Return to Piedras Blancas

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Heading back north from Panama, I crossed the border back into Costa Rica and headed to Chacarita to talk with the park rangers. I arranged to go back to Piedras Blancas, but first spent a fun night on the town with Fernando in Rio Claro - met his children and had karaoke sung to me!

Rode in to the park with Arturo and the river was so incredibly high. The May trees were still in flower so there was lots of yellow coverage everywhere.

The Raleigh construction site was looking good - Phase III had done a great job on finishing the roofs and painting what they could of the cabins and there was almost no sign of where our camp had been so browny points on the environmental impact.

I was seriously impressed by how far the last Phase reached on the trail - almost to the giant tree. they truly managed a lot given the wet conditions they were often working in and the distance to carry or wheelbarrow material.

It was great being back - so tranquil sitting outside the ranger station and watching the sunset. There was a German volunteer there aswell, Susi. We spent the couple of days there doing bits and pieces of work - mostly cleaning out the fridge! - and hiking to Gallardo beach. Where there had been no water when I'd done it as part of Phase I there was now lots... we got very soggy but saw some really interesting stuff (an albino snail, lovely flowers, bright red saucer fungi), visited the local waterfalls, and had fun relaxing and swimming in the bay.

In part of El Bonito station there was a major "highway" of leafcutter ants going down the side of the cabins. A truly amazing sight! The larger soldier ants came to check the threat our presence posed to the colony.
We later learned that the leafcutter ants actually do not eat the leaves, but chew them into pulp to feed a fungus (this particular fungus is unique to the leafcutter ant colonies). Besides the soldiers and the workers another cast of leafcutter ants, the minima, harvest the fungus and feed the queen and the colony. All the ants in the colony are female.
About 40,000 kings are produced once a year together with 10,000 new queens, these leave the colony and mate outside. A queen will collect 300 million sperm from several kings, which she will keep to use during her entire lifetime (which can last up to 20 years). The males die upon performing their duty.
Less than one percent of queens manage to start a new successful colony. When the queen dies the colony disintegrates. What is more these ants have a burial chamber, they collect their dead, even from outside, and dump them in this chamber. Another titbit is that approx. 15% of all leaves harvested are by leafcutter ants.
All in all these ants have a very sophisticated farming society where every individual performs their duties selflessly and each is dependent upon the others for survival. I wonder if anybody would notice if you were a lazy ant...

I rode back out of the park on the day of the first world cup match, between Costa Rica and host coutry Germany... but I couldn't find a TV! Had to listen to it seated in the petrol station at Chacarita. Costa Rica played well.. everyone in the entire country was wearing red shirts that day in support.

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Photos

(wet!) walk to Playa Gallardo
With Susi, Carlos and Jonathan