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.