June 1992. I was up at dawn to pack my things. By eight, Jevra, Karenna, Garth, and Dave had assembled at my car for the half-hour drive from La Selva Biological Station to Las Horquetas. At Las Horquetas we would catch a tractor ride up the mountain. The mountain road was much too difficult for my 4-wheel drive truck. Often even the tractor would get stuck.
     I had come to Costa Rica to teach on yet another Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) tropical biology course. Now, before driving back down to Panama where I was working with the Smithsonian, I wanted to take a quick one-day trip to the Rara Avis Forest Reserve, a private biological reserve up on Volcan Barva. I planned to finish some research I had started there, studying the large black leaf-cutting ant, Acromyrmex volcanus. Acromyrmex volcanus is Latin for "spiny ant of the volcano," the volcano being Volcan Barva where it was first discovered. Except for the original description of this species in 1937, there were no other published studies of this ant.
     My usual study site in Costa Rica was here at La Selva located at the base of Volcan Barva, but I loved working up at higher elevations on the mountain where it was wetter and cooler. I felt that the forest of Rara Avis was the epitome of tropical rainforests, thick with vines and epiphytes and often shrouded in mist. My descriptions of the place convinced four other La Selva researchers to join me on this short trip.
     I put a cassette by The Cure in the tape deck, turned up the volume, and we were off. We bounced along down the rutted dirt road. We were all in very good moods, ready for this little mountain adventure.
     We arrived at the Rara Avis office in Las Horquetas a bit before eight-thirty. Emily, who worked at Rara Avis, was waiting at the office. She told us that a Canadian "youth adventure" class was going up the mountain today and we had to wait for them to get here from San José. Classes like this one were important sources of income for Rara Avis. Biologists paid half the usual price.
     At nine-twenty, a tour bus with fifteen or so Canadians pulled up. We were all loaded onto two tractor carts - the Canadian class on one cart, and the five La Selva people, Emily, and the baggage on the other. Finally we started off, up the mountain. After we crossed through the two lower rivers, Jevra and Karenna got off the cart to hike the rest of the way up. I tried to dissuade them. I had made the hike up several times before. I told them that the first three hours of the hike, as far as El Plastico Biological Station, were through ugly deforested pastureland. Also, I was concerned because they didn’t have any water and they hadn’t used any sunscreen. I warned them, but they insisted that they would be fine. It was a hot, sunny day and I worried about Jevra and Karenna the whole ride up. Emily kept repeating "They are adults and responsible for their own actions." I was glad not to be walking.
     On the ride up the mountain I had a fun conversation with Emily. Cognition and brain function were central topics, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" sort of stuff. We also talked about body language. Emily said that Costa Ricans often point to things with their lips, and that she had picked up this habit. She pointed with her lips to a piece of flagging tape by the side of the road. I asked what the tape marked and Emily looked at me as if I were crazy. In fact, I had put this tape out when I was teaching on the OTS course here last week. The tape marked the location of a volcanus colony. I couldn't believe that we were already at El Plastico. The two-and-a-half hour ride had gone by very quickly. It was cloudy and noticeably cooler up here.
     The Canadian class had arrived ahead of us, and the students were milling around El Plastico. Many of them were smoking cigarettes and acting blasé and unimpressed. They were all from Ontario, except one New Yorker. They were mostly high school students, though some had started college. Today was the first day of their course. They had all just met in San José yesterday.
     It was noon and lunch wasn't served until one. I invited the Canadian class over for a look at the volcanus colony that I had marked. I pointed out the trail full of ants carrying their loads back to the nest. Then I pushed the grass aside and let them all see the ants' fungus garden as I lectured on the biology of this particular species and of fungus-growing ants in general. Several students took photos of the ants' fungus garden. As I held the grass the ants swarmed out of the nest and covered my hands and arms, digging in with their mandibles. Now, many more of the students took photos of the crazy biologist covered with ants. Luckily, this ant species has a fairly weak bite and no sting. One of the students said that she wanted to feel the bite of an ant, but she jumped back when I offered to place one on her.
