San Gerardo

El Bosque Eterno de los Niños, or BEN: a safe haven from deforestation, funded initially by Swedish school children. It houses 7 life zones in 23,000 hectares and a disproportionately huge amount of species. Beyond even that, the BEN benefits local economy through ecotourism, improvement of water quality with 5 watersheds in the forest, protection against soil erosion, all the while providing hydroelectricity. But more important than benefits and statistics, the BEN is cool as hell. And deep in the heart of the patchwork of pristine primary forest and reforested pasture is the San Gerardo field station.
Just a hike an a half down (and inevitably back up) the steep mountain slope, riddled with animal sightings (a fabulous male quetzal takes the cake with flashy iridescence and brilliantly long tail feathers) and atmospheric views (both the Arenal volcano and a particularly tall waterfall were seen from the hike’s halfway point, enter photo here) lies the station. And once there, even more was to be seen- a king vulture, glass frog, rufous eyed tree frog, a cute and twisty caracolera snake, gbioluminescent fungus, bats backlit by lighting (“dope AF”- Hannah), and so, so many spiders. And every single one was beautiful. Camera traps captured even more life; we spent quite a while analyzing videos of a spotted cat, now known to be an ocelot. Night walks were plentiful, and the peace of the forest thrashing with the sounds of life was foregrounded by swathes of stars when cloud cover had passed. Our sleeping quarters were likewise thrashing with the sounds of life, though perhaps for more human-sourced reasons like impromptu dances and falling out of bunk beds.

-Hannah and Corrin