David and Enid's Travels

We will be home a week from today, and what a change in weather that will be!  This morning we left San Jose where it was clear and sunny, with a temperature of about 20C, and flew to Drake Bay where it was about 30C and very humid this afternoon when we arrived.

Flying to the Osa Peninsula

It was a beautiful day to fly with Nature Air.  The flight, on a Twin Otter, was pretty smooth and very pretty.  We flew over the mountains surrounding San Jose and a huge bank of cumulus clouds was built up along the Pacific side.  As we got further south we could see the ocean and rivers of the Pacific coast.

We first landed in the sunshine at Puerto Jimenez which is on the south end of the Osa peninsula.  About six passengers disembarked, and about the same number got on.  We then flew about 10 minutes north to Drake Bay where four of us were staying. 

Landed in Drake Bay

The first part of the flight was over the farmland along the east coast of the Osa peninsula, and we saw numerous banana plantations.   As we approached Drake Bay it started to rain, but it was clear when we landed on the short little paved airstrip there.

We unloaded our baggage and took it to the waiting van for our ride to Cabinas Manolo.  It must be about 5 km, and we had to ford one shallow river along the way.   We set up our room, and then went to complete checkin.  It was pouring rain absoutely straight down, but very heavily, so we know that we are definitely in the rain forest.  We are glad that we have our folding umbrellas.

Saiing ship in the Drake Bay harbor

After that we walked to the ocean, but weren’t really able to walk along the beach as it was high tide, and almost no shore.  We walked back along the road the other way after that, and through the very small town.  There is a large four-masted sailing cruise ship in the harbor.  It looks very fancy.  After we’d taken a few pictures we walked on to a small shop where Enid bought a souvenir, and then we stopped and had an ice-cream sundae.  It’s the first ice-cream we’ve had since we arrived. 

Some of the most expensive resorts in Costa Rica are here, but ours is certainly not.  It is good clean accomodation, but we did switch to our mosquito net instead of theirs, since ours is a bit longer, and also  doesn’t have a hole in it.  There are a few mosquitoes flying around, but in general not a lot of bugs.  I commented to Enid at supper as I flicked a small moth off the placemat that if this was Canada on a summer evening we’d be inundated by moths and mosquitoes sitting in the open air under the lights.

La Fortuna waterfall

We decided to take a taxi to the Cateratta La Fortuna, which is about 5 km away from where we are staying.  We hailed a cab on the street, and the driver, Jesus, wanted to practice his English, and told us we had to practice our Spanish, so we tried to converse in the two languages on the way to the park.  I’m afraid that his language skills were much better than mine, but he actually was a good teacher.

It’s a long way down to the bottom of the waterfall, about 400 steps.  The trail is well built, but pretty steep and narrow.  At the start of the trail we saw a couple of howler monkeys, as well as some very nice flowers.

La Fortuna waterfall

We took a lot of pictures and video of the waterfall, then Enid went for a swim below the falls.  Not to be outdone, I joined her.  The water was quite cool, but very refreshing.  A young couple from Montreal were there, and we got him to take a picture of Enid and I.  It seemed like most of the people swimming were from Canada.

We’d planned to walk back to our hostel, but when we got to the top of the trail the couple from Montreal wondered  if we wanted to share a cab, so we did that, and it made for a much faster trip back.

After lunch we finished packing and then waited for our shuttle to San Jose.  It arrived a few minutes early.  There was only one other passenger in the van, and we thought that the driver might pick up at another hotel, but it was only the three of us for  the trip.

The road to San Jose is very twisty and narrow, as are almost all the Costa Rican roads, but at east it was paved.  I would hate to drive on them.  The drivers are so aggressive and always passing on blind corners.  The last part of the trip was on a toll road.  The road was wider but not any better, as it was rough and a lot of it under construction.

We arrived at the Country Inn and Suites which is a much superior hotel to those we have been staying in.  However it is still very reasonable, and we get a full breakfast tomorrow.  We spent the evening re-packing, trying to get our suitcases under 27 pounds.  Since we don’t have a scale we’re not sure, but we hope that we have come close.

