I'm a bit behind with this but these are the last entries of my first phase in Costa Rica. I'm currently on a Spanish School course in the north of Nicaragua before returning to Tortuguero next week. More to come on Nicaragua next.
DAY 51
Feb 28th 2010
I’m supposed to be going to Tortuguero for a forest walk on the northern end of the trail, but I arrange to stay in Tort to try and use the internet and call my folks on Skype using one of my fellow volunteers Iphones. Unfortunately, a series of events such as me leaving my plug adaptor for the laptop and my payment to my new Skype account not clearing in time, means that I can’t accomplish all I want. Ah well. Long weekend coming up and hopefully I’ll get the chance then.
The Jag-walk team are out today and they make it back to Tort in record time and are back by around 11:30 (We made it back around 14:00).
The boat ride back is notable for the fact that I see a really cool Bat Falcon hunting over the tops of the riverside trees. It has smart orange-red ‘trousers’ and a clear white neck on a black head and back. It’s probably hunting the numerous swallows and martins that seem to be quite abundant today – probably a fair number of migrants heading north.
Last night and tonight we have been able to carry out a turtle night walk. This is in the hope of seeing one of the turtles that have been coming ashore recently. Come the 1st of March we are not allowed on the beach at night (unless doing official surveying) so this may be our only chance for a while. The walk consist of walking along the tide line without torches looking for fresh turtle tracks that will indicate that a turtle is up on the beach. Our night is tonight and it's pretty cloudy, which is a shame as there is a near full moon up there somewhere. It’s quite an atmospheric walk but alas there are no turtles to be seen.
There is a slightly freaky moment at the end of the walk, when someone (we assume one of the farmhands who have been camping up in the coconut field nearby, presumably to try a keep the Jaguars away from the cows, who have recently calved) shines a really powerful light in our faces from just up the beach. We then hear a ‘pop’ sound like some kind of small firework or capgun or something. Our initial reaction is that they fired something at us, but the noise is way to small to be a gun. Nothing hits us though and the torch disappears and our emergency torch reveals nothing. It freaks us out for a few minutes and we hurry on past and back to base fairly quickly and there are no further incidents.
DAY 52
March 1st 2010
I must admit that writing this retroactively, I can't remember too much about today. The most exciting thing that happened was that an Armadillo ran past the base entrance today around lunchtime, prompting a mass exodus of people to chase it down the track. It scurries away before stopping to nose about at the base of a pile of old coconuts seemingly oblivious to us gathered around taking pictures. I didn't have time to grab my camera so I'll need to steal a pic from James.
DAY 53
March 2nd 2010
We’re off to Cano Negro today so an early finish to our morning survey which consists of monkey monitoring. We see some monkeys, a small snake and a small lizard. Not bad for a couple of hours. There are four of us going myself, Andrew and newer volunteers James and Kyle. The rangers from the station just down the river are picking us up and we will flag down the public boat from there to take us to Cano Blanco. The ranger that picks us up only speaks Spanish and at an incredible rate. Even Andrew who is pretty good at Spanish struggles to converse with him. He does give us a quick tour of the river between our beach and the ranger station finding us an Osprey sat up on a high perch with a fish, a group of Howlers sat in the trees overhanging the water and best of all, the biggest crocodile we have seen yet here in Costa Rica. My jaw drops at the size of it (maybe 12-15ft). It’s the sort of creature that you see on TV eating Zebras in the Serengeti.
Despite our difficulty with the language barrier, the ranger treats us hospitably during our roughly 40 minute stay. The ranger station is a lovely little spot on the side of the river with great views. We see pelicans and a fishing Osprey out on the river as well as another croc gliding along the opposite bank. There is a very cute puppy living here who is super-excitable and literally bounds up to us – it’s almost the spit of our very own base dog Jack, crossed with a sausage dog. The ranger knocks down a couple of ripe coconuts and splits the top off them with a couple of practiced machete swings and passes them over to us to drink. I have had a little bit of coconut milk during my time here and not been too impressed, but this is perfect. It’s a little bit fizzy and incredibly refreshing. We also get to eat some of the fresh flesh, which is also delicious.
