Aero: Marriah Gough – Costa Rica 2015 – Biodiversity

Aero: Marriah Gough – Costa Rica 2015 – Biodiversity
Creative Commons Image via The LEAF Project

Aero: Marriah Gough – Costa Rica 2015 – Biodiversity

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Marriah Gough

Being in New York sometimes offers you many different climates and ecosystems day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. It was the same thing when being in Costa Rica. Where we were staying in Alajuela, there was nothing but sunshine, even bright and early at six thirty and had the perfect temperature of around seventy two degrees. Throughout the town, the area was flat with sidewalks, one way streets, and water draining systems directly below the sidewalks. For the most part, walking around Alajuela, all you had to worry about was the water drains, which were deep and if you weren’t paying attention you could step really far down. When we traveled to places such as Arenal, la Basilica, and Volcan Poas, the terrain and climate was a bit different. When driving, we no longer were in the flats. The roads kept getting more twisty, as well as our elevation just kept increasing. It seemed as if we could see the entire city, as well as if we were driving and walking on clouds. Sometimes, the higher we got, the more cloud we saw, making it a bit chillier and harder to breathe at times as well as seeing less sunshine. Also, where I live, there are a lot of trees throughout the city, a great benefit to living in the country. It is one of my favorite things about living where I live. When being in Costa Rica, there are trees everywhere! All you see is trees, and the rainforests. It is absolutely beautiful.

ML@FLCC Costa Rica
2015 Flickr Gallery

On our hike at Rio Celeste, the entire hike was nothing but sunshine, and as we approached the final destination of the hike, the sky opened up and down poured on us, even though the sky didn’t have a rain cloud in sight. Weather and climate is very bipolar in Costa Rica, it just does as it pleases. Also, almost every night at the hostel, it rained. We would be eating dinner; it would start to rain, two minutes later it would be as if someone was turning a faucet on and off. It didn’t know what it wanted to do. Compared to the states, there were some different animals in Costa Rica that we were able to see by simply just pulling over on the side of the road and taking pictures, but back in the states that would be weird. One animal in particular that we were able to see multiples of was the Sloth. On our way to Arenal, we were able to pull over on the side of the road and look directly up in a tree and see a sloth that just happened to be carrying a baby at the time. We were able to learn that there are two species of sloths; a two toed and three toed sloth. We were lucky to see both species throughout our trip travels. We were also able to see a few different kinds of the rainforest frogs when pulling aside on the road. One fun fact that we learned was that the little tree frogs that are all red and have blue legs are often referred to as blue jean frogs because of their blue legs. Compared to the states, Costa Rica has a greater variety of leaves, and trees it is so hard to remember all of them. However, the one that seemed to stick the most was the walking tree that our tour guide pointed out to us. It received its name because the tree will start out straight in the ground like most trees, but as it grows it likes to move itself by tilting towards the direction of the sun. It literally bends its top half over so that it is in the sun. Overall, both the atmosphere, and surrounding everywhere we went were beyond beautiful. I couldn’t put my camera down!

Marriah Gough
LEAF Contributor