust to something approaching a normal rate, we were treated with a small eruption of Arenal! First, I should note that an eruption on Arenal is not a particularly big deal- it has been erupting pretty much continuously since 1968, with a little burp of lava or steam almost every day. But it was still pretty cool to see the thing actually spurt out a nice cloud of smoke seemingly just for us!

The rest of the way up was mostly uneventful, and I spent a lot of time staring at the ground several feet in front of my feet looking for good footing on the slick clay of the trail. When you’re focused on such a small area of view, you often miss a lot going on around you, but this time I was remarkably fortunate, at least if you’re into bugs. In the middle of the trail, just about where I was planning to step, was a VERY large tarantula wasp, just finishing up its principal task in life. It had just stung and paralyzed a young red-kneed tarantula (see picture!), and was proceeding to drag the immobile spider off to a safe location to lay its eggs on it. In a wonderfully macabre bit of ecological dependency, the wasps must find a tarantula in order to provide a host for their young larva. The tarantulas and the wasps are therefore mortal enemies, and any encounter is a fight to the death, and in this case, the wasp won. If all goes well for the wasp like this time, the wasp carefully disables the spider during their fight, and only paralyzes it. It then lays its eggs on the still living body, and when they hatch, the wasp’s larva get to eat the nice fresh spider alive. Pretty gruesome, but highly effective as a survival strategy! After getting our first-hand natural history lesson, we slogged the rest of the way up the mountain to our car, exhausted, but very satisfied, particularly the old guys (yes, I’m one of those now!). Maggie, in inimitable 17 year old style, managed to make Jack and I feel both old and young at the same time, as she limped in behind us complaining about “old” soccer injuries, but then bounced back as fresh as a daisy an hour later for dinner. Needless to say, we all slept well last night!

Today was a bit of a catch-up day, as Jack and Maggie headed for the hot springs at Arenal and then down to the beach later this week. I spent the day cleaning up and washing laundry, as well as planting a few more seeds in the garden. I guess that’s about it for this week, as I watch the sunset over the Gulf of Nicoya from my perch high above Santa Elena! Hasta luego... Scott