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In early 2004 Project ALAS will have expeditions to the Cantarrana site on the Barva transect in Braulio Carrillo National Park. This site is at 300m elevation, about 10km from the La Selva lab clearing. The shelter at the Cantarrana site needed renovation, and once again the Dole company in Costa Rica donated helicopter time to airlift construction supplies to the site.
In early November I went to La Selva to observe and document the whole process. It began with a reconnaissance flight on Tuesday, 4 November. The helicopter landed on the La Selva soccer field, where Don Isaias and I climbed aboard. Soon we were high above La Selva, with an eagle-eye view of the forest canopy. We had the GPS coordinates of the Cantarrana shelter and were able to fly directly there. At first it was a tiny dot in the forest, almost invisible. We were soon directly overhead, circling around in the small bowl formed by the surrounding ridges. A La Selva construction crew had arrived at the site the day before and cleared the vegetation around the building. The refuge is in an old clearing that is now a dense tangle of ferns and razor grass, but the crew had made a clearing sufficient for a helicopter drop point. We waved to the crew, then headed off to check out the site where the supplies were to be picked up.
We did not have the GPS coordinates for the pick-up point, so we had to find it by using landmarks. We flew west to the Rio Peje, then down the Peje to Magsasay, then along the road until we came to the soccer field at Bijagual. There were our construction materials, all packaged up in bundles and waiting transport. We landed and checked out the bundles, with Don Isaias and Roberto Fournier discussing logistics.
We took off again, went back to Cantarrana for another look, then headed back to La Selva. Within a few minutes we were descending into the soccer field again, unloading, and waving goodbye as the helicopter headed back to Rio Frio.
On Wednesday we first went to the heliport at Rio Frio to get instructions on how to operate the cable and hook that would be suspended from the helicopter. We returned to La Selva for a quick lunch, then drove on to Magsasay, pulling a trailer with three 100 gallon tanks of helicopter fuel. It was somewhat unnerving to be pulling that much combustible material over the steep, bumpy road to Bijagual. But we made it. At 3pm, Ronald Vargas, Macho, Danilo Vargas, and I crossed the log bridge over the Rio Peje and hiked in to the shelter, arriving at about 5pm.
Thursday was the big day. Macho and Danilo, the designated hook operators, donned hardhats and orange vests, ready to guide the helicopter. The morning was cloudy and with some rain as we waited for something to happen, straining our ears to hear an approaching helicopter. The morning wore on, and we were relieved to finally hear the distant "whump, whump, whump." Soon we were waving to the helicopter, and it headed off to Bijagual for the first load.
We heard later that all was not tranquil at the loading site. The carefully weighed packages had gotten rained on and were now all too heavy. Luis Diego Gomez, Marichen Lang, the helicopter pilots, and everyone else at the soccer field were madly repackaging to get the load weights down to acceptable levels.
The loads came weaving in, gradually settling to the ground, as the downdraft blew leaves and sticks in all directions, towels off lines, bags off tables, and hats off heads. The pilot then had to lift slightly, put some tension on the cable, and activate the electronic release of the hook. Sometimes the hook would not properly disengage, and Macho or Danilo had to run and manually open it. During subsequent loads the empty rope slings and straps had to be attached to the hook for return to the loading site. When the hook was ready Macho and Danilo would leap back and signal the pilot to lift. This was the most dangerous part, as the heavy hook swung around wildly in the clearing.
As soon as the helicopter lifted up and away, everyone ran out in a mad scramble to quickly unpack the bundle and move the material to the side of the clearing. Then all was tranquil again as we waited quietly, again straining to hear the approach of the next load. There were about ten loads in total, and by mid-afternoon we had all our supplies: boards, fibrolit panels, corrugated roofing panels, nails, cement, plastic sink, outhouse seat, rolls of plastic water pipe, and the ALAS honda generator. We cheered, had a final wave to the helicopter pilot, and took a group photo.
The people in the group photo are (front row sitting left to right) Tonio Ezeta, Luis Carbajal, Walter Cruz, Jose Alberto (Macho) Cruz, Ronald Vargas, Danilo Vargas, Eddy Barberena, (back row standing left to right) Huber Murillo, David Garcia. The next photo has me in place of Ronald Vargas.
Danilo and Macho had to leave right away and they headed back to Magsasay. The rest of the crew set to work immediately. Within 20 minutes we had running water at three faucets. By the time Ronald and I left on Saturday afternoon, the floor was completed, the outhouse and shower was finished, and one wall was going up. Tonio was cutting some steps up a bank to the beginnings of our shed for hanging Winkler samples. The old roofing panels are rusting out and will be replaced, but they will make a nice roof on the temporary shed. Huber, who was doing a fine job as cook for the crew, waved us off as we headed back to La Selva.
Jack Longino
9 November 2003