Sorry for the delay. I’ve been laid up in bed with some sort of food poisoning/fever thing for the past 2 days. But I’m mostly recovered, just taking it easy for a bit.
The narrative continues…Days 4 and 5.
Day 4 was definitely the longest of my days in Barra Honda. It started at 3:30 am and didn’t wrap up until midnight. We woke up insanely early to hike up the mountain (not a very big one) to watch the sunrise. With some skillful flashlight guiding skills from Stefan, we made it to the highest lookout point before 5 am. From the Mirador (lookout point), we could see out over the local village lit by a few pinpricks of light. To the east we looked to the Gulf of Nicoya and the largest island in Costa Rica. Once we got to the top, we sat in silence to listen to the sounds of the morning. The howler monkeys were the first to start with their raucous noises, yelling and screeching over the treetops. The ongoing drone of the crickets was matched by the waking noises of all the other buzzing flying insects. Like instruments in a symphony, the birds built the morning concert to a noisy atonal crescendo. Color peeked slowly into the sky. Growing shades of blue, purple, and pink rising up over the gulf and lighting up the surrounding hills. When the sun had finally risen, a cascade of clouds began pouring from the mountaintops at our backs into the valley in front of us until the whole region was obscured by the dense white fog.
Around 6:30, we started heading back to the camp to get ready for breakfast and to start our workday. The post-dawn hike down was filled with wildlife and more beautiful sites. Just like we were waking up, so were all the animals. We spotted several monkeys and lots of exotic birds. At one point, about sixty green and yellow parrots descended on a tree just in front of us and we all just stood there in a mutual staring contest. Much of the mud in Barra Honda is the magical stuff that’s simultaneously incredibly slippery and sticky and between the walk up and back, my boots were absolutely covered in the brown-red mess. I started looking for roots to scuff my shoes on and nearly fell on my face trying to avoid the boa constrictor I was about to step on. It was just a “little” one (about 4-5 feet long and as thick as my fist), but more than big enough to give me quite a scare. It was kind enough to stay long enough for me to call to my companions to come back and see before slithering away back into the forest. I spent the rest of the walk down eyeing every curvy twig with heightened paranoia.
Meicel met us with a delicious breakfast (as per normal) upon our arrival and we checked the board to see that our morning would be spent in the caverns. Woot! The caverns were the reason that Barra Honda was rescued from its former farmland status and are the main tourist draw for the park. An hour after our return from the “hill”, we turned back around to head up to the top…again. This time, with ropes, helmets, and harnesses. Much to my surprise, this hike felt easier than any of the others the whole week. A good sign? When we reached the cave entrance, Rich and Oscar got us strapped into our harnesses and we climbed down the 50 meter ladder into the caverns. Oscar, who was a park guide for 10 years before he started working for Projects Abroad, took us on a tour through the primary cave (out of the forty-two in the park). After climbing back out of the cave, we were greeted by a couple more howler monkeys as we walked back to the Mirador to take another look over the now cloudy valley.
After lunch, Meicel taught me to make her Arroz con Leche (basically amazing Rice pudding) and I got a whole hour to do nothing before our bat project responsibilities began. We started by setting up the bat nets in the nearby woods and checked them at fifteen minute intervals. Almost every time, we found a tiny (or not so tiny) bat tangled up in the fine net mesh. Joe, one of the park staff, was on hand to extract the wings and impossibly tiny feet from the layers of mesh. When each bat was freed from the net, we put it in a tiny wriggling bag to carry back to camp and take data. Each tiny wriggling bag was weighed and we measured their wingspan and took lots of other notes on them. After collecting all the necessary data, we got to release them. It was really interesting to have this squirming ball of fur and skin held between my hands before giving it the freedom to move around and flap its wings. We found fruit eating bats (the biggest ones), some insect eating bats, and even two vampire bats. They don’t just have two big fangs- all of their teeth are huge and razor sharp.. We didn’t get to hold those- only Joe and Eduardo handled them, and only with thick gloves. (Eduardo has an inch-long scar on his thumb from the last time he held one without gloves.) After six hours on bat duty and a day of more than twenty hours, it was finally fiiiinally bedtime.
Friday morning held fewer surprises. Rich gave us an optional free morning, but worked on wood for building the lookout point (yay powertools!!) and clearing some of the excess grass on the campsites. We made a quick post-lunch trip to the pool at Manuel’s and the afternoon was more bat net mending. Dinner was a rather somber affair. Everybody was dreading having to say goodbye and our attitudes reflected it. After only five days, it was so hard to have to say goodbye to such wonderful people and such a beautiful place as Barra Honda. I was so lucky to have gotten to spend a week there and can’t wait to have another in July.