Costa Rica - Day Nine/Ten

Combining day 9 and 10 since 10 was just a travel day.

Our last real day in Costa Rica was day 9 - like I said before, this is really an 8-day tour with 2 days of travel. Since the hotel was so large, we were supposed to get our bags outside our doors an hour and a half earlier than departure time, but since our room was so close to the front door, my bf and I opted to bring our bags out ourselves. Sergio told us it was ok as long as we made special care to make sure our bags ended up in the right pile, since two different Caravan groups were loading simultaneously. This gave us a bit more time to pack, which was nice. After breakfast, we finished packing, took our bags directly to our driver, who was in the process of loading the bags, and went wandering around the property for our typical morning-of-departure-photo-opportunity. One place we hadn't visited on the hotel property yet was the pier they had that extended out into the gulf, and gave a nice view of the area. Apparently, the day before, a lot of the tour people could be found there around sunset, enjoying cocktails (there was a bar out there) and sitting and watching the water. The pier also gave a good view of the resort itself. After snapping some photos out there, and snapping photos of the restaurant, bar, and pool area, we were about ready to go.

The actual distance between Dona Ana beach and San Jose is smaller than the distance travelled on our previous travel days, so we had more, and longer stops. First stop was in Sarchi, a village which is apparently well-known in particular for the ox-carts, or carretas, that are still in use in some areas. We first drove around the central square, which featured a pretty church on one end, and a giant ox-cart on display in the middle. We then went onto the ox cart factory where we watched a couple of artists at work painting ox carts (they have intricate, detailed, hand-painted designs all over them). The actual ox cart construction wasn't visible anywhere, just the painting. The main attraction here was a large tourist store, with all sorts of souvenirs - lots of various items made out of wood, ox carts, etc. The prices here, except for the postcards, seemed to me to be on the high side so I refrained from buying anything. There were two more stores obvious across the street - one was a souvenir shop with lower prices, and one was a furniture shop. At this point, my bf had pretty well convinced me that we wouldn't do anything with any of the wood products so we didn't buy anything. What I didn't realize until I just read the Lonely Planet entry on Sarchi two minutes ago, is that Sarchi is apparently a crafts center, with over 200 workshops in the area, and a ton of artists, with lots of different crafts and wood products available for sale and to just look at. We didn't have that much time here - maybe 40 minutes to browse the stores (much of which was spent looking for postcards for me) - so I never got the chance to look beyond the little region of street we were on. Oh well.

Lunch was at the restaurant Las Carretas, right next to (I think probably associated with) the tourist shop and oxcart factory. It was another of the buffet style meals set up in a normal restaurant. Pretty good food, as I recall. Soon after, it was time to load back on our bus and take off to our next destination. We drove through a number of small towns but ended up at Grecia, the "cleanest town in Latin America," famous for its metal church. We originally weren't supposed to be able to stop there, but both our bus and the other Caravan group made a 15 minute stop for us to get out, look around the pretty square in front of the church, and gawk at the Catedral de la Mercedes. This cathedral was made completely of metal, and painted red, presenting a surprisingly pretty sight at a distance, and a pretty unique one closeup where you could see the rivets and joints. Apparently the cathedral was special-ordered from Belgium and shipped in pieces to Costa Rica, where they eventually decided to place it in Grecia, transporting the pieces in carretas all the way through the countryside to its current site. It's a fairly impressive sight - not a Notre Dame cathedral by any means, but far larger than most of the countryside churches we'd seen, with a beautiful altar inside.

Back in the bus again, we wound through the picturesque countryside some more until we reached Cafe Britt, in Barva in Heredia. This coffee plantation had its products all over Costa Rica - every tourist shop we stopped in had Cafe Britt chocolate-covered fruits and Cafe Britt coffee. Apparently, they also have shops all over Latin American in airports, etc. We were here for the coffee tour, but for some reason they had us shop in the store before going on the tour, which meant that we were quite limited in our shopping time and hadn't had a chance to actually see anything before buying their products. Didn't stop us from going crazy on the shopping though. We were greeted as we walked in with small cups of an iced coffee drink that was quite delicious, even though I don't like coffee (tells you how much sugar/cream was in there). In the middle of the store was a large stand with shelves and shelves of Cafe Britt's various varieties of coffee (some from specific regions, like Volcan Poas or Tres Rios) and insulated containers of the brewed coffee in the corners for people to sample. On two sides of this stand there were also bags of various chocolate products, with samples in bowls underneath. On the side were samples of their coffee liqueur. Not surpisingly, there were throngs of people gathered to try the samples. Cafe Britt had specials for buying multiple products as well - each bag was something like $4.50 individually, but if you bought 8, you'd get some discount, and if you bought 20, you got an even larger discount that made each bag come out to something like $4 or $3.50. As a result, my parents were stocking up on coffee and chocolate, my sister was stocking up on coffee and chocolate, and my bf and I both had our small collections of coffee and chocolate to give coworkers or friends. We ended up pooling all our purchases together into one large purchase (along with another couple's stuff) in order to maximize the discounts, but then were so rushed we had a hard time getting them to bag them correctly, and I'm not sure we got the full discounts we should have had due us. Oh well. We rushed to load our purchases on the bus, and then went to gather for the coffee tour.

The coffee tour at Cafe Britt was the most unique such tour I've ever been on. Rather than a dry recitation of facts, delivered by an employee, they seem to have either hired three actors, or gotten three of their most charismatic employees, to conduct this tour. This wasn't clear at first - at first we thought we were just getting a normal general manager guy who led off the tour by telling us about coffee growing, and how some coffee grows really well on volcanos, and then indicating in which direction Poas and Arenal (I think) were. Another "worker" stepped up to tell him he was all wrong, and when the manager went to look up the volcanoes, he told the worker to take over the tour. The worker was all "oh boy, do I get a raise too?" They acted like it was a temporary thing, and it was the worker's first time giving the tour, but this turned out to be very not true. The tour started like a normal tour - we were led into what seemed to be an area of the plantation, filled with coffee plants. We were shown the beans growing on a tree, and then came to a stop in front of a platform where a woman stood waiting for us. Both the woman and the "worker" acted as if English was difficult and they'd try their best, but both were super-fluent. The woman and the worker talked about the process of growing the plants and how they need to be harvested - how one 25lb basket only resulted in something like 3lbs of coffee (or 4 of the vacuum sealed bags they sell). As they talked, the two traded practiced and humorous banter, making fun of each other and themselves as they dropped facts on us. The woman claimed the two of them had been dating for 10 years (the guy: "they don't care, honey"), etc etc. Then we moved on to the next station, where a genial man was waiting - he claimed to be a manager of sorts, and they went through with demonstration pieces telling us how the coffee bean/fruits we saw growing on the plants around us were reduced, layer by layer, into the coffee beans sold into coffee. Also how there are two varieties of coffee - robusto and arrabaciata (??), and how arrabaciata was the best, and the only kind allowed to be grown in Costa Rica (b/c they're no dummies - there was more money to be made off of that). We then moved onto into an auditorium to learn more about the history of coffee, including an opportunity for two audience members to go up and learn how to taste coffee like the quality control coffee tasters did. Then we were to learn more about the history of coffee, which turned out to be an amusing mix of video and stage acting by the three of them, who quickly flipped in and out of silly costumes to go through an array of characters who may or may not have been involved in the development and spread of coffee through the ages. This culminated somehow in the man and woman getting married, with help from audience volunteers, and us leaving the auditorium as if we were leaving the wedding. I can't explain it well at all, but it was highly entertaining, made us laugh out loud several times, and was an enjoyable way to learn about something I never drink myself.

After Cafe Britt, it was time to head towards San Jose to go to the Barcelo Palacio for our final dinner. On the way, I managed to give myself a headache while trying to distribute the coffee back to the right people, and got quite cranky in the process. I do remember that somewhere in the drive that day, Sergio was telling us how the principal industries in Costa Rica were technology, tourism, and agriculture, and how they used to be in the opposite order. Later, we drove by I think Intel's offices where they manufactured microchips. At any rate, we eventually found ourselves back in San Jose, back at the familiar Barcelo Palacio. I ended up taking a nap (we had a 6th floor room this time, which was actually one of the "special" floors with its own lounge and staff and food) because of my headache, while I guess my bf went to hang out with my family. After my nap, we got ready for dinner.

The last dinner was our one "formal" (ie, no shorts, no sandals) dinner, in the nicer restaurant at the Palacio. We all gathered to take group photos before going in, and then were seated in various tables around the restaurant. Our table was my family, my bf, myself, and the other family my parents had befriended, whose son had been hanging out with us for most of the latter part of the trip. We were eventually joined by Sergio, who got peppered with questions by us. We asked him about his history as a tour director (apparently he's been doing this for like 15 years, and fell into it by mistake), his past travels, his views on Costa Rica and the region, etc etc. He's very much enthusiastic about his country and loves to share it with people, and it's very apparent. He also would like countries like the US to invest more in Costa Rica and its conservation efforts, rather than things like war efforts. It was an interesting conversation, though I do think we didn't let him eat very much b/c he had to talk so much. The food was pretty good - we were able to pick from filet mignon, fish, chicken, or pasta. Most of us went with the filet. It wasn't the very best filet I've ever had (my bf has spoiled me with his cooking of the Costco choice tenderloin pieces) but it was quite good and a nice change from the more homestyle food we'd been getting all trip. After dinner, everyone was running around taking photos of each other and sharing contact info. We got the cards of a few people, and got our photos taken with a few people, including Sergio. Finally, it was time to disperse since many of us had a very early morning shuttle to the airport.

The next morning, for an 8-8:15ish flight, Caravan had arranged us a 5:30AM shuttle to the airport. The Barcelo opened the restaurant especially for us, so we did get a breakfast before departing, and Sergio got up to see us off, but it was a rather sleepy two bus-fuls of passengers who departed the hotel that morning. A lot of people were on the same two flights to either LA or Miami, since those were typical stopovers going to Costa Rica. We all had to get in line at the airport for the exit tax - $26 USD per person - and then we got in line to check in. It turned out to be a bit confusing because American had actually created two separate checkin lines for the LA vs Miami flights, but we didn't realize it, and got in the wrong line at first. After a long wait, we were able to check in, where we learned that the LA flight was overbooked, and they were looking for like 8 volunteers to take a later flight to LA, spend the night, and then get booked to their next destination. American would pay an $800 voucher, pay for hotel, transportation, and food. It was a really good deal, but initially we weren't tempted because it seemed we wouldn't be able to get in until the next night, and would thus miss a day of work. As they kept asking for volunteers later, we actually thought maybe we'd try it - you can't make $800 in a day and it was a good deal, but by the time we asked about it, they'd found almost all the volunteers they needed. Oh well. Those vouchers would have been really useful.

There was a bit more drama since the flight from San Jose didn't leave on time, and then when we got to LA, the customs line took forever, they didn't have a carousel for our luggage, and the line out of customs to go through and recheck your baggage was huge. By the time we were able to get through all that, a few of our fellow tour members were convinced they'd missed their connecting flight to SF, since it was supposed to be at 2 and it was 2:10 when we picked up our luggage. As it turned out, their flight was delayed until 3:30 so I think they ended up being ok. After a meal at Chili's Too, and a bit of a wait at the gate, my bf and I were finally on our flight home to SF. I really don't advise flying through LA for international flights. The only amusing part about going through LA was that they had these new 24 color LED displays as you waited in line for customs, and they were playing with them to display random stuff. The one that really amused me was a "Don't Drink and Drive" display - a little martini glass, and then a car comes along and runs into it. Smash! The car sits with its front end all dented, and two stick figures come flying out of the car to land on the pavement - one on its head, with its legs waving in the air. Serious message, but a seriously funny way of delivering it.

