La Selva, Costa Rica

After a short stint in the dry, dry forest of Santa Rosa, Carlos and I headed back to our home base for 2.5 years -- La Selva Biological Station. I had a lot more field stuff to get done here compared to Santa Rosa: I retrieved semi-permeable mammal exclosures, seedling exclosures, and fruit fall traps. We had about a week at La Selva and all of those days were full of heavy field work! I had a good time visiting friends and wandering around the forest seeing familiar animals and plants. When we left this time, it felt a lot more final than when we came back to the states before Christmas. I know I will be back in La Selva some day, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Santa Rosa, Costa Rica

I spent about three days at the beginning of my Costa Rica Spring Break trip in the dry forest of Parque Nacional Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is in the province of Guanacaste on the northwestern coast of Costa Rica. I like this field station well enough, but I much prefer working at La Selva. I also enjoy the dry forest here, but my heart belongs to the lush, green tropical wet forest. At this time of year, it is the dry season in Costa Rica and in a seasonal dry forest like Santa Rosa, the majority of the trees drop their leaves (this doesn't really happen in wet forests). The trees looked dead and the ground looked dry and cracked, but there were plenty of flowers and fruits on the trees and on the ground.

My reason for visiting Santa Rosa again (I hadn't been there for over two years) was to remove my old fruit fall traps from the field and dispose of them. This only took two days and most of the traps were still in perfect condition -- my trap design was definitely effective (although I didn't end up using them...)!

One fun thing about the dry forest research station in Santa Rosa is that there is a little compost pile that agoutis regularly visit right outside the dorm area. I would just sit at the table in the afternoon and wait for an agouti to arrive and I would throw him/her my old tomatoes or avocado pit -- I was actually able to get some pretty nice agouti pictures!

After a short stint at Santa Rosa, Carlos and I took the bus back to San Jose (4 hours), then another bus out to Puerto Viejo, Sarapiqui to get our work done at La Selva.

Home again

Yesterday Carlos and I returned to Miami. Aside from having to wait four hours for Carlos to clear immigration, all went well and we arrived home with all of our samples, traps, etc. I had a great time in Costa Rica (especially La Selva) and it was sad to leave, especially since this time felt more final than when we left prior to our Christmas return to the states. I will download the pictures from my trip and I will try to post them in the next few days!

Costa Rica

Well, here I am again -- back in La Selva! After three days up north in the dry forests of Santa Rosa (it's the dry season too so they were DRY!), Carlos and I made it here to La Selva Biological Station. It took two long bus rides and a few taxis to get here, but we arrived two nights ago and spent most of yesterday getting settled in. I have been planning out all that I have to do in the field during the next week and I will be busy, but I will be able to get everything accomplished. It is nice to be back here, but things feel slightly off. I guess that means that I am pretty much done with La Selva for now -- at least until I return in the future with another research project!

One step closer to Germany

I registered for the 2009 ATBC (Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation) conference two days ago and today I purchased my airplane ticket to Germany! I am very excited to be setting all of these plans in motion, but I am so busy right now preparing for Costa Rica! The ATBC conference will be held in the town of Marburg, Germany (about 1.5 hours by train from Frankfurt). It looks like a pretty ancient town with cobblestone streets and lots of stairs -- I can't wait to go. Carlos and I will be attending the conference together and we also made some time to travel around for about a week afterward. I am really unsure of where our extra travels will take us -- I will have to start reading and planning those out after I am back from Costa Rica. If anyone has any fun suggestions for sightseeing in Germany, I am all ears!

Going to Costa Rica (again)

Woo-hoo! Carlos and I are heading out to Costa Rica soon for one last data collection trip and to tie up any loose ends. I am not super-excited to be going right now since I am reeeeeally busy, but I think I will enjoy it when I actually get there. I am traveling to both La Selva and Santa Rosa during this trip to take traps and cages out of the field and to bring some things home that I've stored there. It will be a busy time, but I think we'll have a good time being in the field again. I will be sure to post some pictures when I get back!

Asian snacks -- Litchi candies

These hard lychee (or litchi) candies are really good -- possibly my favorite lychee-flavored items (besides lychee fruits themselves). I have eaten fresh lychees straight from the tree and they are the best. Canned ones are OK if you can't eat the fresh fruits which are pretty hard to come by in the states.
As for these candies, they are a pleasant transparent pale pink color and have a light sweet lychee taste that is a little floral. I usually buy these if I see them and they are a nice candy to snack on.

300th post!

Wow, this marks the 300th post on my lowly little blog! I can't believe that I have already written 300 Rowdy Mouse entries -- it has gone by so fast. Sometimes I am not very good about updating, but right now I am in the swing of things and the good internet connection in my office allows me to post whenever I think of it or need a work break. Rowdy Mouse has served as a very good online journal and I hope I can continue it for years to come!

Asian snacks -- Tomato Pretz

Keeping with the Pretz theme, today I will review the other flavor of Pretz I got from Uwajimaya: Tomato Pretz. These thin little biscuit sticks were a little more red in color than the Salad Pretz and tasted very tomato-y. I preferred these to the salad Pretz because I liked the slight sun-dried tomato flavor that they gave. I would enjoy eating these as a regular snack. I know there are many more flavors of Pretz out there and I will try to sample more in the future. If they have a pea-flavored Pretz, I will definitely give those a try!

Asian snacks -- Salad Pretz

I was intrigued first by this snack's name: Salad Pretz. These are pretzel-like buttery biscuit sticks and they are apparently salad flavored. I was interested to know what a salad-flavored snack would taste like and I have discovered that it tastes more like salty oregano than lettuce. Hmmmm...it was not what I was expecting, but I liked these snack sticks nonetheless. I also purchased Tomato Pretz (which honestly sounded more intriguing even than Salad Pretz!), but I will wait to talk about those on another day.

Asian snacks -- Watermelon candies

I really like the flavor of watermelon -- it may be among my favorite fruits -- so I decided to give these hard watermelon candies a try. They were pretty good and came in 4 different varieties. The pink ones were sweeter than the yellow, but they were all good hard candies. I especially liked all the little details that went into the design of the candies and making them look like mini-watermelon pieces.

More zoo photos

I took way too many photos the last time I went to the zoo and I thought I would post them just for fun.

I thought we would be able to visit the zoo again last weekend, but we were too busy. Hopefully we will get there before Carlos and I leave for Costa Rica again (we will be gone for about 10 days).

Asian snacks -- Pea crisps

These may very well be my favorite snack (at least on par with yukon gold salt and vinegar potato chips!) -- Saya pea crisps! It may sound weird, but these pea flavored chips are very, very good and taste a lot like fresh snap peas -- if those peas were dried and molded into little pea pod-shaped crisps. I get these every time I see them and I have only ever seen them at Asian food markets. There is a similar style chip that I found at Whole Foods, but the taste just isn't as strong and delicious as this variety. I highly recommend these chips, you might like them even if you don't like peas -- they are THAT good!