Costa Rica - Day Three

Another early start to the day, in order to reach the Rainforest Aerial Tram to beat the crowds from the big cruise ships that offload their hundreds of passengers at the port in Limon. I found it a bit odd, especially given the general concerns of theft in Costa Rica, to leave my bags outside the door for the bellboys to pick up, but on the plus side, it was early enough that it seemed unlikely anyone else was up and about to steal them! Plus, the Palacio is a nice and rather large hotel. After another buffet-style breakfast (all meals except the last one were buffet style) with another helping of gallo pinto (when in Costa Rica...), we all loaded onto our bus, and off we went.

Our morning began with a drive through the Braulio Carrillo National Park. The highway through the park was apparently constructed with no overlook stops, in an effort to preserve the rainforest. In fact, it seems the entire park was created expressly to preserve the rainforest in that area while developing the highway, because it's the only route between San Jose and Puerto Limon, Costa Rica's most important port. This means that we drove and looked out the windows, but were unable to stop anywhere or walk around. It wasn't until later, while browsing the web, that I found out that you can hike in the park (I guess there are places near the trailheads you can park). Caravan doesn't allow its tour guides to tell us about any activities that aren't included in the tour, so this fact never got mentioned. Braulio Carrillo National Park is famous for its waterfalls and biodiversity, but being a rainforest, is also extremely moist. On that morning, everything was blanketed in a dense layer of fog (peering out the bus' windshield, I couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of us, and marveled at our driver's skill), so we couldn't really see anything. Just an impression of lush greenness and lots of moisture.

When we reached the Rainforest Aerial Tram, the first thing we did was the inevitable restroom break. The only reason I keep mentioning this is I was amused how the first thing Sergio did at every location we stopped was to point out where the restrooms were. It makes sense with a tour group of 44 people, but it just amused me. To get to the actual trams, we had to load into small busses for a short ride. At the tram loading area, we were divided into groups of 6 and each group was assigned a guide who would take us on the tram and later on a nature walk. I quickly picked up what would be a very useful trick for the rest of the trip. When you see a group of people staring intently in one direction (not at a tour guide), particularly with binoculars, try to look where they're looking b/c inevitably, it'll be at an animal. Also, when you see a fancy Swarovski telescope set up to point up in the trees, look through it, and look up in the trees. It'll usually be pointed at an animal and the Swarovski optics and magnification brings the animal right up crystal clear and close. In this case, I was wondering why everyone was peering up into the trees, and our guide Orville rather casually said "oh they're looking at the 3-toed sloth." Of course, we all immediately started craning our necks, trying to catch a sight of our first real animal in the wild - mammal animal anyway. Most of us couldn't spot it, though, until Orville pulled out his green laser pointer and got us to follow its light until we finally saw the shaggy greenish grey ball of fur, which rather resembled the balls of moss that often grew at the junction of branches. I had to take his word for it that it was 3-toed, because I kept losing sight of it. I had my 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens and Canon 30D with me, so I snapped a lot of photos, but it is hard to keep a 3+ lb lens steady when you're weak like me, and trying to keep the focus area on a small object hundreds of feet up in the air =).

