I’ve never been adventurous; never really gone camping, not all that fond of bugs or physical discomfort; but when this woman, Diane, an ecology professor, walked into our lecture theatre in 2003 and described for us waking up in the tropical rainforest to the calls of howler monkeys, I was intrigued. I applied for the Costa Rica field course and was accepted. I went, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. From it have come many good things.
    I wrote everything down as we traveled, which I tend to do. My journal, a blue padded 1991 diary that was never used for that purpose, fell apart on that trip, the cheap glue binding succumbing to the tropical moisture and my obsessive chronicling. I’d show it to you, but the scrawls of smudged ink on once-wet paper written in poorly-lit environments are illegible even to me sometimes. I am therefore transcribing, now that I have a reason to, with as much fidelity as readability and common sense allow. Please forgive my verb tenses, the inconsistencies come from writing down what had just happened, what was currently happening, and now that I'm adding to it, what happened four years ago. Present-day comments are in blue, the rest is me scribbling away in stolen moments on a trip which I knew would change my life.

Students: Aimee, Allison, Athena, Chantal, Daryl, Elaine, Heather, Katsky, Kristin, Liz, Nicole, Ross, Sarah, and Myself

Support Staff:
Calixto and Petrona: local biologists, field research assistants
Doña Olga: our incomparable cook
Josué: 5-year old son of the Park ranger assigned to the field station