Eventually, a boat picks us up and takes us downriver to Cano Blanco where we again spend a couple of pleasant hours relaxing, eating and drinking before our bus to the busy little town of Siqurres. We have a little bit of trouble finding our bus to San Jose as it goes from another terminal. This means we have a little bit of time to kill and we have a wander around and find a café to have a cake and a coffee. We also find a little internet café to book a room in Gaudy’s hostel in San Jose, where all of this began. I like Siquerres. It’s not a particularly pleasant place to be quite honest, but it's busy with people and it's pretty loud and dirty, but it’s also very vibrant and full of life. I don’t know why I like it but I do.
Eventually we get our bus and the journey is mostly in the darkness, do despite taking the highway through Braulio Carillo National Park, there is no view to speak of. A taxi from the San Jose bus terminal is very efficient and very reasonably priced, and gets us to Gaudy’s. It barely feels like we’ve got there as I head to bed pretty quick as we are up at 4:00am the next day. My trusty earplugs again prove essential dormitory gear as the rest of the guys are kept up by some selfish and noisy girls. I get a very good night’s sleep.
DAY 54
March 3rd 2010
We are up at 4:00am to start our walk to the bus terminal for our 5:00 am bus. The poor guy that drew the night shift at Gaudy's is pretty incredulous that we intend to walk, telling us that we'll get robbed. Thankfully, he orders us a taxi, but this means that we need to hang around for about 40 minutes. I take the time to have a quick look at Facebook and end up instant chatting with my good friend Roxy back home in Conwy. The wonders of technology.
The bus ride is 5 hours and to be honest I doze through most of it, despite the crippling lack of leg room. In my brief periods of wakefulness I do see some quite nice little towns and views along the valleys of the central mountain range. I don't know where any of them are though.
Our final destination is the border town Los Chiles. Several kilometres to the north is Nicaragua. You get turned away if you approach by road apparently but you can get a boat along the river to cross over. I'm not sure exactly why this is logical but there it is. We descend from the bus into a throng of currency-exchangers, no doubt looking to make a tidy profit from short-changing those tourists daft enough not to already have got some Nicaraguan cash. To his credit the first guy to approach us and find out that we don't want money, then tells us exactly what bus we need, when it leaves and where we get it from. Thanks!
We head over the road from the bus terminal to a small soda (cafe) that appears to be opening. A nice lady is sweeping and kindly puts out some chairs for us and serves us up some nice casado (rice and beans plus some kind of meat and pasta). It's cheap, very local and very nice. They also tend to be quite different wherever you go. It's a pleasant way to spend an hour or so before boarding a rickety yellow ex-schoolbus that rattles along a bumpy track to the small village of Cano Negro. It's a very picturesque little village that centres around a store (don't they all). Our host is Kingfisher Lodge run by a old gentleman named Mr Sequera. Though he does not speak English, he is patient with us and his weatherbeaten face is crinkled into an almost permanent smile. Andrew's Spanish is also good enough to get us through, although James also proves to be a bit of a dark horse with quite a knowledge of Spanish as well. Mr Sequera takes us up the road to a quiet area where his cabinas (cottages) are located. They are very pleasantly decorated yet simple. There are three beds (including a bunk-bed) and a ceiling fan (not that we may need it as it is much cooler here). We arrange a taxi for the morning when we leave and arrange a tour with Mr S himself tomorrow.
Not wishing to waste any time we decide to go and have a walk around the village. Straight away just in the gardens and field edges we start seeing birds and I notch up two new species straight away plus some cool Red-lored Parrots. There is a MINAE office nearby who we figure should be able to provide us with a map and some info about the refuge but surprisingly they can't tell us anything. How useful.
