As the sun sets on my time in Costa Rica, I’ve begun to reflect on everything I’ve learned. Although much of my time has been spent at my university, I’ve found that my best lessons are often learned outside the classroom. Those lessons are ones I learned from listening to the howler monkey calls in the morning, from exploring the tidepools in Manuel Antonio, and from hiking a dozen rainforests to find every creepy crawly imaginable. They’re lessons from nature that I hope to impart to future travelers, too.
Lesson 1: Appreciating All Creatures in Terembina
Thick rainforest vegetation in the Tirimbina Reserve in La Virgen, Sarapiquí, in Costa Rica. La Tirimbina, a biological reserve, protects 345 hectares of tropical rainforest and is home to more than 3300 species of plants and animals. Each of those species is part of an intricate web that brings balance to the rainforest.
My ecologoical photography class gathers around our guide for a night hike through the Tirimbina Reserve in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica. During our tour, I saw dozens of animals—tree frogs, rats, stick bugs, giant spiders, and snakes—each there to play a role in the rainforest’s life cycle. I had my own role that night: to learn from and appreciate every critter that crossed my path.
A Fer De Lance, or Bothrops asper, coils itself up under a log in the Tirimbina Reserve in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica. This snake is only a juvenile, but its species is considered the most dangerous snake in Central and South America. Its bite causes more human deaths than any other American reptile. For that reason, many people are scared when meeting this snake, but in the minutes that passed with only my lens and a foot or two of space separating us, he remained calm. Like many snake species, Fer De Lance’s are shy by nature and avoid human encounters. When humans do cross into their space, it’s important to remember that the majority of snake bites occur when humans try to capture, handle, or kill snakes.
Termites swarm two broad, green leaves near the rainforest forest floor in order to establish a new colony in the Tirimbina Reserve in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica. Termites are usually considered pests by humans, but they provide several invaluable ecological functions by decomposing dead wood and leaves. The decomposition process recycles essential nutrients like carbon and nitrogen back into the soil, improves soil structure, and supports biodiversity. Termites are also protecting rainforests from climate change by keeping the soil moist and helping seedlings survive, especially during droughts.
Termites, like snakes, remind me how integral every creature is to an ecosystem, and how important it is not to judge them by the reputation humans have given them. It’s an old lesson from childhood—don’t judge a book by its cover. Here, it’s a reminder to appreciate all critters.
Lesson 2: Finding Peace at Spirogyra
From left to right: an owl butterfly, a glasswing butterfly, and a tiger longwing butterfly. During my time in Costa Rica, I had the opportunity to do a service-learning project with Spirogyra Butterfly Garden. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I’d navigate through the maze of blooming plants with morphos and malachites flitting past my head and landing on my arms. I collected eggs, cleaned enclosures, repotted plants, raked leaves, and photographed dozens of different species.
It’s here I’ve learned to appreciate the little joys: the feeling of dirt between my fingers when I re-pot a plant brings me back to my family’s garden from my childhood, and caring for the caterpillars harkens back to a childhood dream of mine to be an entomologist. I know my younger self would be incredibly impressed to see me raising blue morphos, my favorite species, in a butterfly garden in Costa Rica. When I return, there will be essays to be written, job applications to finish, and endless tasks to be completed—but my hope is that the feeling of peace I found in Spirogyra is one that I continue to carry with me.
Lesson 3: The Power of Perseverance in Montezuma
A net wraps around the hatchery at AVSO, a sea turtle conservation center, on Montezuma beach in Montezuma, Costa Rica. This organization cares for leatherbacks, the largest turtle in the world. To protect the turtle nests from predators and poachers, volunteers walk the beach at night, locating the nests with red light and bringing them back here to the hatchery, where they’re kept under the watchful eyes of the volunteers. When the first turtle breaks the surface of the sand in the hatchery, the nest is quickly carted down to the beach at a reasonable distance from the waves.
An orange container is gently tipped, allowing each turtle to make its own mad dash for the ocean. They must make the journey alone: The muscles they develop during this initial trek are vital for their survival, and with every step in the sand, this beach is imprinted into their memories so they know to return here one day to lay their own eggs and form the next generation.
A leatherback hatchling shuffles its way past onlookers, trying to reach the safety of the ocean. The journey is far from easy, even with the dozens of tourists and locals watching over them; birds swoop down and succeed twice in taking hatchlings. Two little boys took up sticks and waved them fervently to deter the birds, but it was too late.
With every new wave, some turtles were drawn into the ocean’s embrace, but others were pushed further back, only to have to make the trek again. The last turtle was pushed back three times by the waves. But she persevered and was swallowed up by the foamy surf at long last. A round of cheers rose up from the crowd. I was briefly overcome with emotion. My third and last lesson was to witness her perseverance and be reminded of my own. Increasingly, I feel powerless when I think about the damage humans have wrought upon the earth: the pollution, habitat degradation, and climate change. When I watched this turtle’s journey, I got to remember that every day brings successes, and every day, a turtle makes it to the ocean.