A long travel day to end what turned out to be quite a fun and interesting trip. Yay Costa Rica!

Costa Rica - Day Eight

The history of Manuel Antonio National Park is kind of interesting. It was originally slated for development into a beach resort, and was turned into a national park kind of at the last minute before they were about to start building. The park is very popular, and has been receiving all sorts of pressure from too many people and too much development nearby, so the park has started limiting the number of visitors to the park per day. As a result, it's important to get there early - get there too late and they may have reached their daily quota and you won't be able to go in. Sergio was well aware of this and therefore said that we had to leave early in the morning in order to ensure that we'd be able to enter. Breakfast was thus at 6am - an hour earlier than the restaurants usually open, so the hotel set out a "continental breakfast" for us which actually had a fair amount of food...after a while. They were still bringing out food as we arrived. We were on the road by 6:30AM, with a much diminished group of people on the tour bus. So diminished that we were able to spread out and put our bags on seats with no problems.

From a distance perspective, Manuel Antonio wasn't actually a 2 hour drive from the Doubletree's location on the Dona Ana beach in Puntarenas. However, there were two old bridges along the way that were one-way, rickety, weight-limited bridges, which severely gated the amount of traffic that could pass through. Both bridges were in the process of being replaced - we saw the construction on the neighboring bridges, but both were still the only bridge in use over their respective rivers at this time. Apparently these bridges were originally built for the railroad. Sergio said that, depending on traffic, you could get held up half an hour waiting to cross the bridges, which added considerable amount of time to the trip.

As we drove south, part of the time, we were driving right along the Pacific coast, giving us a beautiful view of the gorgeous blue ocean, starting first with the Golfo de Nicoya (which was where our hotel was located) with the Peninsula de Nicoya opposite. At times, we went inland where we could see the hilly countryside and the mountains in the distance, plantations with all sorts of fruits and plants, etc. Our drive took us by the Carara Biological Reserve, apparently, where there was supposed to be a huge variety of tropical birds, particularly the scarlet macaw. Apparently this is one of the few places in the world that the scarlet macaw nests. I'm not sure if we were by the reserve at the time, but we did get lucky enough to see (thanks to either Sergio or Marcos' eagle eyes) two scarlet macaws in a tree by the road. Marcos stopped the bus so we could gawk at the beautiful brilliant red birds for a while - really pretty, and really neat to see in the wild. We also crossed over the Rio Tarcoles, or the river of crocodiles, where you can often see crocodiles sunning themselves...and sure enough, as we crossed, we saw a group of 8 crocodiles, lying on the banks or partly submerged in the water. Then, as we kept staring, we noticed another crocodile closer in the water...and then another pair swimming practically under the bridge. That was neat.

We got lucky on the way there - the first bridge hardly detained us at all, and the second only a little longer, so we arrived in Manuel Antonio after only about an hour and a half. Sergio had to get our tickets, but he managed to get us all in. From the park entrance, we had to cross a short expanse of beach, and then climb up a path over a hill well-worn by people's feet, before emerging on a beautiful beach on the other side. We then had about a 15-20 minute hike over the first beach, through the forest a bit, and down a path to I *think* the second beach (possibly the third) where we staked out a picnic table on which we put our stuff, while Sergio kept an eye on it for us. Apparently the danger here wasn't human thieves so much as monkey thieves. Sergio emphasized we shouldn't bring food in because the monkeys would be bold enough to run by and steal bags up into the trees to get at the food. Before we could get to the picnic table, though, my family ended up lagging rather far behind as we took photos of the beach. My little sister got distracted when she noticed that each time the tide went out, there were distinctive little marks on the beach that would suddenly suck in and disappear, like something was pulling in. Remembering when we'd gone clam hunting on a beach elsewhere, where you could tell where the clams were by the air bubbles they let up as they burrowed into the sand, she started digging to try to find the clams. Feeling bad because Sergio was trying to get us to move while keeping an eye on the rest of the group, way ahead of us, I started moving before she found anything. Turns out the depressions in the sand weren't from clams, but from snails. My sister has pretty sharp eyes - she also spotted most of the wildlife in Tortuguero, seeing monkeys even before the guides did.

On my way to the picnic area, I saw a group of people staring up into the trees, and found out they were looking at a night heron of some kind up in the trees. I'm not sure I ever actually spotted that one. Moving on, I saw another group of people gathered (there were rangers carrying telescopes everywhere, and tours being conducted) and got a quick glimpse of what they were looking at as it ran by - I think it was an agouti or something like that. Further down the path, a family of raccoons were nosing their way down the path - in fact, they got to the picnic area not long after me, and spent some time poking around the area. There were two main choices for the Manuel Antonio area, as far as activities went - lounging on the beach/playing in the water, and hiking on the trails around the beaches. Since I'd heard there was a lot of wildlife in the area, and since I'm not huge on the beach lounging, I really wanted to try the hiking out. I should note, though, that we had been advised to wear hiking boots if we wanted to hike, but we'd only brought our sandals...definitely not the right shoes.

Sergio directed us to a trail that led from our beach which I think led to the next few beaches (there are five total in the Manuel Antonio area, though I think only three or four are actually in the park), but also led to an overlook where you could see the cliffsides that had sheared off along fault lines. As we started up the path, we were quickly distracted by a group of people looking up into the trees - a 3-toed (I think) sloth, just hanging out in a tree fairly near the path. This one was fairly well-hidden in the tree. After gawking at it (and snapping some photos) for a while, we decided to move along since there was quite a crowd gathering and we didn't have all that much time to do the hike and enjoy the beach. Moving on, we next saw an agouti (now I'm not sure the first one I saw was an agouti) - kind of a cross between a rat and a rabbit - peering at us from between the trees above the trail. The next big brown mass we saw in a tree was a termite nest, I think, bigger than any animal we'd seen.

As we climbed the trail, we came across some people stopped and looking at the side of the trail. When they told us there were monkeys, I assumed they were high up in the trees or far off into the forest, and was quite surprised when I saw a couple white-faced monkeys sitting quite close in the trees, staring back at us. Initially, the monkeys we saw were just lounging on tree branches and the forks of trees, but then one crossed over to the other side of the path, and then started climbing down a tree trunk right next to the path. It was literally only about 3 feet away from us. There were a few kids who had stopped as well who almost went up and touched it, but it moved along and stared at us from another tree right next to the path. I had never been that close to a monkey before, but the path was getting a little bit crowded as other people stopped to watch, and we still had a ways to go to the lookout, so I reluctantly moved on.

Along the way, my bf spotted a beautiful lizard (possibly a gecko) in the leaves along the path (I am no good at spotting wildlife, someone else always has to see it and point it out to me). The path grew steeper and slippery, and my sister (who was wearing slip-on sandals without straps) and my parents eventually turned back. We went on, though, and finally managed to reach the overlook. In some ways, the overlook's view was a little disappointing because Sergio had made it sound like we'd see these amazing sheer cliff faces that were very obviously split along fault lines, but what we saw looked a bit more normal cliffs. However, it was a nice point from which to observe another couple of beaches to the south beyond the peninsula the overlook looked at, as well as to get a nice panoramic view of the ocean. It was also really hot, since it was out in the sunlight and we'd just been climbing for a while.

After enjoying the view for a while, the overlook was getting a bit crowded and we still wanted to hit the beach, so we turned and went back. The path was quite narrow so there was quite a bit of maneuvering and standing aside to let people pass as we passed people coming the other way. It was also worse being slippery on the way back - always more of an issue when you're descending rather than ascending - so we made very slow progress. We did spot the same lizard on the way back as on the way up, though it'd moved to the other side of the path. As we reached the area where we'd seen the monkeys before, we discovered that the dynamics had quite changed. I don't know if some of the other people (maybe the kids who were there before) had pissed off the monkeys or what, but they were definitely on edge. As we approached the area, two monkeys ran out on the path ahead of us to assume a defensive or threat/attack stance - one on top of the other, both facing us with fangs bared. This gave us pause, we stopped to take photos, but also because we weren't quite sure how to react. The top monkey got distracted after a bit and took off running down the path away from us, and the other soon followed. Turns out there was another hiker ahead of us - a lone woman - who had stopped to take photos, I think, but soon found herself accosted by several monkeys. The more we looked, the more monkeys we saw in the trees around us, all alert and working in concert. One monkey climbed out on a tree branch over the hiker, unbeknownst to her until it started throwing branches and things at her, baring its fangs and chattering at her. Another monkey started stalking down the path behind her as she stared at the first monkey, on all fours with back arched. Other monkeys started closing in on her. She initially stood her ground, looking at them like she wasn't believing what was happening, before she finally quickly walked out of the area. The monkeys looked quite angry and aggressive, and we looked around us to see more staring at us and climbing up trees. We each picked up a branch, just in case, and then moved quickly through the area, trying not to pose too much of a threat to them. Freaky. I'd originally thought it was really cool we got to see monkeys so close up, but I wasn't so sure after that!

As it turned out, my parents and sister saw even more interesting behavior from this same group of monkeys when they'd passed through the area earlier. One of the people on the path near them had a water bottle sticking out of his backpack, and one of the monkeys actually swung down and stole the water bottle, running away with it until everyone yelled and it dropped it. It sounded like the monkeys, when they saw them, weren't being quite so aggressive with their body language, but they were certainly being bold!

On the way back, my bf and I kept hearing a howler monkey that sounded really close, but could never spot it. We finally saw a group of people off the trail, on a side path that actually had a barrier across it, staring up into a tree. We joined them and finally spotted the howler monkey lounging on a tree above. As we watched, the monkey sat up and let out a big howl, maintaining that position for a while, before finally shifting back down until it once more lay along the branch. We kept watching it, hoping it'd sit up again and howl again, but a couple rangers came along and shooed us all out of the area. As we returned to the picnic area, we saw more people staring at the sloth so we stopped to look up at it, just to make sure nothing had changed, and finally got back to the picnic table. Here, we reapplied some sunscreen, stripped off our outside clothes, put away the camera, and went to the beach for the last 1/2 hour or so before we had to return to the bus.

The sand was white but not entirely clean and nice - lots of seaweed bits, coral bits, etc, that made it less pleasant to walk/sit on. The beach that we were on also wasn't particularly deep in terms of the amount of sandy area. Rather than trying to find a clear spot to sunbathe (it was too hot anyway), we plunged right into the water. I found it a nice temperature and quickly took to it, with the water helping to wash off the sweat and heat from our hike. It wasn't as salty as the water had been by Zihuatenejo in Mexico, where we'd gone the year before - not as buoyant by far - but it was mostly kind of nice to bounce up and down in the water, except when the salt overcame my contacts and I wasn't able to open my eyes for a while for the stinging. Our friend swam out further and ended up getting stung (mildly) by a small jellyfish. That guy got bitten by *everything* - he had more bug bites than anyone, and got bitten everywhere he went, even the ocean! My bf and I stayed further inland, where we could stand up if we needed to, and ended up chatting with one of the women from our tour group, a teacher who travelled a lot. This was a pleasant way to spend some time, but the 1/2 hour went by quite quickly, and we soon had to go back, dry off, and make our way back to the bus.

