A day at La Selva Biological Station

11/29/2012 Dan: Torrential rain through much of the night. A staff member says if they gave out medals for rain, Chilamate would have won gold last night. 

Susan: We hiked some of the trails at Chilamate on our own in the morning, but were grateful to be shown a sloth by William, who was giving a tour to the latest guests to arrive at the retreat. If William had not pointed out the sloth, we NEVER would have seen it. My photo isn't very good, I'm afraid, since the sloth was high up in a cecropia tree.

We also got to see a basilisk running across the grounds. Very cool! 

 

Dan: At mid-morning we took a taxi over to the legendary La Selva Biological Station and arrived shortly before lunch. We hung out on the suspension footbridge over the Puerto Viejo river.

Just like Tirimbina, the bridge proved to be a spectacular place to see beautiful birds like the Collared Aracari at close range. 

 

 

The cafeteria lunch at La Selva was a huge disappointment compared to the superb meals at the eco retreat. The tilapia was the slimiest fish that I have ever been served and I dumped 80 percent of my lunch in their compost bin because it was so poor.

At 1:30 we met our youthful but experienced nature guide. He told us that after high school he had attended a year of Eco-guide training at the University of Costa Rica. Our guide said he hoped we were his only tourists and he got his wish. He asked what we were most interested in seeing and we told him we loved learning about everything in nature.

Many of the trails at La Selva are paved and quite wide.

Susan: Although our guide was technically very knowledgeable, he seemed to suffer from boredom in paradise. It rained during much of our tour, and our guide told us the policy was that when it rained hard, we could not be in the forest (there is the very real danger that branches will break under the weight of many water-logged epiphytes), so he hopped us from building to building during downpours. We did get to see another sloth in the distance before the rain started, which was great. We also saw a peccary near the main buildings - these wild pigs are becoming too numerous in the absence of large predators, and can do substantial damage to the rainforest vegetation.

While we sheltered during the rain, it was hard to engage our guide: we felt we had to pull the information from him. While researchers played ping pong and we read posters about invasive plants, our guide was off talking to someone else instead of noticing our interest in invasive plants. Even when the rain lessened, he seemed anxious to get out of the rain and finish his work day. This tour was our only disappointment of the week. We heard from others that La Selva has experienced recent cutbacks, and morale may be suffering among the guides. It would be nice if La Selva had an alternative for tours that get cut short by heavy rain, either by providing a sheltered program or by offering a partial refund.

 

Map showing the mountains above La Selva and the Sarapiqui Valley. Yellow areas are banana plantations. Purple areas are pineapple farms. Tan areas are pastures.