Costa Rica Day Six

We left Monteverde the next morning, and headed toward the coast. Once again the road was a narrow gravel track, winding along the ridge of the mountains, with a steep drop only inches from the bus tires. The terrain got drier as we progressed toward the ocean, because climate change is causing desertification of this once-lush tropical area.


There were coffee plantations all along the road, planted on the steep sides of the dry hills. Our first stop that day was at the Tarcoles river. The bus stopped and let everyone off on one side of the bridge, to let everyone walk to the other side and to stop in the middle to look a the wild crocodiles in the river below.

These suckers were HUGE, basking in the sun and waiting for some tasty morsel to wander from safety. Carlos said that when he first started researching bird numbers, he was collecting data in Carara National Park, which is right beside the river. He had a few close encounters with these crocs by accidentally blundering into their nesting area.
Once across the river, we climbed back into the bus for the very short trip to the park entrance. Carara National Park was originally owned by a man who bought the area so he could capture wild macaws and export them to the US for sale. That is now illegal, and the park is a protected area where the macaws nest and are trying to replenish their numbers. The soil is very shallow, so trees have huge buttressed trunks that help them stay upright.

There are lots of creepy crawlies in the undergrowth...
and some spectacular flowers:

Carlos showed us a camera he had set up with a motion detector to take pictures of the baby macaws in the nest in the hollow in this tree (remember I mentioned he was an Ornithologist and studied local birds when he wasn't leading tours):

After our tour through the park, we headed off to our hotel. We passed through huge palm oil plantations. This was not a native tree, but the climate is perfect to grow these palms, and the government is exploring ways of developing this industry. It seems quite destructive to the natural environment, but at least it is green.

The hotel for the next couple of nights was right on the ocean, by this beautiful beach. There were no other people on the beach, except for the hotel lifeguards, so we had it all to ourselves. The water was rather dangerous, because of the powerful rip tides, and the hotel had a few patrons who went swimming in the dark and died a couple of years ago, so they were pretty cautious about letting us swim in the water. The lifeguards made sure that nobody went in any deeper than mid-thighs. We arrived early enough to get in an hour of wading (and getting washed into the shore by the huge and powerful waves) before dark.

We also had a chance to watch the pelicans flying in formation along the top of the waves, again and again as the tide was coming in.

Cost Rica Day Five

We started the day in Monteverde by planting trees to help built a shelter belt to stop the mountain from washing away in the rainy season. Each student got a tree and we found holes already dug in the hillside where we could plant our trees.

This is my little tree:
It is a tree related to a Lychee that is fast growing and will create a little forest of trees in no time.

The next activity was a walk through the cloud forest at the top of the great divide. This forest was a true jungle, and remains shrouded in cloud most of the time (hence the name). It doesn't have to rain much, because the plants can get enough moisture just from the ever-present mist.
I managed to snap a photo of this little guy hiding in the trees, waiting for the people to leave so he could continue to build his nest. Her nest? I'm not sure what kind of bird it is, or whether it is a female or a male, but it was only about the size of a canary.
and some picture of ferns just opening:
Then in the afternoon we went walking through the jungle on the suspended bridges:

I hate these things, and I had to just look straight ahead and walk quickly to get across all nine of them. The bridges are various lengths and heights, but all of them were too high and too long for me. Of course, I can't claim credit for this shot from the middle of one of the bridges:

but the scenery was incredible, and the walk on land parts of the trail was worth daring the bridges. There were a lot of people ziplining, but the zipline is only about the challenge of flying through the air, and it isn't possible to see anything of the jungle, so it didn't appeal to me at all. I was walking along, thinking about the tragedy of the loss of rain forest, and how few animals we had seen on the trip so far, and a little gecko scurried across my path, as if to remind me that they were there, they just chose not to show themselves.

We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then went to shop in the tiny town of Monteverde for a few hours before dark. The town is very small, and just made up of a few small shops, some hotels and a bank, but the bank had armed security guards and a special entrance that trapped each person as they walked through the double doors. Our bank cards still didn't work, even though the bank looked sophisticated enough.

Angel Raphael came to the hotel after supper for some more dance lessons, but everyone was so tired that they all retired early.

Costa Rica day four

The next day we were up bright and early to go to Monteverde. Before we left, I snapped some pictures of these goofy turkey birds (I don't know what they are called). They were about the size of a turkey, and were eating the fruit of a tree outside our hotel room. They had a bright red wattle under their beaks, that glowed when the sun shone through.



These beautiful flowers were also outside our door. The white parts are the flower and the yellow strings are the stamens.

