News That Stays News

An R.O.U.S. and the Cliffs of Insanity July 1, 2018

On Thursday and Friday, we went even further up the mountain than before to 6000+ feet above sea level. Instead of staying overnight, we made two trips, in part because the shelter up there is a bit primitive and was occupied by another group of researchers, but mostly because we hadn’t brought the requisite cold-weather clothing and sleeping bags to Costa Rica with us. It gets fairly cold up there, and it rains the majority of the time, so it’s easy to become permanently chilled if you’re not careful. But it’s gorgeous up there, especially when the sun comes out.

I spotted our Rodent of Unusual Size on Thursday, when I originally thought it was a termite nest in a tree, which would have been weird at that elevation. However, when I got closer, I realized it had ears and a tail.

We had actually walked right underneath it without noticing, and it reacted more to the rain picking up than to us walking, talking, and being generally obnoxious. That means it was probably nocturnal, but so far no one’s figured out what it was, and everything from a porcupine to an opossum to a giant rat has been proposed.

Just after the rodent were the Cliffs (well, Hills) of Insanity.

The trail we were using is one that goes all the way from the top of the mountain down to La Selva, so unlike most hiking trails, it generally ignores any ups, downs, and streams in the way. Due to poor planning on our part, we went down and up this one hill three or four times. Farther down the trail there were some stretches that were even steeper but trying not to fall up or down hills was a higher priority than photography, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  🙂