     The students got back in the cart and the tractor continued to the Rara Avis "Waterfall Lodge," one hour farther up the mountain. The students were staying at the rather expensive hotel up next to two wonderful waterfalls, whereas we poor biologists were staying at El Plastico in the less expensive "prison shack" that used to serve as a guard house when this area was a prison work camp. The building looked as if it would collapse at any moment. Emily seemed proud of how decrepit the shack looked, covered with moss, lichens, and spider webs. The low ceilings of the shack made me claustrophobic.
     I looked around the area for more volcanus workers and found some foraging right next to El Plastico. I traced the trail back to the nest entrance. It was on the top edge of a road cut, just like the entrance of the other colony nearby. But studying the ants would have to wait; it was time for lunch. Jevra and Karenna arrived just in time to eat. They were a bit sunburned and thirsty, but my worrying had been for naught.
     After a delicious lunch, the five of us La Selva people packed our bathing suits for a swim up at the waterfalls and headed off for the hike to Rara Avis. Along the road before the start of the trail, I found some workers of another leaf-cutting ant, Acromyrmex coronatus, foraging on herbs. This species had not been studied in Central America, so I marked the spot with flagging tape. We then hiked for an hour through the beautiful rain forest. I said to Jevra "Isn't this so much nicer than your hike through pasture land?" She said that she liked the pasture hike better because she didn't have to watch her step all the time and she could enjoy the open view.
     Just as we exited the forest back at the tractor road, the skies opened and torrential rains began. In the five minutes it took for us to run to the Rara Avis restaurant, we were all completely soaked. The Canadian students were now milling around the steps up to the restaurant, blocking us from entering. After taking off our boots, the five of us climbed over the railing onto the porch to get around the thoughtless students. When the rain let up, the Canadian course instructor, Steve, suggested that the students all go for a swim down at the waterfalls and they all left.
     So the five La Selva folks sat in the restaurant for a hot cup of delicious Costa Rican coffee. We were all wet and it was a bit chilly at this altitude. We talked about the rainforest and about the rain, which was soon coming down again as hard as before. I love the sound of heavy rain on the metal roof. We were on our second cups of coffee when one of the Canadian students ran up screaming "The river swept them all away!" At first we didn't understand what he was talking about. How could the river sweep the class away? We all jumped up, put on our boots, and ran to see if we could help. On the way down to the river, I took my field notebook from my back pocket and wedged it into a tree trunk just in case I had to go into the water. I didn't want to lose my data.
     The river was raging and brown with mud. At the base of the lower waterfall, we met a group of students. They told us that much of the class had been washed downstream. Dave and I headed down the near bank of the river. After fifty yards or so, we came upon three more students, barefoot in bathing suits, walking along the bank. They had been swept down the river, but had managed to pull themselves out. They said that they had seen three more people farther downstream on the other side of the river. Fifty yards farther along we saw a student, Lindsey, across the way. She was screaming and pointing downstream, but we couldn't hear what she was saying over the roar of the river. We saw two guys farther down the bank on her side of the river. I tried to signal to Lindsey that the others were alright, but she kept screaming and pointing.
    Dave and I continued down to a bend in the river. I climbed out on a rock above a small waterfall and looked downstream but I couldn't see any more people. The banks of the river were very steep and it was difficult to continue any further. It was now four PM. We decided to go back and get a machete and some rope.
     Hurrying back, we came upon the three people we had passed on the way out. I thought to myself, that the woman with long red hair was very cute. And then I thought, what am I doing thinking such thoughts during this emergency. Still, I felt sure that everything was going to be fine.
     Back at the restaurant everyone was in a confused state. No one knew how many people had been washed into the river nor how many were still missing. After several tries at counting the people on our fingers, I got a piece a paper and we started a list. At first it seemed that only one person was missing. Then a recount indicated that three students were still unaccounted for. Everyone argued about the best plan of action. Dave and I decided to go back down along the near bank as far as we could go. Several other people, including Jevra and Karenna, were to go down along the far bank to help the people stranded there.
     I couldn’t find a machete, so the cook gave me her largest kitchen knife. Using the knife I cut down the clothesline to use the rope. Dave found some flashlights in case we had to find our way back in the dark. Marvin, the young assistant cook, decided to come with Dave and me. Marvin ran off ahead of us, jumping from rock to rock. I wanted to take my time because I didn't want to risk falling or twisting an ankle. I gave the knife to Marvin because he was the fastest.