Unperturbed we continue onwards and stroll through the village clocking up more bird species and also a rather cute red and black squirrel munching on some leaves. We find a wooden arch which appears to lead towards some water and given that we are in a wetland refuge would seem to be the way to go. It leads to a rickety wooden quay that looks out over a large pond. There is a profusion of different species of waterbird on this pond. Many species that are study species for our Tortuguero Canal Bird surveys are here including, several herons, two kinds of duck, the quite rare Limpkin (a kind of brown spotty stork) and several Purple Gallinules (rare in Tort but underfoot here). There is also a flamingo-pink Roseate Spoonbill and a beautiful White Ibis. Excitingly there are also several Spectacled Caiman (a kind of small crocodile) lurking on the opposite bank and in the water. We sit on the quay for a while watching the wildlife, before following the path along the bank of the pond to a river where many boats are docked. The path continues along the river bank for a little while and overlooks a muddy-fringed scrape on the left. There are birds everywhere. Large flocks of wading birds and ducks are feeding on the scrape and there are about six more Spoonbill, a huge Wood Stork, another Limpkin (not so rare here) hanging around. In the scrubby growth on either side of the river are a multitude of singing Red-winged Blackbirds and excitingly the Nicaraguan Grackle (a kind of crow-like blackbird) which is restricted to southern Nicaragua and only this area of Costa Rica. Returning to the pond, Kyle manages to find a Boat-billed Heron lurking in the vegetation overhanging the river and we marvel at the sight of three normally secretive Gray-necked Wood-Rails (I've only seen three total during my time in Tortuguero) wandering about in the open. In just a few short hours we have seen a total of 65 species of bird. This truly is 'world-class' birding. I'm not even sure we need the tour.
There happens to be a bar located at the edge of town which backs out onto the pond and has another rickety quay with some tables and chairs set-up there. We grab some beers and sit watching the herons fishing. It's a pretty surreal experience and I'm sure that I've never been birding and drinking at the same time. Dusk falls and Nightjars start circling above the pond catching insects. We also see a Night-heron emerge from its daytime roost to begin its nocturnal feeding.
A very pleasant local restaurant serves us up a fish meal in the evening. The fish actually turns out to be a whole cooked fish, which is pretty hard going but tasty.
I get a good night's sleep and I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's tour.
DAY 55
March 4th 2010
We are up early and head over to Mr S's house where he and his wife greet us hospitably and serve us up fresh coffee and buttered fresh toasted bread (a luxury that you only miss when you don't have it). They also show us an injured Mottled Owl that apparently flew into a fence and injured it's wing. They are trying to nurse it back to health. It's a shame that it's hurt but it is a rare opportunity to see an otherwise hard to see animal.
We have paid for a four hour tour and Mr S pilots the boat himself. It's a medium sized vessel, covered (probably better uncovered today as its nice weather, but undoubtedly an essential factor if it should rain) and more than spacious enough for the four of us. We start by exploring the river system for 2 ½ hours or so. There are kingfishers everywhere including the large Amazon Kingfisher, which I have yet to see in Tortuguero (we see 12 in total today, plus 10 of the smaller (and more common in Tort) Green Kingfisher and 3 huge Ringed Kingfishers). Gray-necked Wood-rails are abundant, as are all manner of herons and egrets, and we also see parrots, trogons and several Crested Caracara (a large hawk). The rivers are infested with Caiman and we quickly lose track of how many we see but there is not a stretch of the river without a few lurking in the shallows or basking on the banks. We must see at least 50 total today. The last part of the tour takes us up into a large open lagoon with reedy, marshy fringes. This is more like my mental image of what Cano Negro would be like for the most part, although the actual numbers of birds are much less than I would have expected for this peak season with migrants swelling the numbers. I do suspect however that there must be more areas that we simply can't reach or are able to go. But this area alone holds flocks of Blue-winged Teal, herons galore, a flock of around 20 White Ibis, Limpkins, Spoonbill, Kingfishers and several Caiman of course. We park up here and watch for a while. This would be a great spot to have a telescope.
We've all had a great time on the tour and Mr S has been a knowledgeable and courteous host. I highly recommend him if you plan to visit the area.
It's still only 11:00 or so when we roll back into town and find the bakery where Mr S got the fresh bread for breakfast, and we have some coffee and bread. A nearby garden with fruiting trees provides some bird entertainment in the form of some beautiful orange Baltimore Orioles, a stunning iridescent blue Red-legged Honeycreeper and a couple of Woodpeckers and Woodcreepers.
We repeat the walkabout of the village in the afternoon with the highlights being the biggest Caiman ever and sat right next to it on a mudbank is a Southern Lapwing, a colourful cousin of our UK Lapwing.
We spend dusk again sat in our favourite spot by the pond watching the birds. A Great Blue Heron catches two fish in the time that we are sat there. We are all in good spirits at how successful our short trip has been and the beer flows pretty freely. We finish off the evening with a passable meal at a nearby hotel, which kind of breaks the rural ambience of our trip so far. I think maybe we should have gone back to the smaller more local place of the night before. No big deal anyway.
