Granada and return to GVI Jalova

4/22/2010

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First internet access for three weeks!
Here's Granada and the return to Jalova base camp in Tortuguero. It's going too smoothly but I'm stll having fun!

 GRANADA

DAY 84

3rd March 2010

We are off to Granada today via Managua. It's a pretty uneventful trip in the coach and we arrive at Granada just before nightfall and check into a pleasant looking but small hostel with murals of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley on the walls (and of course Che Guevara). Then we have a quick guided tour of the town centre where we are located. The hub is a large plaza filled with trees and benches with the cathedral as the main focal point along one side. The architecture in general is described as 'colonial' which basically means it looks like Spain. It's very nice and gives the city a very different feel to anywhere else that we have been in Central America yet. We have lunch along a cobbled pedestrianised street lined with cafes and restaurants with outside tables, again another very European feature. Our food is delicious and though more expensive than Esterli, is still pretty cheap and excellent value.


DAY 85

4th March

We only have one full day in Granada so we have to make the most of it. I go for breakfast with Charissa and Charlotte quite early. We are recommended a place called Kathy's Waffle House which we duly search out. The streets are still quiet and in the daylight you can fully appreciate the style of architecture here and there is a great mix of colours along each street. Kathy's is a lovely corner restaurant with a covered porch that gives nice out onto the quiet streets. We are also treated to the sight of some nice Crimson-fronted Parakeets that land on a nearby antenna mast and seem quite at home in the city. Breakfast is superb – I can't resist the Gallo Pinto with bacon, scrambled eggs and a big thick slice of real toasted bread! Amazing!

Charissa and Charlotte are going to hire bikes and ride around today which sound like fun but I'm watching the pennies and decide to go for a walk down along the lake shore and explore (Granada is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua which I think is the largest in Central America?). We stop off at the cathedral passing the wretched beggars gathered in the entrances and sit for a while. It's quite a plain cathedral in all fairness and looks quite modern. There's no real interior decoration other than bright pastel paintwork. It's well maintained though and you can climb the belltower – although I never get around to that. The girls find it quite peaceful here and so do I up to a point, and then I get the same feeling that I get in every church – uncomfortable, kind of like I'm gatecrashing someone else's party? I don't know why. It's not anyone is actually judging me or requiring me to repent or anything, I just feel like I don't belong there. Anyway, I'm not going to debate religion here and moving swiftly on I head back to the hostel to change into shoes and get some gear together for my walk. I return to find out that whilst I was gone Jeremy found one of the staff rooting through my bag. Nothing is taken and we kick up a bit of fuss, but there is nothing we can really do. She comes up with some sort of story that there was another guy trying to take my bag and she caught him and was checking to see if anything was missing blah, blah.... Luckily we have locked all our valuables in a locker using a padlock that Charissa has bought. After all that fuss has died down I leave the others and head off down to the lake shore. It's a straight down a long road past a picturesque church and a hotel with a bunch of horse-drawn taxi-carriages which I would urge any ethical person to actively avoid using because of course, as there as are no animal welfare laws here, the poor beasts are pretty much skin and bones.

The lake is huge and a long pier juts out into it. A small boat playing loud reggae music is docked at the end of it. Clouds of Swallows throng around the shore skimming the surface of the water. There aren't many people around and the reason for this becomes abundantly clear. To the south as I follow the road that runs along the lake shore is a park area. It is thronging with people – there are quite literally thousands. It's some kind of 'party in the park' type thing and every square inch of shade is packed full of Nico families having picnics. Moving between them must be every hawker in Granada selling everything from food to sunglasses to inflatables. I briefly consider buying an inflatable blue dinosaur but decide against it for practical reasons. Would have been funny to turn up back at the hostel with it though. There are lots of people swimming in the lake which I'm not sure is a good idea given the general foul smell of the water here. I walk through the crowds for what must be at least 40 minutes without seeing another white face. I get a few looks and comments but generally people aren't bothered by this gringo wandering through their party. After this bustle I follow the road as it turns inland slightly through some lovely dry woods towards a supposedly picturesque spot called Puerto Asese. The dry woods prove to be fantastic for birding and I get to finally see multiple guardabarrancos (Turquoise-browed Motmot), the Nico national bird, the ever-spectacular White-throated Magpie-Jays, my first White-necked Puffbirds (Kind of like kingfishers that live in woods and hunt on lizards and small mammals) and more. Puerto Asese is nice. There's a marina and a couple of expensive waterside restaurants (by Nico standards of course). I wander around birding for a while and taking in the relaxed vibes. There's an impressive view towards the volcanoes to the south and the various islets in the lake that you can get tours around. It's a nice spot and the only downside is that I have managed to get a bit sunburnt. Should have bought my sun-block so that I could reapply. Well worth the 5km walk. Although now I have to do it back again! The woods are still great (in fact it is the return trip where I see the Puffbirds!) and the park is still crowded although there many people that are looking worse for wear and staggering around. I also see a large group of policia frisking a drug-dealer (all dressed in black with shades – how obvious can you get?) non too gently.

It's been a really great day and we top it off by having some really nice local style food in the restaurant next to the hostel.


DAY 86

5th March 2010

Travelling back to San Jose.

It's another long-trip with some crappy film about a Chimp Secret Agent and lots of waiting about at the border crossing.

We meet up with Helen and Leonie at Gaudy's in San Jose. Helen is working in the Osa Peninsula now with another similar organisation called Frontier and is loving it. Leonie is travelling around a bit and waited around to see us before she heads over to the Pacific for some lounging on a beach. It's great to see them and catch up. Then unfortunately comes the inevitable parting of the ways with Jeremy and Lydia who are staying elsewhere and leaving early – Lydia for her placement also in the Osa (far south of Costa Rica) and Jeremy is off to climb the highest peak in Costa Rica, Chirripo. I've come to regard both of them very highly and I wish them both very well and hope to stay in touch with them. I think they both have bright futures ahead of them.

RETURN TO TORTUGUERO
 

DAY 87

6th March 2010

It's that by now familiar trip from San Jose to Tortuguero today. There are more sad goodbyes this morning, thus time with Helen, Leonie, Charlotte and last of all, my long-time roomie, Charissa. I will hopefully see her again soon as she is headed to San Francisco to the community school project there, which is not far from Tortuguero. We have planned to try and arrange to meet at some point for lunch in Tort or something.

The journey is straight forward enough even if I find myself standing for a while on one of the buses. At least I had enough leg-room.

The boat ride from Cano Blanco is pleasingly familiar although the water is pretty shallow at times, and familiar locations and birds are soon passing by. Eventually, we are dropped at Jalova beach and begin our trek through the forest up to base. Well, its like coming home to be honest. There's an Eyelash Viper coiled on a tree-trunk, the White-capped Manakins are out displaying with their distinctive wing-snapping, even getting pounced on by mosquitoes is strangely reassuring (?).

