Tuesday 8 January

We left Monteverde at 7.30 and stopped for breakfast about 1.5 hours later, after the road had finally turned to tarmac. Even at breakfast we were able to admire the wildlife.

Later we stopped at a road bridge over a river to look at the crocodiles.

We arrived in Quepos on the Pacific coast, the town not immediately appealing. Our accommodation was the Blue Monkey hotel, a little way out of the town. After lunch we walked down a back road to the town. We passed a shop that sold made-to-measure bikinis and a second hand bookshop/ internet shop. We had a smoothie in town before heading back via the seafront (stopping to admire the Xmas decorations) and past the casino back to the hotel.

Monday 7 January: Monteverde

Sal, Dana, Elaine, Dan, Tanya and ourselves were picked up at 10.00 for a zip lining trip to Extremo. This promised to be exciting and we weren’t disappointed. We had a short safety briefing before we headed up to the 1st zip line. After a couple of short runs it was time for a longer 425m run across the valley. For this one Wendy and I were put together, this turned out to be easier as there was less tendency to be turned around in the wind.

Two more short runs and we headed back across the valley on a 600m run and back for the third time on a 465m line.

2 more short ones and a bit of walking and we arrived at the 30m vertical rappel. This turned out to be rather tame as the rate of descent was controlled by the guides. The Tarzan swing got the adrenalin flowing, for half a second it seemed like you just dropped before swinging out and up with a good view back across the valley. After swinging backwards and forward 2 or 3 times the guides brought you to a halt. After that it was just 3 more short runs before the final 750m run back once more across the valley.
http://www.monteverdeextremo.com/

In the afternoon 5 of us headed up to the tree top walkways at Selvatura Park. It took quite a while to get out there and we hadn’t had any lunch and we were getting a little hungry. We managed to get sandwiches to go and we set off on the walkways eating as we walked. The trees were lovely but apart from the occasional bird we didn’t see any animals. We just managed to make the last shuttle bus back into town.
http://www.selvatura.com/

After we were dropped off at the hotel we decided to go visit the frogs at Ranario just down the road. These included the Red-Eyed Tree frog, star of the cover of Lonely planet guide.
www.ranario.com

Sunday 6 January: Monteverde

Monteverde/ Santa Elena N 10° 18.9' W 084° 49.4' 1345m
At 8am we took a guided walk in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Our guide Maria pointed out lots of interesting stuff. The highlight was the sighting of a number of Quetzal birds. This is the national bird of Guatemala. The male has a splendid long tail. By putting the lens of the digital camera to the telescope we managed to get some reasonable photos.

Dan and I saw a male bird swoop down from one tree to another, the girls having lost interest, it was also rather chilly (its not called a cloud forest for nothing). We heard again about the fig tree where the seeds are deposited high in an existing tree. There is soil there from dust in the air; analysis of this dust reveals the presence of sand from the Utah desert even. The young plant sends shoots down to the ground where they take root. Over time these thicken and surround the original tree trunk until the host tree is suffocated. Eventually the host tree rots and disappears leaving the fig tree with a hollow core. Some fig trees live to 300+ years old.

A number of very large trees had come down during the recent high winds. They don't have rings as you might expect because effectively there are only two seasons. Many of the smaller birds of different species flock together for protection. We saw many example of a red flower with a curved portion. Many plants have different shapes, each attracting a different species of hummingbird. The guide, Maria, picked a small pod, a little like a rosehip or coffee bean. It turned out to be a species of avocado. There are many varieties in the cloud forest. Many of the birds are migrants overwintering in Costa Rica. As we left the reserve there was a lone Coati he wasn’t too disturbed by the people.

Nearby was a place with sugar solution dispensers which were attracting a variety of hummingbirds, different sizes and colours.

After lunch at Stella's bakery we went to Don Juan's coffee plantation. They are only allowed to cultivate the arabica variety in Costa Rica. It is of higher quality and suited to the higher altitude (900-1700m). The coffee bean has a soft outer skin with normally two beans inside. The outer skin is composted using imported worms from US. The mulch is used to cultivate the new seedlings. The coffee beans ripen at different times on a given branch. The picking is very labour intensive and migrant workers are used who move on to different crops once coffee has been picked. The outer skin is removed and the beans are soaked in water. The water is changed five times until it remains clear. The ripe beans fall to the bottom. The under and over ripe beans float to the surface and are removed and used for poor grade coffee. The beans are spread out to dry in the sun for a week. The UV kills off any bacteria. The beans are then put in trays and transferred to the drying shed for a further three weeks. After storage for 6 months the husk is removed using a large pestle and mortar.
Don Juan himself appeared at the end of the tour. While we sampled his coffee he pulled out his collection of bank notes from around the world. Although we spoke little Spanish and he little English he was very welcoming and obviously pleased still to be involved in the coffee plantation though he must have been in his seventies.

