January tends to be one of the busiest months in terms of tourism in Santa Lucía. This year it's a little different as the student groups from the US that have visited us for many years do not come around this year. On the other hand we have reservations of smaller tourist groups so we won't feel overly lonely up there in the reserve.
Of course we'll make the best of our time and do some maintenance work. With the help of volunteers we hope to finish the necessary and long-pending work in our orchid garden and in the sugar cane field.
Two years after re-planting we finally started harvesting some sugar cane about two months ago. So we have a tourist attraction back in our portfolio after the Andean Bears (Tremarctos ornatus) left us without any sugar cane back in 2019.
And speaking of bears, we currently have a female with two cubs roaming our forest. We have been fortunate enough to see them directly a couple of times during the last months and we also find lots of their tracks (feces, half-eaten palms, etc.) all the time on our trails. Of course we have some great footage in our camera traps. They seem to be all over the reserve - as they've come through almost all camera traps in the last four months. So, if you visit us within the next weeks there's a good chance of finding at least some traces of the bear family's presence and maybe even see a glimpse of the three somewhere in the forest.
January is also the month when the core rainy season starts and so far we're on track. After a really dry dry season the rains started in December and it's been pretty rainy ever since.
This also means that orchids are in full bloom now. Well, actually the flowering season has started a little late, so if you're interested in seeing orchid bloom in its full splendor you have the chance within the next two months still.
Shortly we'll inform about our research projects and our Forest School plans for this year.
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