We get a warm welcome at base from Rich, Sarah and Molly and introduced to new staff members: Tucker, a volunteer staff who was here with Molly the phase before Christmas and has chosen to come back. He's a very enthusiastic American lad. Andres, is an irrepressible young Tico lad born and educated in San Jose. He is outgoing, funny and very friendly. Best of all, he is a licensed herptelogist (he even has one of those snake sticks that looks like either a litter picker or some kind of James Bond villain mechanical arm) which means that he can catch snakes and frogs and is expert at identifying them. We get on well from the start. Krystle is from the US and has worked in some far off places with endangered felines amongst other thing. Fernando is from Madrid and has worked with Krystle before and also looked after big cats (including Jaguars) in a Spanish zoo.

I can't possibly describe each volunteer as there are 15 or so of them, but I get speaking to as many as I can. They seem a good bunch, about half and half girls and boys (there were more girls in our phase) and mostly from the UK or USA, plus representatives from Ireland, Switzerland, a couple of Canadian brothers. They have been having an intensive week of training and tests just like we did when we first arrived.


DAY 88

7th March 2010

Early start for me as I am heading down the beach with Molly checking turtle nests that have been flagged by our Tortuguero based friends in the CCC (Carribbean Conservation Corporation) in case of poaching, predation or wash-outs. It's great to be out on the beach again at first light when it's not too hot and the light is beautiful. It's good to catch up with Molly, learn a bit about the turtle nests (which number about 10 in this 2 ½ mile stretch) and also have a good 5 mile walk. We also get a cool view of a beautiful Green-breasted Mango hummingbird.

The rest of the day is spent on base, chatting with the volunteers and also doing the cooking for hopefully the last time in a while!

In the evening Andres takes Andrew, myself and Tucker on a night-walk. As to be expected, its really good. He explains that he will catch animals as long as they are not dangerous and if we need to identify it or see any key features. We see a few Eyelash Vipers and many different kinds of lizard and frog, one of which I have never seen before. It's a massive treefrog comfortably the size of my hand. It's great to see Andres' skills first-hand and to learn a bit more about these fascinating creatures.


DAY 89

8th March 2010

It's a long hot day and the some of the volunteers are getting a bit frazzled by all the training and exams that they have to do for the surveys. I have to give my first presentations today about snakes and about incidental species recording around the base area. The snake one goes down pretty well and I have a bit of help from Andres. The incidentals one seems to be met largely with indifference and a little walk around the base seems to die a bit of a death quite quickly with most people drifting off without saying much. Maybe when they have been here a bit longer and done all their tests they may have a bit more general interest in birds and things. In all fairness, some of them are pretty enthusiastic still, but overall not a resounding success. It is hot though.

In the afternoon I take some of the new volunteers that have signed up for the internship and are doing their BTECs as I did last phase, into the jungle to the south to ID some animals. The new interns are Elliot, Ruth and Ben (plus Siobhan from Ireland who opts out of this session as she is feeling the stress and heat). It goes pretty well and they all successfully ID a Slaty-tailed Trogon (a bit of a gift really!), Bay Wren (which are mobbing a snake that I unfortunately do not see), and the Slender Anole which Andres captures for them to take notes. We are passed by a group of six of the volunteers plus Rich. It seems that because the vols are going to Tortuguero anyway tomorrow some them have decided to hire a water taxi and go and spend the night there. It's a bit unexpected but I guess if they need to unwind a bit then why not.

I spend a fun evening socialising with the vols and Andres shows us some of the fascinating library of pictures that he has of various herpetology and bird ringing trips he has been on around Costa Rica. I think I impress him with the amount of knowledge I have already picked up about the birds as I am able to ID quite a few of them. He has some great pictures – maybe he'll let me post some.


DAY 90

9th March 2010

All of the volunteers go to Tort today which means that it is really quiet around base.

First thing in the morning, Tucker and I go and do the Turtle Nest Check. All is well with the nests and in addition we see many hummingbirds including three stunning White-necked Jacobins. We also end up having a good old chat. We find out that both of us are really into Magic the Gathering – a fantasy collectible card game, and end up nattering about that for ages. Plus, its always great to be able to walk out on the beach in the morning.

The quiet base and pleasant weather translates as awesome birding around base and I spend a few hours on and off with Andrew wandering around spotting things. Its a really nice way to spend the day. Additionally, we see a new species for both of us in the form of the migratory Eastern Kingbird, 3 of which stop by to eat some bugs before presumably moving on north towards the USA.

I have been given the incidentals project to oversee, which is basically collating all the records of everything that is seen and encouraging and helping everyone with general ID-ing of things. Needless, to say this is what I do best so I hope the volunteers start getting into things a little more. I think it will take a bit of time, so in the meantime I am working hard to make sure I keep recording as much as possible. I even make a new database to try and organise things a bit more!

Andres takes us out on another night walk tonight which is a little quiet until we find a couple of really cool little treefrogs with a beautiful lime-green colour and distinctive red and white stripes running down the sides of their bodies from the nose to tail. Andres is really excited about them as he has never seen them before. Regrettably, they turn out to be juvenile Scarlet-webbed Treefrogs which we see a little later on during our walk. Ah well, they are still beautiful little creatures.


DAY 91

10th March 2010

It's time to lead my first survey this morning. It's an incidentals walk, which basically means going out and finding stuff. It's pretty productive too. First of all we flush a Great Tinamou, a kind of turkey or partridge type bird which you often hear but rarely see. Then we are alerted to a beautiful Coral Snake, all bright red, yellow and jet black banding. It's very venomous, but as all the volunteers now know after my snake presentation, it is really docile and there are very few bites recorded each year. This is also due to its small mouth and short fangs, which makes it very difficult for it to bite you. On the downside, the venom is so strong that it has a 50% mortality rate even with treatment. Needless, to say, we don't touch it and just watch it half hiding under a fallen palm frond. Other delights of the walk are some decent views of small skulking forest birds plus another snake, the large but non-poisonous Salmon-bellied Racer. The volunteers seem to enjoy themselves and I have a good time – even if we do get caught in a bit of rain and we don't see any monkeys for some reason, which I virtually guaranteed at the start of the walk.

In the afternoon, I get to lead a beach clean, which is a little harder to be enthusiastic about. We have a lot of volunteers plus my long-time compatriot, Andrew, so we get a lot done and even get to see some Spider Monkeys giving us a bit of attitude from the trees at the beach edge, which is pretty amusing actually and also cool to see them pelting through the trees using all four elongated limbs plus their amazing tails. It really is an amazing sight to see them 'brachiating' (to use a fancy word).

I'm finding myself a little tired at the moment after all my soft living in Nicaragua. I'll adjust but being a 'staff' member is a little more difficult than I thought!


DAY 92

11th March 2010

I hate to write about this sort of thing but I kind of need to vent a little frustration as well. It has become apparent that some of the volunteers have a pretty negative attitude about this project. One of them is even leaving early – in a few days in fact. It's only a few people, but you know that bad feelings kind of come to the fore and infect everybody else – I think most of the staff are feeling it a little. I am baffled and frustrated that people can feel this way after only two weeks. There are problems here, yes, but nothing that can't be overcome with a positive attitude, and the surveys are all fun and the environment is fantastic. They all had plenty of information about what we were going to do and yet some of them seem like they'd rather not be here. I miss everyone from last phase a great deal at the moment. On the plus side, I very much like our new staff members, especially Andes with whom I am becoming fast friends and several of the volunteers are really great, which helps keep me upbeat.

