Aero: Katie Zawisa – Costa Rica 2014 – Biodiversity
Aero: Katie Zawisa – Costa Rica 2014 – Biodiversity
Aero: Katie Zawisa – Costa Rica 2014 – Biodiversity
For never being off of the East Coast of the U.S. and only going south of Kentucky three times in my life, I’d say this biodiversity was a new experience. Volcanoes, lagoons, rainforest, cloud forest, more forests and THE PACIFIC OCEAN!
Katie Zawisa
The Pacific Ocean, finally! Yea, I was pretty excited to finally be able to be in another ocean aside from the frigid Atlantic. Endless light blue, it was so exciting and then I went in the water…yup, tastes just as bad as the Atlantic! I was expecting it to have clear water but then I got in the waves and all the churning water and sand turned my white bathing suit bottoms not-so-white. Oh well, it was worth it to finally be able to say I’ve set foot in both oceans.
Volcan Poás had to have been my favorite nature adventure. Seeing the deep craters and knowing how much destruction could come from something less than a quarter mile away from the very spot I was standing was a thrill. The steam made it even more real. The lagoon of Poás with crystal clear blue water was so tempting to dive in! The lush greenery around the lagoon and the lagoon itself made it hard to remember that I was standing on a volcano. It was odd to think something so beautiful was so destructive and still has that destructive potential today.
Volcan Irazu wasn’t as exciting but it definitely was a different experience. As soon as we parked and all got out ready to see Irazu, I felt it. The altitude. It started taking a toll on me and I thought maybe I was just tired. Once we started walking to short path to the outlook I knew it wasn’t just exhaustion, I couldn’t even walk as slow as a turtle and not be out of breath or physically exhausted. Sitting down or stopping every chance I got was my only option to keep me from falling because my head was spinning so much.
Costa Rica 2014 Photo Gallery
Green, green everywhere! I am not a biology person at all, I will tell you that right now. I’m a business-woman who likes her cool adventures like zip-lining and hiking to a volcano…not so much hiking in circles with no awesome destination. I did find the first hike interesting, learning some news things here and there. But after the first one, I had seen all I needed to see about the forest. I didn’t need the same things repeated to me tour guide after tour guide because most science stuff goes over my head. Don’t get me wrong, I respect what these people are doing in the forest and it would be a great time for those Bio majors, but everything green is the same to me.
What really intrigued me were the mountains. I live in the Adirondacks and going through these mountains were completely different. The shape, look and feel of them was unlike anything I had experienced. The gullies in between the mountains made them skinnier and steeper than any mountain I’d traveled before. Instead of the thick, tall Adirondacks, these mountains gave me a sense of thrill because of how dangerous they could be, yet spotted with livestock.
Learn More: Study abroad with Modern Languages @ FLCC: Costa Rica!
– Katie Zawisa
The LEAF Project
www.leaflanguages.org
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
