Day 4: August 1st, 2011

A Goliath find...

!Pura Vida! Greetings, day 4 in Costa Rica. Waking up to a beautiful morning we had granola with yogurt and more eggs, beans and rice. After breakfast, we split into two teams. We switched off preparing fungi cultures from yesterday's samples (the ants had even repaired most of the gardens overnight!). Meanwhile the other group translated informational pamphlets about Leaf Cutter ants from Spanish to English. Shortly after a group of tourists from California and Chicago came to visit the farm and we all watched Pablo chop down and prepare a heart of palm salad USING A MACHETE! Following Pablo's performance we ate said salad as an appetizer. For the entrée we had spaghetti with toast.
After lunch we departed to visit either the hot springs and  purmaculture farm (depending on what we went to yesterday). At the purmaculture farm we saw a lot of interesting things like their house made of mostly natural materials, their mobile chicken coup (called a chicken tractor) to clear vegetation from the ground and enriching the soil. They also had a bicycle powered washing machine, and toilets for turning waste into compost. On the way home we found a large ant colony and plan to show Pinto tomorrow. At the hot springs the other group got to wade upstream since the weather was nicer. We climbed up a waterfall and some rapids to a secluded little pool where we hung out and snapped some great pics with Ian's waterproof camera. On both of our trips back it began raining and Pablo even popped a wheelie with his dirt bike! For dinner we had Pork with a sweet sauce, potato pancakes, and salad. For dessert we had a chocolate cake with REAL whipped cream that had spices in it too. After dinner we watched an educational film about bullet ants that Dr. Pinto starred in, that included some action-packed hat putting-on scenes and great music. Finally we ended the day with a statistics lesson related to our microbial cultures. As we our lesson ended we found a Goliath Beatle witch was, as the name suggests, giant.  Oh and as we write Matt, Brad, and Alyna are having an intense Egyptian rat slap (a card game)  rematch.

Nicky, Nick, Trevor