The fact that it has begun to rain constantly doesn't help moods very much either. We still head out to try and do things as best we can. I put up some Jag-cams with some of the more positive volunteers and we get to see some monkeys. Fairly successful. The in the afternoon we go exploring the forest to the north of mile 15, which I don't get to do very often. It's still raining but we manage to see monkeys, another Great Tinamou this time out in the open on the path ahead of us and a couple of small forest turtles (one species of which I have never seen before – the White-lipped Mud-turtle). On returning back ti base it turns out that Andres' incidentals walk has turned up a fantastic sighting at the estuary of 4 Black Skimmers, large rare tern-like birds which should only be seen on the Pacific Coast according to all our books.

The rain eases up enough for Andres to take myself and an eager bunch of volunteers on another nightwalk. The conditions are obviously very favourable for amphibians as we are inundated with frogs of all shapes and sizes plus a couple of Eyelash Vipers and a really young parrotsnake. Its the best walk so far.

DAY 93

12th March 2010

I take a group out in the rain today to look for stuff. Really, I just want to see the skimmers who of course are not there. I'm thinking my walk may a bit of a wash-out except that the birds come up trumps in the form of stunning views of a quartet of Keel-billed Toucans and a pair of Trogons sat just above the trail.

We have a science meeting in the afternoon in which Krystle and Fernando give a cool presentation about the Iberian Lynx, the world's most endangered feline and native to Spain, which is of course why Fernando was involved because he himself is Spanish (did I mention this?)

Tonight is the inaugural night of the turtle walks. It involves walking up and down a set 3 mile stretch of beach looking for turtles that have come ashore to nest. The CCC (Caribbean Conservation Corporation) are overseeing us and have sent two representatives to lead the patrols, Arturo and Ernesto. We will then count the eggs laid, triangulate the nest location and take biometric data, as well as tagging the turtles if they have not already been tagged previously. It's a long night but should be a unique and rewarding experience, especially if you find a Leatherback, I would imagine. I can't wait for my first live turtle!!!!


DAY 94

13th March 2010

My first day, well morning actually, as duty staff, which means I have to oversee the camp duty volunteers for the day. It's weird being on the other side of my least favourite day. I try and help out as much as possible as I remember how much I hated it. A lot of people are sleeping in today after getting in at 3-4am from their turtle walk. Apparently, both groups got to 'work a turtle' as it is known and one of them even saw a Loggerhead turtle, which is the first recorded here in the last five years that GVI has been doing this. Apparently, Ernesto has never seen one in all his 6 years of working with turtles and was grinning from ear to ear.

The skimmers are back and Tucker and I head down to the estuary to see them and are also treated to the sight of a large croc up on the beach. The skimmers are impressive creatures – their oversized and misshapen beaks really are quite unique. The fly about and do a bit of 'skimming' before landing on the beach for a while and let me take some photos of them.

In the afternoon, I have a walk up into the forest to check the current jag-cams. I have to say I'm not sure how this is going to pan out as people are tired from last night and there are some long faces, but the weather has cleared up and the volunteers I'm with end up thouroughly enjoying themselves. It does become more of an incidentals walk though with Spider Monkeys almost falling out of the trees everywhere, the endangered Great Currassow (a boldly coloured turkey-like bird) makes an appearance on the trail ahead of us, there's some cool Eyelash Vipers and the Leafcutter Ants are out again after the heavy rains. Everyone seems to be happy and having fun and it really raises my spirits. Oh yeah, the cameras I put up the other day weren't working so I brought them back.


DAY 95

14th March 2010

I have my first night walk scheduled today and also pretty much the day off. Perhaps slightly foolishly I decide to get up early with Andrew and go walking in the jungle. One of the privileges of now being a staff member is that I can take people out into the jungle on a casual basis. It's a good walk and we see some jungle birds (including 3 new species), although nothing to excite the non-birder, plus some trogons, monkeys and lizards. I am hoping to get some sleep in the afternoon to prepare myself for my nightshift, but things keep cropping up and I don't get around to it until about 5:00 when I manage about an hour and a half. It's not really enough and despite quaffing a couple of cups of coffee I'm still feeling a little drowsy as we prepare to leave at around 9:00.

I'm with Ernesto and Ben and Shelbi are the volunteers. Ernesto only speaks Spanish but fortunately both Ben and Shelbi also speak it very well. This bodes well as although I can nearly keep up with the conversation it does mean that there are no communication issues. We wait on the beach to let our eyes adjust as we are not allowed to use lights as they may scare the turtles. We have red-light filters on our torches for reading tape measures and notebooks and suchlike. Despite it being quite a starry night there is no moon and the beach is black as pitch. Looking north you can just about make out the glow of Tortuguero and to the south the village of Parismina. We set off and Ernesto sets quite a brisk pace, which despite hardly being able to see my own feet I am forced to match. We are walking the tide line which means there is not too much debris underfoot and you pretty much just have to throw yourself into it gradually you start picking the odd log or stick out in front. The first hour or so is pretty intense. We are walking some 4 miles along before stopping to turn around. Any turtles we encounter we will attempt to 'work' depending on the stage of nesting they are at. We are all excited and concentrating hard – teams on the previous two night have both seen Green and Leatherback (the holy grail of turtles). There are a few tracks which Ernesto must have the eyes of an owl to actually see, leading up from the surf, but they are half-moons. This is when the turtle emerges and begins moving up the beach but changes it's mind and returns to the sea without nesting. There are a lot of theories about why they do this, but the main one seems to be that they can sense the temperature of the sand which influences the sexual development of their eggs, and so is quite important when picking a spot. I can barely see these tracks when I'm standing over them!

Eventually we find our first turtle. It's a Green and it has made it all the way up the beach and half-buried itself under the border vegetation. I can barely see it. Ernesto checks it out and thinks that it hasn't started laying its eggs yet. This is the perfect time to find it and we take a break and wait for it to start digging the egg chamber. Ernesto makes regular checks as we wait and all of a sudden he comes running back to grab the tagging equipment. The turtle has changed its mind and is making it's way back to the sea. It's already made it halfway down the beach and is moving at a speed that is completely unexpected. Luckily this is not Ernesto's first rodeo and he leaps around the turtle popping ID tags on the flippers whilst I hurriedly scribble the data into our notebook and Ben helps to measure it's carapce length. It's quite a big animal and the shell is much higher and rounded than I would have expected. It's my first live turtle and it's over pretty quickly leaving me wanting more.

