Hi peeps. Another dose of exciting adventures for you all to peruse. I'm a bit behind with writing my journal as we had another long weekend break down in Puerto Viejo which meant that I missed writing four days on the day as I didn't want to take my laptop!! I do have a few more days and photos to check out though so please enjoy.
Hope you are all well - congratulations to Julie and Freddy on the birth of their daughter. Very cool! I look forward to hearing more about that. I am well - I have a beard again for the time being and I actually have a bit of a tan. I've also lost a little bit of weight according to some fellow volunteers and think thats true - although not as much as I would like, I think its my turn for the Jag-walk again soon though so maybe that'll be a good indicator of whether my fitness has improved or not?
Right here's some more blog:
DAY 30
Feb 7th 2010
We are spending the day in Tortuguero today. It’s the day of the Jag walk and we will be part of the welcoming committee and also having a walk in the forest at the opposite end of the track that leads all the way down to us at Jalova. The boat ride is nice as always – the most interesting thing that happens is that we see two swallows (that are always present flitting up and down the river) engaged in some sort of duel. They fly tight up against each other flapping and pecking and squawking. They drop in a descending spiral that plunges down towards the river. Just as it looks as though they will hit the river’s surface they separate and fly off in opposite directions. It’s quite a shocking display from a bird that seems so free-spirited and ‘happy’ (though anyone that saw the murdering swallow on Springwatch a couple of years back will know that there’s a darkside to them!).
The walk is nice. Not too much about at the start of the walk, closer to the town, but as we get further in we are treated to the sight of a colourful pair of Black-throated Trogons, a Red Brocket Deer which stands watching us for a couple of minutes before calmly making its way through the forest away from us, and numerous lizards and bugs.
We get a little while in the ever-fantastic Budda Café to use the internet and get some pizza, before the Jag-walkers arrive, exhausted but happy.
DAY 31
Feb 8th 2010
We are out early today to set up a Jag-cam in the jungle. We are still not having much luck with these. The films came back blank and the cameras just don’t seem to ever work properly. We do have some new ones coming though.
Back at camp Emily approaches me with her camera eager to show me pictures of a cool snake that they saw. I think my exact response upon seeing it is “Holy crap! That’s a Fer-de-lance!” This kind of puts a different perspective on things. I don’t want to glamorise things like a Channel 5 documentary but the Fer-de-lance is the No. 1 bad boy of the snakes in Central America. It causes an average of 20 fatalities a year and is reputed to be highly aggressive in nature. The one that Emily and her group saw was a juvenile at only around 2ft long but they can grow up to 8ft which is pretty colossal for a viper. A juvenile venomous snake is worse than an adult in some respects as it’s venom is just as potent and it has less control over the dosage and is unlikely to give you a dry warning bite as an adult may do if you’re lucky. Emily has some good pictures and I have say despite the danger, I’m quite jealous as I like my snakes, though from the account I think they were a wee bit too close for comfort. I’ll post the pics from Emily on the blog for your perusal.
In the afternoon we are treated to a visit from a local Botany expert called Mario Rasta. We have already heard about him from several people and he more than lives up to his exalted reputation. We spend a fascinating hour or so wandering around the garden with him talking about all the plants there and their medicinal and traditional uses. As well as being a perfect gentleman and having a gentle sense of humour, he is an absolute fountain of knowledge. I wish that one day I could be as knowledgeable about something as he is on plants – and the thing is, he make’s it so interesting. Plants aren’t exactly my favourite topic compared to animals (although he knows a fair amount about those too!) but I could happily follow him about for hours trying to absorb as much information as possible. It’s too bad that our long weekend break starts tomorrow and we won’t be able to spend much more time with him. He has dinner with us and we have a good chat about where he lives (near where we went rafting) and how he learnt his first plants from his grandmother. He’s a very nice chap indeed.
The evening is topped off by the sight of some very big fish (not sharks, maybe Tarpon?) swimming about in surf close in to the beach. I try to get some photos but it’s pretty difficult as the light is failing and it‘s so hard to predict where they are going to appear. The air is pretty clear of heat haze and ocean spray for once and you can see some 15 miles north up the beach to where the only hill in Tortuguero, ‘the cerro’ can clearly be seen against the horizon. It’s one of those evenings where everything just feels right.