At 5.30 we went for a night hike. We saw a large herd of coati, a porcupine inside a fig tree, 2 pit vipers, a thrush sleeping on a wind blown twig, tarantulas and thorn-like insects amongst other things.

Saturday 5 January

Paul woke up at 6am and on a whim took a look outside. While the sky wasn’t entirely clear it was as good as it had been. He managed to get some photos of the volcano though the very top was still in cloud, ah well.

This is how the volcano apparently looks without the clouds.

As we weren’t due to leave La Fortuna until 2pm we took a taxi around to the other side of the volcano. There is a national park with some walking trails. We took 1 leading to the 1992 lava flow. We climbed up onto the twisted and tumbled solidified lava. When we later met up with Dan (professional geologist) back at the hotel he explained the process. From time to time we could hear the volcano rumbling. There were signs warning against straying from the marked path. We had a pleasant 2 hours in the park before it was time to meet our taxi for our return to the hotel.

We had lunch at the hotel before setting off on the next leg. We hadn’t got very far when our leader realized he was missing his mobile phone. You know how the reps are always reminding you to check your belongings…… We hadn’t even got to the public highway, so I suppose it could have been worse. So we turned around, picked up the phone and set off down the drive again. In the few minutes a largish pile of soil and gravel had been dumped to repair the drive. So we had a little wait while they cleared a path. Unfortunately the path wasn’t quite clear enough with the result that we became stuck. We all piled out but in a flash Dan had set to and took a lead role in digging our vehicle out, while all the rest of us could do was to take photos and laugh.

We drove around to the lake that we had seen earlier from the National Park and transferred to a launch that was to take us across the lake to meet our onward road transport. I say road transport but all the roads to Monteverde are unsurfaced, it’s a way of ensuring that the place doesn’t get too popular. As we crossed the lake we were caught up by a rain shower.

After checking into our hotel in Monteverde we went for dinner at the treehouse restaurant.
http://www.canopydining.com/webcam.shtml
It was Tanya’s birthday so we helped her celebrate.

Friday 4 January

The white water rafting on the Balsa River trip that had been cancelled the previous day was rearranged for today. We were picked up at 10.50. On the way we stopped to look at a sloth, which was very close to the roadside. Apparently the mothers visit their offspring every 6 months to see how they are getting on after they complete 1 tour of their domain.
After arriving at the river we were given safety equipment and briefing, the rafting was rated as 2/3 level. During the rafting trip the sun came out.

It was pretty cold and damp back at the hotel so some of us decided that another trip to Baldi hot springs was in order. This proved to be a good move, there was no rain this time and the springs were as enjoyable as the 1st time. We had more goes on the water slides.

Thursday 3 January: La Fortuna

La Fortuna N 10° 27.6' W 084° 40.5' Elev 480m
It was a pretty wild night with high winds and very heavy rain.


Wendy was up at 6.00 am for her abseiling trip, she did seem to be entertaining some second thoughts. Meanwhile Paul got to lounge around the hotel and admire the clouds from the comfort and relative dryness of the veranda. There did seem to be patches of blue in the distance but they never got anywhere near the volcano.

In the meantime the abseiling trip was going well after some preliminary nerves. It was all very well organized. Elaine, Dan and Tanya, and Sal and Dana were also on the unforgettable canyoning adventure.

It comprised 5 abseils (rappels for the Americans) in a rainforest canyon (including 4 waterfalls and 1 canyon wall) with hiking between them. The first and longest was 50 metres. After psyching herself up (aka not wanting to embarrass herself by not proceeding) and completing this, albeit with a few wobbles on the way down, Wendy thoroughly enjoyed the rest! Bouncing off rock faces down into waterfalls is exhilarating and we all had so much fun, as you can see from the pictures (cameras, safely stowed in wet bags during abseils, did get a bit damp).

http://danandtanblog.blogspot.com/

Paul was all set to join Wendy for the rafting when the call came through from Vanessa that it had to canceled because of water levels in the river were too high.