DAY 56
March 5th 2010
It's a long day today. Starting at 4:00am with a ride to Los Chiles for the 5:00am bus. Then all the way back to San Jose where we meet some of the other volunteers that have spent the weekend there. Though we get an earlier bus to Siqurres, after spending an hour or so in a dubious-smelling bar with a ton of character and free Wi-fi(??!!), we meet up with the rest of the team at the bus terminal and we travel together the rest of the way. Unfortunately, three of us (Jeremy, Lydia and intern Russell) haven't made it back to San Jose from a hike up one of the nearby mountains. We have no way of knowing what happened to them, but we have to keep going.
Its been a long day but everyone's had a good time.
DAY 57
March 6th 2010
It’s a good day today. For many people and for many reasons.
First of all, Sam and I do a nice bit of exploring today and manage to see a couple of unusual birds and a much better view than my previous one of a group of Coatis. Unfortunately, they are still in quite dense vegetation and difficult to see clearly. One of them lies on a branch watching us for a while, but I’d love to see what the rest of them are up to in the undergrowth.
As we return to base and swap sightings with the other teams, we receive the almost unprecedented news of a dead Leatherback turtle that has been killed by a Jaguar. The team (including my roomie Charissa) even might have seen the Jag itself hanging around, but they couldn’t be sure. Even though lunch is due in 10 minutes or so, we really can’t pass up the opportunity to go a see this with the very real possibility of seeing the Jag too. Grabbing some biscuits to keep me going I join a small group to walk as fast as possible up the beach for 2 miles. Along the way we see two dead green turtles, one relatively intact, the other a head, pieces of shell and some guts and a pile of eggs (the smell is pretty horrendous here). We also got to see some turtles nests which basically look like large hollows in the sand. As interesting as this is we can’t stop for long as we have quite a walk. As we get closer to mile 15, I begin to scan ahead with binoculars. We can see the turtle, a grey lump in the strandline, but no sign of any Jaguar. We stop behind a palm on the top of the beach and wait for a little while. The binoculars are glued to my eyes. No Jags. Eventually, we decide to approach the turtle. It’s a mixed experience. Even in death the size of the turtle is staggering, but it's also decidedly sobering to see the brutal fashion in which this gentle leviathan has been brutally dispatched, when all it wanted to do was lay it's eggs. The turtle must be at least 6 feet in length and lies in a concealed pool of blood. The back of the head and neck has been torn away exposing the inside of the throat which is covered in white spines that hook the jellyfish that they feed on and prevents them passing back up the throat. I can’t help but reach out to touch it. The shell is underneath the skin and feels like hard plastic, then the skin of the flippers is surprising soft. It has tags, which I take some pictures of for reference. We can see the jaguar’s tracks leading up to the corpse and we can see where it started to run and extend it's claws. It's like a CSI crime scene.
We return to catch up on lunch, seeing a Two-toed Sloth in the trees adjoining the beach. We pass another group of volunteers that are going up to see it too. After lunch Jeremy, Lydia and Russell finally return. Turns out they missed the bus and had to hitchhike and walk 20km or so to get back to San Jose. Jeremy's father travels a lot with work and Jeremy managed to get in touch with him and asked him to book them a room in a hotel in San Jose. This hotel turned out to be a five-star hotel and they turned up covered in mud and dust. Must have been quite a sight. They decide to also hike up to see the turtle.
I spend the afternoon doing some BTEC stuff as our time is running out to get everything done. It begins to rain during the afternoon.
Jeremy, Lydia and Russell return soaked from the rain but jubilant. Guess what. There was a Jaguar by the corpse when they arrived! They even got a picture of it that they didn’t even realise had the Jaguar in it! I’m stoked for them, but at the same time I’m green with envy. I should be up for a Jag walk soon and the numbers of turtles seem to be steadily increasing so maybe it’ll be my lucky day soon.
