22-01-14
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who loved a commoner. Her father found out, captured the young man, and threw him into the volcano. She pined for him ever after, staying near the crater until she was an old woman hunched over her steaming, sulfurous cauldron. Thus goes one explanation for why this massive volcano is called the “corner of the old woman.”
For us it was a confluence of three forest types: tropical rain forest, cloud forest, and tropical dry forest. It was also an example of tapping into green energy where you find it. In this case, we saw great examples of wind power and geothermal steam power.
The volcano was too active for us to climb it, but we could still tour the eco-zones on its flanks
By now the rain forest seemed familiar, but the dry forest was totally new for this trip. We’ll learn more about it at Santa Rosa Biological Station tomorrow.
The Rincón de la Vieja volcano has been used for studies of what will happen to vegetation under higher levels of carbon dioxide, because volcanos naturally augment local CO2 levels by leaking the gas through cracks in the crust. Though we didn’t get to see this work being done, we did get to appreciate the energy lurking inside a volcano, and a few of the efforts by Costa Rican society to tap into it.