Last Post from Costa Rica

This is the end of the journey, and it seemed appropriate to highlight some of the things that made us laugh in Costa Rica.

The first thing to mention was the signs.  There were very few problems for the English-speaking in Costa Rica, but occasionally the literal translations were inadvertently humorous.

Bathrooms of Costa Rica

Pardon my fixation on these kinds of things, but Costa Rica was definitely different than us.  In most places other than major centers and big hotels, it was expected that you did not flush toilet paper down the toilet; you placed it in a garbage can conveniently located nearby.  Despite that, I have never seen better presentations of toilet paper than here.  Oh yes, and glasses and towels.

And the best saved to the last:  there was whimsical art everywhere.  They seemed to have art just for the sake of having fun.  Things were made of unusual materials, like rubber tire hanging birds.  The use of colour was wonderful.  And everything useful still seemed to have a touch of art to it, like planters.  Light fixtures were much more interesting than ours.  And even the pictures in the hotel rooms were more interesting.

Thus ends our tour of magnificent Costa Rica.  This has been an intense time of wonder and discovery—what a great place to visit!  Thanks for joining us in our travels.  We’ll let you know when we go on our next trip.

A day on the bus is NOT boring............

OK OK, I was so wrong about having nothing much to mention.  Today was an amazing day.

First I must tell you about our bus and driver.  Our driver, Ercel, is a fabulous driver, and to see him deal with the suicidal maniacs on the road (ie everyone else) is a lesson in calmness and competency.  He owns the bus, which he calls Chi Chi, and spends every spare moment washing it.  He was commonly referred to as Mama Chi Chi by the other leaders.

The first stop on our trip was to see a bunch of crocodiles in an estuary.  Naturally, I didn’t expect them and was surprised at their size and numbers.  An iguana clearly didn’t fear them, and made a hop over one crocodile’s tail as the shortest distance to his next destination.

Lunch was at a tiny local restaurant, in an open air dining room, and the food was again excellent.

Then we went on a birding walk through the dry tropical forest, and got some dillies.

A Turquoise-browed Motmot

A Ferruginous Pygmy Owl

And Scarlet Macaws flying overhead and then some in a tree.

And the final unusual thing was finding seed pods of the national tree, Guanacaste.  They look like ears and sound like the best musical shakers I’ve ever heard.

Sorry this post got delayed--there were some internet access problems.  There will be a final Costa Rica post tomorrow on funny signs, bathrooms and whimsical art.

Just when I thought that yesterday could not be surpassed, we spent another day at the beach at Marino Bellena National Park, this time at a more northerly location.  Today the beach was almost entirely sand, and although there were people there, it seemed very isolated.

We first went through a coconut palm and then a mangrove forest.  At the base of a coconut palm tree, our guide, Noel, taught us about the dangers of coconuts falling on our heads.  These suckers were big!  Then you could see them sprouting, all of which is very natural, but a little remote from the coconuts you can occasionally buy at the grocery store.

The mangrove forest was so different, and fascinating.  We saw a fair number of termite nests, which are built above the level of high tide, so they don’t get carried away.  Noel touched a couple of ants while showing the nest, and ended up with the terrible smell of formic acid on his finger.  Obviously

something to see and not do........

Our group continued on down the beach and waded across some water to a spit of land that had some very interesting rock formations.  While some of the group went swimming, others of us went to check out some tide pools. 

One tide pool was only about 8” deep and maybe 12 feet long, but it was full of creatures.  There were about a dozen different kinds of small (1-2”) tropical fish, ranging from deep blue in colour, to black and yellow striped, to one with polka dots and another one with a dramatic stripe.  Then there was a striped eel about 12” long, a sea star, a puff fish and little crabs.  (No pictures, these moved way too fast.)  One thing I found astonishing was how hot the water was in these tide pools.  In one, the water was too hot for my feet to be comfortable.  How these little beasties survive in this speaks of tremendous agitation.

We strolled back in a leisurely fashion, with the Brits using the hotel umbrellas to keep the sun away.  We had to go back for another big lunch, following by an afternoon of lounging around.  The weather continues to be very hot, humid, and sunny, although we have seen lightening at the end of the day the last couple of nights.  Coming home will bring us back to reality very quickly.

Tomorrow, we will be on the bus for most of the day, but I will provide some highlights of different things we have seen.

A Day on the Beach in Costa Rica

We are at this gorgeous resort that is about a 20 minute walk away from the beach.  After breakfast, we walked down to the Pacific Ocean along a very stony beach that had hundreds of tiny hermit crabs scuttling around the stones.

A portion of the beach had some base sedimentary rocks that had had lava flows, making for some dramatic contrast.

We walked though a little bit of forest to the next beach which was deserted, and it was glorious sand.

Then we went through a cave (wading through water) until we came onto an ever more glorious beach!