As we waited to board the tram, another guide pointed out a small pit viper coiled on a leaf right by the paved path (I thought the guide said it was a pit viper, or fer-de-lance, but from photos on google, the fer-de-lance seems to be a different snake). We wanted to rush over and take photos of it as well, but our guide reassured us that it would still be there when we returned since it was nocturnal, and wouldn't move for the rest of the day. Our tram - which was kind of like an open mesh basket with benches and a tarp that rolled back for a roof - arrived, and we boarded it for our ride into the canopy. Our guide Orville proved to be very informative and rather amusing. He said that sometimes visitors ask if their trams are safe and he said of course, the latest one that broke fell off yesterday but they patched it back together with crazy glue and put it back into use. His manner in imparting facts and jokes was equally deadpan, so sometimes you had to pay attention not to get taken in. He told us more about the park we were in - it was private property, purchased by a consortium of interested parties to keep the region preserved and provide an educational way for people to learn more about the rainforest and get up close and personal with it while making a minimum of impact on the area. The aerial tram was devised as a way of doing so, and had somehow been constructed with very little impact - all construction material was carried in on foot along a narrow path, and the towers were just about the only part that made an impact on the forest floor. He did warn us that while the tram provided an unique ride up into the canopy of the rainforest at two different levels (the tram was constructed so that for the bulk of it, the cable going in one direction rode high over the return cable), we were unlikely to see much in the way of wildlife, since the wildlife wouldn't venture close to the tram. He kept an alert eye peeled for opportunities, though, while pointing out and teaching us about different plants we saw. At one point, he tried to direct our attention to a toucan, but it flew away before we could get a really good glimpse of it. He pointed out leafcutter ants marching up and down a tree trunk, carrying their leaf burdens (which became an object of interest to my whole family throughout the trip), and explained that these ants preferred plants of a certain taste - specifically citrusy tastes - and would bypass all other plans and travel a long distance in order to reach the desirable plants. He drew our attention to the call of a howler monkey in a distance - the first of many we'd hear on this trip - and explained that while were unlikely to see it on this ride, the howl of a howler monkey can be heard up to 1km away. He told us about the various kinds of palms we were passing by or over, how one was used for making roofs, but could only be harvested at specific times for a long-lasting roof - harvested at the wrong time and the leaves would be too tasty to various insects which would devastate the roof within a few months, whereas harvested at the right time, they lacked the sugars that attracted insects, and the leaves would last for decades as strong roof material. Other palms were the source of "heart of palm" - he spoke of how harvesting heart of palm essentially killed the plant, so these palms were dying off quickly until a research effort was made and a new breed of palm was bred that would grow quickly, produce a tasty heart of palm in a shorter period of time, and would regrow new hearts of palm when the old was harvested, and that that new palm was the current source of most "heart of palm" you found in restaurants. However, sometimes people still sneak into the rainforests to harvest the original palms. He pointed out at least two or three more varieties of palm trees that served different purposes for Costa Ricans, and also pointed out various trees that were the source of popular hardwoods and softwoods. He said these trees all had great economic value, but it was forbidden to cut them down or harvest them in this private reserve, since they were dedicated to preserving the rain forest. He told us about other trees (the details of which are unfortunately lost to my memory), and taught us about epiphytes, pointing out the long vines that actually attach themselves to trees for support, climb high upwards, and then at some point, turn and grow back down to the soil, but aren't parasites as they derive their nutrients from the air through photosynthesis, rather than their host. He showed us the "monkey's ladder" - a vine that grew in a zig-zag kind of pattern, and told us about various fruits and edibles in the forest, which I apparently also have forgotten and therefore will starve if I'm ever lost in a rainforest. My sister reminds me that one of the plants he pointed out was the "water vine" - you can cut them and 50cm of a water vine will produce one liter of water (not that I'll ever be able to identify them). As we passed over a large, open area, he explained how sometimes regions of the forest will be open like this due to the older branches of these large "broccoli trees" falling off as part of their self-pruning process, and causing large amounts of devastation (thanks to my sister for reminding me of that), and how the plant life was different and abundant in those areas due to the increased sunlight, and how quickly new trees would grow to fill those open areas. He also gave us information about the tram itself and how it operated.

