Study Abroad Costa Rica

Background Information: Irazu is Costa Rica' s highest active volcano at 3432 m (or 11,260ft). It's name means Point Thunder. Irazu is a type of stratovolcano, which means it is a conical volcano built up by many layers of volcanic eruption materials, such as magma. In the national park, there are five total craters with the two most popular ones being Crater Principal and Diego de La Haya. Diego de La Haya is named after the person who recorded its first eruption in the 1700s. The national park was founded in 1965. Two years prior to this, John F. Kennedy (then U.S. President)   arrived in the Costa Rica the day of one of its most recent eruptions. The park is 5705 acres and contains both primary and secondary montane forests. My professor and classmate Charlie hanging out on the fence in front of the crater The Field Trip: The field trip started at 8:00 am with a 4×4 taxi ride through the central valley through to the volcano. The last town we passed before hea

La Selva: A True Tropical Forest This excursion was the first field study I had for Tropical Ecology. We left from the central park around noon on Saturday, September 28. It was about a 3 hour drive through really windy roads until we got there. La Selva is located in Sarapiqui, close to the Caribbean Coast.  Once we got there, I could tell right away that it was gonna be a really hot and sticky weekend. I was warned that this area is more like a rainforest than what we have seen so far, and my professor was right. It was about 90°F with like 100% humidity. We arrived late afternoon, so we were given about an hour to put our stuff in our rooms and hang out before our professor showed us around little bit. The rooms were similar to like cabins at a summer camp, with 3 bunk beds and no A.C.. I roomed with my friends Maddie and Cierra, so I was completely ok with the arrangements.  Before our first walk with our professor, a lot of us started exploring a little on our o

View from my bedroom window now About a month into the program, I was advised to move host families. Let me explain. I was originally assigned to live with a single, unemployed elderly lady near the center of San Ramon. There was an initial adjustment period at first, of course. To start introductions, she told me about her family and her life, her nine other host students, offered me hot chocolate for dinner, and gave me a set of rules. These rules were quite a lot and a little confusing since they were written in Spanish. One of the rules said that for dinner, I was to have tea or coffee (hot chocolate in my case) or crackers. I was a little upset with this at first because I thought we were supposed to get three meals a day, but I brushed it off, figuring I could just make my own meals if necessary (although I couldn't make my own food because she wouldn't let me use the kitchen either). A couple weeks went by and at this point, my friends and I were starting to com

UCR San Ramon campus Even though my Instagram and other posts make it seem like all I do is travel around and hang out with my friends, I promise I do actually go to class.  Tuesday through Friday, I have class. This is my schedule: Tuesday : Environmental Policy 8-11am This class has four students in it and is focused around discussions. Before each class, we have about 50 pages of readings and a summary paper to write on the readings. We come to class with these materials and a student leads the discussion for the day. This week we are talking about biodiversity and the costs of agriculture on tropical rainforests.  Wednesday : Tropical Ecology 8-11 am This class is one of the most popular ones offered by USAC with thirteen students taking it. A lot of this class is just learning about basic ecology concepts and applying them to tropical ecosystems. We learn about geography, plants, animals, and interactions between organisms. We don't ever really have homework for t

The Planning: I knew Quepos and Manuel Antonio were places I wanted to visit when I came to Costa Rica. It's one of Costa Rica's most popular national parks with a forested nature reserve right on the beach. It wasn't included in any if my field studies or as part of USAC excursions, but I still really wanted to go. After analyzing my schedule, I realized I only had time to go during the month of September, especially the weekend after my birthday. This place seemed like the perfect way to celebrate, on the beach and looking for animals. I didn't want to go alone so I brought it up in our USAC group chat. Almost everyone said they were interested in going. As the planner, I initially struggled to find a place for 20 people. Then people started deciding they wanted to stay in other hostels/hotels for different cost reasons. This worked out because it brought my group size down to nine people. I explored AirBnBs for a while and then decided to just two different