Back to San Jose

Back to San Jose

Today, we had to reverse our trip of two days before back to San Jose. But we had an additional complication - the road back to San Jose was closed due to a mud slide. Our opportunity was to see the seventh province of Costa Rica, so we made it to all seven. Of course, it took a couple hours longer to get back, especially since traffic was extra heavy on what was mostly a two lane road.

 Costa Rican Sunset

So how do we summarize this trip? First, we had the unusual situation that everyone in the group got along, we would not hesitate to travel with any of them again. Second, our guide, Jorge, was great - funny, took the time to tell us many more things than we will ever be able to remember, and helpful when we needed help. Third, the trip probably is best summarized as one filled with activities (white water rafting, zip lining, horseback riding, kayaking) and nature (mostly birds, lizards, frogs, and small mammals like monkeys). It doesn't have the historical sites of the Aztecs or Incas, wasn't a lot of cultural activities, but it was definitely an interesting country to visit.

The nature of Tortuguero

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan 

We started our day with a 5:45 AM cruise through the jungle. For some reason the wildlife was fairly scarce; but we managed to see a caiman, a cormorant drying its feathers after the rain, chestnut-mandibled toucan,  spiny tailed iguana, green ibis and northern jacana. We also saw a number of orchids and the flower of the Pachira tree.
After breakfast, a few of us donned boots to hike the nearby trail. Boots were needed as we oozed through mud on the trail. We started off with a bang as a two toed sloth moved about 20 feet while we watched. Soon after we encountered a juvenile spider monkey - the first time we were able to see more than just branches moving. He gave us an acrobatic display as he leaped from branch to branch. Leo, our guide opened a bit of a termite nest and we watched the termites swarm to protect their nest. Termites are high in protein and he demonstrated that they were quite edible by eating a few himself. Next we came upon a strangler fig - these kill the tree by 3 methods: strangling the root system, laying its own root system to deprive the tree of nutrients, and shooting it leaves into the sky to deprive the tree of sunlight. As we walked we saw many red tree frogs about the size of nickel. We also observed how the trees root system handled the swampy soil, the roots were shallow but as wide as the tree was tall to support the tree. He showed us how to take the pod of a royal palm and turn it into a hat (something he had done as a kid).

In the late afternoon we again took a little cruise. Three spider monkeys were overhead showing us how quickly they could move as they followed us down the canal. We went to Jorge's favorite spot in the park, a canal with the trees forming a cathedral ceiling. On the way we got up close to a bare-throated tiger heron and while there we watched a neotropical otter move along the edge of the water. As dark came, we listened to the sounds of the jungle - birds, frogs, insects all making a symphony of natural music, a fitting end to our day in Tortuguero National Park.

 Bare-throated Tiger Heron

Tortuguero

We headed Northeast out of San Jose into Braulio Carillo National Park, largely a tropical cloud forest and it lived up to its name. We traveled from 6:30 AM until 10:30 on the roads, the last 32 km on a gravel road for about 2 hours. We did have a restroom stop on way with a butterfly pavillion, where I actually had time to see a Morpho butterfly at rest, rather than flitting about. They are the most spectacular butterfly of the region.  Then we transferred to a boat and travelled another 2 1/2 hours to reach Tortuguero (Turtle Region) National Park.

 Morpho butterfly

Four different species of sea turtle nest in this area, but the most famous is the green sea turtle. From 1920-52 the green turtle was hunted here and the numbers dropped dramatically. In 1952, Dr. Carr set up a research station to study the turtles. In a few years, the Caribbean Conservation Corporation was formed to study and protect the turtles. They began to tag, weigh, and measure the turtles and the park was created to preserve their nesting habitat. The turtles come back to where they were born, some property of the sand they were born in leads them back (if they are born in different sand after being laid, they'll go back to that new beach). The temperature of the sand determines the sex of the turtle - cooler sand produces males. 75% of the turtles are female. Only 1-2 out of 10,000 eggs that hatch survive long enough to reproduce. 22% die just getting to the water after hatching from birds, crabs, or the hot sun. Mating takes 4-7 hours, so the female keeps a store of semen to fertilize her eggs during the 4-5 months that they lay eggs, June 15 till the end of October. In that time, an average female will lay 600-800 eggs.

Tarcoles River

We started our day on the Jungle Crocodile Safari on the Tarcoles River. We did see two big crocodiles and got up close to one of them who nicely posed for us next to our boat. They have a hard time digesting their food. Sometimes they kill their prey and may leave it to start decomposing in the river. They use lots of water and perhaps stones in their stomach to digest their prey. This doesn't stop them from reaching 1000 pounds in weight.

 Crocodile next to our boat

But we spent most of our time spotting birds: cattle egret, great egret, turquoise-browed motmot, great blue heron, bare throated tiger heron, spotted sandpiper, black neck stilt, neotropic cormorant, semipalmated plover, northern jacana and the (pink colored) roseate spoonbill.