Before we could leave the area, we spotted another animal - this one a brown basilisk (I think) lizard. Quite a pretty specimen, sitting right on a wood pile next to the picnic area. We snapped a few photos of that one, and then started down the path back to the entrance. We were quickly distracted, however, by the discovery that a whole bunch of white-faced monkeys had come to the area, very likely to try to scavenge food from all the tourists. They were climbing the trees on the beach, walking down the paths, and going all over the place. One bold monkey jumped right onto a garbage can right on the path. The garbage can, which hung from a frame, was tied shut with a piece of string. The monkey was clever - it jumped straight up and down a couple times, and boom, the lid was open. It balanced on the swinging can, and obviously wanted to dig in and grab food, but everytime anyone came near (and it was right on the path so people were very close), it'd stand its ground and stare at the person, ready to defend its rights to the food in the can. In the meantime, other monkeys were overhead, dropping stuff out of the trees on people, helping to defend the monkey and his can. We didn't have time to stay and watch this play out, and continued on our way, though my bf did stop a ranger to let him know a monkey had broken into one of the garbage cans.

On our way from the entrance of the park to the bus, we passed by a bunch of stands selling all sorts of stuff - beach towels, dyed cloths, t-shirts, souvenirs, etc. One stand in particular drew our attention, selling meat skewers grilling on a bbq, but before we could decide whether or not to buy one, Marcos honked the horn and Sergio gestured for us to come back to the bus. Not quite sure why, since we were actually still a bit early. Instead of our freshly grilled meat skewers, then, we ended up with rather lame box lunches that they had brought from the hotel to the bus that morning - small ham and cheese sandwiches on crustless white bread, and a collection of fruit - half-green strawberries, a banana, an apple (whose sticker proudly proclaimed it to be from Washington state), and a kind of sour greenish orange. We were hungry enough to devour it, but the prospect of unlimited snacks from the snack bar sounded more and more appealing after we ate it.

The trip back was fairly subdued - almost everyone was sleeping, worn out from the sun and the early start. I tried to stay awake and look out the window, at one point spotting a cone-shaped mountain that looked like it had smoke coming out of it (though from a different angle, it appeared to be more of a cloud that had drifted near the peak). I was really tired, though, and finally gave in and slept as well. On the way back, we saw how lucky we were - we were held up a bit at one of the bridges but the traffic coming the other way stretched way back - just stopped cars and trucks in a long single-file line, waiting for their turn on the bridge. The line entering Manuel Antonio Park was also really long, so we very much thanked Sergio for getting us there so early so we didn't have to wait in line and risk being turned away (he said it'd happened only once before to a group he'd led). This time, we didn't see any macaws, but did spot another group of crocodiles (or maybe the same ones, moved further down the river) on the Rio Tarcoles. Eventually, we arrived back at the Doubletree hotel.

Since we were all rather hungry, after putting our stuff down, we quickly met up at the snack bar to feed ourselves. The food ended up being just ok - burgers and hot dogs of indifferent quality, as well as a big bin of arroz con beef ;) - looked like arroz con pollo, except with beef instead of chicken. It was good enough for us hungry people though. We also grabbed drinks from the outdoor bar. This drink was the reason I can no longer say I've never had a drink - I got a Coco Amore, like the one my sister had gotten the other day, except without the vodka. What I hadn't anticipated was that when you ask them to leave out an ingredient, they double up on another one to make up for it, and my bartender chose to double up on the amaretto. The alcohol taste was almost too overwhelming and unpleasant for me, but just on the border...for the most part the coconut and almond taste were enough to make it taste good to me. I was jealous though, when my sister came by later and saw what I got, she asked for a Coco Amore without vodka as well but *her* bartender made her one with double the coconut. I would have liked that better. After the beach and the eating, none of us really wanted to get in the pool (which also wasn't that clean looking), so instead we found some lounge chairs by the pool (inadvertently sitting near some tour group members). We ended up chatting with the two women, finding that they were both quite interesting, and one really funny. This was a nice relaxing time - we occasionally ventured across the way to get stuff from the bar (I got a virgin pina colada for my second drink), but otherwise just chatted or read, or relaxed.

As it got dark, we stopped to look at the sunset (not nearly as spectacular because the sky was completely clear), and then wandered into the lobby, which was well lit and had a number of comfortable chairs and low tables. We ended up whiling away the next couple hours playing cards in this relaxing setting. None of us were particularly hungry due to our late snacks, so we didn't end up getting dinner until quite late, where we joined the same two women we'd chatted with by the pool. Dinner that night was supposed to be French-themed, but I failed to see the French - they had the same pasta bar again, though this time they also had "crepes", though not crepes like I'd ever seen before - I guess you got filling for the shells and then they would heat it up in sauce. What was good was that they had fresh grilled steaks cut into strips, so we were finally able to eat a lot of beef (there was almost no beef on this trip - always chicken, pork, and fish). That's what we ended up primarily eating that night. The beef was definitely not the best I'd ever had - kind of tough - but it was a nice change. After dinner, we decided to skip out on the cultural show, since it was the same as the previous night's, and headed back to our rooms to rest and go to bed.

Costa Rica - Day Seven

The funny thing about the mornings where we departed from a hotel was that we generally had to get our bags outside our door quite early - at least an hour or more before departure time. That meant that we had to finish getting ready and putting away everything - toiletries, pajamas, etc - far earlier than on other mornings, which tended to lead to fairly leisurely mornings after the initial rush. That last morning in the Arenal area, we had a leisurely breakfast (yummy syrup) and then I wandered around with my camera snapping pictures of the property. Less animals here than Laguna Lodge, but more of a scenic property with the terraced levels and cute bungalows, and cloud-shrouded non-volcano in the background.

Onto the bus and rolling down the gravel road from our hotel, when we came to a stop for an extended period of time right before the washout in the middle of the road (where a pond on one side overflowed into a waterfall right off the road into a creek). Eventually, both Marcos and Sergio got out of the bus and started poking around under one of the front tires as we peered out the window at them. Turns out one of the airbags that helps the suspension of the bus was refusing to inflate or deflate, or something, and Marcos was afraid the bus wouldn't make it over the washout. They asked everyone to move to the back of the bus to help put more weight on the back tires and take weight off the front tires. We did so, Marcos started things back up, and got us over the washout with no problem, to the cheers of everyone. We didn't suffer any further mishaps for the rest of the trip, so I guess either the air bag stopped being a problem, or it only was going to be a problem for big ditches.

As we drove out of Fortuna into the countryside, we were stunned and amazed by the extent of flooding there was everywhere. The first signs were rushing brown rivers, engorged by the rainfall of the last several days, but then we started seeing lots of standing water in fields and yards and around people's houses. Finally, we came around one corner to discover one entire field submerged in water, with a number of people standing on the road looking forlornly into the field. On the other side of the street, the ditches were full of water, and cows and horses stood on dry patches amidst marshy land. Sergio remarked that they were used to getting a few hours of a rain but that it'd rained steadily for something like 12 hours already, and the ground couldn't take it - it was oversaturated. All the flooding meant people's farmland was submerged and ruined. Who knows how many crops and how much of a setback that rain was to the people living and farming in the area? It was kind of sad.

As we continued driving, we passed through several smaller villages and some of the larger towns and cities. In every town, there was a church, a school building, and a soccer field, it seemed. In one field, we saw the biggest cattle I've seen anywhere - a big white monster with a huge hump, that dwarved all the other cattle in the field with it. Eventually, we drove into the Monteverde region, through the Children's Eternal Rainforest, which apparently was paid for by money from schoolchildren all around the globe to keep a portion of the rainforest preserved. This was rather like driving through the Braulio Cabrillo National Park early in the trip - everything was shrouded in dense fog, with a ton of moisture in the air. In fact, we even saw a number of waterfalls in one region of the preserve - waterfalls like the ones we were unable to see while driving through the Braulio Cabrillo park. I think all the increased rainfall helped increase the waterflow through the waterfalls. What was really striking was that one of the falls was bright white, but then another waterfall on the same cliffside was completely brown. Says a little about how much runoff there was from the rain, I think.

Eventually we drove out in a more open, hilly area, where the hills were covered with plantations and various cultivated plants, and the scenery was quite striking. Our only stop for the day was in this region, at a cloudforest reserve for a hike into the cloudforest. Cloudforests differ from rainforests in that they largely consist of regions of high humidity, but less rain. There was also something about how the winds converged in the region, but I don't remember the explanation for that. We were split into two groups, and each group was handed a bunch of bamboo walking sticks, and assigned a guide. I don't remember our guide's name, but he was quite informative and interesting. He showed us a pretty pink flower growing by the side of the path, the impatiens, and talked about how he'd heard it was a popular flower in the US, but in Costa Rica, it was a weed. Grew everywhere, and you couldn't stop it from spreading. He told us how the impatiens was like a natural repellent - and possibly also good for stopping itches from bug bites, we weren't entirely clear. Possibly good at both - repelling insects and helping heal the itches when you *were* bitten. In fact, for both the rainforest and the cloudforest hikes, our guides told us about the medicinal value of various plants, most of which involved boiling the particular plant and making a tea or something out of it, and then drinking it each day to help cure various ailments. Just like the various edibles of the rainforest, however, I've completely forgotten what the plants were or what they were for, so I'd just go on being sick.

Some of the highlights of the cloudforest hike were the feeding gallery where they'd set up a few feeders to attract the various birds, particularly various Tanagers, as well as a hummingbird feeder that attracted at least four or five varieties of hummingbirds in the time we stared at it (we passed it both coming and going). Our guide also told us about epiphytes, and how they weren't parasites, but then showed us a true parasite of the forest - the ficus tree which wraps around another tree, eventually strangling it to death until what remains is the ficus wrapped around a dead tree. He showed us one example where the ficus had completely killed the tree inside so that the middle was hollow and we could walk right through. Later in the hike, I spotted another one and asked him about it. In that case, it turned out, the host tree had not yet been killed but you could see places where the ficus roots or limbs had wrapped around the trunk of the host tree and penetrated inwards, thus beginning the strangulation process. Not only that, but there were actually two different ficus contending for that tree. Poor thing never had a chance. Our guide pointed out the red bananas which he said weren't really edible (which is odd b/c I see them sold at our grocery store, but maybe it's a different variety), another huge leaf-cutter nest (he told us some more about the leaf-cutter society and what they do with the leaves), and pointed out interesting facts about the various types of plants you find in the cloud forest. At one point, someone noticed a big black millipede on the path. When he saw us all crowded around trying to take photos, he went and just picked it right up so we could see it better. Apparently that kind of millipede isn't poisonous or anything, but will sometimes curl up into a tight little ball if frightened. I guess crawling around a guy's hand didn't frighten it at all since he even tried poking it a little to make it curl up, and it'd just unwind and keep crawling all over, until he finally put it back down. We eventually found our way back to the hummingbird feeder, where we stopped and watched for a while longer. I always thought that hummingbirds *had* to keep their wings flapping quickly to keep their hearts beating or their metabolism going or something to that effect, but that can't possibly be true since I saw several hummingbirds fly and just perch on a branch. And in a couple cases, apparently the hummingbirds at the feeder would get tired of beating their wings to hover in place, and just come to rest on the feeder, gripping with their feet while they greedily drank. Lazy birds =). It was pretty cool, though, since this second time by the feeder produced even more varieties of hummingbird for us to look at.