     We reached the point on the river across from Lindsey. She was still screaming and crying. Marvin wanted to cross the river to help her. I told him it was too dangerous, especially because we were just above the small waterfall. But Marvin was in hero mode. I took the knife from him and Dave and I continued along the bank. A few moments later, Dave shouted "The guy's in the river!" I turned just in time to see Marvin float past us and over the waterfall. Quickly I climbed out on a rock at the top of the falls and looked down river. There was no sign of Marvin. I looked down over the edge to see if somehow Marvin had held onto the rocks. No Marvin. Dave and I climbed down to look at the waterfall from below. Nothing.
     Until now, I wasn't completely convinced that anyone was really missing, but now I knew there was at least one person down in the river. We had come to help, but instead we had lost one more person. I continued to hack a path downstream. Many places were very steep and difficult. We had to fight our way through tangled vines and crawl along slippery rock faces causing landslides. At some points it was easiest for me to walk in the water at the edge of the river. This upset Dave who didn't want to lose me to the river too. I assured him that I was being very, very careful. We came to a small tributary on a steep bank. The only safe place to cross was to walk through a waterfall at the cliff face. I was afraid that my contact lenses would wash out. I threw the knife to the other side and, with my eyes closed, I walked through without a problem. Still, I didn't want to have to go back through the waterfall in the dark, so I suggested that we get back here by six. It was now five PM.
     We continued down the riverbank searching for any sign of Marvin or the missing students. At five-thirty, we reached a place where an island divided the river in two. Dave pointed out someone down river on the other side. It was Steve, the course instructor, and two others. I thought to myself "great he's found two more." Unfortunately, these two were just members of a search party. Steve and I climbed out on rocks opposite each other at the river's edge and yelled back and forth, but I couldn't hear most of what he said. I told him that Marvin had been washed down river and disappeared. Steve said that he would try to work his way back up river along the bank.
     Dave yelled to me that it was time for us to turn back, but then we heard another yell. It was Marvin. He had washed up here, a half mile or more downstream from where he went in. Marvin’s face was bleeding in several places. How badly was he hurt? "Bastante mal," he said. Bad enough.
     The three of us headed back upstream along the bank. Dave helped support Marvin as he walked while I went into overdrive hacking a wide clear path ahead of them. I killed an awful lot of trees, plants, and vines with that little knife. Up and down the slope of the riverbank, I tried to find the easiest route for Dave and Marvin to negotiate. Marvin was in pain and it was slow going. We passed through the waterfall well after dark. I was glad that I had done some hacking on the way out because it made the way back in the dark much easier.
     We passed no one along the trail on the return trip. I was very surprised to see all three students still stranded on the far side of the river. Where were all the other people who went out to help them? I grabbed my notebook out of the tree trunk as we passed. Marvin, Dave, and I got back to the restaurant about seven. We were completely soaked and shaking from exhaustion. My hands and arms were torn and bleeding. I had lost my wristwatch, perhaps caught on a tree or vine.
     Everyone at the restaurant was very happy to see Marvin. Steve had gotten back ahead of us with news of Marvin's disappearance. Jevra was busy taking care of people's needs. She brought me a cup of coffee and some soup. She made a butterfly bandage and closed a gash on Marvin's chin. Marvin said his back and ribs hurt. I gave the kitchen knife back to the cook. She laughed at its condition. It was completely destroyed.
     Many of the Canadian students sat around the restaurant working on their diaries. I asked them to explain exactly what had happened when they got washed in. They said that a few students had been in the water at the base of the lower waterfalls and the rest had been standing on the near bank, when they heard a rumbling from above. Suddenly a wall of water came over the falls, a "cabeza de agua." Perhaps eleven of the fourteen people had been swept down the river. Now six students were still out there. Three of them were stranded on the far bank of the river and three others, Layla, Lisa, and Morgan, were missing and unaccounted for. We all sat around the restaurant speculating on various scenarios of where the three missing students might be. If they were alive, we hoped they were all together. I pictured them wearing only bathing suits, hungry, cold, and bug-bitten out in the forest, trying to find their way back here in the dark.
