Arenal and La Fortuna

For our last excursion, we all went on an overnight trip to La Fortuna, to see Volcán Arenal. The top is often covered with clouds, but we could actually see a lot of it when we got there. And the next morning it was perfectly clear, which is pretty unusual, I think. It's still an active volcano. You can't see the lava during the day time, because of the sunlight, but at night you can see flashes or streams of bright red heading down the mountain in the distance, or bouncing sparks as boulders tumble and collide.

The volcano itself is off limits of course, but the park surrounding it has some great hiking trails. The variety of terrain there is really interesting. We started off in an open, brushy sort of area, with sandy soil, and then it switched to forest. After that were the lava fields with lots of great rocks to clamber over, and then more forest. And that was just in about an hour of hiking. I would have liked to come back for a full day there to explore it more thoroughly. On the way back, we were caught in the rain and got rather soaked before we made it back to shelter. But that was about the only time on the whole trip that happened. For the most part, the raining happened when we were on buses, or inside, or only had to go a short way with our umbrellas. Pretty lucky for the rainy season of a tropical country, I'd say.

The next morning we wanted to go see a butterfly garden. Our guidebooks only listed some that were too far away, considering we had a bus to catch that afternoon, but we had seen signs for something that might be closer. Asking around town, we were pointed in the opposite direction of the signs (maybe they were decoys), where we found Eco Centro Danaus a few km down the road. Danaus is the Latin name for monarch butterflies, and they do raise butterflies there, but the whole thing is a beautiful little ecological preserve with lots of other animals and plants. When we got there, a batch of people were just leaving, and we were given a private tour for just the three of us.

The caterpillars of some of the butterflies there were amazing, being three or four inches long and looking like little dinosaurs. Some of the cocoons were interesting too, like the ones that seemed to be made out of gold. And the butterflies were beautiful. Some were large enough that you could hear their wings flapping as they went by, like birds. Among the non-butterfly critters we saw were sloths and poison dart frogs (both of which we'd seen before), a bat sleeping under a leaf, a boa constrictor, and some poisonous snakes (including a fer-de-lance). The dangerous ones were in enclosures, of course. There were some great plants there, too. Our guide pulled a few leaves off a tree and had us smell them. We couldn't quite place the smell, but as soon as we chewed a bit of the stem we recognized cinnamon. I could have munched that all day. Luckily we had it before the píper leaf, which is an anesthetic and turned our tongues numb with just a little taste. All in all, it was a very cool little tour.

After that, we headed back to San Pedro so I could get packed up and ready to leave the next day. Lacey's still down there, though, and presumably still having fun.

Montezuma

Quena has all her classes on Mondays through Wednesdays, so Lacey and I decided to use that time to take a short trip on our own and we headed to Montezuma. As far as the actual traveling involved, this was by far the most excruciating destination, with a route that went taxi - bus - taxi - ferry - bus. The first bus was 2.5 hours. The second taxi was unexpected, since the guidebooks had implied that the ferry was right by the bus station, which is wasn't. The last bus was an hour and a half over bumpy, twisty, hilly jungle roads, in small seats with piles of people crammed in the aisle. But we made it in the end.

We stayed at the Hotel Lucy, which was almost shut down a few years ago for being built too close to the beach. The water is literally just a few yards from the back porch. We were also a short walk away from the main intersection of town, where all the tourist shops and restaurants and other hotels are, so that was nice.

Just down the street from us was the first of a set of three waterfalls. (A bunch more were farther off in the other direction, and usually reached by horseback tours.) We only got pictures of the first one, since after that we went back for bathing suits and left the cameras behind, since we couldn't tell how wet we were going to get on the way to the others. The second and third waterfalls were the more vertical, picturesque kind, and took about half an hour of hiking and wading to get to. It was fun to swim in the pool below the falls and reach the point where I was swimming as hard as I could but being kept perfectly in place by the current.

For the one full day that we were there, we went on a day trip to Isla Tortuga, named for its turtle-like shape. Unfortunately, I never could find a decent map of it to see exactly how turtle like it really is. We started out by snorkeling around some rocks off the coast of the island. The visibility was really bad -- on the surface you could pretty much only see murky greenness. But as soon as you dive down a little bit, there are tons of fish all over the place. We saw angelfish, and damselfish, and colorful wrasses, and trigger fish (reminding me of the humuhumus in Hawaii), and we could swim right in the middle of a whole school of short-tailed grunts (great name, huh?). I even found a pufferfish, but didn't get him to puff.