DAY 58
7th March 2010
I'm on camp duty today so normally it wouldn't be that interesting. BUT. A boat has wrecked on the beach spilling large barrels onto the beach. There is no sign of the occupants. As the day progresses, Edwin the Head Ranger of MINAE Tortuguero appears armed with a hand-gun and a coastguard police shirt (he clearly has some kind of authority in these matters). He informs us that the coastguard police are on there way to deal with the situation and sure enough a small force of around 8 armed police arrive to investigate the boat and interview us (not me personally though). A few of them are carrying assault rifles and the rumours spreading around is that it's a drug-runners boat that got into trouble and was wrecked and abandoned. Throughout the afternoon the police go over the boat looking for compartments. Then finally around 4:00pm the sound of automatic weapon fire sends us scurrying down to the beach to witness the amazing sight of the police shooting the boat. Apparently, they've also poured gasoline inside it so we are assuming that they hope that their fusillade will send the boat erupting into fiery oblivion. Needless to say despite what we have all seen in the movies, this doesn't happen. They shoot it a few times and attempt to push it over. It doesn't move. They give up. It's not something you see everyday.
DAY 59
8th March 2010
Bird survey this morning. It's raining a bit but we get to finish the survey this time. It's always pleasant to be out on the canal in the canoe, despite the rain. I have four study species of bird left that I really want to see and we don't see any of them, but its enjoyable nevertheless.
The police are still present in fewer numbers than yesterday and have begun to cut the boat up. Sara briefs us today and apparently there was no evidence that drugs were involved in anyway, and the standard police procedure in these situations is to destroy the boat – or at least make it impossible to use. What fun.
DAY 60
9th March 2010
It's a beautiful morning today. The sun rises behind a few remnant dark clouds creating a wonderful ambience on the beach and I sit watching the waves crash over the remains of the boat, which are still there.
I'm walking in the forest today. I haven't been there for around a week now and it's like visiting an old friend. The sunlight peeking in through the canopy gives the jungle a perfect atmosphere and though we are looking for monkeys and find them my attention is also captured by several birds, a lizard or two and a couple of unusual bugs. We walk for a couple of miles before cutting out onto the beach and walking back to base that way. It's turning into a beautiful day and though sunny, there is still a cooling breeze along the coast. There is a plethora of Jaguar tracks in the sand and we can see a host of Black Vultures feeding on the carcass of the unfortunate Leatherback.
I'm in a really good mood after this morning and this afternoon all of us doing our BTEC have to give a presentation on a partner conservation organisation, whilst the staff give us an update on all the projects as we are nearing the end of the 10 week phase (already!!!).
Later on this afternoon, Rich takes me aside and discusses my work placement as part of the internship. He is going to be taking over from Sara next phase as field coordinator and they have been discussing things and want me to stay on with them as an intern. This is kind of flattering as Rich points out they have all noticed my enthusiasm and experience and want me to continue as part of the staff team (though it's still not a paid position yet). I am a little torn as although I like it here and did intend to come and ask about job or volunteer staff positions, I did also like the thought of doing some work somewhere else for a bit to broaden my experiences. But at the end of the day staying here with them means getting involved on a much higher decision-making level and being given more responsibilities and opportunities. I certainly have some ideas on how to expand some of the current projects, so really I think this is going to be the best opportunity I may get. So I accept. Huzzah!
DAY 61
10th March 2010
I walked 11 miles today. That's right 11 miles. And it was brilliant!
The original plan was to hitch a lift on the boat to save us a 2.5 mile hike to get from mile 17.5 on the beach to mile 15 (we are walking south-north and mile 1 is the most northerly). The boat didn't work so we ended up walking along the beach for the 2.5 miles plus a further 3 to get to mile 12. The morning is incredible. The sky is crystal clear and the sun rises with a deep golden glow. The air temperature is still quite cool and makes walking very pleasant and the four of us, staff member Sarah (head of Jag project) and myself, Jeremy and Lydia are in good spirits and chat for much of the way. At mile 15 we see quite a staggering sight of around 50 vultures gathered around the corpse of the Leatherback turtle. The stench by now is overpowering and I would think the Jaguar is long finished with this meal. The vultures scatter and glare ominously from the palm trees along the beach edge at us as we pass.
We make a quick stop and Sarah shows us how to grab a green coconut from a low hanging branch and bash it open on the trunk of the palm. Its not fully open but it splits enough to be able to suck the delicious milk out of it. It's not as efficient as the ranger and his machete but it's very welcome anyway (I have two).
