My days in Costa Rica have come to an end and I am back in Oklahoma, where I will begin to run my analyses and figure out if and how fungal pathogen spillover from coffee plantations are affecting forest tree seedlings. My last week and a half was spent cleaning up my field sites, interviewing local farmers and foresters for my side project, saying my goodbyes, and taking some time to explore Monteverde!
Now that my field season has finished, I removed the flags labeling my plots because they aren’t designed for long term use. However, since we have the GPS coordinates for each plot and site, if myself or another member of the team wants to continue working on this project, they can be found easily and remarked in the future.
I was able to walk around the Sabalito Reserve, which is a part of one of the forest sites I worked in. One of the owners, Vilma, gave me a tour. She showed me around the reserve and taught me about their reforestation efforts and trail maintenance work, all while hunting for mushrooms and showing me some interesting trees and plants. I spoke with her about her reserve– how it came to be, the efforts going in to reforesting and replanting, and the future she sees for it. Later in the week I also spoke with some local coffee farmers, who are actively working to maintain biodiversity by keeping nearby forests intake, while still profiting from coffee production. I am hoping I can spend some time in the next few weeks writing up these stories and sharing them with all of you!
At the end of my final field work week, I went bird watching one last time, said my goodbyes to my field assistant and other friends at the station, packed up the car and embarked on the five hour drive to San Jose to drop off some samples and work on getting my permits sorted out. Then it was time to relax!
While in San Jose, I picked up my sister from the airport and we headed out to Monteverde for the weekend, a mountain town in Costa Rica famous for its cloud forest preserves! Here we went ziplining (which was a first for me), ate some really good tacos, went on a coffee tour, chocolate tour (and had some of the best chocolate of my life), a night walk (where we saw a kinkajou and tarantula–which Jessica was not a fan of), and tried some sugar cane juice. We went hiking through the Monteverde Preserve and saw white-faced monkeys and a quetzal (one of the coolest looking birds I’ve ever seen)! On our last night, we tried a seven course dining experience in the tree tops, which was a pretty interesting and once in a lifetime experience! Once the weekend was over, I dropped Jessica back off in San Jose and spent the day at a beautiful wildlife sanctuary. While I was here on a mission to spot a sloth (to no avail unfortunately), I saw some incredible parrots/parakeets, monkeys, an ocelot, and a tapir!
Now that my time in Costa Rica has come to an end, I am sad to have left but am excited for the future ahead! Costa Rica was full of some incredible first time experiences, where I spent my days exploring the forests and meeting some incredible people from all over the world (and making friendships I will forever cherish). With my field season behind me, I am excited to start analyzing my data so that I can share my findings with the farmers/foresters of Costa Rica, and all of you! I am also looking forward to working on sharing the personal stories I have collected along the way and continuing my journey in science communication.
Stay tuned for more exciting things to come! In the meantime, enjoy some of my last photos from Costa Rica (I know, I’m sad too).
Best,
Gina
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Gina Errico 
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