Monday, July 16, 2012

Well another exciting day today!! It was time for our group to travel to Braulio Carrillo National Park to do our field work.  Our destination was Vulcan Barva, at 2600 meters in elevation. What a great experience.  We traveled by bus (a nice comfortable bus) as far as we could on the road on our way to the top of the mountain. When we could travel no longer in the nice comfortable bus, we loaded into a TEAM Van to continue the journey. Packed like a bunch of sardines, we felt as though we were doing more team bonding (lots of laughs). The roads were unbelievably steep with giant holes and windy narrow passages. We were all happy to be alive when we arrived at the station only to find that the forest was our relief station, and we had another 40 minute uphill hike! Once we reached our destination, we began our field work. In the pouring rain and cool temperatures, we measured the distance to each tree, and then determined the diameter at breast height. Both teams did a great job, and then we were on our way back down the mountain. The driver was so impressed with the terrain that occasionally he stopped to take pictures. He also stopped to let a herd of cows pass by. Luckily we made it back to Le Selva with more memories and a great story to tell.

Cow crossing!

This was the angle of the road!

Using TEAM protocol to measure the trees at Vulvan Barva