As the title of the post may suggest, this program has very much been an intricate balance of engineering design and having fun. While we may spend the daylight hours of the weekdays tinkering away at our respective engineering projects, once the weekend comes around, vacation mode is activated (with the exception of observation reports and these blog posts).
These past weekend was no different. Last week, we went to Santa Elena for some hiking and ziplining action. I was worried going into the hike as I did not have proper hiking shoes but the trails that we went on were pretty manageable and seemed to be well used. Although I hike often back at home, the climate and vegetation in Costa Rica differ wildly. Instead of tall and massive cedar, hemlock, and fir trees, I found that the branches of the trees in Costa Rica tended to grow outwards, creating an immensely dense canopy of leaves and twisting branches. Despite the density of the tree canopy, the groundcover was also equally impressive. Bushes and plants with massive leaves closely flanked the sides of every trail we walked on. The flowers of these plants were equally striking, with vibrant colors and weird alien shapes.
Maybe the most sad part of this trip was dinner. While the place we were staying at was very nice and felt homey in a cabin sense, we did not foresee that the kitchen would not have salt or pepper. That being said, we “enjoyed” a dinner of un-seasoned chicken, eggs, and tortilla with cheese. The included breakfast was a lot better, with some of the best pancakes I’ve had since coming to Costa Rica. I also now know the difference between a capybara and an agouti.
Ziplining was also lots of fun, it was interesting to see the dense canopy from above. The trees almost looked like little broccolis from the perspective of our ziplines. We tried to formulate a way of taking a video while on the zipline but it proved too difficult a task for us. While most of the ziplines were pretty short, there were two that were longer and much higher up, allowing us to see more of the landscape down below. For these ones, we had to go in pairs for the added weight. We were a group of 5 since James decided to spend his weekend surfing. This became a problem as I was soon left standing alone after the other 4 had left in pairs. My savior came in the form of a father with his family. His children went with their mother and I went with him. I felt a little bad because it was clear they wanted to go on the zipline with their father. While we did not share a common language, I think that cheering is universal and we both had a good time. As today is fathers day, I would also like to wish him a happy fathers day.
Although I had a great time, the weekend was soon over and we headed back to San Jose for a week of work hard.
This week was focused on ironing out some of the problems we had with last week’s prototype. This mainly consisted of upgrading to a more powerful motor, creating a 3 strap wrist mount, and also creating an enclosure for our electronics. Overall, I think this week was pretty successful despite running into a number of challenges. I’ve also gotten pretty lucky this week, seeing at least one dog or cat every day of the week. Although I hope parking lot dog is ok, I have not seen them since Wednesday.
On Friday, we went to the butterfly garden and looked at cool bugs. Brendan and I went to POPs afterwards. It was an adventure but worth it in the end. We started the night by going out with a couple ULACIT students and I know for a fact that most of us had a great time. To end off the night, we enjoyed a balanced McDonalds meal and rested on a range of furniture pieces.
This weekend, we are headed toward Jaco again but will spend our time at Playa Hermosa. I hope again that there will be minimal sunburns and more fun beach time.
– Jeff
