Philosophizing About the Line

After an illogical flight from San Jose to Panama "on my way" back to the States, I touched down at Dulles just before 1 am.  As we had started our descent, the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker to give that standard announcement of estimated time of arrival and local weather conditions.  Of course this was in Spanish and when I first heard the words "dos grados bajo cero [two degrees below zero]" I panicked for a split second until I realized that this was Celsius so it wasn't as bad as it sounded.  But wait a sec, that was still really cold compared to the hot and humid weather I was coming from, and then came the voice again, "Current temperature is 28 degrees."

28 degrees?  Are you kidding me?  I guess this was to be expected, but expecting something and then stepping into it are quite different things.

So it was back to reality in the States, starting with an announcement that I hadn't heard before, that the use of cell phones was prohibited until clearing immigration and customs.  Is this a new law that was enacted in the last month?  Apparently this has been in place for quite a long time, but weird that this was the first time I'd ever heard about it.

Then there was the line to get through immigration, another display of how human constructions, often with good intent, so easily go awry.  I'm referring to everything from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [what a waste], to the older idea of immigration, to the yet older idea of the Line and philosophies on how to make it function most efficiently.  The basic and most fundamental rule of the Line is that the first person in the line is the next person to be served.  When a new person arrives to the line, there is no question about where that person's place is, after the last person.  By using only these two rules, one will find that there is no confusion and the system functions smoothly.

Humans, however, seem to have this penchant to "improve" simple systems that need no improvement, and "develop" places that would be better left alone.  I found myself directed to wait at the number 24 box while 10 people who had been behind me in line proceeded through numbers 21, 22 and 23.  There you go, the Line, another natural system ruined by human intervention.

Back to Hyattsville.  I realize that I made a disparaging remark about Hyattsville in one of my earlier blog posts so I thought I would give it a chance to redeem itself.  After all, they are developing.

Trash Abounds

Migrant turkey vulture

Chestnut-mandibled toucan

Baird's Trogon [female]

Since these birds are so common on Cerro Osa and at the Osa Biodiversity Center, I've heard them referred to as "trash birds." Granted, it's often in jest [I think?].  Nonetheless, I think they're worth saving.

If I've improperly identified any of these pieces of trash, please comment with supporting evidence and I will re-label appropriately.

The Things You See

Today we took the colectivo from the Osa Biodiversity Center to Matapalo beach.  You have to understand that in most Latin countries, colectivos are usually a mini-bus.  Here, however, due to the road conditions between Puerto Jimenez and Carate, the famous blue colectivo is a truck with a canvas-covered rear bed, lined on both sides with benches.  I was with Liliana, Friends of the Osa's program manager based in Washington, DC, and Sonia, who has been volunteering with us for a couple of weeks now.  

Since Liliana hadn't taken the colectivo before, Sonia and I were trying to explain the experience to her while we waited.  That's probably a good point to make first - you have to walk to the road and wait for the colectivo.  It has a fixed schedule, leaving from Puerto Jimenez to Carate twice a day and returning twice a day, so you usually have a pretty good idea of when it will pass your stop, in our case the Escuela Rio Piro.  But this isn't like waiting at a bus stop in any American city.  During this time of year, the truck is surprisingly consistent as the road is dry and has been well-maintained.  However, I understand that during the rainy season when conditions worsen, it can be a crap shoot as to when the colectivo passes.

Another thing that is different, yet somehow similar to bus stops in the States, is that there is always something to watch while you wait.  Back home you might people watch, or watch drivers talk on their cell phones, text friends, sip coffee out of disposable containers or even read books [yes, drivers] as they speed by the bus stop.  Here, you often hear racket in the trees above the road and look up to see curious white-faced capuchin monkeys, scan the forest to locate the singing bird that sounds so close, or ponder the salient color of a passion fruit vine that dangles from a tree along the road.  And then the roar of the big blue truck breaks your meditation.