DAY 32
Feb 9th 2010
The boat we have hired is due to pick us up at 8:00am. Come 9:00am we are standing in the hot sun on the river shore awaiting this coat. A phone call to their office reveals that they have just left. Whilst this is frustrating it does indirectly lead to quite an exciting event.
Bored and hot, I decide to investigate the dense forest edge bordering the river. There are some Howler Monkeys sat up a tree looking fairly dejected as always. A few birds flit about in the undergrowth and I’m pleased to see a bright yellow Prothonotary Warbler (I think that’s how you spell it?) and add it to my bird species list. A large black bird that I take to be some sort of cuckoo, catches my eye. It appears to be catching the plentiful lizards that live here in the dense vegetation. Quickly I notice the large heavy beak with a prominent upper ridge similar to the Hornbills of Africa or Asia. I quickly realise that I haven’t seen this before and manage to get some photos of it – only one of which comes out, clearly showing the head, I wander back out to my bag lying out on the beach and have a flick through my bird book. I’m quite astounded to find out that it is a Greater Ani and has only been seen a ‘handful of times in 2003-04 in Tortuguero’ (that’s pretty much the line from the book). That means in UK birder/twitcher terminology it would be called a ‘mega’. That means that if this were the UK, birders would flock from all over the country in their hundreds to come and see this. It is statistically a rarer sighting than a Jaguar (although not as exciting on a purely visceral level of course). Unfortunately, by the time I have excitedly explained this to Dave and others nearby and shown them my photo and the book, it has of course disappeared. I need to report this to the Costa Rican Ornithological Society, and maybe in the next edition of the bird field guide it will be know from a handful of sightings from Tortuguero in 2003-04 and 2010?
The boat eventually arrives at 10:00am and we begin the long trek down to a landing called Moin, which is near Limon, Costa Rica’s largest port city and second largest overall. It’s a pretty good trip that takes us nearly three hours. The river habitat is quite varied and mostly quite picturesque apart from one section where we pass a stretch where the riverbank has been cleared of vegetation and dug-up, probably to make way for a banana plantation or something. There is a slightly hairy moment when we reach a river mouth and the driver of the boat actually steers into the breaking waves where river meets the ocean in order to steer around a large accumulation of fallen trees and into the next river. The river boat is not designed for this sort of choppy water and is thumped around alarmingly by the incoming sea. The driver knows what he’s doing though and manages to steer us back into the safety of the river.
We get off at Moin only to find that the guys taking us have not organised a bus for us, which was the plan. A call to their office produces no results. I’m not particularly impressed with these guys so far, but to his credit, the guy in charge does manage to rustle up a bus for us in about half an hour. The landing at Moin is the diametric opposite of Cano Blanco. It is right next to the port of Limon and yet the only building is a run down block of toilets with doors that don’t shut properly and mostly don’t have toilet seats or toilet paper. The only seating is a couple of decrepit old wooden benches with slats missing. There’s barely any shade and no other facilities. In other words, not a nice place to spend any time at all, especially in the hot sun.
The bus ride is pretty crazy. Driving in Costa Rica is pretty much a free-for-all. The road signs are promptly ignored. Slower vehicles are overtaken at any opportunity. Cyclists are given no quarter. The only good thing is that the roads are not particularly busy. Andrew reassures us by claiming that Costa Rica has the safest roads in Central America! There’s certainly a few buttock-clenching moments but we do arrive in one piece at Puerto Viejo.
