photos by C. Lindell
The hood of the CRV was pointed at blue sky as Cathy accelerated up two ruts of a path - pushing over the tall grass between them. After a half mile the road leveled and we bumped along stopping eventually at a barbed wire gate. Three inquisitive "short horn" cattle stood there staring at us. Beyond the gate - a clap board structure reminiscent of an Adirondack camp, with a steel roof and large open porch. We were here just to look - Cathy had decided after our last stay at the station that serious maintenance was required. On this research visit the Las Alturas manager had provided us (Cathy, my granddaughter Madeline and I) with a small guest house at the foot of Chal Mountain in Coton settlement. But the station was still our favorite place. I walked up the four steps - a dove was lying there - it had probably crashed into a window. Peering in I saw the work tables (one painted for table tennis), papers, benches, a couple of chairs. A doorway led to the cocina with its propane stove and refrigerator. The latter was dependent on the generator outside in a collapsing shed - it was run (when its malevolent spirit allowed it to start) from 5:00 to 7:00 PM for evening lighting. The refrigerator chilled for two hours was most useful for simply storing food.
Who needs lights when one has candles and flashlights? Standing on the porch at night one is under a spectacular starry dome. Alternately it might be almost perfectly black - on one such a night I stepped (fell) off the porch. Biologists also retire and rise early. They can read and make notes in day light.
Another doorway led back to a bunk room that could sleep twenty. Two additional doorways led to rooms sleeping two or three guests - reserved for program leaders and/or individuals with children. The final doorway led to the flush toilet and cold water shower. Water arrived via gravity and a plastic pipe from a mountain spring a quarter mile away.
I enjoyed my stays at the research station so much that I would fantasize about residing there for two or three month periods. Professor Lindell would lead her graduate students off at 5:30 AM and I would have this glorious station - Las Alturas del Bosques Verde - "the highlands of the verdant forest" all to myself. Mornings after fresh, strong coffee I would refurbish the station by undertaking complicated and grueling tasks requiring all the self taught skills I had amassed in carpentry, plumbing, mechanics. Pausing at noon I would prepare myself a huge plate of Gallo Pinto* to be washed down with lemonade. There are three lemon trees one hundred yards from the station producing the most pungent and delicious lemons. In the afternoon I would reread the writing of the great E.O. Wilson, or works focused on Costa Rica and Central America or perhaps start translating a Russian literary classic from the original. A sweet life.
Las Alturas (www.LasAlturas.com) is a privately owned 25,000 acres on the Pacific slope of the Talamanica Mountains. It abuts a national park - Amistad International Biosphere. Las Alturas was acquired in 2000 by Addison Fischer, an information technology venture capitalist and absolutely determined conservationist. The World Wild Life Fund has designated Las Alturas as a member of the Global 200 - one of the (238) most valuable eco regions on earth for conserving the world's bio diversity.** Sixty per cent of the Las Alturas area remains virgin rain forest and Fischer has restricted the once thriving sawmill to noncommercial activity. It is located approximately 25 kilometers from San Vito in southern Costa Rica. To get there one drives a 4WD vehicle approximately 10 kilometers to the northeast. The next 15 K follows a well maintained gravel road as it twists between and over hills, passes through three gates and finally arrives at the settlement of Las Alturas. Since it sits on the banks of the Coton River the village's 140 residents call their settlement Coton.
The principal activities in the remaining 40% of the Las Alturas tract involve cattle and dairy ranching, maintenance of facilities, roads and equipment and going to school. (The population has 40 school age children.) This area includes abandoned coffee fields and secondary forest growth. Coton settlement contains a machinery shed (providing a roof for a pair of graders, a twelve wheeler and smaller vehicles) a repair shop, school, general store, a mess hall - La Fonda, soda bar, cinema hall, administration/counseling center and a comisariatto - militia. The settlement's generator runs every evening from 5:00 to 9:00 PM to power the amenities.
There are three separate, rustic jail cells (somewhat larger than telephone booths) on the edge of the settlement. Here an inebriated citizen will be allowed to dry out. In addition to maintaining order in Coton militia patrols are sent out on trails throughout the area to combat an unrelenting problem - poaching of flora and fauna. On a particular morning I observed a patrol leaving that consisted of five armed horsemen, two with assault rifles and two German Shepherds. But apprehending poachers does not solve the problem. Local courts penalize poachers lightly or not at all. So local legend suggests that to "hurt" poachers their dogs are shot.
Before leaving the station I made a quick incursion into the rain forest. Hiking a half mile on an overgrown trail I tried to find my tree - the first tree I ever hugged - a tropical mahogany (I think) perhaps 25 feet in diameter and well over 100 feet tall. Unsuccessful - it remained hidden from me amid other giants and dense growth. But it also remains safe from chainsaws.
We piled into the CRV leaving a kind of desolate research station behind and started down the mountain. Rats had driven us out. They had found a way into the station and were a problem at night. (Now I am not talking about the Norwegian rats found in horror films. These were handsome little rodents with cute protruding ears.) One night Cathy sleeping in a family room snapped on her flashlight and saw a rat hanging by one paw from a rafter. The rat froze swinging in the light. Cathy, always the biologist, "My how athletic!" He then dropped on her bunk.
* Gallo Pinto: 3 cups rice, 2 cups black beans; to taste - chopped onion; garlic; coriander; red hot sauce; Worcester sauce;
crumbled bacon optional.
** Olsen & Dinerstein 2002
See - www.LasAlturas.com
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