My Experiences Studying and Researching Abroad: La Trocha

Hola!

Somehow it's already the end of June. Not quite sure how that happened. I've been here for three and a half weeks now, and I'm still learning so much new information every day.

Life updates:

Happy birthday to both my parents! My dad celebrated his birthday on June 26th, and my mom's birthday is on July 2nd. Very much wishing I could snap my fingers and be home to celebrate with them 🎊

This week we said goodbye to Scotty, our little white dog. It was really hard not to be home for that as well 😢

Costa Rica Updates:

I've finally started leading (or co-leading) my own activities! Which has been going really well. So far, I've led a guided hike (with Marisa), a farm tour (with Kody, another naturalist), a night hike (with Riley, another naturalist), and a milking tour (by myself!). There's definitely still so much to learn to improve each of these, but I'm at least starting to feel more comfortable.

The weather has been kind of funky the past few days. When I got here, the norm seemed to be clear in the morning, then rainy for a good part of the afternoon/evening. Yesterday, for example, it just rained on and off all day...including for all of the morning activity I shadowed. During which my raincoat was nice and safe and dry inside my backpack in the lab 😞

La Trocha

Last week we walked into Santa Elena. It's about 5 miles away and takes roughly 20 minutes by car. Sounds pretty easy, right? You would think so, except that this route includes "la trocha." "La Trocha" translates to "the trail." Which sounds so unassuming but in reality is a stretch of road that climbs a mountain at a ridiculously steep angle. This portion of road is the only part of the mountain road that's paved, and that process took about 2 years. It's insane. It's also kind of a rite of passage to climb it here and there are absolutely incredible views.

So ready before the climb

So steep

There's a small path on the side of the road that leads to this overlook...it was incredible

Climbing back down that path. You had to be very careful where you put your feet because the stones weren't all secure.

You also had to stop to take pictures of the pretty flowers (that's me squatting down on the left)

Worth it.

There were some views that everyone stopped for

Like this one

Chugging along

Who run the world?

Another stunning vista

A bit past the end of "la trocha" lies the Monteverde Cheese Factory. Which sells, you guessed it, cheese! And ice cream. And more importantly for me, sorbet! It was delicious and a most welcome treat at the end of two hours walking uphill.

Ice cream menu

Most of their cheeses. Danielle, if you're reading this, I took this one for you!

I got guanabana (soursop) and mora (blackberry)

Our next stop was a small shopping area with three shops: CASEM, Whole Foods and a coffee shop. CASEM, the Cooperativa de Artesenas de Santa Elena y Monteverde, is "a non-profit artisan cooperative dedicated to enhancing the economic and social well-being of local women artists." It had some really nice items and I'm looking forward to shopping there.

Beautiful felted birds

The Whole Foods in this plaza is not exactly like the Whole Foods we have back home, but kind of a smaller Costa Rican version. And like Whole Foods stores back home, it had a surprisingly nice selection of vegan options. Which made my day.

I 💓 produce

VEGAN COOKIES (y'all don't know how excited I was...there's always a dessert option with dinner at UGA, and it's obviously never vegan. All of the desserts look really yummy, but the cookies are the ones that smell the best during the day and therefore the ones that I want the most. So having my own vegan cookies to snack on after meals was so nice)

They also had vegan cheese...and butter...

Happy place :)

After that plaza, we continued into town and explored some.

Another example of the destruction caused my Hurricane Nate last fall

We stopped at the Monteverde Beer House for snacks and drinks. These yucca fries were amazing.

I made a friend!

We also went to the supermarket to pick up snacks for campus. I was super excited (see my face in the reflection) when I saw this sign on one of the freezer section doors. "Mundo vegano" means "vegan world," and then it says "meat substitutes," "dairy substitutes," and "vegan ice creams." I didn't look too hard for all the options, but I did see some coconut milk ice cream that looked amazing.

We decided to split a taxi back instead of walking back down "la trocha." I'm not super keen to find out what that downhill would do to my knees. After only a few hours in town, the incredible vistas we'd passed on the way there were completely covered in clouds.