Birds in the back yard of our hoste

We didn’t have any plans for the morning other than staying here at the hostel and doing some reading.  However, there is a taxi driver who comes and visits every day and brings spoiled fruit to put on the bird feeder (we think he is probably one of the family that runs this hostel).  He speaks no English, but saw that I was taking pictures of the birds.  Using sign language, and gestures he indicated that there was an animal I should photograph at the supermarket to which he pointed in the general direction.  He was getting frustrated that I didn’t seem to understand, but when he waved his arms very slowly in a crawling motion I exclaimed “a sloth!” One of the other men here who doesn’t speak any Engish either, recognized the word and said “Si” and came over to tell the driver that it was called “Sloth” en Ingles.  It then started to pour rain so I went inside to our room, and when it quit in about five minutes Enid and I walked down to the store to see what was there.

Sloth

When we got to the supermarket the taxi driver was sitting outside eating his breakfast.  He pointed excitedly behind him and showed us where we could see the sloth.  It was sleeping all curled up in the tree hanging on to a branch with its very large claws.

After we’d taken the pictures and were going to walk away he called us over, and then drew us a map.  He pointed to the trees in the distance, and made the indication of horns, and we thought he said “vacca”.  We weren’t all that excited to see cows, but he seemed adamant that we should go where he’d drawn the map, so we walked that direction.

Deer at the nature reserve

On the way we did see some nice flowers, and a crane, and then did see some cows.  However we kept walking and started to hear some very loud bird calls.  We discovered a large fenced in cage containing three scarlet macaws and several green parrots.  We took pictures of the beautiful macaws, and shortly a young woman came out to talk to us.  She explained that this is a nature reserve being set up by the high school.  She had been working for it for about a month and preparing trails and working on brochures.  Since they weren’t done she told us we could look around for free, and described a bit of what was there.   They had a pen of small deer, a pond with some geese and ducks (and the heron we’d seen earlier), and a  fenced over pond that she said contained tilapia.  We assume the netting over the tilapia pond was because of the heron.  We were very surprised to find this site so close to where we are staying, and all because of a persistent taxi driver who wasn’t going to let language get in the way.

Scarlet Macaw

On the walk back we saw a veterinarian giving an IV to a mare (she had a young foal).  We commented that you wouldn’t likely be standing outside doing that in Saskatchewan in January. 

We also stopped at the bakery on the way back.  It smelled delicious and I succumbed to buying a sweet cake.

At three this afternoon we took a taxi to Baldi Hot Springs.  It’s probably the most commercialized of the several hot springs here, but the price was reasonable and included a buffet dinner.  They have many hot pools which Enid and I enjoyed for the afternoon, before we ate our supper.

The taxi driver had told us he’d be back at 7, but he wasn’t.  After waiting for a while we had the front desk of the hot springs hotel call a taxi for us.

Tonight we are once more being serenaded by the music across the street.  Now we know what it is.  Turns out the building is a roller skating rink, and since it’s school holidays it is open five nights a week. Once school is back in session we imagine it will turn back into the school gymnasium.

Waterfall

Last night after they’d shut the gate there was a lot of yelling outside of “Hola”,  Since we don’t know enough Spanish, I more or less ignored it, until suddenly I heard my name.  When I walked out on the balcony I could see that it was the young man who had made our booking for the tour to the hanging bridges.  He came to tell us that our pickup time had changed to 8 am (earlier than it was),  I guess he couldn’t phone the hostel, so it was nice that he came and let us know.  It did however mean that Carmen was rushed to get us breakfast, but she did cook us eggs, toast and prepared a fruit plate.

Howler monkey

We drove with our guide partway to the park, when he suddenly remembered that he had gone the wrong way to get the rest of his passengers.  We turned back and had to drive about five minutes back to town.  He did however give us a good tour of the forest.  We heard toucans, however when we got to where he thought they were, they were gone..  So we haven’t had a lot of luck so far seeing the famous colorful large birds in Costa Rica.  The walk was still good, as we saw some different kinds of plants here in the mid-level tropical rain forest, as well as a couple of small lizards, and one viper coiled up in a tree,  At the end of the walk we saw some howler monkeys.

Large canopy tree

The most interesting part of the walk though for us were the leaf cutter ants.  They marched in a stream about 10 cm wide carrying a leaf in one direction while other ants went back the opposite way.  They climbed completely up and down the trunk of a large tree, then along the ground for at least a hundred metres, crossing the walking trail twice before veering off into the rain forest.  We also saw army ants walking across a log, and on the path.  The guide told us to walk quickly while we crossed the army ant path.