     Red Cross rescue workers arrived at the restaurant. Emily had sent up dry clothes with them for the La Selva people. I took a shower and gratefully put on my dry clothes. Making conversation, I asked Steve whether his course would continue. He said "If any of the students are dead, the course means nothing."
     So far, all the rescue efforts had come to less than nothing. The people who had gone to the far side of the river had found that the bank was too steep to get down to the students. The three students there wound up getting back to Rara Avis hotel on their own. The Red Cross people patched up their cuts. Lindsey was still hysterical. One of the missing students was a friend from high school. Virginia, the nature guide at Rara Avis, arranged for each student to send a short message back to their parents in Canada.
     At first I was loath to go back out into the rain, but as I warmed up, I decided that I was ready for another try. The other La Selva people agreed. I told Virginia that several of us wanted to go back out, but she said absolutely not. She said that the Red Cross had everything under control. Six people were going out with walkie-talkies, ropes, etc. The Red Cross wanted no one else out. They were afraid of more problems like Marvin.
     The tractor was ready to take three of the injured students and Marvin down to Horquetas then off to a hospital. Virginia said that the five La Selva people should leave on this tractor and stay the night at El Plastico as we had planned. There was no room for us at the hotel. We packed up our things and walked through the rain to the waiting tractor. On the tractor ride down Jevra sat next to Marvin and comforted him. Marvin definitely enjoyed Jevra's attention.
     At El Plastico, as we unloaded our things off the tractor cart, Karenna and I got stung on the hands by wasps. The world was not being kind today. I felt worn out and beat up. Before going to bed I checked to see whether any volcanus workers at the nearby colonies were out foraging at night. I saw many ants on the trails, but none were carrying loads. Although I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep. The short-wave radio downstairs in the kitchen blared all night with communications between the Horquetas office and Rara Avis.
     At seven the next morning, the El Plastico cooks served up a delicious breakfast. Afterwards, the five La Selva people and Emily sat around the table and talked. We all felt depressed. There seemed to be little hope left of finding the students alive.
     At eight-thirty, one of the cooks came and whispered in Emily's ear. He had news that the Red Cross had just found two bodies, a male and a female, a few hundred yards below the waterfall. They didn't know whether it was Layla or Lisa that had been found. Both had medium length brown hair. The Red Cross wanted to know whether any of us knew any distinguishing characteristics of the two women. We didn't.
     I was eager to hear any additional news. What I really wanted to hear was a definitive "Jim, there was absolutely nothing you could have done." Many people obliged me and said this, but I couldn't convince myself. The Red Cross had found the two students in an area where Dave and I had searched. Everyone said that if the Red Cross had just found them now, they must have been lodged underwater when we had been at that part of the river. But I kept thinking through whether it were possible that somehow we had missed them.
     The La Selva people agreed to meet back at El Plastico at two-thirty to walk down to Horquetas. I went off to study my ants. I went up the road and found coronatus workers foraging where I had marked earlier. I collected six ants with loads, then seeing no more, I headed up the trail back towards Rara Avis. At ten-thirty I heard the tractor coming down from Rara Avis on the road parallel to the trail, so I bushwhacked through the forest to the road. The Canadian students were all heading down to Horquetas on the cart. I wished them good luck and they returned the favor. "I hope you find your ants," one student called.
     Next to the bridge just below Rara Avis, I found Virginia and the two Rara Avis volunteers, Chris and John, staring silently at the river. They all seemed depressed so I let them alone. Up at the restaurant I found Steve sitting alone at a table. I asked him what he planned to do now. He said that all the students except one or two wanted to continue with the course, so they were going back to San José to figure out what to do next. On the table lay the three passports of Layla, Lisa, and Morgan. I looked at a sheet of paper describing them for the rescue workers. They were sixteen, seventeen, and nineteen years old. School kids on a field trip.
     I walked down to the upper waterfall to look for a coronatus colony that had been active when I was here with the course last week, but today there were no ants. The river was back down to its normal level. The water was clear and the pool between the falls was calm and beautiful. This was where I usually went swimming. If the class had been here, instead farther downstream at the pool below the lower falls, everyone would have been swept over the lower falls and many more might have died.