Too quickly, our ride drew to a close without us having seen more than a few birds but a lot of plant life. However, our activities weren't over yet. Our guide asked us to wait since he had to wait for the next batch of people as well, and then we would go on a nature walk of the forest floor, thus allowing us to view the rainforest at three different levels. While we waited, we got a closer look at the pit viper (one of these days I'll get my own photos up), which looked like a big clump of mud sitting on a leaf unless you were paying attention and realized it really was a coiled up brown snake. The pit viper is quite venomous and medical treatment should be sought immediately if bitten. When I mentioned how I had almost mistaken the pit viper for mud, Orville explained this was one of the reasons why we needed to stay on the path while walking through the forest, and to watch where our hands went. He said that the most common bites occurred because the snakes rest at right around hand level, and people walking along swinging their arms will brush against one without realizing it, and get bitten. The guides knew what to look for, but he wanted the visitors to be careful. Sergio had also mentioned on the bus how coffee pickers had a very dangerous job, and Orville elaborated. He said that usually the coffee pickers were paid very little by the basket, so they were interested in picking as much as possible as fast as possible, so they'd just reach in to the plants with both hands to strip off branches of the coffee beans, and would often get bitten by hidden pit vipers that had chosen those plants as a place to rest. As we moved on to wait outside the visitor center, we noticed other guides peering at a tree trunk right by one of the buildings, and Orville motioned us over to come look. We were rather disgusted and fascinated to discover the inch-long bullet ants crawling along the trunk of a tree. Orville explained how the bullet ant had a strong, painful sting - like a bullet - and how it was another hazard to watch out for while walking through a rainforest. We had another opportunity to peer at the sloth, but then had to gather for our rainforest floor walk.

Shortly after we embarked along the path, Orville stopped us to indicate a long trail of leafcutter ants and their cuttings that went along the edge of the path for quite a while before crossing over to the other side (with a rather amusing leafcutter crossing sign depicting an ant carrying a leaf on the path), continuing along the path, and the diverting off into the forest until reaching the nest - a huge heap of mud littered with leaf cuttings. He told us a bit more about the leafcutters, how there were the workers that cut the leaves and carried them back to the nest, and then there were soldier ants which didn't forage or carry, but defended the worker ants, sometimes sitting on the worker ants as they worked to ward off attacks. I think he told us, though I didn't quite take in until another guide later in the trip told us again, that the leafcutters don't eat the leaves, they take them back to turn into fungus. Reading wikipedia, more specifically they apparently harvest a special fungus in their nests, and the leaves are how they feed the fungus. Their whole community structure and foraging habits are quite fascinating. As we continued along the path, he would stop to point out various other plants that he had shown us from the tram, talking more about them, showing us the roots of the epiphytes, talking about various ferns and their growth patterns and uses, etc. At one point, we spotted a lizard by the path, so of course I had to stop and take a photo. The walk was faster than I expected, and we were soon back at the visitor center.

My mom and sister wanted to visit the gift shop but I was quickly distracted by the sight of a Swarovski telescope pointed upwards, and went to look through it. To my surprise, I found a crystal clear image of a sloth in the trees above me. After searching for a while (my wildlife spotting skills proved to be extremely poor during this trip), and help from my bf and sister who had both spotted it first, I finally located the sloth in the tree, much closer than it had been earlier, and more active than I expected. Sloths are supposed to be quite still and slow-moving, sleeping most of the day away, but this one, while we were watching, went from sitting on a branch to hanging upside down and vigorously scratching its head with both paws, affording us a very clear view of its 3 long claws on each paw, and eventually of its rather adorable face. For whatever reason, 3-toed sloths' facial features make it look like it's smiling happily, which just makes them all the cuter. IIRC, we were told that the 3-toed sloth's range in their lifetime is generally no more than 50 ft (or 50 m? not quite the same thing), unless that was the howler monkey they were talking about, and they rarely come down from the trees (though apparently they do come down for "peeing and pooping", they just don't do it that often). However, female sloths will leave their territory to their children, and move to a new area. The sloth we saw would probably have to leave the area in the future because, to our delight, we discovered that a baby sloth was clinging to it and mimicking its movements. It could just be that whatever insects or pests were bothering the mother were also bothering it, but it looked like it was copying its mother, also scratching at its head with its little paws. Eventually, this quite active sloth decided to check out a new area, and began moving surprisingly rapidly along the branches while its baby clung to it, until it went behind a clump of leaves and we couldn't watch it anymore (and our guide called us to board the bus back to the parking area).