Puerto Viejo (or PV as I will refer to it from no on) has a slightly unsavoury reputation to say the least. It’s a haven for surf-bums, ex-pats from America and Europe, backpackers and pot-heads. The last time a group from GVI went here, there were 4 separate muggings – one guy even got smashed over the head with a coconut. To be fair he was drunk as a skunk and wandering about in the middle of the night, and some of the other cases were people that were carrying around expensive camera gear in full view. Still it’s hard to shake the feeling of unease as we arrive. The town itself is much like Turriabla in that its completely different to what I was expecting. I was expecting a fairly large coastal town but its actually quite a small jumble of buildings, each of them differently constructed, many of them wood with the odd larger concrete building standing out amongst them. There is one paved road running along the coast with dirt tracks branching off at intervals. Virtually every building is either a bar, restaurant or souvenir shop. The Caribbean influence is clear by the amount of Afro-Caribbean folk with their richly accented speech, Bob Marley flags and food menus full of traditional dishes just waiting to be tried (there’s also an abundance of ‘pipes’ in the souvenir shops!). Thankfully on the outskirts of town there is a bank with an ATM that we all get to use. I have a feeling it may be an expensive trip!
Rocking J’s is our hostel for at least one night and it’s on the far side of town. It’s a very open plan hostel with a bar and seating area with a pool table upfront, and then behind a mixture of camping area, lockers and random seating areas and lawns. There’s a room full of hammocks that you can hire for the night if you’re on a really tight budget and the upper wooden floor holds around 50 tents set out, each with a mattress and blanket, which you can also hire out for slightly more than the hammock. There are a handful of dorms and rooms available as well. We all opt for different options and I choose the tent, which turns out to be pretty comfortable. The lockers provided for the hammock and tent users are large and padlocked. The décor is completely unique with the floor made up of tiled crazy-paving in a random variety of colours. The walls and doors to the toilets and lockers are all covered in hand-painted murals of varying quality and subject matter. My favourite is one of the toilet doors which features the picture of a gorilla sat on a toilet and the caption “Apes**t”. I’m also tickled by a ‘Deadhead Parking Only’ sign which makes me think of home (my Dad being a huge Grateful Dead fan). The vibe is pretty relaxed and we quickly settle in getting some beer and food (I order the ‘Sexy Steak Sandwich’ which is suitably sexy and very tasty. The pool table is pretty shoddy but for 300 colones a game (about $0.50) who’s complaining?
We head out to explore and walk back into the main strip of town, browsing the tourist shops along the way. They vary tremendously in presentation from proper shops with pleasant music, to stalls blasting out reggae music and manned by some rather nefarious looking individuals, but in essence they all end up selling pretty much the same things. We end up enticed into a bar-restaurant named Chile Rojos (Red Chillies) that has a happy hour on. A nice American waitress named Autumn keeps us plying with Mojitos, Pina Coladas, Mia Tia, Screwdrivers and beers. It’s a very pleasant comfortable place situated on the 1st floor of a large mini-shopping mall, which means it’s above the dust and bustle of the streets below. The furniture is comfortable and the lighting subtle and the drinks are cheap and very nice. We end up ordering sushi to eat, which is fantastic. Jeremy and I have a mixed platter of Tempura Shrimp, Eel, Tuna and more. I also love the ginger that is served with it, primarily as a palate cleanser between different sushi types. It looks like Salmon, pink and thinly sliced, rather than ginger and has a very sweet flavour. I end up eating all of it because Jeremy doesn’t like ginger. I highly recommend this place – it turns out to be my clear favourite of all the places we will visit over the course of the weekend; relaxing, comfortable, affordable and high quality. We head back to the hostel around 10:00 and half of us turn in, including me as I am planning to be up early to head further down the coast to visit Manzanillo, a smaller town with a trail through a Wildlife Refuge that is highly recommended both by Mario Rasta and the Lonely Planet. Nicky, Jeremy, Andrew and Sophie decide to head back out again to continue drinking. I’m a little worried about them to be honest, but it’s their choice – I just hope they look after each other.
