Our final day at El Copal started a little later, only 5:45am! The birding was much improved this morning over yesterday with a few new species added to our total bird list for the lodge. One last traditional breakfast of eggs, rice, beans and another fresh tortilla, and a relaxing morning of packing, bird watching, and having a last look at El Copal, for the time being of course! Maya (our taxi driver) arrived at noon, just as it began raining, so after a hurried goodbye to Beto and Patricia, we tossed our gear and Andrew into the trunk of the 4×4 again and off we went back towards San Jose. Maya’s son Johnny ended up driving us from El Humo to San Jose, but only after they shared some raw sugar cane with us. That is some sweet, sweet grass! Surprisingly it wasn’t as sweet as regular granulated sugar, but the liquid extracted from the cane was extremely tasty and made a good supplement for lunch en route. I had the middle seat in the back of the 4×4 which got to be fairly uncomfortable after 2.5 hours, but Johnny was a great driver and a lot of fun. We got back into San Jose about 3pm, just as the skies opened and the rain poured down again. Some more confusion at the Adventure Inn, but eventually we had our room, our baggage and our computers back on the ‘net! After each of us enjoyed a warm shower and some clean clothes we headed off to the conference to register and meet up with old acquaintances and new friends. A little rant, but it seems that the student registration doesn’t include the congress monographed satchel and coffee press, which were reserved for the full price “Delegate” members, even though I would guess it’d be appreciated by students more than professors and research scientists. That’s pretty damn ridiculous in my mind, and doesn’t seem to encourage students to attend these meetings if they are to be treated as second class scientists, but nothing much I can do about it besides this little rant! We decided to walk from the conference centre back to our hotel (about 20 minutes) and picked up some peanut butter, Nutella, and Bimbo (Latin American bread, similar to Wonder Bread) for dinners over the next few days to save some money. We walked back to the conference centre for the opening night mixer, and were pleasantly surprised to find an open bar and lots of high-quality hors d’oeuvres! It was great getting to meet other Dipterists and become reacquainted with those I’d met before. After a few hours of socializing and wine/dining we headed back to the hotel en masse via taxi. The driver had a good night as he swindled all 12 of us for $2 US a piece for a 3 minute cab ride. Dipterists are generally a cheap bunch to start with, but faced with the injustice of this cab ride, there were a lot of pissed off fly specialists! Luckily we’re also pretty laid back, so a few minutes of griping and we were back to normal and ready for bed. Polishing and publishing my backlog of blog entries for our time at El Copal finished off my evening, and the pillow was calling my name from across the hotel!

MTC…

Today is our last full day here at El Copal Lodge, so I tried to make the most of it by getting up at 5:15 to catch the sunrise and snag some photos before birding with Joel until breakfast. The birds must have decided to sleep in however as there wasn’t much activity today. Patricia prepared another traditional breakfast of eggs, rice, beans, cheese and fresh tortilla to fuel our collecting for the morning, and we headed off to the Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish) trail. The clouds decided they were going to roll in early today so the collecting wasn’t nearly as good as the last 2 days, but we did hit the target groups and each got some interesting specimens. Apparently the mosquitoes didn’t get the message that it was going to be cloudy today though, as they were the thickest we’ve had to deal with yet. It turns out our malaise didn’t survive the previous night’s rain, with the duct tape and twine failing us. All of our hard work and MacGyver training for naught! Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. At least we won’t have to worry about setting it up in Guanacaste! A lunch of steak, salad and palm heart finished off with freshly made rice pudding took our minds off the malaise failure however. The rains came again this afternoon, meaning time to pin our meager catch from the day and relaxation time in the hammocks processing images. Our final dinner at El Copal Reserve, and Patricia outdid herself again (pan fried fish, fried potatoes, fresh salsa)! Tonight has been the first night where the clouds and rain have stuck around, so the 5 of us just hung out and talked late into the night. Beto had enjoyed a little too much wine with the birder’s who came today, and came out to join us around midnight to thank us for coming and to encourage us to bring our friends in the future! It was a great way to spend our final evening at the El Copal Ecolodge.

We tried putting some fruit out today in an effort to catch more flies (and see more birds), but it didn’t work as well as we had hoped for either. A few vinegar flies (Drosophilidae) were all we saw.

Everyone seemed to be able to find micropezids except for me, with Joel, Andrew and Gil each contributing 2 apiece.

Andrew Rick-Rolled us while walking along the trail…

A colony of army ants decided to crash the lodge today and were swarming over the porch and into Gil and Andrew’s room. Sandals weren’t a good idea tonight!

MTC….

Here comes the sun! Waking up at 6:30 for breakfast (eggs, rice, beans, freshly made tortilla) is easy when the sun is up and the flies are flying. Everyone was itching to get out into the jungle, and so we headed up towards the peak of the nearest mountain. We definitely had some great collecting, with each of us finding a few specimens of our respective study/hobby groups, and I’m fairly happy with my photos from this morning. Getting exposures correct in the shadows of the jungle can be difficult, and there are a lot of black backgrounds, but it certainly beats nothing! After making it up to the top of the mountain (altitude = ~1300m) we came back down to our lunch while rain clouds started to blow in. With perfect timing we got back to the lodge only minutes before the rain hit and just in time for lunch (pasta, fried pork chop, coconut & dulce squares). The food here has been awesome, and Patricia has been spoiling us! After lunch we proceeded to pin the day’s catch and make our notes for the day. With the rain still coming down all afternoon, the only thing left to do was sit in a hammock and hope the insects came to us. A bit of a slow afternoon, but the morning made up for it! After dinner (broasted chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and rice) the rain had finally ceased, so we stepped out for a quick night walk to look for herps, then sat and looked at the Milky Way, visible to the naked eye so far from the light pollution of major cities.

There were a ton of reptiles and frogs hopping around the trail today, so many that I think we may have seen more species here than I have seen in all my other trips combined!

The clouds seem to come and go in the blink of an eye, revealing dramatic landscapes of rolling mountains one second, and concealing all but the closest of trees the next.

Well, it seems that the rain is determined to keep us lodge-locked for the rest of the day. Hopefully tomorrow morning will be as nice as today was so we can get out and find some more flies!

Beto had us believing that our dinner tonight was actually Crested Guan (a large native chicken-like bird); he is certainly a big fan of practical jokes!

Tonight was the night of the giant wolf* spider it seems, with an orange species courting Andrew’s laptop (which is also orange) and a black species waiting for Nichelle to come to bed. Being inquisitive, we figured we’d try feeding them with some freshly caught moths. The orange species put on a good show, pouncing on the moth the moment it hit the floor and then running between Joel’s legs while he was squatting, while the black species didn’t seem to be hungry. Both were released outside before bed!

Despite having experience with feeder roaches back in Canada, Andrew had a bit of a freakout after a large cockroach landed on his shoulder in the common room. Hilarity ensued!

MTC…

* – I say wolf spider with a grain of salt as I’m not an arachnid expert by any means, and Neotropical spiders are a little more diverse than back home!