Monteverde

Yesterday we headed out to Monteverde first thing in the morning, which was not exactly as early as intended. On the way we saw a bunch of signs pointing to a German Bakery, so we decided to take a peek inside. The smell of fresh bread was overwhelming, and we knew we had come to the right place; good bread is much harder to find down here than expected. We picked up four loafs of bread, two black bread, a multi-grain, and the fourth being whatever else it was that they had. Mark’s sweet tooth called out and he got a cupcake and a honey bun as well. With the bread in the bag we got back in the car and were now ready to make the rest of the trek.

A couple hours, a bunch of dirty rough roads, and two and a half loaves of bread later we had shown up to a little tourist booth just outside of town, and we booked a canopy zip-line tour, a night tour, and a hotel for the night. We went into the town to find our hotel at the Sunset Inn, and met the owner, who happened to be a German sharing the same last name as us; the natural thing to do seemed to be to share our delicious, fresh baked, German bread with him, which he gladly accepted. Pressed for time we shipped out and drove deeper into the city, but ended up getting a little lost with the lack of signs pointing towards where we needed to go, and showed up a little late, but ended up hopping onto the end with the group; if we joined the later tour we would have been late for our bus pick-up for the night tour. They started off a bit slow, but as we got further in on the tour the zips got longer, higher up, and faster. Unfortunately there was a lot of waiting in line for several of the zips, and time grew close as we were supposed to be picked up from our hotel by bus at 5:30. To our surprise they had a Tarzan swing for us to do 3 zips before the finale, which was quite the rush. We got some videos of that, which I’m sure will be put up here in some way shape or form. The last two zips were amazing, crazy fast, and so long that the end couldn’t even be seen, and we were high above the trees. While waiting in line for the very last one, the zip spanning a mighty 1km, the person in front of us began to shake and break down, wondering if there was another way that he could get back to the start, but he was able to get up the nerve and do it. For this one we had to be paired up, probably needed the weight to make it all the way to the end. We zoomed all the way back to the start, watched a couple more people come in, and got to the car to get back to the Sunset Inn to drop off our bags and get picked up by the bus. <> showed us our room, we dropped off our belongings, and were alerted that the bus was already here to pick us up, so we left and boarded. We picked up several more passengers and went on to the night tour.

The guides there recognized us from earlier at the canopy tours. We were given our flashlights and were guided through the woods. Before the tour even officially began a family of four raccoons emerged from the woods and scampered about. There was two other groups being led about so we went to the other half of the woods to get some privacy, so that all the animals wouldn’t have already been scared away. We saw oodles of insects, and learned some neat facts about them as well. My brother and I were spotting out at least half of the stuff during the tour, but we were going flashlight crazy looking for animals and insects. We learned about some trees, plants, and other animals. I was constantly on the lookout for the Kinkajou, which I learned could best be found during a night tour in the cloud forest (I had wanted to see one since my first visit to Costa Rica 12 years earlier, and since then it had become my favorite animal). There were lots of bats flying around as we looked at mostly insects, but they were interested in this strange fruit that was growing everywhere. We wandered around for a while and we came close to another group, and I thought I heard one of them mention something about a kinkajou, but I figured I had misheard. At this point the guide received a message on his walkie talkie about a “martilla” which is the Spanish name for a Kinkajou, and also the Olingo. Quickly we ran over there and I was finally able to catch a glimpse of one, he was being lazy in the tree but he was climbing around for a bit. I could have stared at him for quite a while but we had to go on with the tour, it was a while before the smile slid off of my face. Some more insects, spiders, plants, and bats later, the tour was over, and we headed into town to grab some food. We had some tipico (typical Costa Rican food) and finished it off across the street with some sushi. The waiter at the sushi bar was a different tour guide from the night walk, it seems that they just can’t get enough work! Content and happy we headed back to our lovely room at the Sunset Inn, and crashed for the night.