The driver stops, and you tell him where you're going.  If you're a guy, you climb up the rear gate, swinging your leg over and tumbling into the mass of passengers.  However, if you're a woman, or traveling with women as I was today, the driver gets out and opens the gate, helping you up, and makes sure that you're situated before climbing into the cabin and roaring off.

The ride is noisy, dusty [at least at this time of the year], and quite bumpy, at times jolting you into the air off your seat.  Your options are to grab the wooden gate behind you, clasp the bench tightly [which only works if there aren't too many people inside], or lean forward with your elbows on you knees which seems to work fairly well and I'm sure is funny for the locals as it looks like you're praying.

I've been impressed so far with the handful of colectivo trips that I've made, that the driver always remembers the stops that people have indicated.  Although I guess it isn't very complicated being that his route is the only road on this side of the peninsula and there's only places that anyone would want to stop every few kilometers.  So I take that back, it really isn't very impressive at all.  The deboarding process respects the same rules as boarding: guys fend for themselves and you hope you don't snag anything on a bolt and fall face first into the dirt, while women enjoy the attentiveness of the driver.  I suppose you still experience similar behavior in other parts of the world, but I tend to think of this as part of being in Latin America.

Here are a couple of other things that have reminded me that as idyllic as it can seem down here much of the time, that I'm still in Latin America:

Playa Cativo

We stopped by Playa Cativo as part of our boat trip with the ABC group.  Saima and I were invited to stay for a weekend.  Ummm, twist my arm!

Amigos del Bamboo

Yesterday we visited Friends of the Osa's bamboo project, cunningly called Amigos del Bamboo.  The site is located in La Palma, where we had been to the school the day before to talk about involving students in water quality monitoring projects.

The idea behind promoting the use of bamboo as a viable construction material is to save hardwood species that take much longer to grow.  So even though wood might be called renewable in the sense that it regrows, if a tree takes 100 years to reach a size that could be used in construction, without disciplined management and long-term planning, chances are that those trees begin to disappear from the forests.  That has happened with many species of beautiful wood, like purple heart, cristobal, and manu, here in the Osa Peninsula.

On the other hand, bamboo is harvestable in 5 years from the time it is planted.  When cured correctly, it is strong, pest-resistent and great for construction.  The only trick is that since the pieces used are round, the workers need to be trained in a few specific techniques.  Once they have that down, they're off to the races building with a local and truly renewable resource, thus saving old growth forest.

This photo shows the system used to flush the natural sap out of the wood, thus making it resistent to pests.  A salt solution is slowly pushed through each piece of wood under 20 psi of pressure.

Below you can see that the solution has made its way to the end of the wood in the piece on the left, while the other pieces are still dry. This usually takes about 30 minutes for a standard 6 m [20 ft] length.

This last photo demonstrates the use of a hardwood pin in bamboo construction.

Relax

Today, Liliana and I tagged along with Guido and Pilar to three schools to see if we would be able to work with their students in our environmental education efforts.  We visited Puerto Escondido [which means Hidden Port, but we found it since we arrived by road], El Rincon [The Corner], and La Palma [Palm].  These schools are strategic since one of the educational programs deals with teaching about the importance of the mangroves surrounding the Golfo Dulce.   Another separate but related part of the program will be working with the students to teach them about biological indicators of water quality.  

We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this three-toed sloth at one of our stops.  Normally when you leave your camera in the back seat and somebody spots an amazing creature, you're left feeling remiss that you didn't follow the rules of always having your camera at hand.  So when Guido pointed into the tree to indicate that there was a sloth, my first reaction was, "Crap, I don't have my camera with me."

It's something about our culture, the way we're brought up to always have to be doing something, planning for the next step, achieving.  I'm not saying that these are bad qualities to have, but I look around and often think we could take a lesson from the sloth.  Did you know that sloths descend to the ground only about once a week, and then only to defecate and slowly claw their way back up?  