Eventually, though, our guide herded us back to our bus since we were only supposed to be at the cloudforest reserve for like a 45 minute hike, and then we had to be on our way. We climbed back out of the cloudforest area and picked up the tour members who'd opted not to go on the hike (I guess maybe b/c it was once again pretty rainy and cold). We stopped at a cloud forest restaurant to get lunch - here was where I mistook cabbage salad/slaw for arroz con pollo, thus accidentally telling my bf not to bother with the white rice and ending up with no rice at all. My excuse is that the food was at a long cafeteria line type thing where you slid your tray down and asked them to add stuff to your plate, and so I was preplanning while craning my neck at the food from a distance, and trying not to take too much food. My bad. During lunch, there was a TV in the corner playing some really cheesy soap opera which had to do with angels and heaven and some girl who was dying, and some romance, and people in white outfits and fake wings, and lots of overdramatic acting. There was no sound (not that any of us understood Spanish), so we were having fun speculating on what was going on. We were among the last to get our food, and wondered where everyone else had disappeared to as we finished eating. Turns out there was a gift shop next door that was actually one of the best ones I'd seen all trip - large, with a huge selection of stuff - wood stuff, photo albums made of leaves and banana paper, banana/coffee paper pads, t-shirts, etc etc - and one of the cheapest as well. Since I'd already bought a lot of wood stuff, I had to refrain from looking too carefully at their selection, but I gave in and picked up a photo album to put some Costa Rica photos in, and at the very last minute as I went to checkout, found a wooden bracelet that I really liked for $4, so I had to pick that up as well. My bf got himself a Costa Rica t-shirt, and poor Sergio ended up standing by the cash register, trying to hurry us back to the bus, since everyone was taking so long. It must be a pain trying to get 44 people moving on schedule! Luckily, the rest of the tour group was in the store too, so it wasn't just us holding things up.

That was our last stop until we reached the Doubletree Resort in Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica (Arenal was somewhere in the middle). It was still quite a drive from the cloud forest restaurant to the Pacific Coast, so we didn't reach the Doubletree until late afternoon, after driving through several more towns and cities. Apparently the Doubletree/Hilton management had only taken over this hotel at the New Year, so they were still in transition, to a certain extent. Doubletree completely embraced Caravan - they had a special orientation set up for incoming Caravan groups in one of the conference rooms, where they gave us fresh-baked cookies and greeted us with information about their events, food, schedules, etc. We were given all-inclusive bracelets, which meant we could get unlimited food and drinks (including alcohol) at any of the bars and restaurants on the resort at any time. Of all the hotels we stayed at, the Doubletree was definitely the most resort-like - several pools, bars, restaurants, dance lessons, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, tennis courts, shows at night, etc. We were assigned our rooms (my bf and I discovered that the signage was very lame when we followed the signs and ended up walking down all four sides of a square to find our room halfway down the fourth side, instead of walking the short half-hallway from the front desk to our room), and went to settle in. We ended up having to wheel my parents' suitcases over to their room because they had sent all the suitcases with my last name to my room. Only such mixup all trip. The rooms were a bit disappointing - they had the Hilton/Doubletree bedding and amenities like nice thick towels and such, but they smelled musty and dank, and they were kind of dim and not particularly attractive. This seems to have been leftover from the previous hotel. While my bf and I had a room with a view of one of the pools, my parents' room had a view (almost) of the ocean - it actually was a view of the small hill between the ocean and the room, but if you walked out from their room, you were a short walk from a gorgeous view. We ended up staking out some lounge chairs facing the ocean along the top of the small hill. My bf went with the guy we were hanging out with to get some drinks, and brought me back a delicious virgin pina colada (I'm not a drinker, so that biases me, but I swear pina coladas are way better if you leave out the rum). I love getting that kind of drink in tropical areas because they use real coconut cream and it is so yummy. We all hung out, watching the sunset, which was really spectacular since the sky was quite cloudy, creating gorgeous patterns and colors.

After the sunset, the four of us young people went off in search of activities for the next day. On the schedule was a trip to the Manuel Antonio Park, which was supposed to have some gorgeous beaches and interesting wildlife, but it was a four hour roundtrip busride to get there, starting off at like 6:30AM or earlier. After spending all day on the bus, no one was looking forward to a four hour roundtrip bus ride, especially since we were only spending like an hour and a half at Manuel Antonio. I had originally wanted to go to the park, but it started to sound less appealing when people put it that way. Talking to the hotel people, we found an interesting looking ziplining company that involved horseback riding to the ziplines, ziplining over waterfalls and canyons, then rappeling down a waterfall, and swimming in the waterfall pool, which sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, they would only send transportation for a minimum of six people (plus it was $99 for the whole package, including transportation and lunch, per person). We spent quite a lot of time trying to find other people who would go with us, wandering around to see if we could find other tour group members, hanging out in central locations and approaching anyone who looked familiar, etc. We actually talked to several members of the tour for the first time that way. In fact, we got to chatting and meeting more of the tour members at the Doubletree than we had for the six days preceding. It was that kind of relaxing place. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any takers - most people just wanted to relax at the resort. We eventually had to give up that idea (and also decided against a different "adventure park" whose highlight feature was a "Superman" zipline - a single line, 3000ft (I think) long, where you rode facing down in a "superman" position instead of facing up, like a typical zip line. That would have been neat, but we decided it wasn't worth the price). We went by the bar that was between the two sections of the buffet restaurant, started chatting with another few people from our tour, and checked out the interesting list of cocktails. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't drink, and am often quite proud of proclaiming that I never have had a drink, just a sip. Can't claim that anymore, though I didn't start that night. That night, I had a sip of my sister's "Coco Amore" (I think it was called) - amaretto, vodka, coconut cream, and evaporated milk, and it was yummy, despite that afterburn of alcohol I don't like. I do love the amaretto flavor - and the coconut cream.

Dinner at the Doubletree was disappointing. They were having an "Italian night" and the food was uninspired. Lots of it, yes. Chefs there to cook up your pasta concoction (you chose what you wanted to put on it, handed it to them, and they basically mixed it up and heated it on the stove, added sauce, and handed it back to you), a meat carving station, salad bar, etc, big dessert bar... but the food was pretty bleah. Actually, our assessment of the food at the various hotels was that Laguna had the best drinks (yummy different juices every day) and Lomas del Volcan had the best food (not that many choices but tasty, filling ones), while Doubletree had the worst food, and Barcelo was somewhere in between. The restaurant area was interesting though - it was this big high roof that didn't appear to have any supports in the middle, just crossbeaming up in the roof, and it was open on the sides to the pool. It was a cute area to eat, even if the food wasn't much good. Somewhere along the line here, we decided to go to Manuel Antonio after all since we'd seemed to exhaust a lot of the possibilities of the Doubletree already, and we didn't really want to just sit around all day. That meant we needed to get an early start, despite having had dinner around like 8pm. We didn't go to bed early though - we stayed up to check out the "cultural show" around 9:15PM, out of curiousity. This ended up being pretty boring. We'd been warned that Costa Rica wasn't long on culture (more on nature), but we thought it could be interesting, but the first three acts were just girls of various ages performing dances that seemed to largely consist of swishing their skirts. This could have been interesting except it felt a lot like an amateur talent show - varying degrees of talent, girls watching each other to see what to do next, etc. Then a moderately talented singer came on and warbled for a while. My bf had bailed by then, but we stuck it out until we discovered the next act was the skirt-swishing girls again, at which point we all left. It wasn't just us young people either - our friend's parents had left earlier, and my parents left shortly after us. We all decided to hit the sack, since we had to be up super-early for Manuel Antonio the next day.

Costa Rica - Day Six

I was woken early in the morning on day six to the sound of pouring rain drumming off our rooftop and running down the gutters onto the ground, and wind whistling through the trees. I drifted back to sleep only to be woken again at 5:30AM to the sound of howler monkeys in the trees outside. This wasn't as bad as it could have been, given that we were planning to get up at 6AM anyway. I was deeply amused though - every time the rain gained in intensity, the howlers would set off enthusiastically and loudly roaring away, and then the rain would die down and the howlers would subsist. Then the rain would fall harder and they'd start howling again. It was almost like they were either objecting loudly to getting wet, or letting each other know it was raining. "Hey guys, it's raining! Dude! Check it out! It's raining! I'm getting wet, this sucks, man!"

Luckily for us, the absolute drenching downpour seemed to have subsided into more of a periodic drizzle by the time we went out at 7AM to meet our transportation to SkyTrek. A van pulled up to the hotel's reception area, the driver introduced himself, and off we went. SkyTrek was located on the other side of the volcano from the hotel, on the more active side, and also on the side where Arenal Lake was located. It was approximately a 30-35 minute drive that started on the gravel road from our hotel, went on paved roads for a while, and then went approximately 7km on another unpaved road that was utterly pitted with potholes to get to SkyTrek. That was an interesting drive - our driver would drive practically in the drainage ditch at times to avoid them, cross over to the other side of the street at other times, and sometimes, when it was unavoidable, drive right over the series of potholes. We were circling the volcano the whole time, but the whole time, it was shrouded in fog.

Upon arrival at the SkyTrek departure point, we spent some time staring at a poster they had up illustrating all their ziplines and their lengths. Somehow, in that short amount of time, my bf memorized all the numbers - he says "I know numbers. I also know fear of death." There were eight lines total. The first two were training lines, fairly short, but after that the remaining lines (except the last, which was mainly to get back to ground level) were all 1500 ft or more long. The highest one off the ground (which was also the third longest) was 660 ft high. The longest one was 2460 ft, or about 1/2 a mile. Actually, looking at the poster now, the exact lengths were 65ft, 82ft, 1525ft, 1476ft, 1344ft, 2000ft, 2460ft, and 164ft. Right around this time, looking at the specs (and then going to look off the back of the building at the view below), my bf and sister were both reiterating my insanity (if I'm insane, why are *they* going?) and apprehensive. They took us into a side room, where we were each fitted out with harnesses, helmets and gloves (which all went on over our shells/raincoats, which we definitely needed since it kept raining). Our group turned out to be 10 people plus two guides - two Costa Rican couples who mostly spoke Spanish but did understand enough English to be very amused by us, a mother and her teenage son, and the four of us. The two guides, Leo and Jaz (sp??) were great - Leo in particular was very funny and personable, but also very responsible. Both guides made sure we understood everything thoroughly, and both were very careful about safety.

We started off with a tram ride up into hills/mountainside. The SkyTram only had 3 cars, each of which held 6 people (I think), which meant that they could take a maximum of 16 people up (with two guides). This was nice, because it meant less waiting. The other group of people from our tour group who went to the other place said they had a group of like 20+ which meant they had to do a lot of waiting at each intermediate platform. The tram ride itself wasn't particularly interesting - we passed through/over a lot of trees, and eventually got a pretty decent view of Arenal Lake, but like the rainforest aerial tram, we couldn't see animals b/c they stayed away from the tram. Once on top, Leo and Jaz carefully explained to us the position we needed to get into (basically, they hook the harness to the line with two lines, the harness is attached to your midsection, so you're supposed to lay back, hold onto the bar attached to the pulley on the line, and keep your legs bent and up). They told us what to do if we ended up stopping before the end of the line (but only if you're near the end. They didn't tell us what to do if you stop in the middle but that didn't end up being an issue). You're supposed to grab the line with both hands, front and back of the pulley, turn yourself around, and then walk yourself hand over hand up the line until you reach the platform. They explained the braking system to us - how there was a 3 pulley system on each platform that they would operate so we wouldn't have to worry about braking ourselves. All we really had to do was get in the right position and hold it, and the rest of the work would be done for us by gravity and the guides.