Turquoise Browed Motmot

 We ate at a local restaurant and tried the local soup, Colle de Carnet with potatoes, pork, squash, and taro. Then we visited a wood manufacturer who made necklaces, place-mats and wind chimes from local woods. Our last stop was a local leather goods shop, which made purses, wallets and women's sandals in a simple five person operation - a small shop in the proprietor's house.

Manuel Antonio National Park

About half of our group decided to take a break today and hang around the hotel. The rest of us traveled for 1 1/2 hours to Manuel Antonio National Park. This is a park where Jorge used to camp as a kid. He told us his camping disaster story: they went fishing for the next day's lunch, but only caught one small fish. On returning to their tent, racoons had gotten inside and eaten all their food.

We hiked to the beach and got a great view of a three-toed sloth, it was even moving! We also got a lesson in camouflage trying to spot a baby green iguana and a red-eyed tree frog.

 Red-eyed Tree Frog 

With his eyes open, the frog would have been easy to spot, but it sure was hard with closed eyes (the frog's, not ours). We also got a chance to spot a Fiery-billed Aracari and Halloween crabs. We stopped for a swim on the beach, one of the world's top ten. The water was warm and beach picturesque. Meanwhile, Mary spent some time with Jorge, showing him the school that we visited on our last trip to Kenya. On the hike back we saw hermit crabs and an iguana, well-hidden in the leaves. All, in all, we had a nature-filled day.

Punta Leona

On the beach after our outrigger journey

 We spent the morning traveling from Guanacoste province to Puntarenus province on the Pacific coast. In the afternoon, seven of us went on the outrigger canoe to an isolated beach. Wow, was the water warm! While we were in the Gulf of Nicoya, it was hard to believe the Pacific could be this warm. Our hotel, Punta Leona is a huge complex on the same bay. We get to watch TV tonight assuming we can stay awake after 9 PM. Getting up every morning a little after 6 causes early bedtimes.

 The beach at Punta Leona

Buena Vista Lodge

Zip lining upside down

We had the lodge to ourselves last night. There were lots of sounds from the insects, birds, and frogs. Come daybreak, we had a cup of coffee and then went zip lining. They had 9 separate lines and on the last one a number of us went across upside down.

 Horseback riding from our lodge

After breakfast, we went horseback riding to the spa. Neither Mary nor I had been on a horse in over 20 years. Obviously, we weren't the most skilled riders, but we did manage our horse (when it wanted to go where we wanted to go). The spa is fed from the hot springs of the volcano. We started in the steam room, followed with slathering ourselves with mud, then someone with a sadistic nature washed us down with cold water. After that we got to relax in the warm pools and the Imperial beer sure tasted good. Here we encountered lots of people from other hotels and the near-by area who come to Buena Vista for the activities.

Sunset at Buena Vista

In the afternoon, we relaxed by our cabin and the went to the sunset bar for drinks and a great sunset over the mountains. It was a great day of fun activities.

Guanacaste

We spent most of the morning going from Arenal Volcano to just outside Rincon de la Vieja volcano in Guanacaste. We crossed the continental divide to the Pacific coast and into the tropical dry forest. During the dry season many of the trees shed their leaves to retain moisture, regaining them as we approach the rainy season about now. We stopped for lunch in the town of Liberia and then proceeded to Buena Vista lodge with a view to the north of the volcano and to the southwest of the Pacific Ocean with tall hills periodically spaced over the hot spots in the crust. We took a nature hike in the afternoon spotting more birds like the White-throated Magpie Jay,  Rainbow-billed Toucan (or Keel-Billed Toucan), the Groove-billed Ani, and the Tropical Kingbird.

White-Throated Magpie Jay

Our big sighting was 10-12 Coatimundi in the trees. They bore a close resemblance to a raccoon in the face, but with a narrower body and longer tail. They peeked down through the trees at us and then moved off into the jungle.

Coatimundi

La Fortuna

Our adventure today is a tour on the Rio Frio. It was a two hour drive from our hotel and Jorge engaged us in a conversation about the Nicaragua immigration problem. It is almost a complete parallel to our Mexican immigration problem. First, they need the legal immigrants for farm work, especially picking coffee beans during the five month season. But they also have an illegal immigrant problem - Nicaraguan women having babies here who qualify for health care. The women may also qualify for housing for their children. There is a $2000 fine for a company that employs an illegal, but it is not enough to quell the problem.

