Nature And Adrenaline - Costa Rica´s Coasts And Clouds

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A Damp Basement and Two Crazy Yanks

We arrived overland from Panama to a cloudy San Jose which was handy as we ended up walking about 20 blocks with our backpacks to find the hostel where we wanted to stay! When we arrived we chose the dorm we hoped would be the lesser of three evils. All had windows onto the street, so all were going to be noisy, two also had windows into the communal area, so we opted for the basement room.

We entered with the usual dorm trepidation...who would we find living inside, would they be nice, smelly, noisy, perverts etc? We discovered our roomies for the next few days were 2 Swedes and 2 Americans. One of the poor Swedes was suffering a bout of Delhi Belly and didn´t really move the whole time we were there, except to dash back and forth to the toilet. The other one had got together with Earle and Victor and it sounded like they were intent on having some fun. "Sounded" is the perfect word as these two Floridians certainly knew how to exercise their voice boxes! Luckily for Dave they were also very keen on keeping those vocal chords well oiled and were keen to share their chosen lubricant around. The said lubricant was some kind of paint-stripper cane drink that came in varying strengths, which they washed down with gulps of water or Fanta. This was the routine every night we were there, and, we suspect, every night before we arrived and every night since!

The Best ´Bus´Ride Ever

Hung over and thankful for the delicious free pancake breakfast from the hostel, we headed off to Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast. This area is famous for the fresh water lagoons and canals that slice across the land, for the huge range of animals that live in and around the water and for the turtles that lay their eggs there every year. We were going with the hope of seeing a nesting turtle, although we knew the chances would be slim, but first we had to get there. This involved a bus from San Jose to Caliari another one to La Pavona and then a boat ride. When we got to Caliari a women sold us a bus & boat combi all the way through to Tortuguero. This turned out to be a godsend because the bus picked us and several other gringos up from the terminal where we had arrived from San Jose then went to the main terminal where a scrum of locals oozed their way into every available space within about 10 seconds of us arriving. Trying to get on here with backpacks would most certainly have meant no seat and a seat was a definite bonus as the road turned from tarmac to dirt and we bumped and jostled our way past vast banana plantations to La Pavona.

La Pavona is actually just a piece of dirt with enough room for a bus to turn, a restaurant, and a muddy bank down to the river where you board a boat. Around here boats are actually just the local bus service because the canals mean roads are totally useless, but for us this ´bus´ride was like a tour in itself. We started off passing farmland but the landscape gradually became more and more jungle-esque until we were floating past huge trees with vines hanging down into the water, caiman chilling out at the sides of the river and palm trees mixing with ferns and exotic flowers all along the banks. It is the end of summer in the Limon province and the river was very dry. At times our captain had to turn off the engine and hope the flow of the water would carry us over particularly shallow points. This did not bode well for the return journey, upstream!

When The Prices Are In Dollars Not Local Currency You Know It Is Going To Be Expensive

We passed through narrower and narrower canals dropping people off at seemingly deserted points along the bank and eventually arrived at the little town of Tortuguero. Normally touts meeting you at bus stations is quite annoying, but in this case it was quite handy to have a local guide meet us at the dock and point out a couple of places to stay because Tortuguero is essentially made up of one concrete or wooden path and several sandy tracks that may, or may not, lead somewhere useful or interesting. We ended up in a cute little place with views of the beach and the sea, arranged a turtle tour for that night and had a little look around the town. With 50,000 tourists visiting the region a year it was easy to see how this little town with a population of less than 1,000 has been affected, but luckily the change doesn´t seem to have been too great. Most of the shops sell tourist tat souvenirs at prices designed for American 2-week holidayers and the restaurants are targeting the same clientele but the buildings are all still made of wood and palms and it was possible to find a few ´local´places to eat and drink.

That Turtle Looks A Lot Like A Log To Me

The moment arrived for our turtle tour and the guide started by explaining our chances of seeing any turtles were very low because it wasn´t really the right season for the Green Turtles to start arriving yet and the Leatherbacks only come up very sporadically. It was highly likely we were going to walk for 2 hours and see nothing, but off we went anyway, hoping beyond hope that for once the odds would fall in our favour.

This tour was outside Tortuguero National Park boundaries, but the guides are still very conscious of the wellbeing of the turtles. (You can do tours inside the park too but there is an entrance fee to pay, which wasn´t worth it at this time of year) No torches are allowed and certainly no flash photography. We stumbled along the beach in almost pitch black as there was no moon. The guide carried a torch with a red bulb which she occasionally shone across our path and up the beach but otherwise we were alone in the black.