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Monteverde

My dad woke up this morning and went for a small walk. He met up with me while I was eating my delicious breakfast and mentioned that he had encountered quite a large bird which he could not identify. After my brother ate we went to the Hanging Bridges at ???????? , the same place as the zip lines tour. It was a major disappointment after seeing everything at the bridges in La Fortuna. The only animals we encountered were butterflies, and not even many at that, perhaps it was the screaming sound of the pulleys and the literally screaming people riding them that scared them all off. The Cloud Forest was very misty, wasn’t raining most of the time but all the moisture in the air caused the trees to drip from above. Whenever we would encounter a big beautiful tree full of life, there was a zipline platform up above that I’m sure was too confusing for any animals to wish to live near. We left seeing nothing new and went back into the town and headed over towards the Cheese Factory, where they made over 150 kinds of cheeses. We ordered milk shakes, a banana split, a hamburger, and a hotdog. The hamburger tasted like a Greek gyro’s meat. The shakes and split were pretty good. We overheard a woman discussing to her friend about how she accidentally encountered her first Quetzal when searching for a Bell Bird, so we decided to ask her where she saw this in hopes of catching a Quetzal ourselves. She told us of a little forest and so we headed in that direction. Time was running short for us however as we didn’t wish to have to drive down the pothole infested dirt roads during the dark, so we only wandered around for a little bit, but still saw more wildlife in the 15 minutes we were there than the several hours at the hanging bridges. We left not seeing the bird we came in search of and decided we could quickly run through the Serpentarium before heading out, at this point it had also started to rain. We saw the snakes, lizards, and turtles, and headed back to La Fortuna. We tried to go to the German Bakery to get more black bread but the store was closed, perhaps another day. A confused bird flew in front of us as we got near to the city, cutting left, then right again, and then straight into our windshield; ironically this was right after a conversation about hunting/killing/capturing animals in Costa Rica. After a 50 millisecond moment of silence we pressed onward and eventually made it back.

We went to go for a night hike at the little park we had permission to wander through at our own leisure, but left Mark at the room as he said his stomach was bothering him and he didn’t have his contacts in. We grabbed our flashlights and headed on down the road. Managed to find the park and went in, headlight equipped, and flashlights in hand, ready to find some real wildlife for the day. About 5 minutes in a giant heron type bird burst out honking loudly right in front of our faces causing us to jump back. We didn’t see much else besides that on the walk and then decided to head back to the room to retire.

- Karl

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White water Rafting - Volcano - Bar Maid

We rafted the Rio Toro yesterday. We travelled about 17 kilometers in 60-70 minutes. That is a pretty good clip, a far cry from tubing down the Brazos. Normally this would be a “3 hour tour” (sing the song) but the water was up and moving fast. We have no pictures to share, I don’t think I will be buying them from the tour company as nothing is really in focus, maybe we were moving too fast for a junior photographer.

About 17:00 yesterday it started to get really clear, so we decided to go see the volcano. We drove down near the national park on the base of the volcano and there were cars and tour buses everywhere just past the river. I thought I was going to rip the bottom out of the Toyota Yaris as it bounced off the river boulders. In isolation it would have been a great observation point, but ignorant tourists were everywhere, kids were playing with flashlights, just shining them in random directions and the camera flash from wannabe photographers was rendering our eyes insensitive to the subtle changes in hue of the smoke at the top of the volcano as it started to glow like a cigarette tip.

Mark napped from 3 pm to 5 pm yesterday, Karl and I walked over every street and visited every store for 2/3 of the town. I picked up an 8 port 10/100 mb/s rj45 switch so that we could all use the internet simultaneously and a new headset for skyping.

We gave up and drop to the Arenal Observatory where for a $4 cover fee each we sat in chairs on a lovely deck way farther up the mountain and observed the volcano with people who had a clue, taking time lapsed photographs from tripods or watching through binoculars. Not a one of them thought that the flash from their cell phone would illuminate the top of the volcano that was 2 kilometers away.

