In February, me, my parents and my aunt and uncle went to San Gerardo Biological Station deep in the rain forest.
To get there, you have to park at the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve and then hike down a very steep hill that is no joke! It was very muddy and 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles). You have to carry all of your things, since cars can’t go down.
Once you get to the station, you should leave your muddy boots outside on the porch and say hi to the rangers who are working at the station. They assign you a room to stay in. Each room has 2 bunk beds and a bathroom.
There is also a second-floor porch with four hammocks. I spent a lot of time reading in the hammocks while I was there! You can also see a beautiful view from the porch of the forest and Lake Arenal and the Arenal volcano. We were lucky it was clear and we got a good view!
The station also has a dining room, ping-pong table, and a place to give talks. The rangers also cook really good food in the kitchen. In the afternoon, they baked delicious snacks – my favorite was the chocolate banana bread.
While we were there, we went on three hikes. On the first night, we went on a “night hike” with a guide. Using flashlights, we got to see really cool things like frogs and fireflies. He showed us a bioluminescent fungus that was growing on the back of some cecropia leaves that had fallen onto the ground!
The following day, we all went on a morning hike to the waterfall. It was super pretty and super big. The water was really cold, but I stuck my feet in anyway! I also found some clay rocks in the water, which are rocks that you can use to write with when they are wet. I used them to write a message to anyone else who wanted to use them, putting an arrow and saying “paint with these rocks!”
My mom and aunt and uncle went on another hike that afternoon that I skipped. I read a very long book in the hammocks instead!
On our way back up the long hill, we saw some very rare monkeys that we hadn’t seen before. We took videos and when we got to the reserve and showed them to the staff, they said they were spider monkeys!
Overall our trip to San Gerardo was fun and I loved the hammocks!