I’m really impressed by the way Enid has handled the swinging suspension bridges.  The ones today were very wobbly and hard to walk across.  The highest one was 45 m above the ground and about 100 m long.   She’s getting a lot better at heights!

We got back to the hostel shortly after noon, We spent the day here reading in the back yard.  Later in the afternoon we went to the same tour office as we used to book todays trip and got our shuttle planned for Saturday to San Jose.  There is a school across the street from us and tonight there must have been band lessons for we could hear a lot of beginner band music.  Tonight there is a dance in the gym, so there’s lots of music and flashing lights.

Arenal volcano and Lake Arenal

We took the bus-ferry-bus route from Santa Elena to La Fortuna today.  Though its advertised as jeep-boat-jeep, we were really happy to be riding in a 20 passenger mini-bus rather than on the back of a jeep. 

The road to Lake Arenal starts out ok, as a rough gravel road, and then gradually gets narrower as you get closer to the end.  At the end of the road is a cafe, and a rough dirt trail down to the lake.  The cafe had a restroom, which was nice after a one and one half hour rough ride for two old people like us, and it was supposed to cost 200 colones.  The smallest bill I had was  1000 colones, but the attendant gave me change — 700 colones which I didn’t count very carefully.  I gave Enid a 500 colone coin and she told me that it only cost her the 200, but when she showed me the change she only had two 100 colone coins.  So we should perhaps learn to count our change more carefully.  It is very hard to distinguish the 100 and 500 colone coins as they are very similar in size and identical colors, and they are common in change.

We waited for a few minutes for our boat.  Several other boats docked and either let off, or picked up passengers while we waited.  When our boat did come we hauled our suitcases down the hill and on to the boat, which was quite large, maybe 40 feet long, and would hold at least 50 people (it was less than half full this morning).

Lake Arenal is quite large.  It was also quite windy, so the lake had whitecaps.  We were worried that our luggage, which was sitting at the front of the boat would get wet from spray, but it didn’t.  The shore of the lake is quite pretty, surrounded by high green hills and pastures.  We saw a couple of nice houses, probably farms, but the shores seem generally quite deserted.

We could see Mount Arenal all along the trip, and it gradually got less and less cloud covered as we got closer.  However we never did see the top of the volcano, and the best view was just before the boat docked.  From there it was a ride on a nice paved road into La Fortuna.  We were the last stop at the Posada Inn.  The young girl at the desk was not very confident of her English, but it was still a lot better than our Spanish.  We got checked in just about noon, and after we ate our lunch we picked out our laundry and got some clothes washed.

We walked to the grocery store, which we had a hard time finding.  We went too far, but one of the tour information shops (there seems to one selling tours every few feet) told us we’d gone too far and told us how to get there.  Along the way we had stopped at one of the tour shops, then spotted some people we’d met on the bus this morning having coffee.  We stopped and talked to them, and like us they were having a hard time deciding what tour to do.  They told us about the place they’d asked, and said that it wasn’t pushy.  So we stopped there on our way back from the grocery store and got more information.

Church in La Fortuna

One of the reasons we missed the grocery store is that there was a large church just across from the central town square park.  We walked over to the church, which was open, and stopped to look inside.  We assume it is Catholic, though we had a very hard time deciding if it really was, since it was quite different than other Latin American Catholic churches we’ve been in.

We had a pizza for supper.  It was absolutely loaded with cheese and very good.  We also had tres leches for dessert, but it was’nt nearly as good as that we had at the small soda in Samara. 
After supper we came back here to the hostel and made our lunch for tomorrow.  Then we tried to decide what to do tomorrow.  Since Carmen, the English speaking owner was not here yet, we decided to walk back to the tour office and book a trip to Arenal Volcano tomorrow.  But when we got to the office, we talked about the tour to the young clerk, and after hearing what we would be doing, decided we’d rather take our chances on another forest hike and try to spot some more animals.  So we booked a tour to another set of suspension bridges for tomorrow.

When we returned from booking we met Carmen, the owner, and arranged for breakfast tomorrow morning.  We have a fairly large room, the largest one we’ve had this trip.  It has both a double bed and bunk beds, and is clean.  We’re using the bunk beds to hold our suitcases.  Since the room has no air conditioning, and open windows, we found a screw that I put into the ceiling so I can hang our mosquito net (many others have done that as well as the roof is full of screw holes).  It is now just shortly after 8 pm, and it has cooled off nicely in our room.