The first two lines were training runs - the first one just went from the SkyTram platform to a small platform not far off, and not far down. The second one went from that platform to another one below the SkyTram platform (Jaz walked from the SkyTram platform to the second platform, which tells you how close it was). The first run was to "practice best position." The second was to "practice better position." My little sister surprised me - despite her fear she stepped up to be one of the first to go, and after going on that first line, had completely changed her mind about ziplining - she was having the time of her life and her fear seems to have evaporated. My bf took longer - he was ok on those first two lines because they weren't high up, but when we got to the second platform, looking at that line disappearing into the mist (this was the highest line - 660 ft at its highest point over a canyon - and the third longest line), he was not a happy camper. However, there was another woman in our party - the mother of the teenage son - who was even more terrified. She went because her son wanted to go and her husband really didn't, but it was clear the whole thing just freaked her out. She was very funny about it, though - both terrified and funny at the same time - and said that she and my bf were kindred spirits every time Scott said something negative or fearful about the experience. On that first long line, she said she needed to hear someone yell "It's all right!" but apparently when my bf went (after me), he led off by yelling "FUUUUCCCCKKK!!!!" (and not just to freak her out) which didn't make her feel any better. When she arrived at the next platform she was all "you didn't yell that it was all right!!".

I have to admit to a tiny bit of apprehension with that first non-training line - just how would it be to go that far for that long? - but mostly just excited anticipation. It was a bit eerie how the line just disappeared into the mist so you couldn't see where it went (though at one point the mist did clear long enough for us to squint at the platform on the other side before it came back). The way the whole guide thing went was that one stayed behind to attach each of us to the line, coordinate via walkie talkie with the other guy, and then send us on our way, while the other guy would go on ahead to get to the platform first so he could brake us. That first line was a bit of a learning experience. I learned that ziplining is both fun and also somewhat uncomfortable, since all your weight is resting on the harness straps. I learned you can't really see anything unless you look around, because the riding position is facing upwards, so you don't actually get a sense for how high you are. And if you look around, you need to be careful how you do it, because you may end up twisting, which slows you down. I learned that if you zipline in the rain, the force of the rain hitting your face is kind of painful, and that you get splattered with mud/dirty stuff coming off the rope via the pulley (though you don't always realize it until someone else tells you you're filthy and you notice they are too). And I learned that ziplining is really fun and exhilarating, that the speeds are awesome (at least if you go with SkyTrek), and that you get a great view of Arenal Lake with absolutely nothing (except maybe your own arm) obstructing your view as you cross the canyon on the zipline. My bf later said that the height and the fog lent to a kind of sense of detachment and unreality so your brain didn't fully comprehend just how high you really were, and therefore made it easier to deal with it.

On that first non-training line, I was a little paranoid I wouldn't know when I reached the end, since we were supposed to uncross our legs and keep them in a kind of outstretched V-shape so if we braked suddenly, we wouldn't swing up and hit our feet on the line. As a result, I tried too hard to look around my legs and see what was going on, therefore not riding in the "best position" and ended up slowing down too much and not making it all the way to the braking zone. I therefore had to use the technique they had taught us (with much prompting from the guide) and pull myself hand over hand back up to the platform. I was apparently not the only one in this position. The freaked out mom, though, had no such problems. I guess she was so scared she just stayed in the best position possible, basically curled up in a little ball with her legs firmly up as far as she could get them, determined not to get stuck anywhere in the middle. As a consequence, she tended to come speeding into the braking area like a bullet, shooting all the way to the end at top speed. The guides were quite amused by her and rather impressed by just how good of a position she managed to achieve in her terror. After the fifth or sixth line, Leo was like "you are the fastest person I've seen! Oh my God!" In fact, when we got to the fastest line (the seventh one - also the longest one), he told all of us to relax our positions and told her in particular not to do "better" or even "best" form - she was to ride along with her legs *down* and apart to keep herself from going too fast.

My sister and I were having the time of our lives, just enjoying the hell out of the ziplining and looking around to take in the view (I remember the first time I saw her doing it - you could see her helmeted head turning from side to side as she went). My bf was having more of a "ahhh! oh fuck oh fuck..i hate you!... wheeeeee!!! ah!!! oh fuck oh fuck!" experience - fear at the beginning and end of each run but fun in the middle. When we got to the sixth line, the second longest, and slowest line (it dipped down but then went back up again to get to the platform), Leo volunteered to take our cameras with him, and take photos of each of us as we arrived (with a prearranged order of camera use). I think this was because we'd be going slow enough we wouldn't need him to brake us so he could use his hands to operate the cameras. We gave him our camera first, and he ended up asking us if it was ok if he took a video with it. We didn't mind having a video, though we weren't sure we had disk space, so we ended up saying yes, and got a great souvenir. The video shows the lake, he dips it down to show the trees below, swings it around to show himself, and then shows the trajectory of the line as it goes past a bunch of trees (I didn't actually realize how close those trees were until I saw his video) until he reaches the landing. Only one of the guides could have taken this since the rest of us firmly had both hands on the handle. My bf did some math based on knowing how long the line is, and how long the video is, and estimated that he averaged about 34mph. Keep in mind this was the slowest of the real lines (not counting the first two or the last one), and you'll get an idea of the speeds at which we were going. So much fun. On the minus side, I'd forgotten about the photo at the other end, so didn't remember to put my legs down (which he was yelling at me to do but I didn't comprehend), so the photo he got of me is basically of my butt and my legs, way up in the air, which is rather amusing. Oh well.

Actually, did I say I had my hands firmly on the handle the whole time? There was one line where for some reason I thought it felt like my helmet might be blowing off (it was firmly strapped to my chin so I didn't expect to lose it, just thought it was slipping back) so I forgot myself and let go with one hand to try to check where it was. Apparently holding on with one hand makes you twist a bit. Putting my hand back on the handle fixed it, though, and since this was the fastest line, it didn't end up slowing me down unduly either. But..oops =).

On that second to last line - the 1/2 mile long line - I got a nice, prolonged view of the lake below, which was really quite pretty. Unfortunately, because I was going so fast, and because the skies chose to rain on me (it'd been raining on and off intermittently all morning), the raindrops hitting my face got quite painful so I was struggling to keep my eyes open to look around, while at the same time squinting in pain. Ow ow ow! That particular line also went through a stand of trees, which I wanted to look around at, but again, rain. It'd be interesting to try the ziplining thing again when it wasn't raining, because it must be quite exhilarating without being quite so painful ;).

The second to last line took us to a raised platform that kind of looked like a suspension bridge, except it was a bridge that connected open air to a spiral staircase, so not so much. This actually was the part of the whole experience my bf had the most problem with, since being able to see the ground and the tops of the trees far below him when he's not on solid ground is unnerving to him. The spiral staircase, in particular, where you could see through the grating of the stairs to the ground below while going around and around... In fact, I think if the trip hadn't more or less ended with this bridge and staircase (the last line was a short one from the bottom of the stairs to the parking lot), my bf's overall impression of ziplining might have been better. What can you do? In the meantime, the freaked out mom was telling her son that after this, she'd fulfilled her obligations of doing anything like this again - more ziplining, rollercoasters, whatever. I think they might actually have gone ziplining again later in the trip, though, because we heard them say something about having another trip planned. I wonder if she blew those guides away with her speed of landing as well?

After we'd gotten back on the ground, gotten our equipment off, thanked (and tipped) our guides, and wiped off our faces with the towels they provided, we ventured into the gift shop where we discovered much better prices on the wood stuff than we'd seen so far. My bf and I ended up buying a wooden turtle that's really quite pretty (but we have nowhere to put it), a set of coasters (not quite as pretty, but the coasters were each made from the wood of a different tree, which was interesting), and I got a SkyTrek t-shirt since it was the neatest thing we'd done on the trip thus far. Unfortunately, it turned out that their "adult medium" (which was the largest size they had) seemed to be more like a child's size - it's way too tight and way too small, but I couldn't try it on there so I didn't know. C'est la vie. We then realized that the shuttle driver had been waiting for us, so we quickly piled back into the van, and back to Lomas del Volcan we went.

With all the babbling I just did, you would think that our ziplining took us all day, but we were back at the hotel by 10:30 or 11 or so. We were all hungry since we'd missed breakfast (they started serving at 7am) and lunch wasn't until 12 or 12:30. My sister realized she was locked out of her room since my parents had gone on the Cano Negro trip and taken the only room key with them. We ended up bumming around the gift shop for a while (where I bought another shirt - a cute blue tie-died tank with "The happiest monkey in the rainforest" in front - apparently once I opened the floodgates on buying souvenirs, I charged right through). They had a computer with free internet there, so we took turns checking our mail. As far as the official schedule went, they weren't supposed to return from Cano Negro until 2pm, though Caravan had arranged with the hotel to provide lunch for those of us that didn't go. At 2pm, the rest of the group would be taken directly to downtown Fortuna to explore the town, and then around 4pm, it was time to go to the Baldi Hot Springs. We were kind of curious to try eating in Fortuna at an actual restaurant or cafe, instead of a pre-arranged buffet meal, but none of us really wanted to explore downtown Fortuna for 4 hours. On the other hand, we were too hungry to wait until 2pm or whenever to eat. We decided to try to eat a light meal at the hotel and then take a taxi into town, where we'd try to find something more unique to eat.

At lunch, they had a number of dishes, including a rice dish that seemed kind of like fried rice - kind of stir-fried rice with chicken and some other stuff. We fed ourselves, trying not to overindulge, and I took advantage of the opportunity to write my postcards. I figured, halfway through the trip I had enough to write about, plus this was a rare extended period of downtime. While I was doing this, my bf was poking through my Lonely Planet book, trying to figure out where we could try eating. He sketched out a rough map of downtown Fortuna (which essentially consisted of two long parallel streets on either side of the central square, and then some side streets connecting them). We called a cab, and then went up to our rooms to get our stuff together (we needed our bathing suits from the hot springs since we were going directly there from Fortuna). When we came back down to the front desk, the cab was already there, but I got distracted when I realized that the clouds were blowing away and, for the first time, we actually could see the hazy outline of Arenal Volcano. As we watched, the clouds kept blowing away and suddenly, we could see the entire volcano. We started hurriedly snapping photos, and the poor cab driver ended up having to wait even longer while we tried to capture this rare sight. Finally, we felt bad and climbed in the cab, but then halfway down the unpaved driveway, I got all excited because the volcano was even more visible, and was trying to take photos out of the cab window. The cab driver was very sweet - without saying anything, he patiently stopped the cab long enough for me to get a stable shot or two out the window, and then started up again. As we drove, the clouds blew back and soon, it was as if there was no volcano there at all. It turned out that would be our only glimpse of the actual volcano for our entire stay in the Arenal area. Those who went to Cano Negro never saw it at all, and anyone who wasn't looking outside for that 5 minute period also never saw it. We just got *really* lucky in our timing for catching that cab.

