2019 Cleveland High Costa Rica Osa Conservation Expedition

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Wild Whitewater Day

Written by Julia LaBrack & Abigail Stancil
We started Tuesday off by having breakfast at the hotel, by the pool. We finished eating our breakfast and packed up to end at the Whitewater rafting place. We loaded up into vans with the guides and headed to the river. Everyone was so excited and was filled with anticipation of what was to come. We split up the group into 2 groups of 6 people, following a run through of the rules as we geared up. We all were equipped with helmets, a paddle for everyone, and life jackets. We all jumped in and began the tour, and along the ride we saw all kinds of birds and wildlife. The guides showed us some of the cool wildlife we were lucky enough to see, for example, monkeys!!
Half way through the tour we stopped at an amazing waterfall! It was so beautiful, the guides set up snacks for us all. We had pineapples, mangos, plantain chips, and some classic Costa Rican cookies. One of the guides, Diego, painted suns on our faces with two different shades of clay that come from the mountain’s. After we finished our snacks and enjoyed the beauty of it all we started back on the tour. The rapids felt like mini roller coasters, everyone was completely soaked by the time we finished our tour. It was completely breathtaking, the experience was definitely once in a lifetime. After the rafting, we got on the bus with a surprise awaiting. We arrived around an hour later to Ronny’s beach house (our bus driver). It was right on the beach! The view was beautiful and they had a table set for lunch. They fed us so much delicious food, like fish, beans, rice, and vegetarian meals for those that needed them. Everyone was so grateful! After we finished lunch, Ronny walked us down the beach to show us the estuary and all the wildlife. Soon after we loaded up on the bus again and visited a souvenir shop to get any last minute gifts we wanted to bring back! Finally after a long day of exciting adventures we headed back to our final hotel and final night in Costa Rica. We had an amazingly delicious meal and went to sleep.

Wildlife Surprise

Written by Lilian Abel & Raleigh Poore
Today we left the reserve. We said goodbye to our friends Tim, Marnix and Cami and Hylla (the kitty), and boarded the bus. Earlier this morning, the adults told us they had a surprise for us. After driving for a little while, we stoped at a near by beach for a moment and got fresh coconut water for everyone. Once we were done we discovered that the surprise was a visit to an animal sanctuary called Alturas Wildlife Sanctuary! The sanctuary was filled with wild species that had been rescued or given up by their owners, most of them from people who kept them as “pets.” In Costa Rica it is illegal to have zoos or own any exotic animal from the wildlife. All the animals had big personalities, like the capuchins that try to throw rocks, or the bird who mocked laughs. After the visit to the sanctuary, we left for the new hotel, which had an awesome pool. For the rest of our Monday evening we just relaxed by the pool side, had dinner by the pool side and slept well.

Walks and Waterfalls

Written by Bryanna Poore & Miranda Monge
This morning consisted of Monkey walks through the almond grove across the river, Butterfly walks up the hills (you can see all of Ojochal through the trees!) and another through the Banana Plantation and through the river. After lunch, the group and two of the interns of the Reserve Playa Tortuga went to the a nearby waterfall that had a swimming spot. Someone (NOT from our group) slid down it like a slide! Apparently the water makes it super smooth. The water was deep and super clear & refreshing (especially after the jungle humidity). It started raining, and after about 30 minutes we had to get out (just in the slight chance that it might’ve flooded the steps we had to cross to get there). We saw a Poisonous Dart Frog on the way back!! We drove back to the reserve, and the rest of the day we relaxed, sang songs, and Tim (one of the interns) played the ukulele and also we played games with the interns, Tim and Marnix.

Turtles, Butterflies, and Crocs!

Written by Raleigh Poore & Abigail Stancil

The day started off early with a turtle check at 7:15am, to find that the turtles had hatched! Mrs. Clougherty dug out the turtles with the director, Oscar, as we all stood back and watched. There were 84 turtles that hatched out of 95 eggs. We measured 10 of the turtles and then proceeded to the beach where they were released. People from the community came to observe this one and a million experience! Everyone gathered around to cheer the little guys on. We walked back to the reserve and had breakfast, then we prepared for the butterfly walk. Graciela led us on a mountain trail where we searched and caught butterflies to bring back to the butterfly garden. We gathered food on our way to the greenhouse for the caterpillars that were developing.