Long-nosed Bat

We slowly motored up the river stopping for various birds and animals: the long-nose bat that eats insects, they sway in the tree imitating the motion of leaves. We come upon a colony of Howler monkeys, which are very noisy. There we see 'Blondie" a mutant, the only one known it the world, that is a golden color rather than black. Originally shunned as a baby she is now the alpha female. The howler monkey is a herbivore and like man can see in color. We saw numerous green turtles. Their primary predator is the raccoon, who eats their eggs. In fact, they will turn a turtle on its back, reach up its birth canal to take eggs out of the turtle.

Emerald Basilisk 

We saw several spectacled caimans. They are similar to a crocodile, but less than six feet long, their fangs are inside their mouth, and they have striped tails. We were also introduced to the Emerald Basilisk, known as the Jesus Christ Lizard because the young can walk on water.
The hit of the boat ride was coming upon both White-headed Capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys. We watched them feast on the fruit on the Inga fruit. But even better was our drive home, we saw a Jaguarundi cross the road. It quickly got lost in the grasses on the other side, but we can claim a rare sighting, Jorge has seen only two in 17 years of guiding.

Don Juan's Farm

A slow day - we didn't leave until 10:30 to visit Don Juan's Organic Farm. This farm is only 2 1/2 acres, but it has 36 crops, chickens, eggs, pigs, and cows. It is primarily an educational farm to show farmers in Costa Rica and world-wide how to farm organically. We had a funny, boisterous guide to show us the farm. He showed us the fruit of the lipstick plant which can be used as a lipstick or rouge as well as a natural coloring. Noni fruit which smells like blue cheese, but is also good for cancer, diabetes, and arthritis.

The manure from a cow and calf produces enough methane gas to cook for a family of four. They supplement the 50 cm. of typical soil in this regions with another 60 cm of organic material to help the plants grow healthier and faster. We had lunch on the farm from some of the radishes and lettuce we had picked as well as the Tilapia from their ponds. Not to be forgotten was our demonstration of grinding the cane sugar to get the sugar out and the moon shine that could result.
It was a short drive to La Fortuna at the based on Arenal volcano - the clouds parted and gave us a good view of the entire cone. We relaxed at the pool, since we were pretty hot. As Mary said to me, "we're not sure why they don't cut out this day from the tour, it was pretty quiet.

 La Fortuna with Arenal volcano

Somafluca

This was our day to visit the farming community of Somafluca. On the way we came upon a three toed sloth in a tree. They move 2-3 hours in a day and hang around the rest of the time.  The sloth is well adapted to hanging in trees with feet that are essentially large hooks. Sloths are known for being slow, it even takes 24-28 hours to copulate, followed by a 180 day gestation period. The young hang around for 12-18 months then live for 30-35 years. If you feel their fur, you'll encounter many insects, including a moth who cleans their fur of other bugs. The sloth eats mostly leaves and it takes as long as a month to digest these leaves.

 
Three toed sloth

We first visited the home of Donna Sonia. Since it was Saturday, her husband and daughters were also home. We made cheese empanadas with her help. They have a 2 hector (5 acre) farm where they grow primarily beans as well as yams, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, and the juacca plant (the edible portion is the roots).
We visited Somafluca school, an elementary school with 215 students. For a third-world country, they were fairly well-off. Many students had cell-phones, their computer lab had about 20 computers. The students danced for us, sang their national anthem and then we asked questions of each other.

Somafluca school "bull" dance

For lunch, four of us went to the home of Francisco, Maria, and their son, Chaco. It was a little awkward since they knew little English and we knew little Spanish, but we shared pictures and they showed us their home and farm. They primarily raised cows and chickens with a couple of pigs and lots of cats and dogs.
We were happy to return to our hotel for a dip in the pool, the sun was out and it was hot. Before dinner we made use of yesterday's groceries to make plantain tortillas, and both a sweet dip from marmalade and cream cheese and a salsa from tomatoes, onion, cilantro, and tuna. We had a fun time - the group is definitely bonding. Everyone seems to enjoy traveling and learning with no one spoiling the trip.

 Red Rumped Tanager, Red Legged Honeycreeper (male and female)

Tirimbina Preserve

 Mary crossing the suspension bridge

After yesterday's busy day, we're having a relaxed day today. After breakfast we took a nature walk into the Tirimbina Nature Reserve. Mary was immediately challenged by a 860 foot suspension bridge over the Sarapiqui river. We took the Ceiba (Kapok) Trail to get a small sample of the tropical rain forest. In the rain forest, all the leaves end in a point to channel the water off the leaves. A tropical rainforest can form where there are 12 hours of daylight, greater than 70% humidity, less than 700 meters in altitude and lots of rain. Costa Rica with just 0.03% of the world's land mass produces 9% of the world's oxygen with its huge forests. We mostly saw various plants on our 2 km walk. The huge Kapok Tree (which used to be used for life preservers), the walking palm which "walks" to the sunlight with its root system, and lots of vines. The highlight for the walk was a hognose snake, one of the twenty-one poisonous snakes in the region, and the largest ant here, a bullet ant.