Eventually we reach Mile 12. There is a notable increase in migrating swifts and swallows heading north along the coast and I also spot an Osprey winging his way in that direction. A circling Peregrine Falcon adds a touch of the familiar to an otherwise exotic location. A trail cuts into the forest here and we head into the welcome shade of the trees. The forest here is rarely visited by people and I really have the feeling as we wander along that there is a really good chance of seeing something good here. Sadly, our Jaguar or Peccary or Anteater never materialises but we do see a very cool Laughing Falcon and a Red Brocket Deer stops on the path ahead of us frozen for a few brief moments before it bounds away.
Our main job here is to check some Jag-cams which are both digital and unfortunately don't have any pictures on them, despite being in some really promising locations.
We walk back along the beach again from Mile 14 and despite the sun being high in the sky as it nears midday, a cool sea breeze keeps things bearable. The sea is a striking emerald green and the crashing of the waves is hypnotic and captivating.
I have to relax in the afternoon. Activities have been arranged for today as we are nearing the end of phase but I haven't the energy to be playing beach volleyball or capture the flag. In the evening a few of the guys have arranged a fun 'awards' ceremony in which the awards are gold-painted plastic bugs. My award is for Best Mother Hen (an in-joke reference to my advanced years).
DAY 62
12th March 2010
It's a beautiful day today. It's my turn to go to Tortuguero town and for once it's not raining. I have two main missions – one, to get some laundry done; and two, to speak to my family. I achieve the second with the help of Lydia's Iphone (I need to get me one of those) and Skype. It's great to speak to my parents, sister and nephew. It's been a while now and although I've been in contact via email it's just not the same.
It remains a beautiful day (though very hot) and for some us it is potentially the last time they will see Tortuguero. I am quite happy in the knowledge that it won't be my last trip! The boat ride is spiced up by the sighting of two very very noisy Great Green Macaws, which if you remember are a priority study species for us and we need to record every sighting. We also see a small Caiman basking on a log, and although it's my only good sighting of them here on Tort I kind of got spoilt by the multitudes of them at Cano Negro so it's not as exciting as it would be otherwise.
Back at base it turns out that everyone has had a really good day, with one exception (Anja, a fellow volunteer injured her foot getting onto the boat at Tort). Most of the rest of the volunteers went to the small village of Parismina along the coast to the south where they got to swim in the sea and get treated like kings with specially cooked meals and cheap beers. Sounds nice.
DAY 63
12th March 2010
I'm on Duty Staff training today as part of the BTEC (it will come in handy for the future as well no doubt). It involves basic supervisory duties and manning the radio. It's quite laid back actually. Gives me the chance to catch up on my journal too.
One of the survey teams, Sam, Jeremy, Lydia and Charlotte, had a dream sighting. Not one, but three Jaguars. A mother and two cubs. Unfortunately, Charlotte missed them, which must have been terrible! The rest of them are possibly the luckiest people alive. Especially, because they have all seen one jaguar before as well. It's just not fair! At least I'll still have more opportunities in the future.
It's roasting today. Possibly the hottest day yet. Everyone is wilting in the sun over lunchtime.
Anja had to go to hospital in San Jose today unfortunately. Probably inevitable really. An injury like that needs stitches.
DAY 64
13th March 2010
My last bird survey of this phase today and karma seems to be smiling on me as we see a rare Sunbittern making the most incredible mournful call, and a rare Green-and-rufous Kingfisher, before the survey even starts. There is beautiful weather for our survey and though nothing else rare is seen, it is a really nice morning.
I'm on the Jag walk tomorrow so I get the afternoon off preparing food and equipment for our trek tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it as long as it is not as hot as it has been the last few days. It does cloud over this afternoon which will be perfect...
