On the Expedition
Conducting field experiments to improve the ecological sustainability of shade-grown coffee.
You'll live at a research station nestled below the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Each day, you’ll hike to a variety of coffee plantations, bright with fragrant white flowers in spring and ripe red berries in winter, to conduct bird surveys and estimate fruit and flower availability. February and April teams will also remove fruits and flowers from shade trees in experimental plots, using ladders and pole-saws. April teams will conduct bee surveys and collect coffee flower stigmas for slide preparation.
Meals and Accommodations
You'll stay at a former dairy farm converted into a picturesque research station, Ecolodge San Luis, a cluster of white plaster and mahogany buildings with red roofs surrounded by lush, green trees. You'll share a room with other teammates in a small cabin with private baths or stay in a bungalow with shared bathhouses; bedding and towels are provided. Bedrooms have electricity and bathrooms have hot showers and flush toilets. Ecolodge San Luis is a dynamic tropical research station used by many scientists and students, so you will have many opportunities to learn from your fellow adventurers.
Traditional Costa Rican food is prepared by a team of kitchen staff and served in the large student union, which also includes a small library and computer lab with internet access.
About the Research Area
On the way to the Ecolodge, our base for the expedition, you will see picturesque farmlands speckled with tropical fruit trees and with small herds of cattle. The most notable of the fruit trees are coconut, papaya, mango, cashews, bananas, and plantains. The cattle in these low elevations are a Brahma-Zebu cross, with long ears, long faces, and a hump. Many Costa Rican small farmers, like the ones you will have an opportunity to work with, have chickens, pigs, horses, goats, and geese.
The area around the Ecolodge is graced by many different types of shade trees. The huge spreading crowns most often belong to figs, ceibo or silk cotton trees, cenízaro (a kind of legume tree with woody seed pods), and guanacaste (the national tree of Costa Rica, also a legume). Fence lines are planted with rows of slender trees used as living, permanent fence posts.
The village of San Luis is the closest village, and San Luis coffee farmers have formed a cooperative called the “Cooperativa Santa Elena.” Small family farms remain a very successful and significant feature of the Costa Rican economy.
The Monteverde Cloudforest Reserve is one of the most popular destinations in Costa Rica and your recreational time can give you a chance to experience virgin cloud forest, the canopy walk, zipline, and horseback rides therein.
The mountains at the head of the San Luis Valley are the Cerros Centinelas (Sentinel Mountains) which mark the continental divide, separating the Pacific slope from the Caribbean slope. Warm, moist tradewinds blow from the Caribbean side and drop mist into the upper San Luis Valley, supporting a lush growth of cloud forest vegetation.