We were all on turtle spotting alert so of course any sizeable log or piece of rubbish immediately got our hearts racing that we had found a female...but no. Then suddenly Veronica our guide turned round with a silent shriek to stop and move backwards. Just in front of us was a HUGE female Leatherback trying to hump her way up the beach. Unfortunately she had come ashore right in front of a metre high bank of sand and there was no way she was going to be able to get over it. She kept headbutting the bank, moving slightly to the right and trying again. As we crouched in awe, trying to make out her full size in the dark she suddenly started dragging herself straight towards us, cue a hasty retreat so as not to scare her away. In the end she decided it wasn´t worth the effort and turned back to the sea. Only then did Veronica shine the red light on her so we could see just how big she was. It was amazing. This turtle was almost 2 metres long and over a metre wide - so much more than we had imagined. Veronica explained that although she had gone back to the sea she would have to find somewhere either that night or the next to lay her eggs, or lose them.

Another Special Treat

For the next hour and a half we walked up the beach and back again, pausing occasionally when a giant log came into view that may have been another turtle coming ashore...but we saw nothing else. Then, just as we were about to finish the tour (In fact unbelievably 2 girls had already given up and gone home) Veronica spotted some tracks on the beach. She went off to check if the turtle was still on the beach and came back grinning from ear to ear. There was another turtle, even bigger than the first one and she had just finished laying her eggs.

Because the crucial stage was over Veronica was able to shine the red light on this mummy-to-be as she used her huge front flippers to spread sand back over the nest, then pat it down with her back legs. It is impossible to describe the feeling of being so close to such a wonderful and ancient creature. She was MASSIVE. Her shell was as long as Tracey and the ´feet´part of her back flippers were the size of shoe boxes. Her head was the size of Dave´s head and her front flippers were around 70-80cm long. We felt really privileged to be watching this going on and to be close enough to hear the grunts and sighs she was making with all the effort. It had taken her around an hour and a half to clear a space, dig a nest, lay the eggs and cover them up. Finally she was satisfied her job was done and she turned and heaved herself back down the beach. We all shared her sigh of relief when she reached the water and transformed from a huge awkward walker into a graceful effortless swimmer and headed back out into the blue.

We also answered a question on this tour that has been bugging us for a long time. Every animal on earth has a purpose and its place in the food chain, right? Though we struggle to justify some animals´existence (see mosquito, wasp, Black Mamba) there is always something else that eats or needs it to survive...except, we thought, for the jellyfish! We couldn´t think of anything that eats this useless bubble of painfully jelly...but now we know...the Leatherbacks LOVE them. They can feast on them from dawn ´til dusk. This is doubly great news. 1. It means something is getting rid of at least a few of the stinging blighters. 2. It means Leatherbacks don´t actually taste very nice themselves, so they are not killed by poachers for their meat.

An Unhappy Ending

The next morning we dashed out early with our camera to take a photo of the tracks the turtle had left behind. They were so huge we knew they would be easy to find again. Sadly their size also makes it easy for poachers to find the nest and to our horror, when we arrived a man was standing with a long stick poking the whole area where the nest would be. He shrunk off when we approached with a camera but it was too late. We are sure that even though we got rid of all the tracks, once we left he will have gone back. We tried to find one of the volunteer conservationists that live in Tortuguero but it was Sunday morning and no one was around. Also their hands are tied. They can´t sit by every nest all day and all night until the eggs hatch and only the police have power to actually punish the poachers. There were no police around either. We felt so sad knowing that beautiful creature had spent so much time and effort trying to give her eggs the best chance of survival and that it had ultimately all been a waste.

Luckily the majority of the turtles come ashore within the confines of the national reserve and the nests there are much more protected. We were told that despite some people still poaching the nests for eggs and killing the Green turtles for meat, this has slowly declined as locals begin to realise that the tourism generated by the turtles makes them more valuable alive than dead. We hope this trend continues.