It was another short bus ride out of the park until we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. I forgot what it was called, but it had a butterfly garden in back, and was where we also stopped for lunch on our way out of Tortuguero. The restaurant was covered but open-air, with a small buffet where we told the servers which foods we wanted and got a plate full of food in return. I think it was this time when they served us soursop juice, which was way sweeter and yummier than the name makes it sound. We ate quickly and then went to explore the butterfly garden. It was a sunny bright day by this point, and, unlike the previous butterfly garden, the butterflies were extremely active and profuse. Taking photos was almost impossible as the gorgeous blue morphos and butterflies of a huge variety of sizes and colors flitted back and forth around the garden. The problem with the morphos was that when they're at rest, they fold those gorgeous blue wings closed, leaving us to look at the brown camouflaging underside. They occasionally flap those wings open, giving us tantalizing glimpses at the blue, but otherwise were either brown at rest or moving too quickly to catch. The other butterflies were also beautiful - black with orange, red, or yellow markings. It was starting to get hot for the first time the trip at this point, and it was nice to go back to the air-conditioned comfort of the bus and zip off the legs of our convertible pants (best pre-trip purchase I made, not even so much for the convertible nature, though that was useful, but because the pants dried quickly and had a lot of useful pockets).

More time in the bus, while Sergio told us more about the agriculture of Costa Rica and the crops they grew. We passed through miles of banana plantations, and Sergio told us about how they grew bananas - how each bunch was bagged on the tree to protect them and provide a little mini-environment for optimal growth, how they determine when it's time to bag the bunches, how the bananas initially grow downwards but then eventually curl upwards against gravity (I think), how the bananas were bred to be seedless and how they planted new ones... We were surprised to see a line of bagged bunches of bananas tied to a cable and being pulled along by a running man, and discovered this was how they transported the harvested bananas to the banana plant. There was a system of cables and pulleys running throughout the plantation with paths underneath, and even banana crossings on the road where they would put down a barrier while the line of bananas were run across the street, and gulleys where the man would send the bananas gliding across while he took the long way around and picked them up again on the other end. Eventually, we passed the processing plant that was the destination for these bananas (I believe it belonged to Chiquita). It was all quite fascinating.

Oh I almost forgot - on the bus ride, we saw two sloths - the 3-toed sloth was on the right side of the bus, where I was sitting, so I got to see it. The 2-toed was on the other side of the bus, and I never did spot it. In fact, apparently a couple 2-toed sloths were seen on this trip and somehow I never saw them.

The only way to reach our next destination, Tortuguero, was by boat or air, on small planes, since the area is completely surrounded by water. By boat, there are apparently two main departure points which Caravan uses (and maybe in general) - Cano Blanco, which was further by boat to our hotel, and another port whose name I forget (Moin, maybe?), but was the way we took to get to Tortuguero. The boats departed from a fairly run down building with nothing but farmland around - two covered but open-air low boats that took our luggage and us to our hotel. Oh and a note on our luggage - because we had to take these small boats to Tortuguero, we were only allowed to bring one carry-on bag each with what we needed for our two night stay, so we had packed a duffel bag of stuff and then brought my camera backpack. Our suitcases would stay on the bus while we were in Tortuguero. I should mention that I love boat rides - not necessarily big boats on large open bodies of water, but smaller motor boats, canoes, etc, on rivers and canals? That gliding, speeding sensation with the wind in your face, the spray of the water? Just makes me happy. So our boat ride to our hotel - Laguna Lodge - was very happy-making for me. The objective of this boat ride was mostly to get to the hotel, not to look at wildlife, but they did stop when the guide with our boat spotted a group of howler monkeys in the trees so we could all get a good look at the first of many, many animals we'd be seeing over the next couple days. Some of the monkeys were just sort of hanging out, or traversing the branches, but one seemed to peer down at us as we peered up at it. The guide then directed our attention to the trunk of the tree, where a number of small tree bats clung to the trunk - small dots on the trunk we never would have noticed if he hadn't told us they were there. With that introduction to the wildife of Tortuguero, the boat then continued to speed us along to our destination, with the guide pointing out Tortuguero village along the way.