Whereas in Tortuguero, it seemed like our luck was totally in our favor, with it almost always raining when we stepped indoors, and stopping when we came out, in Arenal/Fortuna, it was entirely the opposite. It seemed to stop raining whenever we went indoors and start when we stepped out. Case in point - as we stepped out the cab at the central square in Fortuna, the rain started up. We decided to go to the post office first and get my postcard mailing out of the way before we wandered, and I think the rain abated a bit while we were in the post office. The whole post office trip took longer than expected - there was some guy there shipping off an odd-shaped package and they were busily taping it up, so we had to wait for quite a while...and that seems to be symbolic of their postal service in general since it's been like 19 days since I sent out those postcards and no one has received them yet. At any rate, afterwards, we stepped into the rain again after debating what to do. We swung by the church in the central square, which was quite a pretty building. We thought maybe we'd walk by a number of our earmarked restaurants to see what looked interesting, but after stopping by one and not being particularly inspired, and getting rained on, we ended up just eating at the second one we went to. This one, the Soda el Rio, was off the main drag but "recommended" by the Lonely Planet. It seemed to be favored by locals - lots of Costa Rican families and such eating here. The menu was largely set plates (I think they're referred to as casados), and the prices went from maybe $1 to appetizer/dessert/drinks to about $3-$5 for entrees. After much consultation, my bf and I decided to split an "arroz con pollo" (ie rice with chicken) because that was a dish I'd liked a lot in San Diego - the dish that had turned me onto Mexican food, in fact. Turned out to be a bit of a foolish mistake - arroz con pollo ended up being exactly the rice dish we'd eaten at our hotel buffet only a couple hours earlier. As my bf said, this one was good - better than the one at the hotel - but almost identical. Our new friend and my sister both got arroz con leche - a dessert of rice with milk that was quite yummy, and which they got because they were too full from lunch to eat more. My bf managed to order us four fried plantains, which were really yummy, and we also got fruit drinks.

After finishing our "authentic Costa Rican" meal (and learning we'd been eating authentic Costa Rican food all along), we went in search of pastries, still dreaming of the apple pies we'd eaten in Tortuguero. The Lonely Planet book (which I should note was from 2004 - I borrowed it from my other sister) had listed a Cafeteria Lo Nuestro thta had "homemade pastries" so we went in search of the place. What didn't help was that there were no street signs, and apparently street names were only recently added (well, as of the 2004 book's writing). When we tried to ask directions of someone, he 1) didn't understand English, and 2) had no idea what we were talking about when we asked for the street. He was very friendly about it though. Eventually we found a local who spoke great English (we discovered this after trying to convey in very limited Spanish what we wanted and he responded in English) who didn't know the restaurant we were looking for but directed us to a cafe in the approximate location. That cafe didn't have anything that looked interesting to us, but we noticed across the street there was what appeared to be a very popular bakery. I saw what looked like cases of baked goods and a long line of people. I've forgotten the name of the place now, but it turns out this was actually a bakery chain (I later saw one in the streets of a different town) and it looked like a lot of different fresh-baked breads and pastries (with accompanying flies buzzing around the cases) and a lot of local customers. We ended up buying an apple pie, a pineapple pie, a big flat piece of pastry with sugar crystals on it, and what looked like another fruit pie that was labeled "flauta." These we saved to have as dessert with our dinner that night. By the time we had located this place and bought our pastries, it was getting near the time we were supposed to meet up with our bus to go to the hot springs, so we headed back to the square at the center of the town. Here, we snapped a few photos and met up with my parents again. They told us they'd seen a lot of rare birds and that the trip was quite nice, but no, they didn't see anything particularly excitingly new or different, so we felt better for having missed the trip.

Next was Baldi Hot Springs. According to Lonely Planet, the Tabacon Hot Springs are better, but Baldi was quite satisfying. It's comprised of a series of pools, man-made but supposedly fed by natural hot springs heated by the volcano. Each pool is a different temperature, and the temperature is marked on a sign by the entrance of the pool. Some pools fed to others, some were deeper and you could really soak or even swim a bit in those, some were quite shallow, some had lounging "chairs" built right into the pool floor. Interspersed there were occasional "cold" pools where you could jump back and forth between the cold water and hot water. Supposedly the pools went up in temperature as you went up the mountain, but that didn't turn out to be true. One of the hottest pools we encountered was right by the third pool we visited - it was marked as 45 celsius, but comparing it to the other pools we later encountered and what they were marked as, that can't have been right - it was far hotter. In fact, the signs often seemed to either be off, or only be talking about the temperature of the source of the water, which often got diffused in the rest of the pool. The pools at the very top were not much warmer than some of the ones further down, but they were a fun series of linked pools with water from the top falling as a waterfall onto the level below, etc. Our favorite pools had such hot showers - hot water pouring down that was of barely bearable temperatures. Kind of felt like some kind of funky massage. Our poor parents - they wanted to just soak somewhere in comfort, but we kept leading a charge to find a yet hotter pool to see if we could stand it. They didn't have to follow us, but of course they did. The path up to the last series of 3 pools was actually quite painful on our bare feet - I'd advise anyone who visits these pools to wear either flip flops or water shoes. Something you don't mind getting wet but something that feels better than asphalt and rough stone. I seem to remember that the "right" temperature for me was just about 43 or 44 celsius. I could be remembering wrong. But that was right at the level of hot, almost too hot, but for the most part quite comfortable. BTW, hot springs on a rainy day is nice, except the part where you get out and run through the cold air to the next pool. In two of the cooler pools, there were swim-up bars, while in another large cool pool, there were three waterslides into the pool. One was under construction, one was very twisty and looked quite insane, and the last was supposed to be the lowest key - more of a straight one which I didn't *think* was too steep. Turned out the last part of it was quite steep indeed, and a little scary. Fun, but I declined to go on it again or to try the other slide. Waterslides make me a bit nervous b/c there's nothing tying you down or making sure you don't slosh out the side of the slide, and because it's quite easy to bang limbs as you go down. See, I'll zipline over a 660 ft canyon because it's smooth and comfortable and I trust the equipment. Watersliding, I stand a much larger chance of getting a bruise and it wouldn't feel too good if I hit the water wrong or got turned around in the slide, all of which can happen! Excuses, excuses.

We had about 2 hours at the hot springs, and then it was time to head back to the hotel for dinner. The hot springs were a *great* way to unwind and finish off the day, especially after the cold and rainy and exhilarating ziplining start we got. We'd already laughed because, by ordering the arroz con pollo, we'd just gotten food we'd had at the hotel. We laughed even harder when we saw what was for dessert at dinner that night - arroz con leche. And IIRC, there were fried plantains either that night or the next day for breakfast. Which just about covered all our "unique" culinary experimentation at the Soda el Rio. Though, as my bf kept insisting, the food was done better at the Soda el Rio, even if it wasn't different. Our various pastries that night were a bit disappointing - the fresh apple pies we'd gotten in Tortuguero were way better. Ah well, it's all about trying stuff. At dinner, we had the opportunity to talk to a few other people who'd gone to the other ziplining tour, which only reaffirmed that we made the right choice. They said the ziplining itself was fun but overall they seemed quite disappointed by the experience. Too much rain, too many people, too many lines... people were apparently bailing out after 3 or 4 lines (which is not possible on the SkyTrek tour), plus it sounded like the platforms in between were all high off the ground, which would have freaked my bf out more than the side of the mountain platforms we got at SkyTrek.

Sad - I started this post 6 days ago and finally am finishing it now. On the somewhat positive side, the remaining days on tour weren't quite as full, so there should be less to write about...

Costa Rica - Day Five

Our fifth day on tour was largely a travel day - I guess kind of a low key way to start out 2008. After breakfast at our lodge, I set out with my camera to take some quick shots of the property - mostly birds and flowers. There were some beautiful ginger plants, as well as some orchid-related flowers whose name I've forgotten that I particularly wanted to get photos of. We then loaded up into the bigger boats to journey out of Tortuguero, going to Cano Blanco (the other of the two departure points). The boat ride was largely intended to be transportational, so we spent most of the time initially just speeding along. However, at one point we stopped off at a ranger station, where apparently our pilot's brother worked, and they told our guide that if we went upriver a bit, we'd see some crocodiles. This was an interesting area, because it was where the river fed out into the Caribbean, and you could see waves crashing at the mouth of the river in the distance. We didn't go all the way, but not that far from the station, we found three large crocodiles sunning themselves along the bank. These were fascinating, really huge and completely immobile, although their eyes looked to be open. Our guide told us to keep our voices down so we wouldn't arouse the crocodiles. We kept probably about 20 ft away (no nosing right up to the bank in front of them this time!) and had ample opportunity to snap photos, and stare at all three crocs. Rather amusingly, one of our tour members suddenly noticed a little green lizard crawling right on one of the crocodile's back - darting up its body and then just hanging out by the ridge along its back. Given how thick a crocodile's skin is, it probably never felt a thing, but it was interesting to see how bold the lizard was. Looking at my photos later, I actually notice at least one or two other lizards, also hanging out in the croc's vicinity.

Continuing on, we came to a marshy area that was apparently quite shallow - some of the time, boats couldn't even pass since they'd just ground themselves. We went through this area quite slowly, giving us a good chance at spotting a number of birds striding along the water's edge, like the black-necked stilt. At first we were quite excited to see the snowy egrets, which are white and elegant looking, but as we motored along, we discovered that there was a snowy egret standing at regular intervals along the bank for miles and miles, each staking out its spot to fish - far more common than we'd realized. We passed a clump of I think recently fallen tree (unless it was a tree growing from the middle of the river) on which perched a flock of cormorants, one of which chose to show itself off to us (or just felt threatened by us). The guide was rather excited to point out the roseate spoonbill, a bird with an oddly shaped bill that derives its pink color from the crustaceans/shrimp it eats. It was interesting watching its fishing techniques - the snowy egrets mostly seemed to just stare intently into the water until they spotted something, and then would quickly duck their heads in and snap at their prey. The spoonbill walked through the water, swinging its head from side to side in an effort to find its prey (according to the Lonely Planet, it's stirring up the bottom with its feet, and fishes by feel, snapping when it feels something on its bill). As we got closer to Cano Blanco, we started to see a number of large herds of cattle, grazing along the land at each side of the river, bound onto their land primarily by the water. It was quite a picturesque setting for cattle. We also saw a number of what were ubiquitous all around the countryside - cattle egret, white birds that hung out around cattle and horses. Apparently they feed on the insects the large animals disturb, so almost every cow or horse we saw had a number of egrets hanging out nearby, some even sitting on the cow.

Eventually, we reached Cano Blanco where Marcos and our bus were waiting for us. After the inevitable restroom stop, we all loaded back onto our bus (first A/C in days) and set off down the bumpy gravel road back to the highway. Did I mention that the roads from the highway to the ports for the Tortuguero region were all unpaved? As we went, we passed through banana plantations again, and at one point passed an empty processing facility - this one might have been for Dole, I don't quite remember. Sergio explained that usually, we'd get a tour of one of the banana plants, but since it was New Year's Day, the plant was not operational as all the workers got the day off. As we continued, he pointed out a little village of identical houses which he said was the provided housing for banana plantation workers and their families. The ride back to the highway took quite a while, but eventually, we were back on paved roads and headed for the same restaurant we'd had lunch at on the way in, for lunch on the way out. At this lunch, we had the opportunity to try the cassava root in its more natural form - just as a chunk of tuber - which wasn't nearly as tasty or as interesting as the fried in honey version we'd had the day before at Laguna Lodge. We also got some fried plantains, which we liked going into the trip, and were happy to get while on the trip.

