Cuerici, pt. 3: Valentine's Day, Tico Style

After we got back from the paramo, we had an evening "fireside chat" with Don Carlos about his life experiences. We got to hear some amazing insight about how he founded the Cuerici reserve, and about how he feels about conservation, both in Costa Rica and in general. Since Valentine's Day was the next day, we spent the rest of the night writing nice messages to each other on Valentine's cards that Anna, Lee, and Ellen had made for everyone in the group, including our professors and Don Carlos! It was a really sweet idea, and the next morning when we were eating breakfast we got to read our cards, which had messages from all 27 of our classmates. We had the morning free, which most people spent working on their statistics homework, and all afternoon we had an additional statistics workshop. Before dinner I went out and did my field notebook assignment (30 minutes of observations, required at every site we go to) on the back end of the oak forest trail. 

After dinner we had a discussion about the pros and cons of private vs. publicly-funded conservation, and then a group of us decided to hike back up to the mountain to look at the stars from the lookout point we'd seen during our hike with Don Carlos. About half of us decided to sleep out in an old lean-to a few minutes down the trail from the lookout, so we packed up our sleeping bags, some blankets, and snacks and headed out. 

The shack that we slept in, as seen during the day when we first found it.

It took us about an hour to hike up in the dark, with only our head lamps for light. Those of us who were sleeping out were layered up thickly since, at that elevation, it gets REALLY cold at night. I had a blanket, extra socks, water, and some random supplies in my backpack and my sleeping bag strapped to the bottom, leaving no room to pack any of my extra layers. I just decided to wear them on the way up that way I'd have them when it got cold that night. Unfortunately that was not the best decision, and everyone who was dressed to sleep out got really sweaty on the way up the steep trail, and we had to take layers off before we went to sleep because they were damp. I did the hike wearing three pairs of pants, a tank top, two t-shirts, a long-sleeve shirt, a fleece, a button-up field shirt, and a flannel.

The night hike crew getting ready to leave. I am literally wearing the maximum number of layers that I could put on my body.

We may have been sweaty when we got to the top, but we were happy! The view was amazing at night. We hung out on the lookout platform singing songs and talking for a few hours. After the people who weren't sleeping out began to hike back down, we sat in silence just watching the fog lap up against the mountains like an ocean breaking on the shore. As the clouds moved through the valley the little town would come in and out of our view, sometimes disappearing entirely under the mist so that the only light we could see was from the moon. It was incredible! After about an hour of just soaking in the mountains at night and reminding ourselves how lucky we were to be where we were, we started to get ready for bed. We walked over to the hut and arranged ourselves on the floor, avoiding the places where tree branches were coming in between the floorboards.

Up on the mountain, ready for bed! I didn't bring a winter hat to Costa Rica, so I was wearing a scarf to sleep. Haha.

We attempted to strike a balance between having a comfortable amount of personal space and sharing body heat so we'd be warm enough to fall asleep, which proved to be challenging. Around 2 or 3 am I could hear someone else still moving around, clearly awake like I was, so I sat up and saw Tessa also sitting up in her sleeping bag. We were sleeping in opposite directions and both immediately decided to rearrange so that we could sleep closer together. We did the best we could to "cuddle" while both fully zipped up in mummy-style sleeping bags, which meant I more or less slept halfway on top of her. After we moved we were both finally able to fall asleep! 

We all woke up around 5:20 the next morning because it was beginning to get light out. We walked back over to the lookout point to watch the sun rise over the mountains, which was amazing. My camera could not even come close to capturing it, by I took some photos anyway.

After admiring the sunrise for a bit, we decided to do some yoga on the lookout point. Hilary led us in some sun salutations, which served the dual purpose of being awesome and helping us stretch out after a cramped and chilly night on the mountain.

When we finished our yoga, we packed up our stuff and hiked back down the mountain to the field station, just in time for breakfast! It was really a delicious breakfast, too, after so much activity and so little sleep the night before. We got changed quickly and then left at 7:30 with the rest of the group for a day trip to El Sitio, another more remote field station that Don Carlos manages. It was our last full day in Cuerici, and instead of having regular classes or an informational hike, we had a relatively non-academic trip planned just to enjoy ourselves and our surroundings.

El Sitio station

From the road, it took just over an hour to hike to the station. We only stopped for a minute for a few people to use the bathroom, and then kept hiking. We were on a quest to see some amazing sights, including a large waterfall and a really old tree. While we didn't know in advance where we were going, the tree turned out to be our first destination. 

Arriving at the huge oak tree

There are buttresses at the bottom, even at the narrower parts above them the tree is still about 6 m in circumference. At the very base, it took 7 students' arm spans to reach around the tree. It's hard to tell tree ages in the tropics because the year-round growing season doesn't result in the formation of the rings that are so common in the temperate zone. Also, due to physiological limitations, most trees are incapable of growing much taller than a maximum height, so that also couldn't give reliable clues to the tree's age. However, because of its enormous girth and its size relative to other trees growing nearby, Don Carlos and our professors estimate that it is between 1,000 and 2,000 years old. I spent a good deal of time just thinking about how much the forest around this tree must have changed throughout its lifetime, and all of the world events that it's lived through. It's just mind-boggling!

The 1,000+ year-old oak tree, with me for scale

I'm kind of a sucker for trees, so I was pretty excited that we got to see one so incredible. After giving us a sufficient amount of time to be amazed, our professors led us to the waterfall, which was our second destination on the hike. It was a pretty cool waterfall, and was really beautiful. It looks like what you expect the tropics to look like, in a good way. In my opinion, it wasn't quite as breath-taking as the oak tree, but it was definitely worth hiking to.

Hanging out at the waterfall. Unintentionally in the foreground: Ashur.

The view from about half way up

After frolicking in the waterfall for a bit, we hiked back to El Sitio station and ate the lunches that we'd packed with us after breakfast. It started to rain and I was feeling kind of chilly (probably in large part due to the little sleep I got the night before), so I was glad when we started the hike back to the road because I could generate some body heat. When we got back to Cuerici I took an AMAZING hot shower (the water there was even better than the water at Las Cruces!) and really felt warmed up for the first time in many hours. We had one class in the afternoon, which was a science writing workshop, getting us ready for the projects we'd be doing at our next station. 

For our last night in Cuerici, we had a special dinner courtesy of Don Carlos and his trout farm. The afternoon before he let us help him catch fish from his canals, and then kill and gut them ourselves. I didn't kill or clean any of the fish, but almost everyone else did. In total I think we harvested 16 trout for our dinner Tuesday night. The kitchen staff there cooked them for us, and the trout ended up being one of the best meals I've had in Costa Rica. You could definitely taste how fresh the fish were, and how much care Don Carlos takes while raising them. After a day (and night, for many of us) full of hiking, bellies full of fresh trout made for a happy bunch of students. 

Unfortunately we had to spend the rest of the night packing, since we were leaving the next morning! By "rest of the night" I mean "from about 7:30 to 8:30 pm," since as soon as I was done I went to sleep, gloriously exhausted from the past 24 hours of adventures. When I woke up the next morning, I was definitely a little sad to leave Cuerici. The combination of the rustic but beautiful station, the amazing mountains, the unique ecosystems, and the outstandingly kind manager made it my favorite site yet. I was excited to go back to somewhere hot and more "tropical", but something inside me (maybe my inner camper/camp counselor?) was reluctant to leave the fireplaces and mountain air and sing-alongs behind. Regardless, we were on the road at 7:30 am, on our way to San Jose again!