Costa Rica Memories That I Will Never Forget

Posted on Friday, October 18th, 2019

Our bright red tandem kayak is helping to lead our group down the winding river, gliding smoothly across the surface. Slowly we wind around the corners of the river taking in the beautiful scenery when a single whooping noise starts echoing up the river towards us. With every corner, we take it’s as if this whooping noise multiplies as well as becoming louder and louder. Then as we continue down a straight stretch of the river one tree to the left side seems to be moving but yet there’s no wind, the whooping noise gone. Almost eerily quiet. Suddenly the whooping noise is back and the loudest it could be, almost deafening. As you look at the tree the dark mass becomes multiple smaller ones with faces, limbs, and tails? That was my first time experiencing a group of about 20 wild Howler Monkeys and I still get goosebumps from the thought of it.

My name is Megan Vollick and I’m currently in the Outdoor Adventure Naturalist (ODAN) program at the Pembroke Campus of Algonquin College and this unique experience was apart of one of my academic courses. In my first year of the program, I had the option of going to Costa Rica during our reading week break as a way of getting exempt from my Ecotourism class through the Rainforest and Tropical Science general elective course. This trip went above and beyond in my expectations as an ODAN student with the amount of information our guides shared with us on flora and fauna as well as environmental sustainability – it was amazing.

I experienced some of the best parts of this trip when visiting Rio Tropicales eco-lodge on the Pacuare River, that we accessed by whitewater rafting through the rainforest, stopping for lunch on the banks of the river before reaching the lodge. While at the lodge, we had a vast amount of time to explore the area and take in the beautiful view of the river along with the Blue Morpho Butterflies and bright tropical birds flying by. Of course, there were scheduled events such as hiking up to the local store in El Tigre, zip lining through the treetops, nighttime classes and so much more. These are just some of the highlights I had while on this trip and of course, they will be memories I will never forget.

-Megan Vollick, Outdoor Adventure Naturalist and former student in the Rainforest and Tropical Science course

• Posted in
• Rainforest Blog