DAY 33
Feb 10th 2010
The early bus is at 07:00am to Manzanillo, some 13km on from PV and pretty close to the Panamanian border. It’s a pleasant journey and Manzillo is a pleasant place. Its pretty much just a strip of buildings, many with small rooms for rent (or cabinas), camping or kayak/bike/snorkelling hire advertised. There are also a couple of cafes and a large Mediterranean restaurant. The centrepoint of the village is where the bus stops and turns around to head back up to Limon via PV, and is dominated by Maxis. Maxis is a large two storey wooden building with a couple of bars and a café and souvenir shop on the ground floor, some cabinas round the side and a restaurant on the 1st floor. Having walked up the road and seeing none of the places I’d written down to stay in on the way I decide to opt for one of the cabinas at Maxis. I am shown my room by a lady that takes surly unpleasantness to new levels. She has little patience for my attempts at Spanish – “You are English? Then just speak English then” she tells me brusquely. The hospitality industry in Costa Rica doesn’t always seem to grasp the point that if you are rude to the customer they won’t stay. Quite honestly, if I had seen anywhere else on the way I would have gone there instead, but I haven’t and the room is nice (it’s a double room with fans, a fridge and hot showers – ooooh the luxury!), so I take it.
After throwing all my stuff in the room and having a quick freshen up I go and have a look at the beach. The beaches down here have quite an exalted reputation but to be quite honest at PV and here at Manzanillo, they’re not all that. They are good for surfers and nice in the fact that you can actually swim off them unlike at Tortuguero with the dangerous riptides, so this is probably something to do with it. But I’m not really a beach person anyway, so I go and get some breakfast in a pleasant looking local café. The lady serving me is much more patient with my attempts at Spanish and I manage to establish what time the bus leaves back to PV tomorrow and where the hiking trail starts. I also have a delicious Gallo Pinto (fried rice and beans in coconut milk) with scrambled eggs and toast and some much-needed coffee.
After I’m suitably satiated I get myself ready for a hike. I must admit to feeling somewhat out of place amongst the shorts and vest clad tourists and locals, wearing my long trousers, walking boots, long-sleeved shirt and rucksack. I grab a few supplies at a shop opposite. The woman who showed me the room is sat outside and actually musters a half-smile at me and makes a little conversation. Maybe she’s warming to me?
The trail starts at the end of the beach after crossing a small creek and wends its way up a muddy hill into some forest. There are periodic viewpoints out along the coast, which looks really nice from this perspective. You can’t really see any of the buildings and it just looks like a forest swathed coastline in either direction. Apparently at the end of this trail, Punta Mona (Monkey Point), you can see Panama. The trail is not very well marked and because of the previous night’s rain quite muddy and treacherous at times. There are a few birds about and the pick of them is arguably the fierce-looking Hook-billed Kite.
Unfortunately, about half an hour in the trail has been obviously cleared in maybe a 15-20ft swath. Even the under-storey has been chopped down with a machete and trees have been felled. It looks pretty fresh as there is a lot of recent plant debris. Its looks as though this may have had a knock-on effect as several trees perhaps weakened by the sudden exposure to the elements and removal of supporting vegetation, have fallen across the trail. This is a wildlife refuge and not a national park, which means it’s less protected but still it’s an unsettling and heavy handed act. It’s even more of a shame because the forest surrounding it is really nice and there are some really nice big rainforest trees. There are some very interesting bird and frog species here that are all indicators of good forest habitat so it's a shame that it seems to be getting fragmented like this. I also come across an area on the trail where a house has been built with quite a sizable chunk of land that has mostly been cleared down to a rough lawn. It must be at least a hectare – which given the land its in seems very greedy to me. I think it would have been much nicer to have a smaller lawn and still retain the forest around it – but of course that’s my mindset and not the owner of the house’s. I don’t have too much more time now and decide to head back before dark with the intention of heading out early tomorrow.