Quoting the parrot in Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, "People of zee whurl, RELAX!"  I ambled over to the car, got a drink of water, reapplied my sunscreen per the manufacturer's instructions [ensuring that I'll need to buy more soon], tied my shoes, removed the camera from its case and sauntered back to where I had seen this lethargic beast.  He hadn't moved a toe.

If you ever have the chance to look a sloth in the face you'll notice that they are always smiling :)

...and we're back!

That's right.  I had a hunch that things would get really busy while the bird group was here and I wasn't mistaken.  There were a lot of early mornings - waking up at 4:30 to make sure that coffee was ready - since birders need to be out the door by 5:30 in order to catch the full show.  Then there is all the meal planning and running around making sure things are where they should be... but enough of that.  I didn't want to get into the details.

I did want to say, however, that the trip went incredibly well.  It was an easy-going group and we all had a great time.  For me it was a great experience,  learning a lot of bird names, calls [although these I don't remember at all], colors and habits.  I managed to get some pretty good shots by sticking to my own made-up rules of photography:

1. Always have your camera

2. Use it

  

I think it's a good time to point out my frustrations with the limited formatting options in Blogger.  It could be that I'm a tyro, but it doesn't seem too easy to me to position pictures. 

The first photo is a black throated trogon, followed by a juvenile blue heron, if I'm not mistaken.  The sequence above is of a brown boobie, related to the more famous blue footed boobie of the Galapagos islands.  This was a rare spotting as boobies are normally found in pairs.

This is a white crested coquette that has been hanging out around this same spot for at least two months now.  It shows up every afternoon around 3 to 4 o'clock.  It's hard to tell from this perspective, but this bird isn't much larger than a bumble bee!  Someday we'll need a bigger lens for the camera.

Boat billed heron that we saw in the mangroves.

Parrot eating guava

Tiger heron on the way from the OBC to Puerto Jimenez

If the birds don't do it for you, we had a little added excitement this afternoon when we felt the effects of a 5.9 earthquake.  It was enough to shake the buildings here at the Osa Biodiversity Center, leaving the solar panels trembling and Edwin, one of the young construction workers who happened to be on the roof, yelping for joy.  Like I said, some just need more stimulation than all of the natural beauty that surrounds us here on the Osa Peninsula.  

It was funny; we were in the middle of the meeting and when we felt the first tremor, everybody paused, looked at each other, and got up and moved out of the building into the clearing.  We felt another wave while standing there.  After waiting a few minutes, we moved back inside and proceeded with our meeting.  

The next shakes were stronger however, and as the others rushed outside, I noticed two bottles of red wine perched on top of the refrigerator making their way for the edge.  Considering all options and consequences, I went for the wine.  It went well with dinner.

ABC Group Arrives Today

After so much planning, the group of seven from the American Birds Conservancy arrives this afternoon.  I'm still waiting at the OBC for Elder to arrive with the rest of the food, other outstanding purchases, and the booze of course.  Nothing like taking it down to the wire.

I'll meet him here, drop what needs to stay at the OBC and transfer the rest to the Cerro Osa vehicle and head up.  Liz from Bosque Rio Tigre will arrive around 3:30 this afternoon to help prepare the dinner for tonight.  Fortunately she was able to get her hands on 12 tuna steaks - I didn't realize what a task it would be to get fish around here.  Apparently there is stiff competition with all of the lodges in the area vying for the catch of the day.  Personally, I think that once Saima and I are buying and preparing food on our own, we'll likely stick with our 99% vegetarian routine - kinder on the environment and a lot easier to grow vegetables where we'll be living.  Besides, fishing, hunting and raising livestock on the land is not permitted under the terms of the conservation easement:)

I'm excited to meet this group and get to spend some time showing them around the parts that I know and seeing other areas that I don't know so well.  I'll be incomunicado for a couple of days while on Cerro Osa; return to the Osa Biodiversity Center Saturday.