After the snorkeling, we had a seafood barbecue lunch on the beach and time to explore the island, or just hang out on the beach. Lacey and I headed for a trail that lead up a forested hill to the top of the island. It was a great hike -- steep enough to feel energetic, but not so difficult that we couldn't do it in sandals and bathing suits. And there were some beautiful views of the island and the ocean along the way. Midway up, we saw what looked like the main trail heading back down, but also a smaller one heading farther up. So we continued on up, of course. The trail got steeper and a bit less well defined in some places, but it took us all the way to the very top. We actually did the whole climb twice: once before and once after lunch. I much prefer that kind of thing to just lounging around on the beach (though taking another snorkeling dive might have been fun, too).

On the way back from Isla Tortuga in the motorboat, we saw a couple of whales, humpbacks I think. It looked like a mother and calf but we weren't able to get very close to them. Then the dolphins showed up, though, and that was great. They were perfectly happy to just bounce along in the wake of the boat so we got some fun views of them, though it was hard to take good pictures.

Leaving Montezuma was as big an ordeal as getting there, and took a bit longer. But we had a day afterwards to rest up at Quena's place before we all went to Arenal.

Tortuguero

The first weekend we were in Costa Rica, Quena's exchange student program was doing a group trip to Tortuguero, and Lacey and I got to go along. Tortuguero is on the northern Caribbean coast, where sea turtles go to lay their eggs every year. The tiny, one-street village of Tortuguero itself is completely supported by tourism, which is good because that keeps them from killing endangered animals for a living. The only way to get there is by boat along the Pacuare River, or by plane. We went by boat and stayed at the Mawamba Lodge.

This was the part of Costa Rica that reminded me most of Peru. There was a lot of rain-forest around, and we went on several boat rides and hikes to see all sorts of animals. Lacey got this great shot of a monkey by aiming her camera through her binoculars. Pretty impressive. We also saw a bunch of birds, some basilisks and iguanas, and we even got a caiman within a few feet of our boat.

Photos of the sea turtles aren't allowed, so Idin kindly posed for us with an egg, attempting to shuffle sand over it with his feet. The actual tours to see the turtles were at night, which is when they come out of the sea to lay their eggs. You're only supposed to go see a turtle when it is actually in the process of laying the eggs, since if you disturb them when they're just coming out, or at some other stage, they'll take off again. So you have to sit in small groups with your guide, while other guides carefully check out the beach to see where the nesting turtles are. Then they radio back and tell the groups where to go.

Our group waited about 45 minutes before we got a call. The turtle was a fair bit down the beach and already laying her eggs. So we took off on a 20-minute power walk along a trail that paralleled the beach, and got there just in time to miss the eggs and see the turtle laboriously piling sand over them with her flippers. She was about three or four feet across, and there was clearly immense strength in her flippers, slow though they were out of water. We started walking back along the beach then, and saw ahead of us another turtle hauling itself up the beach to find a nesting spot. We waited a few minutes and then walked very carefully around it, giving it as much space as we could. Still farther on, a guide that we passed found us another turtle. This one was still laying her eggs, so we could go right up to her, since they don't seem to notice anything at that stage. Our guide actually pulled back one of her back flippers and shone a flashlight down so we could see the eggs popping out, looking like ping pong balls. Once she started covering them with sand, we left her alone and headed back to the lodge. It was a remarkably successful turtle-outing, especially considering that some of the other groups didn't get to see any.

There were some tree frogs that lived near the pool at the lodge, and a guy there would would find them and let people hold them. The frog we found was asleep, and looked like a solid green pod stuck to a leaf. Then its eyes opened and bulged out, surprisingly huge and red. As it unfolded its legs, it revealed the blue and orange on its sides and legs, and stalked all over our hands and shoulders. When Lacey was holding it, it looked over at me, then suddenly took a flying leap of three feet or so, directly at me, landing squarely on my chest and sticking to my shirt. Surprised the heck out of me, especially since I couldn't tell where it was aiming for when it was flying at me. Very amusing.

One evening, there was a band playing at the lodge, and I was very surprised to see the lead singer playing a banjo. Especially since it looked like a five-string banjo with one string removed. I went up and talked to him later (in clumsy Spanish) and that's indeed what it was. He also pointed out that the Caribbean coast has a mix of different musical influences, including African, so I guess it makes sense that a banjo would show up. It's just not the context I'm used to seeing it in at all.