We didn't get very far down the road when we stopped to let these little fellows cross the road:

They are called Coatimundi, but everyone calls them coatis (pronounced co ott ees). They were a bit curious, hoping we would feed them, but then they all toddled off after another bus and we resumed our trek.

We stopped again not too far down the road to help pull a small vehicle out of the ditch. It was quite dangerous to stop, because it is a classic way of highjacking a bus of tourists, but our Tour Director stood in the doorway of the bus until he was sure it was safe. Two scientists were out counting and collecting dead birds, and got themselves mired in the mud beside the road.

We tried pushing, but only succeeded in getting sprayed with mud. Carlos flagged down a passing taxi and borrowed a bit of rope which they tied to the tour bus, and used that to pull the car out of the ditch.

Our first planned stop of the day was at a small school.

There was only one teacher for the fifty kids in the community, and the school was very small and obviously poor. The teacher was away at a teacher's convention, but the kids and their parents wanted to enterain us anyway, in the hope of getting some donations so they could complete the construction of their gymnasium. They had the walls and floor but needed money for the roof. The kids danced some traditional dances, and some modern jazz dance, and were very proud of their routines.

The next planned activity was lunch and trail riding through the mountains. Before we started, a few of the more intrepid had a bit of a ride on this:

And then we got a lesson in horse dancing from Angel Raphael:

Some of the group had never ridden before, so the trail ride was exciting and scary, but for most of us it was just a nice peaceful ride through beautiful countryside.

When we arrived back from the trail ride, we all had a dance lesson, designed as a cool-down exercise to ease strained muscles, and leave everyone feeling happy and relaxed. It certainly did the trick.

A nice end to a long and exciting day.

From there, we headed off to the town of Monteverde, supper and bed.

Day three

We awoke in the morning to this incredible view of Arenal volcano:

The clouds didn't leave the peak of the volcano the entire time we in the vicinity, but we could frequently see red explosions and tumbling rocks raising dust and smoke.

We started our day with a trip into the small city of La Fortuna, to allow people to try to get money (which didn't work in most cases), and access to an internet cafe. Then we headed out to La Fortuna Falls for a swim. There is a hike down the side of a mountain to get to the water, which is helped a bit by the more than 370 steps - uneven, crumbling and treacherous steps that switchback across the very steep side of the mountain. Once at the bottom, the intrepid visitor is greeted by the incredible view of the waterfall:

and the opportunity to swim in the pristine cool water. We were warned to stay clear of swimming too close to the water, because the weight of the water coming down is deadly. There was a crowd there, and it was difficult to find a secluded area to swim, but we were so hot and tired after the climb down that it was worth the effort.

Then we had to face the climb back up.

In the afternoon we headed for Lake Arenal for a boat tour and a swim in the lake. The lake is man-made, and covers the remains of the town of Arenal, which was destroyed by the volcano in 1968. Apparently the church steeple can still be seen when the water level is low, but we didn't venture into that area of the lake to see if we could spot it. The lake is home to a wide variety of birds and mammals, including egrets and cormorants. I was very glad that I took my SLR camera, but I am still unhappy with the magnification of my zoom lense. I just can't get close enough to the wildlife to get a good shot without disturbing them.

Day Two afternoon

The tour director was fabulous. Carlos Mora had a B.Sc. in Ornithology, a Master's degree in Tourism and a Ph.D. in Phonetics (Linguistics). Not only could he identify every bird we pointed out, but he was incredibly knowledgeable in geography, geology, culture, and the flora and fauna of Costa Rica. The next stop was Poas volcanoe. The plants around the volcano are unique, due to the high concentration of acid rain created by the volcano itself.

I did manage to get some good pictures of the beautiful flowers in the area.
This is a common little bush that grew on the path to the volcano. According to Carlos, the natives used the flowers of this plant to decorate their bodies, much like henna. When heated, the flowers turned blue.
Carlos heated the edges of this flower with a cigarette. The heat turned the petals a beautiful blue-green, but didn't seem to harm the flower at all.
Some areas along the climb were almost completely void of vegetation, because of the acid rain coming from the volcano. You can see the mist billowing over the trees at the rear of this photo.

This is all we saw of Poas volcano. We should be looking out over a vast cater, with a lake at the bottom, but the mist was so thick, it was like a solid white wall. There were a lot of people who had made the trip to see the volcano, and they hovered around, waiting for the mist to clear, but we had an agenda, and couldn't wait. While there, we noticed a man discretely taking pictures of some of the girls on our tour, and he followed us back to the tour bus. We were quite creeped out by his suspicious behaviour.