I spend my evening in Maxi’s restaurant, which turns out to be a pretty wild place in terms of the animal clientale. It’s on the 1st floor of the building and in similar style to Chile Rojos and most other buildings here, there are no windows just open sides to the room to let the air flow through (poor man’s air conditioning!). I am served by a very big, but friendly fellow whose footsteps shake the room as he walks past me. I opt for the fish, which is something I don’t get enough of at base. Whilst I sit reading my book (Shantaram. Read it – it’s fantastic!) and sipping a delicious Bavaria dark beer (brewed in Costa Rica) there is a horrible clattering noise from a duct up near the ceiling. All of a sudden a small grey rodent-like animal (it could be a rat, mouse, mouse-opposum – I don’t get a clear view) comes hurtling out to the floor and scurries under a couch in the adjacent lounge area. It is swiftly followed by a scrawny grey cat, which pounces on its victim as the unknown creature scurries out from under the couch. There is a quick scuffle, a horrible squealing and then a sickening crunch and the cat scampers off round the corner with its victim/next meal. A few minutes after that, something large lands on my arm and the irrational thought that another ‘rat’ has been chased out of a hole somewhere and has landed on me, crosses my mind before I realise that, in fact, it is a moth the size of my hand. Many people would panic here, but I am fascinated and unfortunately the moth flies off before I can get much of a look at it. My fish arrives and is very rich and tasty (and served with Gallo Pinto of course!) and I eat pretty quickly and then finish off with another beer. There is a strange and quite loud chuk-chuk-chuk sound coming from above me and I look up to see two geckos squaring off with one another, over some prime stretch of ceiling. The noise is not something I would ever imagine a lizard, especially one so small, to be capable of emitting. There are several of them dotted about throughout the room and they are clearly quite territorial as I can hear them ‘arguing’ several times whilst I drink my beer and read. None of them seem to come to blows whilst I am watching. A pleasant dining experience all in all – good food and some interesting beasts.
DAY 34
Feb 11th 2010
I’m up at the crack of dawn today and squeezing back into my sweaty trail clothes of yesterday. I’m kind of used to it by now.
The hike is much more pleasant in the cool morning air and with no rain in the night, it’s also a little less muddy. I follow the same route and see many of the same birds and animals, though there is a very interesting small red frog in the leaf-litter that seems highly abundant this morning. They are very vocal and I manage to locate a couple of them croaking away. From this I can deduce that there are even more around than I can see judging by the number of croaks I hear as I walking today. Frog diversity is very good here and get some interesting pictures of some more species – one of which I’m sure is a Poison-dart Frog. The forest is still just as good for birds and there are plenty of species here different to those in Tortuguero, and one in particular, the relatively innocuous Spot-crowned Antvireo is only found in this area of Costa Rica. Interestingly, I also meet the owner of the mystery house in the forest. He rides up on horseback along the trail behind me accompanied by a small but friendly little dog. He is actually quite a pleasant chap and I manage a basic conversation half in English and half in Spanish with him. I don’t really want to like him as he has chopped down some of the forest, but then again he has got a machete, so I’m inclined not to try and start an argument. Worryingly, later on, in a particularly nice area of forest, I find a for sale sign tacked to the trunk of a fantastic, huge rainforest tree. It would be really criminal to cut this giant of the forest down, as it must be pretty old (though trees do grow quicker here than back in England). I wonder if I’ll ever come back here in the future and see more houses and trails cut through this precious habitat. I don’t get much further than last time as I need to be back to check out for 12:00 and leave on the 12:45 bus back to PV. I have decided to save some money and go back to Rocking J’s for the last night and that also means I get to spend some more time with the rest of the group and with my roomie Emily, who is leaving tomorrow.
I meet Andrew on the way back. He has a map that I somehow failed to find anyway which shows that the trail may continue for some distance more and there is also another one to the south, which is longer and leads to some marshland. Shame, I haven’t got more time to spend exploring. Maybe a future trip is in order.
My temporary landlady is no more pleasant when I check out. I won’t be using Maxis again if I do return. That’s for sure.
Everyone is pleased to see me back at the hostel and I set myself up with another tent for the night. I have a look round town in the afternoon and browse a few shops and use the internet café. PV certainly has a certain kind of lazy ambience that I’m starting to like a bit more. We head out for a group meal in the evening, with a few people suffering from a heavy night last night. We find a cheap restaurant, which is fairly nice and serves a nice array of drinks. The service is pretty slow though. But all in all, it’s a nice evening. We probably should have gone to Chile Rojos though…
DAY 35
Feb 12th 2010
We are up to see Emily off today on the bus to San Jose. It’s a hot day today and I don’t envy her the 4 hour journey. She was the first person I met on this expedition and we’ve been room-mates for the last few weeks. She’s exactly the sort of person that every expedition needs. Always cheerful and smiling, finding the positive in every situation and constantly enthusiastic and excited about everything we see. She’ll be missed and I hope to come visit her in her hometown of Adelaide. The only thing is, if I manage to get all the way to Australia again, I just know I’ll want to head over to New Zealand again. Could be an expensive trip! Anyway, Emily, when you read this as I hope you do – keep in touch and let us know how you’re getting on.
