What's class without a swimming hole, a mud pit, and a few beers?

Conservation and Development is quite the subject matter to tackle in 3 weeks! We have been trucking through some heavy material. But in the midst of reading and paper writing, we always manage to squeeze in a field trip!

Day 1 started with a hike in La Cangreja National Park, or what we thought was going to be the park, but we actually weren't allowed in the park boundaries. We had a representative with us from an NGO that used to work together with the park, but apparently there has been a falling out within the last year. An interesting story of management styles and control over who gets to decide what is done with the land. So we hiked a trail adjacent to the park, and learned about the past 10 years of conservation and preservation within the area as well as the endemic species that live there.


Just as we were about to move on to Rancho Mastatal just in time for a long trip to the swimming hole....the back tire of the bus plunged into a lone mud pit on the side of the road. The bus was real stuck. After 15 minutes of digging, pushing, and trying to pull it out with a 4 wheeler, I hopped on the 4 wheeler and headed 15 minutes up the road to the ranch for some help. I returned with a large truck, some wood planks, and shovels and we then managed to free the bus. By then we were real muddy and hot.



We arrived at the ranch to discover that the water was out (a common occurrence) and so we quickly headed to the waterfall for a cleanse and some quality time jumping off rocks! In fact our professor was having so much fun that he canceled class for the evening so that we could play a bit longer! yes!

Day 2 was filled with an in depth tour of Mastatal, delicious Tico cooked food, and an afternoon trip to the swimming hole with inner-tubes to float down the rapids! Again, our professor loved it so much that we overstayed our time frame by about 2 hours. He was too busy cruising down the rapid! We climbed on the bus for Palmichal and made a few pee/beer stops along the 2 hour journey. We arrived just in time for dinner, followed by two days worth of class discussion crammed into one evening. The fact that everyone had been drinking for the last few hours made for some...interesting...debate.



Day 3 we learned about the organization that is Palmichal and how it got started and operates. It it basically a community initiated organization designed to promote local enterprise and protect the watershed. We went to one of the small businesses, a coffee farm, and got a tour of the plantation as well as the operating equipment. We watched the whole process from the cherry picking to the final roasting! This photo shows a worker pushing the excess cherry skins from the de-skinner down to a truck where it will then be taken to use for worm-a-culture.



So all in all it was a great, but exhausting field trip (filled with lots of picture taking as always!). The main theme being the comparison of different types of resource management and the effects on communities and their development. Now it's back to the classroom to synthesis what we learned and apply it to the greater picture of what to do about global resource management! And because you're a great photographer...This one's for you Andrew.