Walking palm roots

After lunch, Jorge read to us our grocery list in Spanish. We took a break on our afternoon ride to our next lodge for grocery shopping. Our group didn't have too much trouble with diez platanos verdes (10 green plantains) or una lata de ache condensa grande (condensed milk), but 1 casa crema does pinos may deamo threw us - something about creamed cheese and pineapples. Turns out Dos Pinos in the brand of creamed cheese. But our worst misspelling was "savoy" instead of "Ceballo", but with the clerks help we found our onion. It was a fun adventure.
Tonight we have beautiful bungalows in the middle of a private rain forest. Bosques de ChaChagua is the name of our hotel.

Sarapiqui

We started our day with some bird watching at 6 AM. Jorge set out some bananas to attract birds, but they never showed. So we started walking. We saw Tropical Kingbirds, Montezuma Oropendola's and two varieties of Toucan (Keel-billed and Chestnut-Mandibled) as well as a lot of parakeets and fly catchers.

 Keel-billed Toucan

After breakfast, we went white-water rafting along 12 km. of the Rio Sarapiqui. Since it is the beginning of the rainy season, the water was fairly low, but we had a good time. The toughest part of the trip was getting down the banks to the rafts. Jorge told one of his stories: While on the river a girl asked him what was the name of the animal that liked like a cow, but was grazing in the river. Jorge said, "that's a water cow, and if you eat it, it tastes like fish". I wonder if it counts as fish for Lent?
In the afternoon, we visited a pineapple farm. After planting, it takes about 9 months and then they use ethelyne to induce it to fruit, from then it takes 23-29 weeks for the fruit to ripen. We watched them pick the fruit - 60 laborers pick 54000 pineapples a day. The fruit is then sorted based on size and color for either processed fruit or sent to the stores.
Before dinner, Johnny, a Churataga native showed us how they make pottery. Starting with the special clay a mixture of fine sand and water, they turn the clay by hand and use a tools from gourds, and corn cobs to shape  the clay. It is coated with 7 coats of white paint and then polished with a stone, then they sponge on red paint. Finally then form a design by adding black paint, or scraping away red paint for the white color underneath, then polish with stone again. Finally, the pot is fired, in all a 15 day process.

Johnny sponging on red paint

After dinner, we had a bat lecture. Of the 5000 mammals, 1160 are bats and over one hundred live in Costa Rica. We learned that they classify bats based on what they eat: fruits, insects, animals, fish, and three of them (all on the American continent) blood. We got to look at an insectivore and fruigavore close up (captured that night for our benefit and then released after our talk). A busy day and all 3 meals offers us rice and beans (which we soon learned would be true almost every day.

 Insectivore bat

La Virgen, Costa Rica

Uneventful flights to reach San Jose, Costa Rica arriving about 8:30 PM at our hotel.
We started our tour at the National Theater, built from 1890-97 in downtown San Jose. Lots of Italian marble and European art with a huge stage for music, dance, and theater. Because of the many earthquakes, the building is under constant maintenance.

National Theater

Our guide, Jorge, introduced us to Costa Rica. They have much to be proud of: the longest democracy in Central America, a 98% literacy rate, a national health-care program, no need for an army, and a strong emphasis (as we would see during the trip) for the ecology. The country is well-known for it's Eco-tourism hosting 2 and 1/2 million tourists per year.
We visited the National Museum with a nice butterfly pavilion and some interesting artifacts from the ancient Indian cultures: ornate metastases, gold figures and burial pottery. It was a simple museum built in an old military fort, next to the Parliament building.

We then left the city and climbed the hills out of the Central Valley to the Doka Estate, a 100 year old coffee plantation. Coffee, bananas, and pineapple are Costa Rica's primary exports. Coffee ripens here between November and Feburary. The beans are handpicked when they are red. They put the beans in a large vat of water - high grade beans sink and low grade beans float. They then peel the outer layer of the bean by machine and then ferment the bean in water to remove the outer layer of sugar. After that the beans are dried in the sun for five days, raking them every 30 minutes. Finally they are put in a drying machine for a day, the then stored in bags for a least 3 months. These green beans are then sold to the coffee roasters. For a light roast, it takes about 15 minutes and a dark roast about 20 minutes.

From the plantation, we went up the continental divide toward the Caribbean side, passing through a tropical cloud forest (with appropriate clouds). We stopped along the way for various treats: strawberries, Granadilla fruit (like a pomegranate) and sour cream cookies. We stopped for the La Paz Waterfall and at another local restaurant with four species of hummingbird outside. Our room tonight is just outside a wildlife preserve. On way, Jorge, was informing us that it was fairly primitive and that we would have to sign up for when we wanted to take a shower - all in joke.