Plants on the floor of the cloud forest

Todays tours at the Selvatura tourist park included the walkways with eight suspension bridges through the forest canopy, a butterfy garden which was indoors, and a hummingbird garden.  The walkway was about 3 km long, they said in the office it would take about an hour and a half, but we went very slowly, taking lots of pictures, and it took us nearly three.  We saw a few new species of birds and an agouti right at the start of the trail, but no other animals, though some other people we met on the trail had seen monkeys.  One of the most interesting parts of the walk was on the bridges, for you were up at the tops of the canopy and could see the flowers and fruits that grow on top of the trees.

Owl butterfy

After lunch, which we ate in a small flower garden outside the restaurant, we went on a guided tour of the butterfly garden.  They ony had about half a dozen kinds of butterflys, but they were very colorful.  The guide gave a very good explanation of how they raise the butterflies.  I was surprised at how ignorant some of the people on the tour were about some simple biology.  One woman seemed appalled that the butterflies would die in about three weeks at the end of their normal life cycle.  They do harvest the larvae and move them to a location on the Carribean so that they don’t eat all the plants in the greenhouse, then bring them back in the chrysallis stage to metamorphize into adults.

We stayed in the greenhouse at the end of the guided tour for a while to take more pictures.  It is almost impossible to get pictures of the Blue Morpho as they do not settle on the plants but seem to spend all their time in flight. 

Hummingbird at feeder

After that we went to the hummingbird garden.  We have never seen so many hummingbirds at one time.   They had feeders there, and they were constantly in use.  The hummingbirds dart in and out to the feeders and fly right by very close.  They listed seven different species on the sign there, and we saw at least five of them.  They are beautifully colored with their iradescent feathers.  The largest of them were about five inches long, and deep violet.  The
smallest were only two inches and beautiful green with a white stripe on their backs.

When we got back to our hostel I went to the bank to try and get money from the ATM.  It refused, saying “insufficient funds”..  I then tried in the bank but the teller would not even try my card since my name is not imprinted on it.  I then went to another bank, with exactly the same response on the ATM.  By now I was really starting to worry that someone had cleaned out our account, so I went back to the hostel to get Enid, thinking that perhaps her card would work. We tried both our Visa cards as well, with no more luck.  We tried to phone long distance to the number on the bank card but that wouldn’t go through.  We talked to one of the young Canadian men and asked if he knew how to make a long distance call to Canada, and he suggested that we use Skype.  Thank goodness for his idea, it worked, we called the 1-800 number in Canada and got the problem solved.

We had a nice meal in Morpho Restaurant, came back and got most of our stuff packed.  We’re just waiting for the kitchen to clear out a bit so we can make our lunch for tomorrow.

Since our shuttle bus left at 7 am this morning we got up at 6 in order to have breakfast at 6:30, the earliest it is served here in the little kitchen  of this hostel.  It is somewhere around  5 or 10 km from here to the Monteverde Reserve.

A very large tree

We met out guide, Jorge, at the entrance gate and he took us around several of the trails through the reserve.  He pointed out many of the plants and explained a great deal about the ecology of the cloud forest. 

Spider monkey

We  were lucky to spot several mammals — a tree dwelling porcupine, an olinga, and a spider monkey.  As well we saw a number of different birds, including a nesting hummingbird which I spotted. Jorge was very excited about the hummingbird and took several pictures of it himself.

Athough we walked for almost three hours, we did not spot a quetzal.  Jorge had taken a year of training to be a nature guide, and he was also taking some biology courses by distance education.  He was an excellent guide and we learned a great deal.

Plants in the cloud forest

After we ate lunch we went back on one of the trails we’d not seen in the morning It was quite a bit steeper than the trails we were on this morning, and both Enid and I have sore legs tonight.  We haven’t done much walking until today.  On our way back Enid spotted a snake, about a metre long, but it crossed the trail so quickly that we couldn’t photograph it.  We both really enjoyed our day.