Also, on the evening after the turtle watching, some of the EAP kids taught us some basic cumbia dance steps. It's like Latin swing, and surprisingly bouncy. I may need to write a separate post about it, though unfortunately I didn't learn as much of it as I would have liked.

Quena's House, San Pedro, and San Jose

The way I'm going to be writing up the Costa Rica trip is organized by the different places we went. So most of it will be chronological, except this part, since we stayed with Quena and her extended host family in San Pedro (near San Jose, the capital) in between all our other excursions. Between family, exchange students, and visitors, there were 11 people staying there, including Lacey and me. It was practically like a dorm or something. Most people were going in and out at different times, though, and everyone was really nice, so it never got too overwhelming.

There was one evening where we managed to collect nearly everybody in the house for dinner and could barely squeeze in around the table. Then afterwards, someone put on some music and we all started dancing in the living room. Lots of salsa and merengue -- I really wish I knew Latin dances better. But I faked a lot of stuff and had fun (I also managed to squeeze in a few Lindy Hops and West Coasts with Lacey and Quena). I like being a dancer. It's a good way to relate to new people, even if you're totally winging it. We never made it out to an actual dance somewhere, unfortunately, but that evening with everybody at home was really nice.

We tried to go to the Children's Museum in San Jose one afternoon, but found that we had arrived just in time for it to close. It's in a building that used to be a prison, and is now done up to look kind of like a castle. The Galeria Nacional is also there, so we went and looked through that. I really hope that wasn't the main repository of art for all of Costa Rica, because there wasn't a whole lot to it. There were some paintings I liked, though, and it was interesting walking through old prison cells to look at them.

We got to visit the Universidad, where Quena is taking classes. The mascot there is the Girasol -- a sunflower -- which I think is just a great mascot. (This coming from someone whose college mascot was a tree, of course.) We found a free show that the theater group there was doing that afternoon, so we went and watched it. A couple of the acts, though, were made up of nonsensical text that the students had to interpret dramatically somehow, so that was really strange to deal with in Spanish, at least for me.

Speaking of Spanish, it's been way too long since I took any classes in it. I was generally okay on the amount of stuff I could understand, as long as people were speaking clearly and not too fast. (Though the bus driver yelling at me for standing in the wrong place was completely incomprehensible.) But speaking was really difficult for me. It doesn't help that I don't talk a whole lot normally. Adding in the fact that I had to translate everything before I said it pretty much ground me to a halt a lot of the time. I think I was getting a tad better by the end, but I could really have used a lot more practice. Still, I got by. Mostly with the help of Lacey and Quena, of course.

Here's a picture of Julie, the silly little dog. The first evening I was there, I picked her up. She immediately put her hind legs in my hand, stood up as tall as she could, wedged her head under my jaw, and just stayed there. Very odd. She would also bark like crazy whenever anyone came up to the door. She was fun to play with, though.

Coming up: Tortuguero, Montezuma, and Volcán Arenal. All photos are here.

Still Here

We didn't actually go dancing the evening after the last entry, since we had to get up very early the next morning to go to Tortuguero. That was a fun trip, with lots of rainforests and rivers and sea turtles. Plus, some people taught us basic cumbia steps, so if we do eventually go dancing, I'll at least recognize it. We got back from that on Sunday. Quena has classes on Mondays through Wednesdays, so Lacey and I went to Montezuma on our own for the last few days, for things like snorkeling and seeing waterfalls. We just got back from that this evening. Next will probably be a trip to Volcán Arenal.

We Made It

Our flights yesterday were uneventful and we got here safely. The taxis and buses still weren't running, but at least they were no longer barricading the roads, so we managed to get back to Quena's house with the help of her tía who gave us all a ride. The house has a family of four, plus three students and a guest, and then us, so it's all very communal and friendly. There is also a very silly little dog. Today we're going to see Quena's school and some of San José, and then go bailando tonight. This weekend we'll probably take a trip out to Tortuguero to see the sea turtle nesting grounds. So anyway, not much to tell about yet, but we had to make a stop by an Internet Cafe this morning anyway, so I figured I'd put in a note. I will say, though, that I am uncommonly amused to see things like stop signs that say "Alto" and web browsers with buttons like "Atrás" and "Búsqueda." It's also interesting getting used to a slightly different keyboard. It even has a "ñ" key. Fun. Plus, of course, it's just exciting to be in a new country. But more stories about everything later.