Over spring break, I went on a yoga retreat to Nosara, Costa Rica. It was INCREDIBLE, and I’m so beyond grateful that I was able to go and have such a cool experience. Costa Rica is an amazingly beautiful and biodiverse country. It contains 6% of the biodiversity in the world! While there, I spent as much time outside as possible. Nosara is a beach town, right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. I discovered that the phenological patterns of Costa Rica were vastly different from those in Burlington. I was in Costa Rica during its dry season, so there was a ton of dust and a lot of the woody plant life was brown and dry (not that I didn’t see some really amazing greenery too). Rivers were dried up and much of the land outside of my yoga retreat center had a bit of a brown tint to it. It was actually about peak dry season, and rain is just around the corner to bring the area back to life. The phenology spot that I chose to focus on was the Nature Shala that we practiced yoga in. It had one full back wall where all the yoga props were kept and a sort of half wall perpendicular to it, but two of the sides were completely open. This allowed for some super interesting phenological observations, especially because we spent so much time there. Nosara was much, much hotter than Burlington (about 80 degrees), and its temperature remains much more stable year-round because of its proximity to the equator. It also understandably showed many more signs of life than Burlington. In the shala, we could hear and see iguanas running through the underbrush or banging across the roof and little geckos ran around the walkway as we entered. We also couldn’t NOT hear the howler monkeys if we wanted to. I learned that they are the second loudest animals on the planet, and let out their really terrifying howls to alert other monkey groups to stay away from where they are hanging out. They really liked the trees behind the wall of the shala, and one night I was able to see a lot of monkey action on my way out. None of our focal mammal species found in Burlington were present in that completely different habitat. I saw a few really cool birds that moved too fast for me to take pictures of to try to identify, but mostly I just heard their calls from the studio. The animal and plant life in the jungle was constantly making noise: chirping, rustling, crunching and more. The sounds were wildly different than the more urban noise we experience stepping outside in Burlington. The plant life surrounding the nature shala was incredibly vibrant and colorful. It was a total jungle. There were palm trees and lots of really colorful underbrush and flowers that I didn’t recognize. There was a bit of dried grass on a hill a bit beyond the jungle, but even that wasn’t as dry as some of the plant life I witnessed along the roads. I’m sure the plants in the jungle get even greener and more vibrant in the rainy season, but they were still really beautiful nonetheless. Burlington doesn’t have such a stark division between a dry and rainy season, and seeing a climate like that was something I had never experienced before. Also, Nosara was never windy like it can get in Burlington, and we only ever experienced a really nice breeze that rustled the jungle while we talked or practiced. While I couldn’t see the beach from the Nature Studio because the jungle blocked the view, I thought it was still important to note. Burlington’s “coast” is on Lake Champlain, whereas the coast of Nosara is on the Pacific Ocean. The waters of Nosara are impacted by tides. Every morning the tide was low, and every evening it was high, which was also something I’ve never experienced growing up on the beach on Cape Cod where the tide times change daily. I loved exploring Costa Rica, and know I will find a way to visit again some day. It was really, really cool to experience such a different phenological environment and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to do so.
HOWLER MONKEY VIDEO IF YOU WANT TO CHECK IT OUT!! ^^