DAY 65
14th March 2010
Jag-walk II
The pre-dawn sky is perfectly clear and I even see a shooting star as I'm washing my face before breakfast. As nice as this is, it does not bode well for the weather today. Sure enough it's a really hot and sunny day. Not the sort of day you want to walk 15 miles along a beach. The sand is dry and powdery and a nightmare to walk on. The only 'sweet spot' is where the sand is hard right in the surf line. It means getting wet feet but thats a price I'm willing to pay and I take the opportunity to walk there whenever possible. It's not a particularly eventful walk and we see nothing more exciting than a type of cuckoo that I've not seen before and the long dead corpse of a cow washed up on the beach. Despite putting sun-block on three times I still end up with a solid sock, shorts and shirt tan. We do make good time though and we make it all the way to Tortuguero by 12:05 (approximately 6 hours). I feel much better than I did last time I did the walk. I even have an appetite, which I certainly didn't have the first time round. I guess I'm just adjusting to the lifestyle. I'll probably end up doing more of these walks, more regularly next phase, which I'm quite looking forward to actually. I'll be super fit in no time! We don't hang around in town and for the first time ever, I sleep on the boat back to base. I try and keep active and awake for as long as possible once back on base and pretty much sit around playing scrabble and reading some Terry Pratchett (I finished Shantaram by the way. I highly recommend it. The sort of book where you actually feel sad to be finishing it.).
DAY 66
15th March 2010
I sleep like a log. Apparently a grapefruit fell on the roof of the staff quarters last night which was so loud that everyone heard it. I didn't. A Tyrannosaurus Rex could have walked through camp and I suspect I would have missed it.
Luckily, we get a lie-in this morning (I never thought I'd consider 6:30am a lie-in!!!) and are scheduled to enter our data in the database, which takes all of 15 minutes with our lack of data.
We have a beach clean in the hot sun in the afternoon. Luckily, its not too far to walk as we only go down to the river mouth.
I'm feeling a bit melancholy at the moment. I'm looking forward to the challenge of next phase, but I'm also sad to be saying goodbye soon to all the people I've been spending so much time with over the last couple of months.
DAY 67
16th March 2010
I'm on the last camp duty of the phase today with my good friend Jess from Seattle. We have a pretty good time of it despite it being a roasting day to be working in a hot kitchen. We play some great music and have a good laugh although I'm still not letting her forget that she came up with the idea of grating 25 potatoes!!! I'm sure they do things like that in prison? The final result of fried wafer thin potato is worth the pain and sweat though.
DAY 68
17th March 2010
Its a very still day out on the canal. We are on our way to the small village of San Francisco, which lies at the bottom of 'el cerro' the only hill in Tortuguero, clocking in at a whopping 100m or so. We aim to climb it! The still waters prove very productive for birds and we get two very notable sightings of a Sungrebe, one of our 30 canal bird study species and the only one that I haven't seen (except the Reddish Egret – very rare migrant, and two others which are very elusive and hard to see); and a Pied-billed Grebe, which has not been recorded by anyone on the Costa Rica expeditions yet. Very exciting.
San Fran, as it is affectionately known, is a pretty little village and GVI has a community project based at the school here. My roomate Charissa, will be based here next phase. We walk through the village and into the forest that surrounds the cerro. The path cuts through the dense forest and round the base of the hill. Wildlife is not easy to see and I would like to explore a bit more at my leisure one day as I'm sure there are different species to be found here. The one animal that is immediately obvious are the abundance of Red Poison-dart frogs. I don't know why we don't see them down at the other end of the National Park at our base, but we don't and they are very common here. Puzzling.
The actual climb up the hill is short but very steep, yet the views are worth it. Forest stretches north and west as far as the eye can see. I've never actually realised how much forest there is here. You can also see the canals stretching off to the south. I'm pretty sure that the picture I put up on my front page of my blog site was taken from up here.
We return via Tortuguero and do some shopping for a party we are having tonight. It's kind of a BBQ without the actual BBQ, as we are not allowed a fire inside of a National Park. We are going to get some meat and chicken and sausages and make some salads and pasta and suchlike. Oh and we are able to get some booze in for once.
The party itself is a great success. Everyone pitches in to help prepare food and organise some outside tables and seating. Yours truly gets to make some burgers out of mince, which turn out pretty damn good if you ask me. Everyone seems to have a good time and it's really nice to have a few beers and just relax and chat whilst listening to some good music (AC/DC's Back in Black proves particularly good for cooking burgers to). Another 'pub quiz' is also held tonight, which we don't manage to win this time, although we put in a strong joint second. In all fairness, the questions were really, really hard!! There was a whole round about art!?!