The night goes a little more slowly after that. Midnight comes and goes and we are all feeling pretty 'zoned out'. My eyes are getting very heavy and despite stopping a few times for breaks we are all noticeably quiet and subdued. At our rest stop after we have turned around to make our way back to base, we are preparing to start up again when Ernesto points out something. The rest of strain to see it and we move over towards the surf towards it. Sure enough Ernesto's owl-eyes have picked out the giant form of a Leatherback, unfortunately disappearing into the surf. Again it's simply too quick, almost a tease. There is no time to appreciate the moment. Ernesto thinks that this turtle has already made several attempts to come ashore as we have passed several Leatherback half-moons, so we wait for about 15 minutes before continuing in case it decides to head downshore and come out ahead of us. Regrettably, it doesn't. We continue onwards and actually meet up with the other team who have seen nothing. Neither do we see anything on our way back to base. I guess I'll have more chances to see them but I don't think I'll have had the full turtle walk experience until I get to 'work a turtle'.


DAY 96

15th March 2010

It's a rest day today and virtually everyone has gone to Tortuguero. Nice and quiet. I'm reading Frankenstein and getting a few things done on the computer. It'll be an early night tonight.

The day's highlight is possibly the arrival of a group of 4 Collared Aracari, a type of small toucan in a fruiting tree, directly opposite the porch of the staff building. They are eating the fruits and pose beautifully for some photos.


DAY 97

16th March 2010

Nice long early walk to check the turtle nests this morning. All the way up to mile 13.5 and back.

Today's mileage: 8 miles.

Last night was very eventful with many sightings of turtles both green and leatherback. Andrew who is leaving today for his placement down in the wilds of the Osa Peninsula was out again and managed to see both turtles, which was great for him. They also came across a freshly killed Green turtle that was probably killed no more a couple of hours beforehand if that! No sign of the Jaguar though! Fernando apparently wanted to climb a tree and stake it out! Can't say I blame him.

We lose another volunteer today, again dissatisfied with how things are progressing. I think he got send some wrong information or something, but he was never that interested in getting involved in the surveys anyway. He was a nice guy and had a wealth of good practical knowledge of plumbing and DIY, which would have been extremely useful, but if he didn't want to be here, what can you do?

I try and rest up as much as possible this afternoon as I am out tonight doing the longer of the two turtle patrols. It's pretty much impossible to get any sleep in the heat however and I end up lying in my bed with rivulets of sweat pouring off me! Still, I'm up and optimistic about tonight and ready to leave at 8:00. It's a dark night again tonight and this time we are led by Tim, a soft-spoken Brit from Oxford. The CCC rota themselves around every three days or so. It's a long, hard walk in the dark up to mile 13. Torturous, in fact. A fact further compounded by the fact that we do not see a single turtle. Nor do we see one on the way back. There has been some activity as evidenced by fresh tracks that we come across, but we missed them. But that's nature for you – the turtles aren't here for our viewing pleasure, they are here to carry out an archaic ritual that has been happening for millions of years. If the conditions aren't right they aren't going to do it. But knowing this doesn't make the walk any easier and by 2:30am when we return, we are all about ready to drop except Tim who remains pretty with it the whole night. I guess they must get used to it.

Total Mileage for today: 17 miles


DAY 98

17th March 2010

Very tired this morning. I try and sleep in, but the noise of the day and the oppressive heat make it pretty much impossible. For reasons I can't discuss, new staff members Krystle and Fernando making the decision to leave tomorrow. I'm not going into details, but I'm disappointed on a personal level because I liked them and also on a practical level because it means that the rest of us will have to do more duties to make up for their loss. I'm already bone-tired from my normal assigned surveys let alone if I have to do more. I'm going to say no more, but I'm not very happy with how this situation is panning out. To unwind I take a chair and go out and sit in the field behind the staff quarters and watch the birds going about their daily business. Interestingly, a large black bird called the Giant Cowbird is attempting to parastise the nests of the Montezuma Oropendola, presumably like the cuckoo in the UK, by laying its eggs in the other bird's nest. The Montys are very much aware of it though, and chase it away at every opportunity. Doesn't seem like a very successful strategy to me?

I have another night walk tonight so I need sleep, but again the heat is pretty hard to bear. This time I luckily have the slightly shorter walk of mile 18 to mile 15.5. It's a beautiful starry night and there are some very large shooting stars around. The silhouette of the treeline against the night sky as we walk is extremely atmospheric. We are in luck tonight as well. We haven't walked more than a mile before we come across a fresh track and a Green Turtle hauling it's way up the bank. We retreat back a few metres to give it some space and eagerly await developments. Tim makes regular checks on it's progress and sure enough it digs itself an egg chamber and makes ready to lay. Shelbi, a nice young girl from Wyoming, is the first of us to be assigned 'egg counter'. This means she has to lay behind the turtle with a hand just underneath where the eggs will drop and count them using a 'maria' clicker-counter. Whilst she is doing this, the rest of us triangulate the nest so that we can locate it again if needs be, and also to mark where it is for our nest check patrols. The turtle proceeds to lay 133 eggs, much to Shelbi's delight. It then covers the nest whilst we take measurements and tag it's flippers (Tim does this!). Once the eggs have been laid we are able to use our torches to see a bit more clearly (with red light filters of course). It's an odd sensation watching the turtle kicking sand backwards over the nest. It actually looks more like an animatronic rather than a real animal! Eventually, it deems that it has done a suitable job and turns to make its way back down the beach at a surprising speed and we watch, satisfied, as it disappears into the surf. That was the good bit of doing the turtle walks. We are soon back into the torturous slog through the sand in the dark and I'm pretty bushed to be honest.

Things pick up when we are returning from our furthest point of the walk at mile 15.5 and we come across the fresh track of a nesting Leatherback. This is it! Finally, I'll get to see a live Leatherback properly. It has already nearly finished digging it's nest chamber and Elliot, a new intern from the UK, gets to count the eggs this time (51 I think in total). The Leatherback is a much different looking creature than the Green. You can see more of the flippers and tail protruding out from under the shell, which itself looks more part of the animal as it is under the skin rather than a traditional external shell of the Green. This makes it seem more of a real animal as you can see the muscles rippling under the skin as the flippers scoop the sand back over it's nest. It's got a different technique to the Green, forming a 'scoop' with it's back flippers rather than just flailing backwards. It's not that big for a Leatherback, measuring at just over 1m 35cm. The Green was just over a metre so not too much difference. But the Leatherback has huge front flippers, which it now starts to employ to fling sand back over the top of the nest, they pack a punch as well if you happen to be in the way for whatever reason. We don't have any problems with this one either and collect all the relevant data and again we feel satisifed with our work. The good thing about 'working' a turtle, as its known, is that is does take some time, roughly an hour apiece this time. Unfortunately, that's our lot and the rest of the night is a long, slow slog until 04:00am. We are all falling asleep as we walk. This is very hard, but I guess the turtles aren't here to make things easy for us!

Mileage today: 5 miles

Total Mileage for this week: 22 miles (3 days)


DAY 99

18th March 2010

Today is thankfully pretty much a rest day for me – and I need it. I spend most of today in a bit of a daze.