The return journey to Tortuguero is a bit of a nightmare to be quite honest. The bus ride is uneventful although still pretty scary, but it's the boat ride that causes the most problems. Our boat is going to be a hour late (at least) so the guy at Moin landing tells us we can go on a public boat. The owner of this next boat tries to get more money out of us, which we are having none of. We then head off extremely slowly because the boat needs refuelling up ahead. We are hot and tired and just want to get going so it’s a bit frustrating. Finally when we pick up the fuel and learn that our original boat guys were not happy that we left without them (too bad guys – try not to keep being late next time!), the boat picks up speed properly. And then promptly breaks down. We are then subjected to a snail-pace crawl back down the river presumably to the re-fueling station where we don’t know whether they’ll be able to fix the boat or whether we’ll be able to get another one? Normally, I love being on the river but at this point in time it's incredibly torturous and frustrating – especially knowing that we have barely started our 2 ½ hour journey and we’ve been on the go for over an hour already. Luckily, we are saved by another public boat coming back the way we actually want to be going. The drivers negotiate and thankfully we don’t have to hand over anymore money and are able to cross over into the new boat which promptly sets off at a reasonable speed. Almost immediately the mood lightens and my headache stops and I can start enjoying myself again. We are treated to the sight of a medium-sized crocodile on a bank and numerous river birds. It has just grown dark by the time we reach our landing beach. Remarkably, the boat crew have nothing to navigate by in the dark except the light from the captain’s mobile phone!!! We do hit something with quite a bone-jarring crunch (hopefully it wasn’t something alive) but luckily the boat is not damaged and eventually we end up at the beach where we all thankfully hop off onto dry land again. There is an ominous set of orange-shining eyes further up the beach, which almost certainly belong to a crocodile. It’s the start of nesting season so we are going to have to be careful on this stretch for a while. This is incentive enough to hurry back along the forest trail as soon as possible and thankfully there is some food left over from tea for us. There are also three new additions to the volunteer team: Jess from Seattle, USA (the inevitable talk about grunge music starts up pretty soon), James from Bristol, and Kyle from Atlanta, USA (same as Jeremy) although he has spent the last 3 years in the UK. They all seem nice and I’m sure they’ll fit right in.
Hope you are all well - congratulations to Julie and Freddy on the birth of their daughter. Very cool! I look forward to hearing more about that. I am well - I have a beard again for the time being and I actually have a bit of a tan. I've also lost a little bit of weight according to some fellow volunteers and think thats true - although not as much as I would like, I think its my turn for the Jag-walk again soon though so maybe that'll be a good indicator of whether my fitness has improved or not?
Right here's some more blog:
DAY 30
Feb 7th 2010
We are spending the day in Tortuguero today. It’s the day of the Jag walk and we will be part of the welcoming committee and also having a walk in the forest at the opposite end of the track that leads all the way down to us at Jalova. The boat ride is nice as always – the most interesting thing that happens is that we see two swallows (that are always present flitting up and down the river) engaged in some sort of duel. They fly tight up against each other flapping and pecking and squawking. They drop in a descending spiral that plunges down towards the river. Just as it looks as though they will hit the river’s surface they separate and fly off in opposite directions. It’s quite a shocking display from a bird that seems so free-spirited and ‘happy’ (though anyone that saw the murdering swallow on Springwatch a couple of years back will know that there’s a darkside to them!).
The walk is nice. Not too much about at the start of the walk, closer to the town, but as we get further in we are treated to the sight of a colourful pair of Black-throated Trogons, a Red Brocket Deer which stands watching us for a couple of minutes before calmly making its way through the forest away from us, and numerous lizards and bugs.
We get a little while in the ever-fantastic Budda Café to use the internet and get some pizza, before the Jag-walkers arrive, exhausted but happy.