I forgot to mention that yesterday's wildlife spotting highlights were the oriole snake that Manuel found in one of the cabinas while he was cleaning and the blue-crowned mot-mot that I saw just along the edge of the clearing at about 5pm yesterday.   There had also been a couple of large grasshoppers mating in the dining area.  They were there for a couple of days, the smaller male clasping to the larger female.  They were clinging to one of the wooden beams, making it difficult to place something next to them for perspective, but the female was at least as long as my hand.

Hauling Trees

There are two viveros, or tree nurseries, that Friends of the Osa has operated in the past.  These have gone in and out of operation depending on the organizational capacity and program funding.  As part of our land management plan, we'll be removing plantation woods such as teak and pochote, and reforesting with native trees.  I'm hoping that we'll be able to revive one of the viveros permanently, raising a wide range of trees that will include purple heart, cristobal, and walking palm.  

What you find is that when a tree is desirable, it is often in danger of being over-exploited by humans.  For example, purple heart is an almost unbelievable purple color and a very solid wood while cristobal is known for its rich, dark grain.  In the past, and even today, people will search specifically for these trees, cut them down and not even think about replanting.  In the case of the walking palm, there are two species that I know of.  The most abundant species isn't edible while the species that people prefer to eat... you guessed it, is becoming harder to find every day.

One way to avoid these species disappearing would be to create plantations.  If you're in the business of building furniture with purple heart, you plant a whole bunch of purple heart.  The problem with this approach, however, is that while maintaining that particular species, you've undoubtedly lost much more valuable habitat and incalculable amounts of biodiversity as a single-species plantation simply can't support a dynamic ecological system as a mature mixed forest will.

This year's dry season has been one of the driest that people can remember.  That's all I've heard since I've been here, from everybody I meet.  

"Esta seco, pero muy seco."  It's so dry.  

And it really is.  You see signs everywhere you look.  Manuel says that the terciopelos (fer-de-lance) are all hanging out closer to the rivers than normal; and the rivers are much shallower at this time compared to other years.  The road is so thick with dust that it rises up behind and trucks and settles on the forest's edge.  

So when I went to see the vivero at Rio Piro and learned that there was no water, I knew that we would have to move the saplings up to Cerro Osa.  Cheryl and I loaded about 200 trees into the bed of the little, beat up Toyota pick-up and hauled them up the hill to the vivero on Cerro Osa.  Juan and Augustin helped us unload them and within minutes had a sprinkler showering them with water.

I'm excited to see how they're doing tomorrow when I head up again to meet with the group that's visiting.  I'm even more excited to keep the momentum going with the native tree propagation and planting program.  There's so much potential to work with young students, community groups, eco-lodges and tourists to spread the word about the benefits of trees.  I don't know how much progress we'll be able to see this year, but I do know that every tree we plant will make a difference.

Everything Takes Longer Here

Yesterday was a great day.  I've had this bamboo-cooking experiment on my list of things to do to prep for the donor group from the American Birds Conservancy.  Adrian said that he learned this technique in Indonesia and thought that it might make for a memorable experience for our guests. Of course it sounds really easy: cut a section of bamboo, shove some food in it and stick it in the fire.  As with many things in life, very simple concept, takes a bit of planning to execute well.

Determined to test this cooking method, I had Juan cut me a few sections of bamboo while I was up on Cerro Osa yesterday morning.  This is when we started to flesh out the details.  When I first told Juan that we were going to cook in bamboo, he told me we couldn't.  

"Why not?" I ventured.  I knew that there was a high likelihood that the food wouldn't turn out, but I couldn't understand his adamant response to my request for 3 sections of bamboo.

"Se va a reventar!"  It will explode, he said.  Aha, our first obstacle.  Something had been lost in translation.

If you look at a section of bamboo, it is sealed on both ends.  OR, depending on how you cut it, it could be open on both ends. OR, if you are adventurous, you can leave one end intact while making your cut to open the top of that section.  Juan had obviously been thinking no further than option one, closed on both ends.  And I would have to agree with him that if you threw that into a fire and applied some laws on the behavior of gases that you learned in middle school, I wouldn't bet against that thing exploding.  It made me wonder if he had thought about how we would get the food inside if both ends were closed.  

