Monkeying around

So, I know some of you must be thinking that I am just monkeying around laying on the beach here in Costa Rica instead of studying. You know, I suppose that is partially true. But the thing is, lately I've only gone traveling for school. Bocas del Toro, Panama, for instance... I had to go down there to be able to legally finish out the semester. :)

I've actually been trying to get around to posting some pictures from a field trip I had a few weeks ago. For my class on Remote Land Sensing we went hiking out some trail just to check out what kinds of land cover there was in that area so we could see how that land cover looks in a satellite image. I had a lot of fun taking tons of pictures. But they are mostly just more flower pictures, so I won't bother posting all of them up here.

These field trips are a really cool aspect of studying here. I was actually sitting on the beach today after we had gone there to visit a government-run program that is ecologically responsibly developing a peninsula on the northwest coast. The peninsula is actually right across the little bay where I went scuba diving back in July. The place is really amazing. Take a look at the beach. In the background you see part of the same peninsula sticking up out of the sea with some houses build on it.


Now don't get this government development project mixed up with "the projects" in the suburbs... this place was pretty much a country club with a 5-star Four Seasons hotel down on the end of the peninsula.

Check it out in google earth... just download this file and then double click it if you have Google Earth installed. If you don't have Google Earth then you better go download it. It is the coolest program ever, and I plan on posting some really cool kmls later. It'lll be great!

The whole project turned out to be really interesting. Development projects like this usually get a lot of flack from the Ticos because these rich projects can be very environmentally irresponsible. When Ticos look at a golf course they think it is incredibly wasteful because of the deforestation it causes as well as the water needed to keep the greens green. All this for a silly game. They think it is really weird.

But the reality of this development project is that it is being run super environmentally aware. Houses can't be taller than the trees and have to be earthy colors. They have a system for disposal of all their trash where 100% of it is being recycled in some way. Plastics and aluminum are separated out and given to a nearby town so they can sell the recyclable material and benifit from that money.

Another pecularity about this project is the fact that the don't sell the lots, but rather they sell the rights to build on the land. The peninsula is actually a reserve, 'belonging to the people', and so the amazingly beautiful beaches are open to the public 365 days a year. Because they don't want many cars on the peninsula they actually have a guarded free parking lot and free shuttle service to the beaches. They really want to make sure that the Costaricans get to enjoy the coolest places in Costa Rica even if it does get settled by filthy rich golfers.

The reason we went down there to take a look at their poject is because they are using a very impressive geographical information system to help in the development. Everything from land cover and topology all the way down to the sprinkler heads and the rocks at an archeological site are georeferenced and stored in the GIS. It was really cool to see it.

So there. I finally got a little better caught up on here. Now hopefully I will be able to keep up with this week which is going to be awesome... Jiwon and her sister actually decided to fly down here to spend a week with me and try to get to see some of this cool country. They actually get in at noon today and we are planning to take off to a beach somewhere. This means that soon I will have some really cool pictures to be posting on here. So stay tuned!