There had been a problem with getting hot water as the high winds had blown the pilot light out on the gas water heater. This affected everyone in our group. We reported the problem to the hotel reception.
In the afternoon we headed down to the town firstly for some beer and snacks at the Lava Lounge and then to the souvenir shops! After around 5 mins Paul had had enough and after a further 30 mins we took a taxi back up to the hotel.
The hotel had constructed a rudimentary shelter around the water heater. This consisted of timber and plastic sheeting. We had visions of the entire hut going up in flames. Paul enjoyed a hot-ish shower, you had to slow the water flow right down. Wendy (with her innate aversion to cold showers) decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
That evening we headed back to the Lava Lounge (other restaurants were available) and joined the rest of the group for an enjoyable dinner.

Wednesday 2 January: Tortuguero to La Fortuna

Woken up by the howler monkeys, seemingly just outside our cabin.
After breakfast we left Tortuguero for the journey to La Fortuna. Fortunately we traveled in a covered boat for this journey to meet the onward road transport. Very shortly after setting off the skies opened. For the road journey our group had our own mini-coach with room to spread out.

On arrival we stopped at the Wave Expedition offices to arrange a few activities for the coming days with the helpful Vanessa. Wendy was keen to try the abseiling down the waterfalls but that tour seemed to be fully booked. This could be combined with a white water rafting trip, which we did manage to sign up for. www.waveexpeditions.com

After the arrival at our hotel, Lomas del Volcan, we had a message that Vanessa had managed to squeeze Wendy onto the abseiling (rappelling) trip the next morning.

The accommodation was individual cabins set on the hillside with a prime view of the Arenal Volcano, except for the clouds that is. The cabins were large and spacious with our own veranda to admire the volcano were it not for the aforementioned clouds.

The best view of the active volcano is apparently from the opposite side. But a planned visit to an observation platform was eschewed in favour of a visit to the hot springs, because of the clouds.

The hot springs were a great hit primarily because they were hot, a range of different pools with different temperatures were available. We even tried out the water slide. It was quite something to relax in a hot pool with a cold drink while the rain came down. The only problem was when it was time to get out, a bit of a shock to the system.
Did we mention the clouds?

Tuesday 1 Jan 2008

Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge N 10° 37.3' W 083° 32.3' Elev 2m
We were up at 5.00am for a 5.30am boat trip. As the boat moved quietly down the canals the guide pointed out the wildlife. Tiny bats on the underside of a trunk, well until they were scared away by a boat load of intruders. Two varieties of herons, caymen, an eagle, egrets, iguanas. As the guide was pointing out a specimen he was interrupted by an approaching rain shower. Without pause he and the skipper handed out capes before resuming his talk. Something tells us he’d done this before.

After returning from the dawn boat trip we picked up our wellies in preparation for a jungle walk. It was muddy, well they get 6m of rain a year in this region, this was the not-so-wet season. After strict instructions not to grab for branches or trunks (in case of unseen poisonous residents) we were off. Pretty soon the guide spotted something. He had it in his hands and was giving it a good shake. It was a tiny red poison dart frog. The name reflects the generalization that all poison frogs are used to poison darts but out of the 175 different species only 3 are actually used, so that’s all right then. The shaking disorientates and subdues the frog so that it sat on his hand. We wondered if it was the same frog that got the same treatment every couple of days or so. In which case he must be getting a little ticked off. Other highlights included the edible termites; they taste peppery we were told, we resisted the urge to indulge. Paul thought he saw a tiny green tree snake but it was gone before he had a chance to point it out.

There were massive fig trees which start out life as a seed high in the branches of an existing tree before sending down thin shoots to the ground. These root and thicken, eventually they surround the host tree’s trunk. The host tree eventually dies and decays leaving a hollow.

We resisted the temptation to go swimming in the rain and merely admired the pool.




In the afternoon after the rain had stopped we wandered in the other direction down the beach. We came across more weird wood shapes, including this crashed alien spacecraft. The amount of timber that had fetched up on the beach is amazing. It gets washed down the canals and rivers before landing up on the beaches. Some of it has clearly been there for a while slowly getting smoothed by the combination of the sea and sand. In places the sea was turned brown by tree trunks being pummeled off the beach. Saw a couple of species of wading birds and a small flock of pelicans.