Back into the bus for an hour until we stopped at the Selva Verde Rainforest Reserve, to check out a 300-ft suspension bridge. Our bus driver executed a very impressive feat, swinging around quickly and backing the huge bus into a very narrow space with utter confidence and no hesitation. We were all kind of impressed. However, the reserve proved to be a rather disappointing stop, as the bridge wasn't very high, and just went over a fairly small river. Plus, it was gated off on the other side since it was a protected research center, so we could only go onto the bridge and then turn around and come back. And we could only go on the bridge a dozen at a time, so we spent a lot of time waiting to go on this rather lame bridge. On the other hand, while we were waiting we did get to check out a green poison dart frog that one of the reserve workers had found for us and was holding in his hand to show us. Apparently poison dart frogs give off a toxin on their skin, but you're really only at risk if you have an open wound. I tried to make my most of my time on the bridge, 'cause I kind of enjoy suspension bridge, bouncing up and down a bit and taking a photo of the rushing water under the bridge. We ended up spending the remainder of our time in the gift shop, where I once again eyed a bunch of wood products before impulsively buying a $4 bracelet comprised of various types of wood that was really quite pretty. We reached the time we were supposed to leave while I was still trying to check out, and Sergio tried to hurry us out, but then my dad came to tell us that there was a toucan by the cafe, so of course we all had to rush over there. It turned out to be a collared aracari, a smaller species of toucan, sitting on a feeder, gulping down bananas. That was quite neat to see. Poor Sergio had a particularly hard time getting everyone moving - usually everyone was quite good about getting on the bus on time but this time people were just sitting around chatting (and not even with the toucan as an excuse) and it took him a while to get us moving.

My guess is no one was in a rush to get back on the bus because everyone knew that the only thing remaining on our schedule for the day was a couple more hours on the bus, before arriving at our next hotel in Fortuna by the Arenal Volcano. In fact, I think that's why we stopped at the suspension bridge - to break up the monotony of the drive, provide a restroom break, and give us some kind of activity on essentially a transit day that wouldn't take too long. We drove through a number of cities and towns of Costa Rica, though I can't recall which right now. Eventually we wound up in Fortuna, a popular tourist destination and a cute little town. We drove through the town and then up a gravel, unpaved road to our hotel, the Lomas Del Volcan. The hotel may have been a bit of a distance from the town, but it ended up being one of our favorite places to stay. It was comprised of a series of cute little bungalows dotting the hillside, each a 1 bed/1 bath little house (with two queen beds) with a front porch and a good-sized back porch facing the volcano. Each porch had a table, chairs, a little fridge, and a coffee maker. The views of the volcano would have been amazing - if the volcano was able to be seen. Arenal Volcano is an active volcano with a regular lava flow, periodic explosions, and ash columns. They claim that sometimes you can see red-hot rocks flying through the air and lava shooting up from time to time, and that the lava flows pretty regularly and is visible at night. Despite the fact that these eruptions occasionally do kill people, a whole tourist industry has sprung up around the Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal with hotels, towns, and various expeditions all profiting from their proximity to this stunning natural wonder. The only problem is, the Arenal Volcano is only visible about 30% of the time, due to cloud cover. It was just our luck that practically the entire time we were in the Arenal area, it was raining and cloudy, so we mostly saw a dense cloud that didn't even give a hint that there was something underneath in the direction of the volcano. Also, apparently the best views of the lava flow were actually on the other side of the volcano. On the positive side, the hotel grounds were beautiful, with lots of flowers and plants and beautiful landscaping between the bungalows.

After settling into our room, my bf and I went up to check out my family's bungalow, and we spent some time hanging out on their porch until one of the other couples on tour came to visit my parents. At that point, my sister, my bf and I kind of wandered away, back to our bungalow, where we broke out a new game - My Word - and started playing on the table on our porch. The game is essentially a deck of cards with single or double letters on them, and you have to try to construct words using at least three cards - as the cards get flipped out, people call out words and the first to call one gets to take the cards. At the end of the deck, you see who has the biggest pile. After a while, my bf wandered away from the game (my sister and I are readers, he's not), and my parents came by to visit and joined in the game. Eventually it was dinner time, so we walked down to the restaurant to eat. The food at Lomas Del Volcan ended up being some of the tastiest of the various hotel buffets. It was very simple - just about 6 bins of food, a small salad, and a chef who would cook up pasta or an omelet (depending on the meal) on a couple burners - but quite satisfying. The food would also prove to be fairly authentic Costa Rican food, and not just an Italian or Spanish imitation or whatever. I'll explain how we figured that out later. The restaurant was open so you could look out at the volcano.

One of my dilemmas for this day had been that I really wanted to try ziplining in Costa Rica, because I'd heard so much about it and it seemed Costa Rica was the place to do it. The trouble is, it seemed the famous ziplining places were either in Monteverde or the Arenal Volcano area. We were only going to be passing through Monteverde and barely stopping, while in Arenal, we'd gotten in too late to go ziplining this day, and the next day was fully booked with some fairly interesting sounding excursions. We weren't the only ones who wanted to zipline, and we weren't the only ones who realized that Arenal was one of our few opportunities to try it. A whole contingent of tour group members had already decided to skip the next day's expedition to Cano Negro to go ziplining, and we were debating whether or not to join them. The morning's expedition was a 4 hour roundtrip to a bird preserve that was supposed to be one of the very best places to go birding and see a great concentration of rare birds and animals, and involved another boat tour, which you know I love. However, after talking to Sergio, we were reassured that while it's a nice place, Cano Negro wouldn't offer much different wildlife than what we'd seen in Tortuguero, so we wouldn't necessarily be missing anything new. That, coupled with the really long bus ride to get there and back, decided us. However, instead of signing on for the ziplining tour offered by the hotel at a nearby location, we decided if we were going to do it, we wanted to do it right, and go to SkyTrek, a ziplining company I'd researched before leaving the US. SkyTrek offered a tram up to the ziplines, and then a series of the longest, highest ziplines out there. They also had a great record and got great reviews as a rather thrilling adventure.

I should clarify something, though - my bf and my sister are both scared of heights. In my bf's case, terror would probably be closer to the right description. They both had serious issues with the idea of ziplining, but somehow both decided to give it a try while all the time telling me I was crazy for wanting to do it. Ironically, it was my bf who insisted that if he was going to do such a crazy thing, he wanted to do it "right" and go to SkyTrek instead of something lamer and tamer. The fact that some of the older people on tour were doing the hotel one in particular decided him. The four of us (including another guy who'd started hanging out with us initially since his parents kept hanging out with my parents and eventually b/c we got along well) arranged for our own trip out to SkyTrek. It was going to be more expensive - $66/adult, $52/student, and $8/person for transportation - but they'd send a van out to get us in the morning, and it promised to be a cool trip. Because SkyTrek is very popular, we weren't able to get a reasonable mid-morning time and the late-morning times would make us miss our next activity, so we ended up booking a 7:30AM excursion with the van coming by to pick us up at 7AM. Time for bed!

Costa Rica - Day Four

Tortuguero National Park (Parque Nacional Tortuguero) is most famous for the green sea turtles that nest in Tortuguero, though leatherbacks, hawksbill, and loggerhead turtles all also nest in Tortuguero. From February through November (particularly July through August), the green turtles come out of the sea to laboriously pull themselves on shore and lay eggs on the beaches of Tortuguero, and sixty days later, the hatchlings race back to the sea. Given that we visited in late December, it's probably no surprise that we were unable to see either the egg-laying or the hatchlings. There was a very small possibility, given that eggs could be laid as late as October/November, with the sixty day incubation until hatching, that if we got up at 5:15AM or so, we could have gone to the beach to see if any stragglers were still around, but the hotel employees said that no hatchlings had been seen for a while. Although it would have been very cool to see *if* there were any hatchlings, we decided to get more sleep instead. Similarly, Sergio had offered the possibility of going on a bird-watching hike with him around the hotel property around 6am, since he said we should be able to see something like 20 or 40 (I forget which) different species of birds just on the grounds of the hotel. Nice opportunity, but again, sleep won. As it turned out, my dad, forgetting that his watch was still on eastern time (Costa Rica is in central time), got my mom and sister up an hour early by mistake, so my dad and mom ended up going on the bird watching walk anyway. They said they did see a number of rare species of birds and that, mosquitoes aside (and there were plenty in Tortuguero), it was a good little expedition. My sister opted to nap in the rocking chairs overlooking the lagoon, waiting for breakfast to be served.

My bf, who is a very picky eater, tended to eat very little at these breakfasts since he dislikes beans (no gallo pinto for him), eggs, pancakes (he prefers waffles), and most other typical breakfast foods. I, on the other hand, happily accepted some pancakes that were griddled right in front of me, as well as scoops of gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, little sausages, and fried potato patties. Did I mention I ate too much in this tour? The maple syrup served at every breakfast that featured pancakes or French toast on tour was extra yummy for some reason - sweeter or something. We also happily accepted glasses of yet another yummy juice, and had our breakfasts while looking out at the Lagunas del Tortuguero.

It was then time for a real boat tour around the canals of Tortuguero. This time we were split into three smaller boats - open pontoons, each with a naturalist guide (ours was Ray, who had also been with us on our boat the previous day). My bf is really good at figuring out how to be the first to get seats, so he got us seats right at the front of the boat for an unobstructed view of anything that would be coming up. This ended up being useful particularly when the boat was steered right up to the bank in order to see animals hidden in thickets. Given that this was a tour expressly for the purpose of looking for wildlife, I brought my 70-200mm lens in the hopes of getting some good photos. Our boats all had to check in with the ranger station at the entrance to the actual park area, and then we were on our way. This was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me - I find spotting wildlife really exciting and I loved the boat ride a great deal.

One of the first animals we spotted was almost directly across the lagoon from our hotel - a huge, two meter long iguana (apparently this is the typical size) resting on a branch high above the water. My dad said he had seen another one that morning on the bird-watching tour. As we watched it, it raised its head and let out a mating call, several times. The iguana was quite spectacular looking. As we cruised along, Ray pointed out a whole bunch of birds, most of which I will not even attempt to remember or identify. We spotted a number of kingfishers, but heard even more of them. One of the more unusual ones we saw was the Anhinga, a black and white patterned bird that chose to show off its wings for us. One of the most common ones we saw was the little blue egret, a blue-ish grey bird that seemed to like to perch in picturesque settings - at the end of a lone, interestingly shaped fallen branch, or on a pretty rock, or something like that. I had to convince myself to stop taking a photo whenever I saw one, just because the setting was different.

As we cruised along, our pilot decided to navigate us down a side channel - I don't know if it's because he saw something or they just thought there was a chance we'd find something there. Close to the entrance of that channel, some people noticed suddenly that there were a couple howler monkeys in the trees above us. These were hard to spot, since they were fairly immobile and basically black blobs on the tree branches above, but once I did spot them they were neat to see. Quite large, too! The howler monkeys were the biggest of the three species of monkeys we ended up spotting this trip. After they gave us some time to stare at the monkeys (and in my case, try to snap some photos), the boat moved on until one of the tour members spotted something swimming in the water nearby. We all thought "crocodile!" but it turned out to be a caiman, related to crocodiles, but much smaller. All in all, the head (the only part we could really see) was probably less than a foot long. As we watched, the caiman glided along, and then submerged, IIRC rolling a membrane up over its eyes as it sunk, in a motion similar to a submarine submerging. We thought we had lost it, and the pilot continued cruising us along the side passage a little longer, when suddenly he started turning us, backing up and moving forward, and then pushing us nose first towards the bank, which was slightly alarming to me watching the branches of bankside plants coming at us. It turned out, though, that he had spotted where the caiman resurfaced and now rested unmoving among the plants overhanging the water. Our boat ended up stopped within a couple feet of the caiman, so I got a really close-up, clear view and some really great photos, to my immense excitement. As we floated there, another of the boats came down the passage, probably wondering what we were looking at, so we backed out and let them take our place.