The coolest thing to happen is that before the night walks head out, there is a bustle of excitement from the porch of the staff quarters. An unusual visitor has flown in out of the darkness and collided with Sarah's head before landing on the porch and looking a little dazed. It's a White-throated Crake – one of the 30 study species for the Canal Bird surveys. Like all crakes they are hugely secretive and surprisingly small, spending most of their time in dense reed beds, where their presence is mostly announced by their harsh rattle of a call. It's the first time anyone on the GVI project has actually seen one in the flesh (feather?). It's a curious looking fellow with over large feet for walking on floating vegetation and a nice rufous and white colour scheme with a bizarrely patterned 'zebra' belly. It has a slightly surprised expression and sits in our torch light whilst some of us manage to snap some pictures before it gets itself together and scuttles of the porch through a gap in the rail. Amazing!


DAY 100

19th March 2010

My 100th day with GVI Costa Rica is a rather uneventful one. I'm still tired but I manage to get out on an Incidentals walk with some volunteers. I'm a little apprehensive at the moment as some of them are still looking miserable at every opportunity but thankfully they tend to cheer up as we get out into the forest. Its really hot so we don't go too far – down to the estuary and back. The Boa Constrictor that made it's home along this trail for most of March has returned much to our delight.


DAY 101

20th March 2010

It's my first bird survey of the phase today – and I'm leading it. This means as well as having to brief everyone beforehand, I also have to steer the canoe! Fun, fun, fun! It's always good to be up and on the river again at the crack of dawn. We are treated to the sight of the rare Sunbittern on the way, giving it's mournful call from a log in the middle of the river, and also excitingly, an otter (a Neotropical River Otter to be precise). Its rolling about and having a scratch on a fallen log that descends into the river. Like most otter sightings though, it doesn't stick around for too long unfortunately. After that start the survey was never going to live up to that and it doesn't. In fact, we really don't see a great deal at all. Plus, it gets really hot really quickly. It is fun though and despite a few minor steering mishaps, I manage to get us all through it.

I also get an Incidentals walk in the forest in the afternoon. There are plenty of Spider Monkeys about and they entertain us with some big leaps and amusing antics. We also see a couple of nice Eyelash Vipers and a larger snake that slithers away too quickly for an identification. A pleasant afternoon in all.

Returning to base we find that Stephan, our newly appointing Country Co-ordinator has arrived and already been ambushed by one of the disgruntled new volunteers. More of them are also presenting their concerns and issues and we have a big meeting in the kitchen to try and discuss and/or resolve them. I don't think it goes hugely well. It seems to me that a lot of them are simply stuck in the negative spiral that they have created and nothing is going to mollify them. The main concerns seem to be lack of easy access to Tortuguero and lack of community work. It seems to me that whilst they have some legitimate arguments they are letting relatively minor things overshadow the fact that they are all out here to do conservation work and already they have been able to do things that very few people would ever get to do. It annoys and baffles me to be honest. It is long weekend tomorrow and the volunteers are all heading off to go Rafting, so hopefully that will take their minds off things and give us some space too.


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Nicaragua - Spanish School

4/6/2010

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Spanish school is over. Here is the blog accordingly. More to come about our day in Granada which was very cool too. Oh - and apparently you don't need to be signed in to Google to view my photo albums. Cool.
I'm back in San Jose. In about an hour I leave for base to begin my intern phase. Met up with Helen and Leonie last night which was really nice. They've been hearing gossip from Molly about the new volunteers and staff. I'll wait and make my own mind up I think :0).
Anyway here's Nicaragua:
 

DAY 72

21st March 2010

It's time for our journey to Nicaragua to begin. The bus leaves San Jose at 6:00am and for once it's a nice spacious coach with plenty of leg-room and good air-conditioning. It's a long trip along the Pacific slope side of Costa Rica which is much different to the Caribbean Coast that we are used to. It's much dryer and dustier, though still quite wooded and green. I doze on and off for a while before they decide to play a crappy Martin Lawrence movie on the small TVs along the aisle of the bus. The volume is cranked up so that it drowns out my Ipod and the language is set to Spanish. It's actually probably more entertaining that way. It takes a good 5 hours or so to get to the border where we have to leave Martin Lawrence and his basketball team of misfit kids and go and stand in a large queue to have our passports checked and stamped. It takes a while. Around 40 minutes or so I think. On the up side the area around the border control is quite wooded and I manage to spot three new species of bird – Orange-fronted Parakeet, Rufous-naped Wren and the rather spectacular White-throated Magpie-Jay. I don't have the chance to get any pictures but I hope to see more of these species during a more relaxed time. Eventually we get back on the bus, drive for about 10 minutes then disembark again, this time getting all of our bags out of the hold. We queue for about 30 minutes only for a guy to come and collect my Customs Declaration form and tell me to go and put my stuff back on the bus. He doesn't even look at it. We aren't allowed back on the bus. Instead we wait for maybe another half an hour, fending off hawkers and beggars that have gathered here in some numbers, then the bus simply drives around to the other side of a large concrete platform that we are already stood on to let us on. It's all a bit hard to follow really but all is well and there are no problems, so we can comfortably get back to seeing whether Martin Lawrence can coach these kids into winning a game.

Nicaragua is not a great deal different to Costa Rica on the surface. It's much flatter and continues with the dry scrubby look of the countryside although I think it gets even drier now. The thing that actually stands out the most to me is the fact that they use roundabouts in their road lay-out, which is something that doesn't happen in Costa Rica. Not much wildlife to see from the road although there are quite literally clouds of what must be thousands of Swallows circling above the fields next to the road. It's quite a sight. I also get glimpses of another Magpie-jay, which is a seriously amazing looking creature and one I need to see again with a camera handy.

We are heading for the capital, Managua which we reach a couple of hours after crossing the border. Martin Lawrence has saved the day and led his boys to victory in the State Final and turned down a lucrative contract to stay with them. All is well in the world again.

We have a brief stop in the capital of Managua. It's different to San Jose. Not as many tall buildings. It doesn't feel like a city so much. Part of it looks quite nice, part of it not so nice. We don't stay long in any case as we meet Johanna as we get off the bus and get taxis straight to the next bus that will take us further north to the city of Esterli. Johanna seems very nice and talkative and despite out initial language barrier we have a little bit of a talk on the bus.

Northern Nicaragua is dry and dusty. Kind of what I would imagine Mexico to be like I think. The one over-riding thing that I notice though which definitely separates Nicaragua with Costa Rica is that the roadsides are horribly choked with garbage, mostly plastic bags. It's really, really grim in some places. To counteract this image we do get treated to quite a nice sunset as we drive up into the hills near to Esterli.

We reach Esterli after sundown and go straight to out Spanish School to meet with Maria, the contact for GVI who organizes this course. I must admit I had this romantic image of our school as a large spacious building in a little bit of surrounding parkland. I couldn't have been further from the truth. It's a tiny almost unnoticeable doorway into a non-descript building on the main Pan-American highway as it runs through town, meaning that there is a constant rumble of traffic and layer of dust in the air. We quickly get some introductions and are assigned our house-stay 'families' and each go our separate ways back to the houses we will be staying in for the duration of our stay.

