Since my last post, a bunch of us went on a night hike with Hector and an entomologist researching here. There weren't many mammals (those guys were too busy hanging out on the bridge earlier in the day), but we saw a whole bunch of wandering spiders, glow-in-the-dark scorpions, and a boa constrictor! Apparently ALL scorpions have the rave gene, and can glow in the dark (under a black light).
On Monday we visited an NGO, an environmentally friendly farm that grows fruit, mostly maracuya, or passionfruit. The woman who greeted us showed us a documentary about the huge problem with the pineapple plantation in Costa Rica. We even walked around a section of the pineapple plantation and saw how they egregiously flouted some of the regulations: pineapple can't be planted at a slope greater than 8-12 degrees because its irrigation erodes the land, but some pineapples were planted on slopes of 45 degrees or greater. There is supposed to be a buffer zone of 50 meters of forest around every river, but we saw only about 10 meters of forest around a river that is probably harboring some delicious pesticides.
This was in direct contrast to the banana plantation that we visited last week. Although we saw the cheery touristy side of the banana plantation and we never heard the NGO's side of things, there were still fungicides being sprayed near the worker's area and it was clear that the conditions were less than ideal. That being said, the pineapple plantation wasn't open for people to come poke around like the banana plantation was, and the only reason why we were able to see the blatant disregard for the regulations on the pineapple farm was because it was near a public water source (even more alarming with the heavy pesticide use!) and therefore a section was public property.
The clandestine, sweep-it-under-the-rug nature reminded me a whole lot about the meat industry and the problems with factory farming in the States. Incidentally, Costa Rica doesn't have the same kind of meat industry -- it's mostly local farms -- so the cattle here are more damaged by the bloodsucking flies that come every pineapple season with the burning and harvesting of the fruit. I'm definitely going to be a lot more conscious about where my pineapple is coming from back in the United States.
As a natural sequitor to our pineapple tour, the man showing us around asked some of us if we wanted to ride a horse! When in Rome....
We've been having our last set of lectures -- we finish with our classes tomorrow, as incredible as that is to believe.
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