     I walked back to the bridge and talked with Virginia. Virginia felt that this time of year, Canada Day weekend, was cursed for her. She told me that seven years ago, on June 30th, she had been in a car wreck in Ottawa along with her husband, her sister-in-law and her nephew. The nephew had been incapacitated ever since. Then five years ago, on July 1st, her husband had died in Ottawa. Now, on July 2nd, a group from Ontario had come to her hideaway in Costa Rica and died here. "Why did they have to come down here?" she asked. She felt that Ontario had a Canada Day vendetta against her.
     I walked to one more volcanus colony and took a sample of its fungus garden. Then I walked to an overlook to view the waterfalls from above. As usual, they looked like a picture postcard of tropical paradise.
     I hiked back down to El Plastico for lunch. The La Selva people agreed that we would leave at two to walk down to Horquetas. I ate lunch quickly then went out to collect more volcanus foragers at the colony right next to the station. I left Emily collecting ants for me there and I went down the road to look for the nest entrance of yet another colony. At one-forty, the La Selva people passed me on the road. They had decided to walk down to Horquetas now and wait for me there. I couldn't believe that they were starting off twenty minutes early, leaving me to walk down alone.
     I gave up on finding the nest entrance of the colony and went back to talk with Emily. She said that a helicopter had spotted the third body quite a ways downstream and this news had prompted the others to leave. Emily and I collected more volcanus foragers until it started to rain. We went into El Plastico and talked some more. Emily said that this morning she had been watching the butterflies in their butterfly breeding enclosure. She thought about how oblivious the butterflies were to all the human turmoil surrounding them. Life for them went on as usual. Emily said that she felt guilty that she had ignored the students when they had been here at El Plastico. I felt guilty because I had done nothing to help them. I thought about how the last photo on their cameras may have been of me covered with ants.
     I didn't leave Plastico until after three. It was a long tiring walk with my heavy pack. Large clods of mud stuck to my boots. At four-fifteen I stopped to rest by a river. I sat on a rock and took off my boots. I noticed a few volcanus foraging in the road.
     The walk down took longer than I had thought. The muddy road seemed to go on and on. Finally, I got to the bridge over the first lower river. The wood in the planks was rotted and broken. The river below seemed threatening. After the second river, I got a ride in a jeep for the last quarter mile to the Rara Avis office in Horquetas.
     Outside the office, there was a crowd of people, many of them Red Cross workers. I collected up the La Selva group's backpacks, which were piled on the ground, and threw everything into my car. On the windshield was a note saying that everyone was waiting for me in the bar. I drove over to pick them up. They were somewhat drunk and quite jolly. Marvin also was in the bar. He seemed much better. His injuries were not as bad as we had feared.
     We drove back to La Selva in the dark. I felt like we were heading back to the real world. Soon we'd be safely home. In the lab back at La Selva, I ran into David, the co-director of La Selva. He gave me a big hug. "It is so good to see you," he said. "It's good to see you too," I replied, somewhat confused at his emotional reaction. David explained that the Costa Rican newspapers had reported that three Norteamericanos were missing at Rara Avis and he had thought the missing were La Selva researchers.
     I weighed the ants I had collected along with their loads while Jevra, Karenna, Dave, and Garth drank beers and talked with David and Wendy in the lab lounge. When I finished weighing, I talked with Jack, a collaborator in ant studies. Today Jack had finished a complete list of all the fungus-growing ants of La Selva plus a key for identifying them.
     Lori, a frog researcher at La Selva, came into the lab and we went off to the kitchen for ice cream and granola. I told her the story of what happened. I had planned to start my drive back to Panama this evening, but I was too drained, physically and emotionally. I managed to go off to sleep at one in the morning.
     I got up at seven the next morning, packed the car and cleaned up the lab. Then I waited until nine AM to wake up Lori to say good-bye, as I had promised. I called into her window and woke her up. She said that at first she had thought that my voice was part of a dream. Jevra and Karenna heard me from their room nearby. We said our goodbyes and exchanged addresses. As usual, I was melancholy about leaving La Selva. It was nice to know that I would be back to teach on another OTS course here next January.
