Week One

I'm sitting outside my cabin at the Las Cruces Biological Station, and it's about 65*F and sunny.  Not only is the weather perfect, but the plants and animals in the Botanical Gardens make it all smell and sound wonderful.  To give a quick update on what's been going on over the past few days:  We've been at the field station, taking classes every day but Sunday with field trips interspersed.  We took a tour of the botanical gardens and visited a local health clinic (basically a primary care physician's office).  Yesterday, on our free day, we woke up at 6 like every other day and took a 5-hour hike through the rain forest.  It was the first time I'd been in real, untamed jungle and it was incredible. The coolest thing, besides eating lunch on rocks in a river, was the strangler fig in this photo.

 
The seeds of these trees land at the base of a tree, then it grows up along the tree.  When it reaches a certain height, it's roots begin to grow from the top of the tree down to the ground.  When they reach the ground, they thicken and meld together to form the trunk, ultimately encasing the original tree and cutting off its sunlight (aka strangling the tree).  The original tree dies and you end up with this amazing hollow structure that will eventually fill in and look like a normal tree, but hollow.  The picture was taken inside the strangler fig, looking up.  Besides that great hike, we've spent a lot of time bonding and getting to know our great professors, plus doing more homework than I imagined for a study-abroad experience.  The homework is ok though, because the classes are really interesting.  Tomorrow will hold a visit to a nearby indigenous territory and more class, then back to San Jose Wednesday for our home-stays and intensive Spanish, plus more class and visits to some sights in the capital city.  Hasta luego!