Our house is quite cavernous. It looks like a converted garage to be honest rather than a house – there is little furniture and the main entrance room is pretty much a roofed courtyard with a partitioned off section for the dining room and basic kitchen. Andrew and I are staying at the same place and we have rooms opposite each other that are quite spartan but spacious. There is a constant electricity supply and I am quite pleased to fin d out that there is an unsecured wireless network nearby as well. Hopefully I'll be able to get on top of my blog site in the next two weeks. There is only one other living with us, a nice lady named Hilda, who will be looking after us for the duration of our stay. She doesn't speak English so I'm either going to go crazy trying to constantly communicate or hopefully will be constantly practicing Spanish and getting better every day. There are also two very small and scrawny kittens that I believe Hilda rescued from the streets. They are very cute and pretty affectionate and both Andrew and myself are instantly won over by them. One of them is a real runt and due to her constant mewling we name her Squeak. The other is kind of fluffy so I call her Furball. Some of the other volunteers are staying with full families with children and although I could see this being fun I also quite like the relative peace and quiet here.




DAY 73

22nd March 2010

I get a cracking night's sleep though the neighborhood is not particularly quiet. Hilda has rustled up a great breakfast of Gallo Pinto and scrambled eggs! Muy bien!

We are scheduled to be a school by 8:00am and we all turn up eager to begin. They introduce us to our teachers who are all quite young (late 20s maybe early 30s) and very friendly. We have a quick introduction session, in Spanish, which is difficult but fun. I end up being assigned to Maria today. Maria is an older woman who runs the show here and she is very much a traditionalist type of teacher. She doesn't use any English with me, which I guess is the whole point really and we have an initial chat to break the ice and get my brain working. It's difficult but with the help of a dictionary I manage to tell her a bit about myself and what I have been doing although I manage to get in a bit to over my head attempting to describe what happened in Shantaram, the book I just finished reading. It is fun though and we do have a few chuckles, before we start working through a large textbook that is starting to show its age a bit. It's all good stuff though and I certainly start learning some vocabulary to with my basic grammar knowledge. We have an hour and a half break for lunch at 12:00 and then head back for an hour. It's just the right amount of time as by 14:00 I'm starting to flag a bit.

We all decide to have a quick walk into town as a group and head towards the central park, which amounts to little but a square with a few trees in it next to a very nice looking church. Charissa and Charlotte buy some doughnuts from a street vendor that turn out to be about 6p each. I'm unable to pass that one up and order two myself. They are quite tasty as well. The one thing that really becomes apparent here is that everything is really, really, really cheap – and being a fairly sizable town most things are available. I make a mental note to try and get some shorts, sunglasses and some consumables before I head back to the tourist prices of Tortuguero.

We meet up with Johanna for a proper guided walk around town which is really cool. She is very nice and though I'm still not fully conversant, I'm getting better at understanding and she is very patient. She shows me a second hand clothes shop where there are some shorts for a couple of dollars. I don't find any I like on a quick look but it is maybe worth coming back here at some point for a longer browse. We also have a look inside the church which is quite modern actually, and a small art gallery of mixed quality. Esterli is a lot more than a busy dusty highway which is the first impression I had. The streets in the town centre are all nicely cobbled and there is a wonderful mix of shops and restaurants and bars. It's quite a vibrant place too with lots of people and virtually no tourist influences at all. This gives the whole experience a real feeling of authenticity – like we are really seeing the true Nicaragua. Best of all nobody really pays us much attention. I quickly feel quite comfortable walking around the streets and because the whole town is so flat and laid out on a grid its really easy to find your way back home again using the hills surrounding town as a navigation point.

Another thing that stands out here in Esterli, is that it is a real motor city. More so than anywhere in Costa Rica. The main highway is full of garages and there is a real abundance and diversity of cars here. The three most abundant vehicles are the ex-American school buses (dating back to the 80s apparently and sold by the USA when the vehicles no longer met current health and safety standards) all custom painted and some of them looking really smart, motorbikes of many types and finally the most popular of all, the Toyota landcruisers, ranging from old 60s or 70s models to brand new looking 4-door versions, and normally with several guys hanging off the back.

It's been a good first day and our first impressions of Esterli are positive.




DAY 74

23rd March 2010

I have a new teacher today. He is a young chap named Edwin and he's wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt. That gives us some common ground straight away! “Me gusta Black Sabbath!”

I have a bit of a shaky start with starting speaking Espanol again and we have a general chat about things and of course I get in over my head trying to describe Jag-walks and dead turtles and trying to see Jaguars and dangerous crocodiles in the river and so on. It is good fun though and I soon warm to it – Edwin is a little more fluent in English as well to help me out a little, though we do not rely on this much. I feel that I am progressing pretty well.

The afternoon activity is a tour of the local cigar factory. The guided tour is conducted in Spanish so unfortunately I can still only understand about 1 in every 3 words and can't really keep up with what our guide is saying. I get the gist though just by watching people at work. The visit is seriously ruined for me though by the fact though that they have several exotic animals, no doubt captured by hunters/poachers and sold as 'pets', being kept in frankly atrocious conditions. There is an ocelot, a beautiful spotted cat and the first one I've ever seen, pacing back and forth in a bare wire mesh cage, three Capuchin monkeys kept in a cage of wire no bigger than a wardrobe, a toucan and three miserable looking parrots also in rough wire cages and finally a small river turtle covered in algae sitting in a bucket of dirty water. I am sure that there is no real malice on the part of the people here, clearly in poorer countries they do not view animals in the same way we do, as actual sentient creatures with needs and feelings (I say that without being some kind of new age hippy type), but that doesn't make it right. I am really quite moved by the plight of these beautiful creatures. I am determined to find some way of reporting this, some kind of Nicaraguan animal orphanage that can get them seized and rehabilitated or something. Sadly, a bit of internet research reveals the bitter pill that there are no animal welfare laws in Nicaragua. The government has just entered into some kind of international agreement to promote animal welfare laws but this is not helpful right now. It's horribly ironic than on a course sponsored by GVI, a conservation organization, that we would be taken to a place that directly contravenes the moral and ethical principles that we are all striving to uphold. Illegal trading of parrots, in particular, is one of the principal causes for their decline in the wild. I'm still toying with the idea of climbing the walls and opening up the cages in the middle of the night, but of course even if I could practically do this, the animals would most likely be killed or recaptured as there is nowhere for them to go. I even thought about popping the turtle in my bag, but I have nowhere to take it. I know this sort of thing happens all over the world in countries like this, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

I get some beer on the way home for 13 Cordoba a can (approx. 39p). I needed to unwind.




DAY 75

24th March 2010

We start the day today by meeting Patrick who is leading a group of volunteers on another GVI program here in Esterli. This program is a community program and is concentrating on teaching kids at primary school level. A squatter community has sprung up just outside Esterli with people moving into the area to work in the tobacco fields surrounding town and not being able to afford to actually live in town. GVI has helped to build a small school building and provided teachers (mostly volunteers) to help this community.

The little village is actually very well-kept and each hut though crudely constructed has a little garden area, many of which with pretty flowers and plants. The litter, a constant spoiling factor here, is at a minimal level and there is a very pleasant atmosphere.