Small Hill, Big View

We decided not to take a canoe trip through the canals in favour of climbing the only bit of high ground around. Cerro Tortuguero is less than 200m high but it affords a great view over the whole area and you realise what a thin spit of land supports the town. The climb is through dense forest and on the way up we heard howler monkeys and saw another species of monkey jumping through the trees. The highlight for us though was tiny...and red. On the sides of the path where the mud was still moist and cool we would occasionally spot a weeny little red frog with blue back legs. These are called blue-jeans frogs and they are poisonous. Luckily they were more scared of us than we were of them and they were great fun to watch hopping around. The same can not be said for the snake that appeared out of nowhere and slithered across Tracey´s foot before darting into the undergrowth! It was about 40cm long, an orangey red colour and very, very thin. David could almost see Tracey´s heart beating in her chest as she recovered from the shock. Tracey was just thankful that her snake-a-phobic Mum was not there as it most certainly would have finished her off for good!

Would We Be Swimming With Caiman Again?

The morning of our departure our bus-boat trip turned into something of a tour again when we spotted an otter at the side of the lagoon then several parrots and a monkey in a tree on the way back to La Pavona. The river seemed even lower than a few days before and just as we were wondering if we were going to have to get out and wade upstream we ran aground, then stalled the engine and started drifting backwards towards a very large log. We eventually made it back to the bus and a dusty few hours later we were back in San Jose.

There´s A Reason No One Issues Paper Tickets Anymore!

Unfortunately we spent the next three days killing time in San Jose while sorting a boring issue with a flight we needed to change. We had been given paper tickets when we booked and should have known this spelt trouble. No easy phone call or on-line change for us. Oh no siree. We in fact had to make 4 trips to a travel agent while they waited for permission from STA travel to change the ticket. It seems that although STA produly tells you that you can change one of its tickets at any of its branches or representatives around the World, some of those representatives don´t have the power to actually change the ticket without email authorisation from STA´s central office...and this can take days to arrive. Arrgghhhh.

Aside from walking around a lot and trying to resist the shops we did visit the Children´s Museum which, weirdly, is housed in the old state prison. This museum is a bit like the Science Museum in the UK and we had great fun pressing buttons and twiddling knobs to make things blow up, flood and take off. David got a little bit lost in dreams of becoming an astronaut and Tracey got obsessed with finding the ONE red grain of sand in a huge spinning bucket of regular sand. The idea was to show how difficult it would be to find life in the Universe, even if it does exist, but it turned into a challenge for her and she had to be pulled away after 10 unsuccessful minutes to let a 6 year-old have a go!

Eventually we left San Jose and Victor and Earle who were still drinking every day and never once actually slept in their dorm beds at night...and headed for Monteverde and the cloud forests.

The Elusive Quetzal remains just that!

Costa Rica is famous for the huge biodiversity it supports even though it is a relatively small land mass. It has everything from 2 different coasts, live volcanoes, swamps and turtles to cloud forests with a huge number of birds, insects and butterflies. Monteverde and Santa Elena are two major reserves very close together that are considered the top spots in Central America to check out the cloud forests and more specifically the birds. And even more specifically than that...to try and find a Quetzal which is a very rare, endangered species of colourful bird.

We set off on a path that supposedly took 3.5 hours to complete the loop. We had to be back in 4 hours for a bus so this was perfect. Well, we soon realised this 3.5 hour guideline was rubbish. To complete the walk in this time would mean no time to stop and look at the flowers, to hunt for frogs in the undergrowth or to scan the trees for interesting birds. In fact it would have left no time for anything at all except walking. This we realised after 2 hours of very slow ambling, enjoying the scenery and the pure "jungly-ness" of it all. Then we reached a landmark and realised how far we still had to go to be back in time for the bus. Here ensued a fairly pacey trek through the remainder of the quite steep and slippery path until we encountered a tour group near the end of the walkway. They had not seen a Quetzal either, despite a guide with a very snazy looking binocular and tripod combo, so we felt a little better about our excursion and just about had enough time to spot a few humming birds whizzing past us before jumping in the bus home.

Very Creepy Crawlies

We were supposed to be doing a canopy tour that afternoon but as the clouds and rain moved in we postponed the trip and went to the Frog-arium instead. This place was brilliant. They have a huge amount of frogs inside environments that reproduce the kind of territory they would stick to in the wild. It says something for their camoflague skills that in a glass tank about 2m long and 1m deep a group of 6 of us struggled to spot several species, even with the help of the free English speaking guide. We went back at night to hear all their crazy croaking calls and watch them in their more active state. Trying to take pictures was almost impossible due to a combination of darkness, the frogs moving and the glass being covered in condensation, but it kept us entertained for a few hours anyway!