DAY 69
18th March 2010
Today is pretty boring. We basically have to pack up our stuff and clean the whole base from top to bottom ready for the new volunteers. There is a definite air of sadness about the place as we prepare to leave what has been our home for the past 10 weeks. I'll be back and with a different bunch of people, who I'm sure will be very nice, but it will be very odd at first.
The evening is a little more interesting as the staff gather to present the data that we have all helped to collect over the past 10 weeks and put it all into context.
DAY 70
19th March 2010
The weather provides us with a memorable send-off today. Its starts raining in the middle of the night and does not let up. There are small lakes forming outside the dorms by the time we get up in the morning. Needless to say that this doesn't make the task of carrying all of our luggage (though I have cunningly managed to leave some behind for my return) down the jungle trail (now effectively a shallow stream) to the boats. It continues to rain all the way to Cano Blanco where we stop to dry off a bit and grab a snack and a drink. We have a private bus booked to take us to San Jose, which is certainly appreciated as we are all pretty damp and dirty. Well, some of are anyway...
The afternoon is a bit of a mixed bag. We get to Gaudy's, the hostel I've stayed at every time I've been to San Jose and I check my bank balance for the first time in ages. I have no money left. This comes as quite a shock to me as I thought I had plenty to get me through. The little things add up really quickly. Still GVI are paying for pretty much everything from now on and there will be no more long weekends or anything so hopefully I'll get through. We then get to find out about our Spanish Schooling in Nicaragua, which does sound fun and I'm really looking forward to it.
Being as this is our only night when we don't have to get up at 4:00am the next day, it's time for a big night out on the town. This will be the first time going out properly for me in San Jose and it turns out to be a pretty fun experience. We start with some food in a small restaurant in Central SJ. The service is pretty ropey and we get served some frozen beers, but still the food is pretty good and we are all having a good time. We then get a taxi over to a place known as 'California' which is basically a street full of bars. Nice. We only visit two bars, the first of which is pretty cool and is streaming You-tube music videos on a big screen ranging from Metallica to Rammstein to Garth Brooks(?!). There's even some genuine Costa Rican metalheads in attendence. I'm loath to leave but there other bars to sample. The next one requires us to have ID and a quick pat down search. I don't know whether to feel reassured or worried by these security measures. This bar is a little more cheesy with a dance floor in the room at the back. There's also a pool table for 1000 colones for the whole night or until you get bored. Needless to say, the pool table remains ours the whole night. Interestingly there is also another room squirreled away somewhere (I suspect it might actually be another neighbouring bar that has a cut through to it) which is rammed with people and is playing britpop and 80s music from Blur to Dexy's Midnight Runners. Not the sort of thing you expect to hear in Costa Rica. It is actually a pretty good night and as you would expect when lots of alcohol is consumed I actually end up having to pretty great conversations with people and well as a bit of dancing. It's also a little sad because I know I won't see some of these people again for a long time, if ever. Though I will try to keep in touch as best as possible.
DAY 71
20th March 2010
After rolling in at some hour after midnight, it comes as no surprise when I awake to the general sounds of activity in the hostel at around 06:00am and I'm a little bit hung-over. It was worth it.
I pretty much doss around the hostel for the morning, making a brief foray out to get some biscuits and some juice. Then I head to a nearby soda with Andrew and Kyle for some much-needed Gallo Pinto with bacon and eggs (tocineta y huevos). Oh yes! That pretty much eradicates my hangover. We then head over to the park where there is a Festival of Arts and Crafts going on. This consists of many crafts stalls and a few stages where there are some performance arts scheduled throughout the week. We look through some really nice craft stalls and stop to watch a band of young Tico Indie-rockers who must be no more than 16 or 17 each play through a competent and enjoyable set of tunes. There's a heck of a turnout for this and there is a fascinating cross-section of people out and about ranging from Tico families with young children rushing about to metalheads sporting Scandinavian death metal t-shirts. It's a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon all in all.
We met up with some of the other volunteers who have been staying at other hostels for one last meal of cheap and cheerful pizza in the evening and have another walk through the park. This time I can't resist buying an awesome mirror as a keepsake for myself. It has a toucan on it! Then finally its an emotional goodbye for most of us. We will all hopefully keep in touch as it's been a wonderful experience and I certainly hope to see everybody again one day. Take care everyone.
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