Besides awakening a new sense of awe for these unique beings, the mycology tour opened my eyes to the forest. Our route took us to La Cangreja National Park, one of the least visited preserves in Costa Rica and a place I probably would have never visited were it not for the Fungi Trail.
As an amateur but enthusiastic hiker, I thought that I appreciated my time in the woods. But neglecting the macro — the vast sea of green, the undulating paths of dirt and rock, and the intense sound of the wind rustling leaves in the canopies — revealed an entire world that had always been there but that I never had truly noticed.
I realized that fungi are everywhere. Wherever we looked, there was a diversity of species. Some were black and small. Others, bright-orange and medium-sized. There were white mushrooms with deep slits that ants used as paths, large mushrooms coming out from the sides of trees like stepping stones to the cupolas, and fuzzy fungi overtaking and breaking down leaves, bugs and even other fungi.
Suddenly, the forest became small, and all the things that usually go unnoticed became visible: the minuscule movements of bugs, a flower starting to peek from the ground, roots breaking down stubborn rocks. The micro, it turns out, is just as remarkable as the macro.
We covered only a short distance. Mycology is a slow sport that requires patience, but we saw the forest in more detail than if we had breezed through it toward the end of a trail. All in all, we picked up 30 samples for Orellana to take back to the lab and saw many more species that we left happily in their habitat.