We also visited a butterfly and insect house where we saw all kinds of creepy crawlies. One of them was almost as big as Tracey´s hand, but only liked eating sugar cane, so no worries there. As always it is the little ones you have to look out for and we certainly has a thorough search under the bed when we got in as well as checking for Tarantulas in our shoes and behind the curtains. The owner of our hostal said it was common for Tarantulas to use the dark corners of his hostal to shelter from the rain. Sweet dreams.

Flying High In The Coud Forest

The following morning we did the canopy tour and boy were we glad we had cancelled the day before because the views on this trip were amazing. A canopy tour involves getting strapped into a harness that is then hooked onto wires suspended between trees high up in the forest. They were originally invented for naturalists to get close to the wildlife in the rainforest canopy but now it has turned into somewhat of a tourist draw in Costa Rica.

In Monteverde there are about 4 companies to chose from. We decided on Extremo, a company that had very long wires and a few adrenaline suprises thrown in along the way. There are other slower trips where you can get a bit more of a look at nature but we felt we had seen a lot of the forest the day before so went for height and speed instead. Extremo was great. They strapped you in to the harness so tightly that we both felt a bit bruised the next day, but we felt very safe at the time. We spent several hours whizzing through tree-tops and across a huge deep valley. One of the wires was 1km long and we got an amazing chance to look down and see birds circling below us and just about make out a tiny stream way, way down. Other lines were shorter, but steeper. Here you had to get the breaking system just right. ¨Breaking¨ involved putting downward pressure on the line with the gloved hand you kept out behind you on every line. The gloves were just your common gardening gloves with huge thick bits of leather stuck on where the line passes over, but they were pretty effective brakes.

Just as we thought we were getting used to the lines and the associated groin pain from the harness every time you hang and fly...we met the rappel. This was a line straight down from 28m up in a giant tree. Weeeeeeee. It was great fun and followed almost immediately by the Tarzan Swing. Here you are clipped onto what is essentially just a thick bit of string then you take a leap of faith out into the forest below. Eventually the rope catches up with you and just as you think you are about to hit the ground you swing rapidly upwards towards a very solid looking branch of the 28m tree. Of course you don´t actually smack into it...but you get very close!

The final line, the 1km whizz of vista joy was brilliant. Except for one thing. The wind. Half way across the gusts started jiggling the rope around and for the first time on the trip Tracey got a little nervous as images from the Sly Stalone movie Cliffhanger started flashing through her mind. This meant she didn´t shift from the pretty uncomfortable position she had landed in in her harness and thus ended the trip doing yet another John Wayne impression, much to the amusement of Dave who was enjoying the way his harness had gathered to make him look...how shall we put this...rather well endowed!

We´ve decided it is now time to move on from cloud forests, hot showers and nature and head back towards sea level and the coast so, with our bags firmly grasped on our laps we are heading away from Moteverde and Costa Rica and on to Nicaragua this afternoon.

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Photos

Watch Where You Step
Tiny little frogs, the size of a 20 pence piece, in Tortuguero

Northern Costa Rica Art
If you look closely you can see the pictures within the picture

You Could Drive A Bus Through
This is what a foot looks like when it has never been in a shoe

Putting In An Extension
A Weaver bird builds a nest. As seen from our bus boat to Tortuguero

Turtle Surfing
A life-size representation of a Leatherback turtle in Tortuguero

Beautiful Leatherback
A mother coming ashore to lay. Photo from "www.saveourleatherbacks.org" for more information about the turtles and the shameful risk of their extinction

Huge Leatherback
The person in the background shows the turtle´s size. Photo from "Saveourleatherbacks.org" for more information about the turtles and the shameful risk of their extinction

Not A Morning Person
We found this guy laying about in Tortuguero

It Was Worth The Blood, Sweat and Snakes
Tortuguero and the Caribbean Coast as seen from the top of our hill

Quick, Call Dave Mathews
ENORMOUS ants in Tortuguero

Welcome To The House Of Fun
The wonderful children´s museum in San Jose

Which Way To Hobbiton?
Beautiful primary forest in Monteverde. The sounds, smells and colours were a sensory overload

Another Stag Do
Dave tastes the second largest beetle in the world in Monteverde

Buckle Up Baby
Tracey makes sure she is nice and secure

Feet First Joy
David sets off on a one kilometre long wire high up in the Monteverde mountains

Going Doooooooown
Tracey rappels down an enourmous tree in Monteverde

Lord Of The Flies
One of the many wonderful frogs in Monteverde