We meet up with several other volunteers, three lads from England and two from the US (no girls strangely) and Carla, a native Nicaraguan teacher who is funded by GVI. The kids are a lovely bunch of a mixture of ages from 3 to 11 and they seem to absolutely love the volunteers. It's quite a sight to see a bunch of pretty big chaps running around and playing with these kids. We are sat down in the class room and treated to a round of songs in both English and Spanish with Patrick accompanying on guitar. It's a very pleasant experience and ends all to quickly. Patrick suggests that we all go out for a drink at some point, which sounds like a great idea. They are all taking Spanish lessons too at the same place so he will try and leave a message for us there.

Spanish lessons go well again today with Edwin. Again, I really feel like some progress is made.

I find a bit more out about the nearby nature reserve of Miraflor and it may not be possible to go there as it is Easter period, which is a big holiday and already places are closing down for this. Plus, we need at least a full day and one night up there to be able to visit the Cloud-forest. This is very frustrating for me.

It's been quite a hot and dusty day and I'm feeling a bit frazzled and really feeling the need to get out of the city for a bit, but that just isn't possible unfortunately. Must try and get an early night so that I'm ready to go again in the morning.




DAY 76

25th March

It's another hot and dusty day in Esterli. Lessons are still going well and my confidence is building. I'm able to have some basic conversations with Hilda at home over lunch.

We go out for a drink with the other GVI volunteers this evening and it's pretty good fun with ridiculously cheap beer – approx £1.30 for a litre bottle of beer. This sort of thing could get really messy but luckily we are all quite restrained. There's a live band on and they start with some traditional Nico tunes and then end up playing covers like Oye Como Va by Santana. We do end up staying out a bit late though til around 11:00 which is a bad idea when you have to get up for school in the morning. I feel like I'm at university again!




DAY 77

26th March

Last day of the first week of school. I don't mind admitting that I feel more than a little tender this morning. Andrew does too which makes me feel a little better. It's yet another hot dry day and the week as a whole has taken it's toll on all of us. This learning is quite an intense experience and we all feel a bit mentally fatigued. It's still a productive morning though and I'm really pleased with my progress. Andrew is also very complimentary on how my Spanish is progressing. I must get myself a grammar book or something before I leave so that I can continue to learn.

We get the afternoon off today and we go home for lunch and then head into town for a little while and get a smoothie from a juice bar and just hang out for while. We go to an internet cafe and check out the photos posted by GVI on their website. The jag-cam that we put up by the dead cow some weeks ago came up trumps and the developed film revealed some stunning pics of a jaguar right next to our base. It's good to put a face to the prints! Check out the pics on the GVI blog site for Costa Rica (can't remember the address off the top of my head). Hopefully when I return I will finally get to see my very own jag in the flesh?

My Friday night is spent listening to some Metal on my Ipod, and reading my Spanish textbook with a kitten on my lap.




DAY 78

27th March

Wow! A day off and we are getting up earlier than usual to get the bus up into the mountains of Tisey, a large protected area of mountain forest and scrub. Carlos, one of the teachers at the school is taking us around and we are also joined by Edwin, another guy affiliated with the school whose name I can't remember and a chap that though Nicaraguan, spent 5 years in the US Army. I can't remember his name but he's a really good guy and speaks great English with an American accent.

The bus ride is slow and bumpy, and there's a really sharp edge on my window which I don't notice until I'm getting off at the top of the road and I slice my shorts open on it. Though irritating I feel it could have been a lot worse. My bum could now be bleeding all over the place. That would not have been cool!

Our first stop is a walk along a dusty track through some beautiful dry forest which gets Jeremy and Lydia all reminiscent of the woods back home by them. There's a few new birds about and we are treated to the sight of some noisy pairs of Acorn Woodpeckers and a group of three spectacular White-throated Magpie-Jays. The village that we end up at grows lots of organic vegetables and makes cheese and milk. We get a little tour around and get to try some cheese which is actually really really good. It's like a rich, mature cheddar type cheese which they apparently learnt from a Swiss volunteer organization and now they make some money buy selling it to the supermarkets and markets in Esterli. There's also a spectacular viewpoint as part of the tour that you can see a distant dormant volcano from.

After our tour, we walk down the road, which in itself is really nice. The forest here is lovely and if I had more time I would gladly just wander up and down this road doing some birding. As it is I manage to spot a couple of species of dove and a beautiful yellow-headed warbler of some type.

We stop to rest at another brilliant view which looks out over an area of hillside vaguely reminiscent of Wales and then head down a track through some woods to meet with an old artist who is famous for his carvings into the rocks of the hillside here. He's quite a character and though apparently in his 90s still bounds up the steep hillside trail telling us about all his different carvings ranging in subject from birds, jaguars and Nicaraguan folk figures to the Twin Towers(!), smoking a cigarette all the while. He's certainly quite a character and though, to be bluntly honest, his carvings are a little crude, they are extensive and represent something like 50 years of work with a unique vision. The centrepoint of the carvings in a nativity scene surrounded by a seating area with a couple of crude wooden benches that overlooks a stunning view back out towards Esterli. Our guide perches on a stone niche above us regaling constantly with poems and tales, of which I understand almost nothing as he speaks with a heavily accented Spanish very quickly. You don't have to understand it to get the vibe and feel of the place and his work though. A thoroughly unique if somewhat odd experience.

It's a steep climb back up to the road and in the woods we see one of the most beautiful small birds that we have seen yet in the form of the Elegant Euphonia. We also see a woodpecker that's not in our Costa Rica bird guide and I also see a rich dark blue Jay which again is not in our book.

We get some lunch at a local restaurant which is quite frankly amazing. It's just rice, beans and chicken but it's cooked so well and with such flavour that it might just be the best thing I've eaten in a restaurant whilst I have been in Central America.

We have two options available now. There is a viewpoint nearby and we can hang around here for an hour or two before catching the bus. Or we can head down the road for 8 or so km to a waterfall. We have a good chance of being able to hitch a ride down to the waterfall so we decide to give it a go seeing as though we may not get the chance again. We do manage to get a ride after about half an hours walk – which is productive for me as I manage to get some photos of yet more new birds. The waterfall is really nice. It's not that big really as it is the dry season but there is a lovely big pool at the bottom of it. It has been a hot, dusty day of walking so we all strip down to shorts (except for the girls who cunningly have bikini tops on under their shirts) and plunge in for a swim. Very refreshing and relaxing, though surprisingly tiring.

We should be able to get the bus back from here but it is running really late so we end up hitching again. It's quite a sight to have ten of us all sat in the back of a Toyota pick-up along with an old guy who strangely nonplussed by the appearance of a bunch of gringos in his nice spacious ride. The situation is even more ridiculous when we stop to give a young Scottish chap a lift with his mountain bike that has burst a tire. To make things even funnier, once we tell him what we have been up to in Costa Rica, he mentions that he met a couple of girls who had also been to Costa Rica. None other then Nicky and Sophie who we left at Managua and who went on to Leon where they met this guy! Small world!




DAY 79

28th March 2010

More walking again today. This time we have elected to head to Miraflor, which is a similar mix of small sustainable communities and protected land to Tisey, just at a higher altitude and of a larger area.