Looking at my photos now, I don't recall if we stopped by the same group of monkeys, from the other side of the stand of trees, or found a different group of monkeys nearby, but we stopped to watch a number of howler monkeys foraging in the trees. One came out on a branch overhanging the water so we got a really good view of that one reaching for and munching on leaves. Another monkey much higher in the tree was doing some leaping between branches and hanging by its tail to get at food, while others sat in high branches. As we moved on, we reached an interesting kind of marshy area where plants grew densely on the water, and here we saw several northern jacana birds walking along on top of the plants and occasionally dipping down to try to grab something from the water. Cruising along, the pilot once again steered us straight towards another bank, to come to a rest against the thick reeds growing in the water. It took me a while to figure out where everyone was looking but once I saw it, it was hard to believe I'd missed the 2m long iguana sitting on some big palm fronds on the bank. Those iguanas are neat - so huge! Throughout our whole boat ride, I'd marveled at our guide and pilot's abilities to spot these animals as we sped along, but the one I really don't understand came at the end of the trip. We were going along slowly down one side channel when suddenly the pilot turned us and steered us into a sort of sheltered nook off the main channel, trees and leaves all around. When I finally spotted what made him head over there, I was boggled - a fairly small green lizard - I believe a basilisk lizard - on the side towards the base of a tree that blended in really well with the leaves surrounding it. How in the world he saw it, I still don't know. It was very neat looking, but very well hidden. Apparently the guides and pilots all grew up in the Tortuguero area so they all grew up seeing these animals and learning to spot and identify them, but wow. If humans are so good at spotting these fairly well camouflaged animals, shouldn't predators learn how to as well? At any rate, we were told these lizards were known as the "Jesus Christ Lizards" because they could walk on water.

That was the end of our first boat tour, which took probably approximately an hour and a half. Upon our return, we were greeted with snacks - a glass of watermelon-tasting fruit punch and a fairly yummy cookie each. Although our boat ride had been under sun and fairly clear skies, my bf had noticed some ominous clouds as we rounded the bend towards our lodge and sure enough, almost the instant we came ashore under the roof at the dock, the skies opened up and it started pouring. Luckily, the hotel had umbrellas everywhere (this must be a common occurrence) - stands by the docks, the restaurant, the bar, brackets for umbrellas on the lodge porches - so we grabbed one and ran back to our room since we had a bit of a break before our next excursion.

While we were in Tortuguero, our luck, weather-wise, really worked in our favor. By the time it was time for the next trip, the rain had stopped. We therefore were able to load into the boats with no issue for the short trip down to the Green Turtle Research Station (all travel was done by boats in Tortuguero). Ordinarily, during nesting season, I think this included walking along the beaches to look at nesting sites, but for us, we just got a video. This was a bit of a disappointment - I was hoping the research station was something more elaborate where we could really see and learn a lot about the turtles, and while the video was quite informative (and where I really got a good sense at how quickly those hatchlings speed towards the water), making me wish we had come during the nesting season, the station itself really was just one room with photos of animals and short descriptions around it, with a tiny little gift shop. The highlight of that particular stop for many was probably the guy outside chopping open coconuts with a machete and selling them to people with a straw stuck in for like $1 USD each. When you were done drinking the coconut juice, you could go back to him to break your coconut up so you could eat the meat inside. I've never liked coconut juice *or* coconut meat nearly as much as the coconut cream which I guess is a processed product - neither are as sweet as I like - but it was interesting trying a bit of my mom's coconut.

After the video, we all set off to walk down the beach to Tortuguero village (probably about a 10 minute walk?). This was pretty, but increasingly very hot and humid, with the sun beating down on us. When we arrived at the village, we stopped at a large gift shop and were given probably about an hour to explore the village on our own. The gift shop had the most expensive souvenirs, but we didn't realize it at first. If you continued into the village, there were a number of smaller shops, all with better prices. The village itself was quite cute - no vehicles, no big buildings, just a small pedestrian street with little shops and restaurants, as well as a nice little church, lining each side. For some reason, there were also artfully arranged heaps of rusty metal machines in various locations of the village too, which were neat looking but kind of random. The village itself also wasn't very big - or at least not very wide, located on a strip of land between the Caribbean and the river. My bf was getting quite hungry by then, and was craving some meat, so we kept looking at the restaurants and food stands we passed, but it wasn't until Sergio, passing by, told us that the pastries at one little bakestand were really good, that we decided to get anything. There were a number of different cakes - banana, chocolate, carrot, lemon, etc - but what really caught our eye were the apple pies - these pockets of pastry that looked quite a lot like apple turnovers. They already looked good, but the fact that they hadn't been there the first time we walked past, and then a tray full of them appeared by the time we went back suggested that they were fresh-baked. We bought one pie, and started heading back to the meeting point. The pie turned out to be extremely delicious - the crust was a little on the thick side, but had sugar crystals making it sweet and crunchy, and the apple filling - aside from being so hot it burned my mouth every time I took a bite - was sweet and incredibly good. After polishing the pie off, my bf really wanted to get more but we didn't think we had enough time. Finally, he gave in and went to ask Sergio who was like "sure, get some!" so we took off running and he bought two more, which we shared with my family at lunch. In the meantime, I finally indulged my wood love and turtle love, and bought a little turtle wood necklace for $3 in one shop..only to see one I liked much more for $4 at a roadside stand, so I finally went and got that one too. All in all, it was a nice little trip to Tortuguero village, highlighted by those delicious apple pies.

We were loaded back on the boats for the trip back to Laguna Lodge, and then it was lunchtime. I don't remember much about the food except yummy juice, and I think it was at this meal they served us a dessert that was fried cassava with honey on top, which was really delicious and everyone liked. We coupled this together with our apple pies, and finished the meal very happy. We had about an hour and a half break here until our next trip, which was billed as "time to enjoy your lodge's swimming pool" but I was exhausted, so we took a nap instead.

In the afternoon, we got another boat cruise - somewhat shorter - into another region of the park. I really loved these boat cruises, like I said. Breeze in my face, skimming along the water... This time my sister and I were standing right by the boats when they said it was time to load, so we once again claimed the first couple rows for us. It took a little bit longer to see our first animal on this trip, but when we did, it was quite exciting for me since we got to see another species of monkey, the spider monkey. The spider monkeys are smaller than the howlers, a reddish brown color instead of black, and a lot more agile. My guide later said that the spider monkeys like to put on a show - they see you and suddenly they're all swinging between the branches, hanging, and doing tricks. The ones we saw didn't do that so much - they seemed more intent on eating - but it was cute because one was either eating or just holding onto a big flower blossom, and kept playing with it and holding onto it, even as he swung from one position to another.

We were looking at another howler monkey when our guide suddenly cried out for us to get our cameras and binoculars ready and look up. He had heard the sound of macaws crying, and we looked up just in time to see a pair fly overhead, calling noisily as they went. Apparently it's rare to actually spot macaws - at the most you'll hear them or see them flying by - so even though they were mostly dark shapes against the sky, it was still neat in concept. As we boated along, we saw another boat stopped nose first in some reeds, with half the people standing and pointing cameras at something in front of them. Beside them was a mound of dirt with two river turtles on it, but they didn't seem interested in those. When they finally pulled out and we pulled in, our guide instantly spotted what they had been looking at, but it took us a little longer to locate what looked like two bumps in the mud at first - baby caimans, camouflaged quite well into the mud and plants, each only a few inches long but with all the same bumps, ridges, markings, and features of the adult caiman we had seen earlier in the day. They were actually quite cute.

As we pulled away from the baby caimans, we once again heard the howler monkeys. Ray explained that they were territorial calls, and then mimicked the call for us. When asked if the female monkeys also produced territorial calls, he said their calls sounded quite different, and then mimicked *those* for us as well. The howler monkey call doesn't really sound like a howl to me - more like deep-throated grunts and roars - but it is very loud and carries very far. As we floated along, we saw more and more river turtles - most sunning themselves on various tree or plant outcroppings in the middle of the water, and some swimming. We also saw another caiman swim by, and more little blue egrets. Ray directed our attention to a really big brown mass in one of the trees, and told us it was a termite nest (quite perturbing - it was really large). IDing birds is not my forte - suffice it to say we saw more Costa Rican birds as we went.

Then, as we were about to start the journey home, we got lucky and saw the third species of monkey that Tortuguero had to offer - a pair of white-faced monkeys (ie capuchins) up in a tree. These monkeys alternated between scratching each other's backs, and gazing intently and alertly off into the distance. After watching them for a while, the pilot started motoring the boat away when one of the tour group members said she saw one closer, just staring at her. The guide quickly told the pilot to turn back, and sure enough, we found a lone white-faced monkey sitting on a branch lower down and closer to the water, staring out at the water and eyeing us. After a while, that monkey decided to move along to check something new out, and we moved along as well, heading back to our lodge.

After our second boat tour, we still had a couple hours before dinner, so my bf and I changed into bathing suits to check out the "jungle swimming pool" at our hotel. We spent a fun couple hours splashing around, though for a while my bf got hijacked by a kid who seemed to live in the pool (my sister saw him there before our boat ride), who wanted to play. The kid didn't speak English (much - he knew some numbers and "GOAL!") and we didn't speak Spanish, so the rules of the game weren't clear at first - first it was just some toss with the three soccer balls he had, but then he decided to concentrate on playing with my bf, and seemed to want my bf to throw balls at him. My bf didn't quite understand - at first it seemed like he wanted to take hard hits from the balls, but eventually it became clear that the kid was acting as a goalie, and the objective was to try to get the balls *past* him. They went back and forth for a while, until finally my bf tried to break free of the game. It took a while for the kid to stop following him around and trying to reinitiate the play, but then we were able to lounge around in the water for a while, before going to rinse off and get dressed for dinner.

I don't recall much about dinner - the highlight in Laguna was the juice, not the food (food wasn't bad, just not a highlight) - though it was nice because Laguna had a cook making food on the spot for the main entree, instead of just bins of pre-made food. On the other hand, that did mean longer lines for the food. We had an earlier start for the next day, so I *think* we didn't do the card games that night. Instead, my bf and I wandered around the property, at one point going to lay down in the hammocks by the dock, swinging back and forth.

Actually, now that I think about it, we didn't play games because that night was New Year's Eve. They had scheduled some activities - around 10pm, there was to be a party at the snack bar by the pool with music and festivities. Around 6pm, there was supposed to be a calypso band playing in the bar, but we didn't go listen to that since we were in the pool at the time. My bf and I therefore killed time until 10 to check out the party (my parents and sister went to bed). When we went over, it turned out there was a DJ instead of a live band, and people were mostly sitting at tables, drinking and chatting. It was pretty much what we expected and not really worth it to us to lose sleep over, so after checking it out, we went back to our room to go to sleep. I ended up being kept up anyway, though, by the loud music (our room wasn't far from the bar), people laughing and yelling, fireworks on the beach around 11 (I was in the bathroom and figured by the time I got out there, they'd be over), and then the countdown at midnight. So technically, I was awake for the countdown to New Years, but I was in bed while my bf slept, so it wasn't exactly a big celebration. That's the earliest I've ever gone to bed for New Years but we *did* have a 7:30AM departure the next day.

I do have to say though - that was one of the best days on tour for me (did I mention I love boat rides?) and I found it in many ways a more enjoyable way to spend New Year's Eve, even if we didn't stay up until midnight, than many other New Year's Eves. But I've never really been into the party thing anyway.

Bye bye 2007!