After the greenhouse we headed back to the reserve. Later in the night, at the time of about 5:30pm, we left to capture crocodiles and caimans. For the concerned parents, no *we* did not capture them, the guide did (who we all trust very much.) We loaded ourselves onto a boat and floated down the river, looking for reflective eyes with flashlights. Once someone spotted some, we would pull near them and the guide would try to capture the croc, if it was tiny. We spotted around 30 cocodrilos, and captured seven babies/juveniles. Our job was to measure and collect data for the seven we captured. The boat ride back to the reserve consisted of ogling at the stars. In this sky we could see the Milky Way, and for about every ant in Costa Rica, there has to be a star. The night ended with showers and a bunch of very tired people doing what tired people do, (sleep), and dreaming either of tiny sea turtles drifting off into the waves, butterflies landing on their skin, or the scales of small baby crocs in their hands.

An Amazing Day

Lilian Abel & Julia Laprack
Today we started the day off with going to the school.  The school built a greenhouse about 3 months ago with the support of Walking Tree Travel.  The group before us started it and now we helped finish it.  We started by cleaning the area and then helped the kids learn to plant some lettuce, culantro, aloe plants, carrots, peppers and some flower plants and it was a great experience. After that some of us and the teachers played soccer with the kids, and we had a blast! We had a delicious dish for lunch at the school and then got some exciting news.  A turtle nest was found and moved to the hatchery! The hatchery is a private area built to protect the turtle eggs from predators and poachers while they hatch. Every two hours a group of 4 got to go and check on the turtles to see if they have dug their way up to the surface. After lunch we went on a macaw survey and a monkey survey. On the macaw survey we hiked down towards the beach and walked through mud and water up to our waist.  We found coconuts and cracked them open to drink sweet coconut water. Although we did not see any macaws, we got to see lots of crabs along the beach, learn about the macaws feeding areas, and we had a great time.  Some of us also went on a monkey survey walk. We got a beautiful view way up high in the mountains. We saw 11 grown howler monkeys and 1 baby. It was so exciting to see them and we over all had an amazing day!

Surfing and Reserva

Written by Abigail Stancil & Chloe Holland

The morning began with private surfing lessons on Cortina beach. Everyone had a lot of fun, but it took everyone a couple of tries to get up! For lunch we had traditional Costa Rican home cooking. We were all so happy to surprise Chloe with a beautiful birthday cake, it was strawberry and vanilla! She was so happy and had no clue! After we got to celebrate Chloe’s birthday we finished packing up our stuff and headed for Reserva Playa Tortuga! This is where we will spend our time until Monday morning when we head out. After we got settled in, we had an introduction meeting about what the reserve does, like maintaining some of the native species. For example, native sloths, turtles, felines, snakes, birds, monkeys, bugs. We then had dinner at 6, after the meeting. We had spaghetti with fresh veggies and fresh passion fruit juice! After dinner my group got to hike through the rainforest on the reserve and look for whatever we could find. We found HUGE frogs, spiders, and snakes. Some of the frogs were the famous Red Eyed Tree Frog, Costa Rican Bull Frogs, and the Masked Frog. It was such a cool experience. This was how our day went, thank y’all for reading! :)

Day One and So Much to See!

Written by Bryanna Poore and Miranda Monge

We woke up in the Casa Cielo Grande, which overlooks San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. It was gorgeous!! We had Gallo Pinto for breakfast (which was delicious!); Andrea’s own recipe. Gallo Pinto is a rice and bean recipe that is common throughout Costa Rica, but each house has their own variation. We then took the bus to downtown San Jose & had a dance class. We learned Bachata, Merengue, & Salsa. We were very hot & sweaty afterwards, but it was fun!! Then we went to local supermarket, and later drove to a local restaurant call Nuestro Pueblo for classic Costa Rican dishes. While there, we saw a caballo, several iguanas, and a cocodrilo (all near the restaurant!). Our next destination was the National Park Manuel Antonio, and on the way, we saw crocodiles at the Crocodile Bridge. The road side market had Lychee (name is Rambutan in PR), Mandarin, Guava, Sapote and Soursop, which all grow in Costa Rica and got to taste some. At the park we went swimming & saw iguanas, & lots of hermit crabs on the beach. On the hike over, we saw funky little red crabs with their secret hideout holes everywhere. We also saw toucans! On the hike back, we saw capuchin monkeys (a little family of 6!) including a mother and her lil pup clinging on her back for dear life. They like to party on the telephone lines & jump across the trees. Then we started driving to the hotel and it started raining. We were so tired after swimming, some of us fell asleep on the bus for a couple minutes. We ate great food for dinner at the restaurant near the hotel (burritos & quesadillas), which is called “The Falcon Nest” (Nido De Halcón in Spanish!). After this long day full of new experiences we arrived to the hotel El Tecal and we just rested for the night.

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