Andrew, Lydia, Jeremy and myself get the bus at 6:00am (although Jeremy and Lydia only narrowly avoid missing the bus by heading to the wrong station). We stop several times on the way out of Esterli, and the bus rapidly becomes crammed with people standing in the aisle. It's another one of these ex-American yellow school buses and it is ridiculously overcrowded. There must be 50-60 people on-board and a glance out the window reveals several sets of feet dangling from the roof. We can't help but laugh with each other at the craziness of the whole situation. It reminds me of Africa where they cram so many people into their Volkswagen mini-vans that they uses as taxis there.

The road up to Miraflor gets very steep and is not paved, so as to be expected with a bus this full and this old, it slows to a snails pace and the engine makes some very funny noises! It's a good two hour trip and we are all quite relieved to get off. Most of these people must be heading to the town on the other side of Miraflor called Yali, as hardly any of them have got off.
Only the four of us depart from the bus at a stop called La Rampla. It's a very picturesque forested spot. We have a crude map which we are following that will take us back down in elevation towards Esterli and hopefully we can pick up the return bus somewhere along the way. It's a beautiful clear morning and though sunny the air is quite a bit cooler up at this altitude (Jeremy's funky watch makes it around 1330m). Straight away we are treated to the sight of several species of raptor circling high on the thermals. In addition to the ubiquitous vultures, there is a Short-tailed Hawk and the unmistakeable Swallow-tailed Kite. The path wends its way upwards to begin with a passes through a patch of forest where we are treated to the sight of a beautiful male Violet Saberwing hummingbird. Unusually, he sits on the same perch for a while letting get a good view of his rich dark purple plumage. Unfortunately, the foliage is a little dense for a good picture. The trees here seem very old. They are covered in mosses and other small plants such as bromeliads and epiphytes. It reminds me of Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings. Soon enough though we enter into a small village which has a baseball game going on in one field. Baseball is the Nicaraguan national sport and there are plenty of guys with bright red jerseys bashing the ball around with a fair crowd of spectators too. I even get to throw the ball back to them when it get's hit our way. The fields around the village are a haven for all sorts of small seed-eating birds and we rapidly racking up the species, most of which are new to all of us. We take our time walking and the road passes through more patches of forest where there are some seriously tall trees and more farmland. Hunger starts to kick in and we stop at a little restaurant/lodge with a delightful garden full of flowers. We get a nice breakfast complete with plenty of good coffee and refills of our water bottles, all for the princely sum of $3. Best of all though – they have a hummingbird feeder which is regularly attracting at least three different hummingbirds, one of which is another Violet Saberwing and the others both turn out to be Azure-crowned Hummingbirds, though their plumage is much more subtle than their name would suggest. We have a walk around the garden for a bit as well, climbing their rickety wooden observation platform for some nice views and a look at a beautiful yellow Wilson's Warbler in the tree canopy. We also see another type of striking hummingbird and I have a moment when I head to the toilet where I pass by a wall of flowers only to have an Azure-crowned Hummer hover right in front of my face seemingly oblivious to my presence. It's a moment. This place looks lovely and I can't remember it's name off the top of my head, but I very much would love to stay here for a few days and explore Miraflor from here. We will only see a small part of the area as a whole and whilst I'm glad we visited, it's a shame we don't have more time.

Loathe to leave though we are, we must press on and we continue trekking. We have decided to change our route and rather than looping back up to where we originally got dropped off, we are going to continue along the road downwards for as long as possible and hopefully catch the bus on its way back down later on. There are views on every corner as the road drops downwards and we pass several small farms and more patches of woodland. At one section the trees are all draped in Spanish Moss which gives them a really eerie look that I'm quite taken with. I've never really seen it before. It quickly turns out that the map we have is not to scale and we have bitten off a little more than we can chew. We end up walking for what must be 6 hours or so and it gets really hot and everyone's feet are getting a little sore from walking down steep rocky tracks. Luckily, we do end up managing to hitch a ride back to town. It is quite the accepted thing to do out here. It's pretty bumpy but quite fun and our driver is not shy about giving it some welly down these steep rocky roads. Slightly frustratingly as we reach the lower elevations, we get fleeting glimpses of the National Bird of Nicaragua, the Turquoise-browed Motmot. It's a stunner with a random assortment of greens, pinks and blues and seems to be really common here as we see six between the lot of us. Unfortunately, there is no chance of being able to get a photo as we are clinging on for dear life!

It's been a tiring but fantastic day in Miraflor, and I have made a mental note to return and explore more fully should I ever be up this way again.




DAYs 79 - 83

29th March - 2nd March

I have condensed this week into one entry as it was pretty much the same routine each day. Get up, go to school, finish early afternoon and then chill out for the afternoon. I really enjoyed Spanish classes and I have definitely progressed, though I feel I have some way to go before I can actually have a conversation with a native speaker. I must endeavor to keep at it when I get back to Tort.

They take Easter pretty seriously here and this week is known as Semana Santa or Holy Week. From Thursday onwards pretty much everything closes like a Bank Holiday. It's very odd to walk around town with hardly any traffic or people about – quite a dramatic change. There is a procession on the Thursday evening which we go and watch, involving people carrying these floats down the street with effigies of Jesus and Mary on them and a couple of kids dressed as Romans. They lead a large procession of people from one church to the main cathedral in town presumably for a service, but we only follow it for a little while.

I have really enjoyed my time here in Nicaragua. There have been some negatives, namely the way they treat their animals especially keeping parrots and monkeys and other wild animals in horrible cages. There is also a terrible amount of litter all over the place – they clearly don't have a proper waste disposal system like we do, but to just drop it in the street and have it build up so much is quite the eyesore. The young men also have the annoying habit of leering at the female members of the group, all part of the 'macho' culture I guess – and to be fair, you get that sort of thing at home too. But I don't want to be too negative because in general, the Nicos of Esterli have been friendly and hospitable and the surrounding countryside is beautiful. My experience has definitely been 90% positive. Our homestay has been good. Hilda and her son have been very hospitable. And of course, have I mentioned how incredibly cheap it is?? Nicaragua is definitely a country that warrants a more comprehensive exploration at some point in the future. The Atlantic region in particular is very sparsely populated and has the largest tracts of primary rainforest in Central America.

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More new stuff

4/2/2010

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Thanks to the benefits of having a decent regular wireless connection, I have been working very hard to try and bring this all up to date. I have completely changed the photo section as that page was starting to clog up pretty bad with all the photos on there. I have now entered in several links to photo albums on Google Picasa which is a very cool free program and well worth checking out - you will need a Google account to view these photos but its quick and easy to set one up and then you get to use Google Maps and all their other cool stuff too! So its well worth doing.
Anyway there are quite a lot of photos with all new informative captions on them to see plus you can now leave comments a la Facebook. Let me know if you have any problems using it and hope you like looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them!
I am finishing up in Nicaragua at the moment and I will endeavour to get my blog of my time here up as soon as possible. For those wildlife nerds like me I have also managed to get some species lists up - though they might not mean too much to you!!
More to come in the next few days.
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