After leaving Poas, we headed off through La Paz, which ws supposed to be a shortcut on the way to the Arenal region, our final destination for the night. However, when we got to this bridge, we ran into a few problems. The bridge was crumbing, and was only wide enough for one car at a time. There was a huge line up of cars on both sides of the bridge waiting to cross.

We were asked to get out of the bus, and our tour director directed traffic while we explored the waterfall. We had to walk across the bridge while there were no other vehicles on it, because the tour director was worried that the bridge would collapse if the bus went across with us in it. This is a picture from behind the falls.

This traffic jam, in the middle of the jungle, went for several kilometers. This narrow road was considered a major highway. Our bus driver was incredibly skillful, and passed these vehicles with only inches to spare.

We stopped at Baldi Spa (a big american-style spa with multiple hot and swimming pools). All the money I brought with me was stolen at the spa (about $85 US). The group spent a couple of hours swimming, and then we headed off to our hotel at the base of Arenal Volcano for supper and bed. We were all exhausted, and ready for sleep.

Day two

We spent the first day flying, leaving at 7 am, which meant that most people had to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport on time. We had planned to check our large luggage and then say goodbyes, but we were ushered through the security gates immediately. I was the lucky one chosen for a complete security check, including a full body pat-down (like a gentle full-body massage!). The guy in the line-up behind me had concealed a razor knife in his backpack which was of course found and confiscated, so I didn't mind the increased security too much, and the staff were very nice.

It seemed a bit prophetic that we were flying by a full moon, but I chose to consider that a good sign, rather than anything sinister.

The first flight was only a couple of hours, and then we had a lay-over of four hours in Pheonix - not enough time to leave the airport, and just long enough to eat lunch and then get really bored. The next jump was much longer, and the movie screens weren't working, so it was very long and boring for those passengers who were hoping to pass the hours watching a movie.

It was already dark whem we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, and we just had enough time to grab a quick supper and head off to our hotel rooms. The hotel we were staying in was right in the worst part of town, and we were warned not to leave the hotel anyway, so nobody really felt like they were going to miss anything by going to bed.

This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room first thing in the morning:

There are nearly as many hours of daylight as night that close to the Equator, so our days usually started with a 6:30 breakfast, and we were on the road by 7:00. It must make sense to people who are used to that rhythym, but we are from much farther north, where the days are short in the winter, and 18 hours or so in the summer.

Our first stop was the INBioparque, which is a natioanl research institute of biodiversity. The small park has nature trails through areas representing the different climate and land zones found in Costa Rica, and the trained guides are very knowledgable. The park is home to lots of birds, deer and turtles, and quite a few of these caymans:

We all anxiously watched these adult birds trying to protect their babies from the cayman (on the left in the photo). They babies were so tiny and fuzzy, and seemed quite oblivious to their impending doom.

Of course there were also quite a few iguanas for a more personal encounter than one would find in the wild:

Visiting the park before venturing out into the wild lands also enabled us to capture on film the incredible blue butterflies. We would see lots of them throughout our adventures, but they never sat still enough to see them through the camera viewfinder.

The most outstanding feature of the landscape that first day was the incredible color - banks of brilliantly colored flowers everywhere.

Once we completed our tour of the park, we were back on the road, heading to Poas volcano. We passed this oxcart on the road,

and our enthusiastic tour director stopped the bus to allow us to get pictures of the cart, and to bribe the owner into letting us sit on the ox for pictures. Note the width of the road - that is the main highway.The ox was quite a beautiful creature, and while they were tolerant, they weren't friendly. This type of cart and decorative headgear for the oxen are very traditional, and even celebrated with a festival once a year! I don't really get it, but it is a good thing if it encourages people to keep these lovely creatures.

More next post...

Costa Rica

We returned from Costa Rica on Sunday night (actually Monday morning), and it took me a couple of days to recover and feel rested and 'normal' again. Although I took all the supplies along, I didn't do anything creative, other than taking a lot of pictures. I don't feel confident of my drawing skills anomore, and didn't want to draw where people could see the results, so it was difficult to find enough isolated time when I could do any drawing or painting.

I am disappointed in the results of the pictures too, because I seem to have trouble getting the auto focus to actually work, but I am hoping that there are one or two good ones in the lot. It was nice to have the digital cameras instead of the film camera, because I gelt free to take a lot more shots, but in the end, I think film is still superior. I always come home with a few awesome shots if I have the film camera, but can't say the same about the digital.

I will go through and try to find some good images, and will tell you all about our experiences in Costa Rica over the next few days.