     I drove off for San José. The brakes were still causing tremendous shaking, but I was growing used to it. In San José I went to the Hotel Galilea, the usual haunt for biologists, but no one I knew was staying there. I bought a copy of La Nacion and read the article on the Canadians. All three had their names spelled wrong.
     I thought of stopping in to see the Canadian class at their hotel, but I didn't know which hotel they were in. I tried three hotels and gave up. I went to Lehman's bookstore and looked at a new book on the national parks of Costa Rica. The book was criminally bad. Many of the parks were in the wrong places on the map or with the wrong names. A park the exact shape of Braulio Carillo National Park was over in Guanacaste and named Palo Verde. La Selva was labeled as north of Puerto Viejo instead of south. I felt outraged. This book was a hazard. It inspired me to go to the Costa Rican Tourist office and complain.
     At the Tourist Office in the Plaza de la Cultura, I told the person at the desk about the problems with the new book. I also pointed out errors in the maps of Costa Rica that their office gave to tourists. I asked whom I should contact with this information. The guy just got angry at me. He said that these maps were all they had. Deflated, I gave up on this crusade and left.
     On Avenida Central, I saw a group of tourists with Canadian flags on their backpacks. I told them about the lost Canadians, but I think they thought I was just ranting. And I was.
     I drove out of San José feeling worn out. Near Cerro de la Muerte I pulled off to the side of the road and napped for a while. I had napped in the exact same spot on my last drive down to Panama in January. As usual, it was misty and raining here, but now the rain seemed to be an ominous force.
      picked up a Costa Rican hitchhiker. When I stopped for him, he warned me that my car shook when I braked. I told him that I was well aware of this problem. And I told him about the Canadians. He said he had seen the news of the deaths on television. He seemed more upset about what people in Canada would now think about Costa Rica. "These Canadian parents will never come down to Costa Rica. They just know that their children came here and died. They will think we are an uncivilized country, but these accidents can happen anywhere. They should have known about cabezas de agua. They happen all the time." When we got to his town he insisted that he buy me a cup of coffee at a roadside diner. After the coffee I drove him home. He told his wife that I was with the Canadians and she went on about how Canadians will now think that Costa Rica is a terrible country.
     At San Vito, I checked into a hotel. I asked the hotel receptionist whether there were any other foreigners in the hotel because I hoped to find someone who wanted a ride to Panama. There was one American couple in the hotel so I stopped by to talk. They were retired and looking for land in Central America. They said that they had liked Guatemala better than Costa Rica because things were cheaper. I told them that I couldn't live in a country like Guatemala where the government periodically exterminates its citizens. They were very pushy and wanted inside information from me on where to look for cheap land, but I couldn't help them. They were the type of people that I wish would stay out of countries where the local people still liked Americans.
     I drove to the Wilson Botanical Garden in Las Cruces to see Gail, the co-director. This evening, Gail had three local children visiting for the night. She has all but adopted these kids, Roxana, Yendry, and Olger. Gail read the kids a bedtime story. She was wonderful with them.
      I told Gail the story of the Canadians and how terrible I felt, weighed down with guilt. I couldn't keep from crying.
     Back at the hotel, I wrote this account of the past three days. It poured out of me as fast as I could write, cramping my hand. When I was done, I fell into a deep sleep.

Afterward
     Many years have passed since the accident at Rara Avis. Although I did not return to Costa Rica the following January (I was in the hospital with appendicitis), I have been back several times since then, to study ants and to visit my friend Emily. I have now published papers on the ecology of Acromyrmex volcanus and Acromyrmex coronatus at Plastico and Rara Avis. I thank Emily for her help with this research.
     Some guidebooks to Costa Rica now devote a sentence or two describing the accident at Rara Avis, as a warning or perhaps enticement to tourists. An alarm has been installed at Rara Avis to alert swimmers to rises in the water level upstream from the waterfall. The tourist business that supports the protection of the Rara Avis forest continues to grow. And the forest lives on.
     n 1994, Emily left her job at Rara Avis to travel around the world with her brother. Emily cut her foot while river-rafting in Nepal. The cut became infected and Emily died several days later. I dedicate this account to my dear friend, Emily Foster. OTS now offers Emily Foster Memorial Fellowships for study in Costa Rica. In 2000, Karenna's father unsuccessfully ran for president of the United States.