After I explained to him that essentially we wanted to make bamboo pots, closed on the bottom, open on the top, we were in business.  Or were we?  There are about a hundred different plants to choose from just in one bunch of bamboo depending on how green you are looking for, overall diameter, and thickness of the wood.  We went back and forth, Juan arguing for a drier piece, with me countering that we were going to put this in a fire after all.  Again, thinking about what fire does to dry trees [even though bamboo is technically a grass], I won the argument and we ended up with these:

This gives you a pretty good idea of the concept.  I rinsed the insides out a little bit and then let them soak for a couple of hours with boiled water before we filled them with food.  We put chopped vegetables in one, rice and vegetables in the second and chicken and rice in the third.  Traditionally you are supposed to close the top by packing banana leaves in, allowing the food to steam and cook faster.  You also would supposedly only cook like this if you're stranded somewhere and using this as some sort of survival technique ... or you're crazy.

Since we weren't stranded, we chose to not use river water and banana leaves, and opted for water out of the tap at the OBC [which is connected to a tube that takes the water directly from the river] and aluminum foil.  With everything ready, Cheryl, Wibke and I headed down the Rio Piro trail to the beach where I had already collected firewood to get dinner started.

We waited until there were red hot glowing coals in the bottom of the fire before placing the bamboo in the flames.  Then there was nothing to do but wait.  After about 15 minutes we checked and were extremely disappointed to find that the water wasn't boiling yet.  We sampled some of the food and found that is wasn't even warm yet.  Really?  These things had been sitting on hot coals for 15 minutes and the insides weren't even warm.  Not to be dissuaded, we grabbed more wood and stoked the fire until it was raging around the bamboo pots - at this point we had nothing to lose.  This time we waited about 30 minutes before checking again and were happy to see that it seemed to be working.

Here's the trick.  After more than an hour, and a lot of firewood from the beach, we had succeeded in getting the insides boiling and well on the way to a delicious meal.  What we learned was that the bamboo actually has to start burning from the outside in to cook completely.  At least that was true for the thickness that we were working with.  I'm sure it would be different with thinner sides.

The pots couldn't be removed from the fire until the flames died down, and only then with the help of some branches; remember that these pots themselves now were essentially on fire, glowing embers surrounding the food inside.  We took them out, one by one, and set them in the cool sand away from the fire.  With much anticipation, I took the first bite.  Delicious!

I can't say that the rice and chicken had a "bambooy" flavor as much as a char-grilled smokiness about it.  But I can say that we had success with a first attempt and that we'll only get better with this interesting and special way of making a meal.

You may scoff and ask why you would do this when you can just cook like "normal."  I would answer that everything takes longer here and that's what is so special about this place.

Lazy Sunday

Today was a relaxing day.  We saw the group off after breakfast and as we were sitting around wondering how we would occupy our day, Cheryl suggested we all go down to Cabo Matapalo to the beach.  What a good idea!  

We had to wait about twenty minutes for Guido to collect some things that he was taking into Puerto Jimenez so we were in the cabina doing the normal things you do before you go to the beach, grabbing sunscreen, towels and sandals.  I had just put my contacts in when I heard something flop onto a banana leaf outside of the bathroom.  It turns out it was this vine snake.  What a wonderful subject as it just lazed about on this Sunday morning.  I was even able to catch it yawning:

The beach was spectacular.  There were only about 10 of us in total, some surfing, some swimming and some on the shore.  The water was blue and warm.  The most spectacular thing about the day was swimming in the midst of pelicans.  They didn't seem to be bothered at all by our presence, continuing with their diving as normal.  I got a nice video clip that I'll have to post later when I get the right connecting cable.

After lunch and some cold drinks at Martina's bar (Buena Esperanza Bar, which means bar of good hope, but everybody refers to it simply as Martina's) we hopped the colectivo truck back to the OBC in time to catch the sky changing colors.