Our hotel for our stay in Tortuguero immediately got things off on a good foot (and was our introduction to our culinary highlight of our stay there) by greeting us with glasses of coconut milk (or coconut cream? coconut goodness, anyway) and some sort of warm baked good of cheese and beans and something that everyone but my bf enjoyed. The manager went over a bunch of information about the hotel, including the request that we please not flush any toilet paper down the toilet, and information about the meal times. Eventually, after people in our group somehow managed to break like 3 glasses, we were dispatched off to find our rooms. The Laguna Lodge was billed as "rustic" but it was really quite nice. The rooms were located in these low slung wooden lodge buildings with a long porch running along the front, lined with rocking chairs. The rooms were clean and simple, with a double bed and twin bed in each, and a fairly large private bathroom with a decent shower and nice mosaic mirror. There was only soap - no shampoo or other amenities, and there was no air-conditioning - just a fairly powerful rotating fan on the ceiling, and it was obvious how hot it was in the area from the fact that the beds were made up with sheets and one thin blanket. The windows had no glass - just screens and shutters - and there was basically no sound isolation from your neighbors as a consequence. However, having been made to expect very little, we found the lodge quite pleasant.

After settling into our rooms, my bf and I set out to do some exploring. We quickly discovered that there was a colony of leafcutter ants in the area, from the long line of leafcutter ants going across the path into the lawn between the lodges... and suddenly we realized that the grass was constantly moving - ants were everywhere, cutting and shifting the leaves around, so it seemed like the lawn was alive. My bf and dad followed the path all the way to the beach, where they discovered the ants disappearing into a hole under a tree. Ah yes, the beach - did I mention that the lodge was located on a thin strip of land with the lagoon/river on one side, where we came in, and the Caribbean on the other? There was a beach were evidently the green turtles the area is famous for come to nest (we missed the season), and a lovely view of the Caribbean (though we were advised not to swim due to strong undertow and currents). We all spent a lovely while on the beach, playing in the black sand (my sister apparently thought she could build a sand structure to outlast the waves). Quite randomly, I found a banana that appeared to have just washed up on the beach. Wonder where that fell into the water. My bf and I wanted to catch the sunset (which was on the other side, obviously, since the Caribbean is the east coast of Costa Rica) but were too late. Instead, we spent some time exploring the restaurant/bar/gift shop/front desk area on the lagoon side after glancing at the pool on our way by from the beach.

Eventually, it was time for our briefing (which I think came before dinner). The itinerary said we were going to get a talk by a naturalist but we ended up just watching a video about the area. The meeting room was kind of funky, with big mosaics on the floor, and a Gaudi-like design to the place. The video was ok. Sergio gave us some more information on our schedule for our stay in Tortuguero, and then it was time for dinner. My bf rather amusingly insisted we sit in the back of the room so we could be the first to dinner, and we therefore managed to claim the table right by the water. Another buffet-style dinner here, but one big difference between this buffet and the one at the Barcelo was that the entire eating area was open to the outdoors, so we had a lot of flies helping themselves to our fruit and veggies. Kind of turned me off eating a lot of fruit and salad while we were at Laguna Lodge. They also had a grill with hot foods and steamed vegetables, though, so there was more than enough to eat. Our favorite thing about Laguna Lodge, however, turned out to be the fresh fruit juices the waiters served us with - a different juice every meal, and for the most part quite yummy. Since I won't remember which meal went with which drink, here's a list of the juices I can remember us having there - coconut, tamarind, blackberry, papaya, limonida, pineapple, and watermelon/fruit punch (no, we didn't have that many meals but they provided between meals refreshments at least once, and the coconut was our welcome drink). As we sat at our table by the water, we strained our eyes to see the water in the dark, but couldn't see much. However, we kept hearing splashes, and occasionally seeing large disturbances in the water. We were trying to figure out if it was fish jumping, or what. We finally figured out that at least some of the splashes came from hunting birds, but others seem to come from the water itself. It was kind of fascinating.

Laguna Lodge is rather dark - there isn't much public lighting - so they advised us bring flashlights to walk around. I think it was this night where we played Pay Me in my parents' room for a while before bed, but we still got to bed relatively early to be ready for the next morning.