In the afternoon, we went for a walk through the rainforest jungle behind the hotel, and came upon some interesting plants.  This one is called Hot Lips!!

There was plastic piping along part of the trail, and this appeared to be part of the water supply.  We came upon a piece of pipe that had been punctured and was spraying water.  Brian, showing the most energy I had seen so far, happily brought out some hockey tape from his pack(!), and repaired the leak temporarily.  An engineer’s walk!

Some of the final highlights of the trail were a passionflower vine, and an owl butterfly (named for the owl eye in the wing) that was only about 6” long.

By the end of the day, because of the temperatures in the mid-30’s, we had both had two showers and were on our third change of clothing.  This was quite a change from 8000 feet and cloud forest!

Ramblings in Costa Rica

             Today we started out in Mountain Cloud Forest up to 12,000 feet and ended up at the Pacific Ocean at sea level.  So, just as we did a little rambling around, I will do some rambling around in topics.

             We went for a little bird walk before leaving, and saw the Resplendent Quetzal.  My picture isn’t great because he was deep in the foliage while his wife rooted in a cavity tree close by.  Try looking it up on Google, because it is worth it.  In the meantime, all of you are supposed to have fallen down gasping, saying, “SHE has seen the Resplendent Quetzal?  How awesome!  This is the ultimate of life!!”  I will try to bear your envy.

The ecosystems in the cloud forest are extremely complex, and I will try to explain one special set of interactions.

This is one of hundreds of kinds of Bromeliads in Costa Rica.  They often live in tree branches to get better light from the sun although you can see them on the ground as well.  Not only are they beautiful, but they form an integral part of the forest.

Remember all soils are poor in CR because of the constant rain leaching minerals from the soil.  The Bromeliad structure allows it to hold water in its base.  Leaves, etc fall into the water and are decomposed by bacteria that releases nutrients to benefit the Bromeliad.  Then tree frogs can use the water, and they become a source of food for some birds.  The water is also high in tannic acid from the leaves of the oaks, and the R.Quetzal needs to drink that kind of water because they have evolved to deal with the tannic acid.  Each component of the forest needs every other component.

Now on to a more interesting topic.  We stopped at a tiny little restaurant along the road.  Our party filled the restaurant.  We were served a meal of typical CR food:  fish, chicken, shredded cabbage salad, rice and black beans, plantain, and mixed vegetables including potatoes, carrots and squash.  I think it was the best fish I have ever eaten in my life.  The fish was trout caught just in the morning, cleaned and served.  The food here is not spicy, but very savoury.  Back to the quirky—this is a picture of the little garden in the entrance.  Notice the paint cans?

By the time we got to the Pacific Ocean, it was very warm (33C) and humid.  The room was impressive, and so is the view from our balcony.

I will end this with a sign from a coffee shop:  Drink coffee!  Do stupid things faster with more energy.

San Gerardo de Dota and the Mountain of Death

Today we did an 8 mile hike that covered 4000 feet of descent from a 12000 foot summit.  The Mountain is called the Mountain of death—what can I say?

We hiked through three layers of cloud forest, starting at subalpine level, then descending into Black Oak Forest, and then ultimately into White Oak Forest.

The subalpine is called the Paramo, and is what our guide called the wet desert.  The summit straddles

the Pacific and the Caribbean sides and you can see two sets of vegetation:  the dark bushy blueberry shrubs on the left and the lighter bamboo on the right.

The plants go through tremendous adjustments to suit themselves to this environment.  Leaves will be shinier because of wax used to protect the sunlight.  Mosses, bromeliads and even new leaves trees tend to be red in colour, since the chlorophyll cannot tolerate the intense sunlight.  They will turn green in the rainy season.

The black oak trees got larger as we descended, and they were covered in mosses, ferns, lichens, etc.  There is a symbiotic relationship where the tree provided support while the occupants help provide water and nutrients back to the oak.  Rains leach all of the nutrients out of the soil, so the soils here are considered very poor.

Cloud was coming in as the morning progressed.

Generally the trail was steep, rocky and tricky.  Occasionally, you would into really big round rocks that had been hurled out of a volcano some distance.

By the end of the trail, the trees were huge in diameter and in age.  This one is estimated to be at least 500 years old.  By that time, our knees were dead, we were whacked and it time to go to the bar.

I keeping seeing things here that boggle my mind.  We came upon research stations used to help establish sighting of the 6 kinds of mountain cats.  The research sets up cameras along with brushes soaked with a certain cent that the cats like.  The cats will rub against the brushes providing hair samples for the researchers to analyze.  There was a wildlife camera across the arrangement to take picture.

Now, here is the best part.  After trying to create various effective scent baits, the researchers discovered that the Calvin Klein perfume “Obsession” works very well.  Go figure.

Time to toddle...we will be at the Pacific Ocean by the end of the day.