We eventually arrived at La Marta, which as it turns out is a wildlife refuge. La Marta was established in 1993 to protect the river basins and the ruins of what used to be an important agricultural site. I left my camera in my hotel room this evening so I haven't uploaded my pictures, but I would describe the scenery as 'quintessential Costa Rica' --everything is very lush and green, there is a fast flowing river that runs alongside the hiking trail, and there are a crap-ton of huge friggin' insects.
We started out the morning with a quick icebreaker between the FSU/UCR students, and then Iliana (student from UCR) gave us a tour of the historical remains of the agricultural site. The site was developed in the early 1800s to process coffee and sugarcane. There are also remains of a small sawmill/dairy/hyrdroelectric plant near the entrance. The site was abandoned in the 1920's (not sure why) and the area eventually regrew itself.
Now, it's a sanctuary for all sorts of birds, bugs, mammals, snakes, etc. We didn't get to see too many interesting critters (most come out at night) but we did see some Collared Aracaris, which belong in the toucan family.
After the tour, we jumped in the river and it was really, really cold. It was pretty neat to get to explore a Costa Rican forest/river outside of the tourism sphere. We really didn't see anyone else around the entire time we were gallivanting through the forest.
We ended that game with an impromptu soccer game on one of the local fields. I didn't play because I 1) was afraid of getting too competitive with my students and freaking them out 2) I generally don't play sports that I'm not good at and 3) someone needed to take pictures!
Tomorrow I think we're going to another wildlife refuge where we are allegedly catching and tagging birds with nets? Whaaa?!
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