Looking west toward the Nicoya Peninsula

Apparently our shuttle showed up at 8 am this morning.  The hotel keeper sent them away, but they wanted to come back at noon. Fortunately he convinced them that they had said 9:45 and that they had to come and get us at that time.  They did    show up at 9:30, but that was alright as we were ready to go.

We took one van to Nicoya where we waited for a few minutes and met another.  Four people got out of that van, and we wondered how they were all going to fit in ours, but we were supposed to go in the other van.  So after we’d switched vehicles we were on our way up into the mountains.

At first the road was a good paved road, but the last 35 km or so were extremely rough and rocky.  We went very slowly but it was still a very rough ride.  I do not know if you could travel on the road without a 4WD if it was wet.

When we got to our hostel, Cabinas El Pueblo, the clerk seemed surprised that we were staying here.  It’s not high class accomodation, but seems clean and comfortable.

Purple orchid, the national flower of Costa Rica

We arranged all our tours  for the next two days, plus our taxi and boat ride over to La Fortuna.  After we’d done that we went to the Orchid Garden.  They had a large number orchids, I believe the guide said 450 species, most of them endemic to Costa Rica.  One of them is the smallest orchid in the world, probably not more than 0.5mm in diameter.  It must be fertilized  by a very tiny insect.

Capuchin (white faced) monkey

There were a bunch of Capuchin monkeys climbing in the trees of the orchid garden.  The guide said that they are a nuisance because they tend to destroy the orchids, but she also liked them.

We ate at the restaurant right next to the orchid garden, Morphos, which had a butterfly motif, with large blue butterflies painted on the walls and butterfly light fixtures.  We had a delicious meal of beef tenderloin in a stroganoff sauce.

When we got back to the hostel we made our lunch for tomorrow. A young couple from England were also there and we visited with them a bit.  It is one of the nice features of communal kitchens that you get to know your fellow travellers.  They have been travelling around South and Central America for four months.  We had an interesting time telling them about winter in Canada, and showing them pictures of winter camping.

Rocky point at Samara

We thought we would get up earlier this morning, and walk down the beach to the rocky point before it got hot, but we slept in.  We did walk there however, but the tide was in so that we weren’t able to get past the point.  We’d taken our snorkel masks with us, thinking we might see some fish around the rocks, but Enid tried, found it was too shallow and rough and the water was still very murky, so I didn’t bother.  Instead we walked back on the beach to about the same place we were yesterday.

Here I did see some fish when I went swimming.  There were some very small fish swimming in the surf, but when I was out a bit deeper I saw  a school of larger fish, about 50 cm long.  However the water was not clear enough to identify them.

I’d taken my good camera and tripod with us this morning, so did shoot some video and a number of stills with that.  After we’d both had a swim we walked back to our hotel where we made sandwiches and had fruit for lunch.  After lunch we decided not to go back to the beach, but instead stayed around here at the pool.  We hopped in every once in a while to cool off, but mostly just sat around, dozed, and read.  I don’t know if I can handle so much stress!

Playa Samara

We didn’t get going too quickly this morning, starting with a trip to the bank.  The bank had an interesting security system.  First they had a guard outside, who told you to take off your hat.  Then you had to press a button to open a sliding glass  door.  You walked in, one at a time, I assume through a metal detector, the door behind you closed, then the door in front opened.  It didn’t help much, as the teller wasn’t able to use our Credit Union card either.

After that we bought some fruit at the grocery store, then changed and went to the beach which is about a 500 m walk from this hotel.  We found a nice shady spot under some tall coconut palms, swam and read until lunch which we ate at one of the beach cafes.  I can see why you don’t see many skinny Costa Ricans — the dishes are very large.

After lunch we moved a bit since our original spot had been taken over while we went to lunch.  We stopped in the shade in front of the International Language School which has a hostel-like environment fronting the beach.  There were quite a few German girls next to us (there are many, many young women here and very few men that we’ve seen — or maybe I’m not looking at the men!).   I’m not sure if they were from the school, but later in the afternoon there was an instructor holding a cultural class (in English) at a table behind us with a dozen students.  It was a pretty laid-back class — the instructor was drinking a can of beer while teaching.

Supper tonight was at the Casa Esmeralda, a kilometer or so walk through Samara’s business area.  We stopped and looked at the wares at some of the stalls, but didn’t purchase anything.  The restaurant tonight was the busiest we’ve had so far in Costa Rica and the food was very good.