I went to bed at 11:00. When I woke up at 6:00 Karl was not here. When he returned at 7:00 he reported that things were a little slow here last night so he went to the bar and was with the barmaid (a California girl) and that she wants him to be his room-mate. Then he went directly to bed. I guess the 8:30 lava trails walk is off..

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Arenal Hanging Bridges

Things got a little out of control here yesterday so we had to defer the white water rafting until tomorrow. We will be going on Rio Toro.
I guess we will head out to the waterfalls at the park after the kids get up. They were out on the town until 4:30 in the morning.

We headed out to Hanging Bridges, just west of the dam on Lake Arenal. It was a beautiful hike with many kilometers of trail on the ubiquitious concrete blocks that are used on trails and driveways in Costa Rica. These blocks have a 10 cm x 10 cm opening through which grass grows, this helps not turn the whole thing into a virtual sluice. Mammalian wildlife was varied and abundant and avian wildlife was plentiful but the area exhibited a herpetological paucity to our untrained eyes and only one reptile was spotted, a very small eyelash palm pit viper. As for primates we spotted a Howler Monkey, 2 or three troops of white faced monkies numbering in total a few dozen and a couple of spider monkeys, the squirrel monkey eluded us.

We encountered our first tapirs while we were on the first bridge. There is not a great deal of subtlety in their motion, the landscape goes into windless convulsions, though spotting them through dense foliage may be a bit more problematic. Pics



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Car Swap

We drove from La Fortuna back to Liberia and swapped out the Caravan for a Toyota. The roads are very narrow here and there is no shoulder. When an 18 wheeler or a bus comes around a turn 2 feet into your lane, there is nowhere to go. Besides it was a gas hog. At 550 Colones per Liter and 5.5 kilometers per Liter I was burning about $60/day in gas and running a high carbon foot print.

I needed better internet connectivity than could be had from the Internet Cafe. I found a place that allows me unlimited number of connections with some pretty good throughput for $10 / day, with my own coffee maker and a place to store my bags. It also has a kitchenette, living room, bedroom with 2 queen sized beds, good air, nice location right on the edge of town, maid service and laundry service.

The feeder hose to the kitchen sink broke this morning during my morning coffee. Triage! Two notebook computers and 2 cell phones were on the floor connected to chargers. 4 duffel bags, 2 suit cases, a computer case were thrown on the beds. Rudy, the landlady’s boyfriend quickly shut off the water but we were an inch deep in water through the whole apartment. The hose had snapped off just where it joined the 1/2″ FIP fitting. Rudy went off and bought a similar replacement line and it kept leaking. I told him he had the wrong type of supply line but he had a hard time believing me because he bought the same kind that had been on there. As the supply was 1/2″ PVC MIP the zinc FIP with washer was never going to do the job. We walked down to the ferreteria (hardware store not a ferret restaurant) and I walked behind the counter and found a nylon supply line. I told him this would work if he hasn’t already damaged the thread on the PVC by over tightening. He had. So for now there is a bucket there, I told him to go off and get a hacksaw, a shutoff valve a 1/2 PVC to 1/2 MIP adaptor, some solvent and glue and we would have it fixed in half an hour.

It is now 10:30 I’ve been dicking with this for about 3 hours, it is time to go out and book a white water rafting trip for tomorrow

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Arenal

We arrived in La Fortuna yesterday, we are staying at Arenal Lodge on the side of one ofMount Arenal.


The volcano had been dormant since October 1922 prior to a VEI=2 eruption in 1968.[2] The eruption wiped out the town of Arenal and killed 87 people.[3] It lasted for several days, and during that time destroyed crops, property, livestock, and forests. Fifteen square kilometers were buried and the explosion affected over 232 square kilometers. It has been active almost continuously since the eruption.

Pics from last night.

It is 8:50 in the morning with a heavy drizzle so I think I will take a pass on the butterfly tour.