DAY 31
Feb 8th 2010
We are out early today to set up a Jag-cam in the jungle. We are still not having much luck with these. The films came back blank and the cameras just don’t seem to ever work properly. We do have some new ones coming though.
Back at camp Emily approaches me with her camera eager to show me pictures of a cool snake that they saw. I think my exact response upon seeing it is “Holy crap! That’s a Fer-de-lance!” This kind of puts a different perspective on things. I don’t want to glamorise things like a Channel 5 documentary but the Fer-de-lance is the No. 1 bad boy of the snakes in Central America. It causes an average of 20 fatalities a year and is reputed to be highly aggressive in nature. The one that Emily and her group saw was a juvenile at only around 2ft long but they can grow up to 8ft which is pretty colossal for a viper. A juvenile venomous snake is worse than an adult in some respects as it’s venom is just as potent and it has less control over the dosage and is unlikely to give you a dry warning bite as an adult may do if you’re lucky. Emily has some good pictures and I have say despite the danger, I’m quite jealous as I like my snakes, though from the account I think they were a wee bit too close for comfort. I’ll post the pics from Emily on the blog for your perusal.
In the afternoon we are treated to a visit from a local Botany expert called Mario Rasta. We have already heard about him from several people and he more than lives up to his exalted reputation. We spend a fascinating hour or so wandering around the garden with him talking about all the plants there and their medicinal and traditional uses. As well as being a perfect gentleman and having a gentle sense of humour, he is an absolute fountain of knowledge. I wish that one day I could be as knowledgeable about something as he is on plants – and the thing is, he make’s it so interesting. Plants aren’t exactly my favourite topic compared to animals (although he knows a fair amount about those too!) but I could happily follow him about for hours trying to absorb as much information as possible. It’s too bad that our long weekend break starts tomorrow and we won’t be able to spend much more time with him. He has dinner with us and we have a good chat about where he lives (near where we went rafting) and how he learnt his first plants from his grandmother. He’s a very nice chap indeed.
The evening is topped off by the sight of some very big fish (not sharks, maybe Tarpon?) swimming about in surf close in to the beach. I try to get some photos but it’s pretty difficult as the light is failing and it‘s so hard to predict where they are going to appear. The air is pretty clear of heat haze and ocean spray for once and you can see some 15 miles north up the beach to where the only hill in Tortuguero, ‘the cerro’ can clearly be seen against the horizon. It’s one of those evenings where everything just feels right.
DAY 32
Feb 9th 2010
The boat we have hired is due to pick us up at 8:00am. Come 9:00am we are standing in the hot sun on the river shore awaiting this coat. A phone call to their office reveals that they have just left. Whilst this is frustrating it does indirectly lead to quite an exciting event.
Bored and hot, I decide to investigate the dense forest edge bordering the river. There are some Howler Monkeys sat up a tree looking fairly dejected as always. A few birds flit about in the undergrowth and I’m pleased to see a bright yellow Prothonotary Warbler (I think that’s how you spell it?) and add it to my bird species list. A large black bird that I take to be some sort of cuckoo, catches my eye. It appears to be catching the plentiful lizards that live here in the dense vegetation. Quickly I notice the large heavy beak with a prominent upper ridge similar to the Hornbills of Africa or Asia. I quickly realise that I haven’t seen this before and manage to get some photos of it – only one of which comes out, clearly showing the head, I wander back out to my bag lying out on the beach and have a flick through my bird book. I’m quite astounded to find out that it is a Greater Ani and has only been seen a ‘handful of times in 2003-04 in Tortuguero’ (that’s pretty much the line from the book). That means in UK birder/twitcher terminology it would be called a ‘mega’. That means that if this were the UK, birders would flock from all over the country in their hundreds to come and see this. It is statistically a rarer sighting than a Jaguar (although not as exciting on a purely visceral level of course). Unfortunately, by the time I have excitedly explained this to Dave and others nearby and shown them my photo and the book, it has of course disappeared. I need to report this to the Costa Rican Ornithological Society, and maybe in the next edition of the bird field guide it will be know from a handful of sightings from Tortuguero in 2003-04 and 2010?
The boat eventually arrives at 10:00am and we begin the long trek down to a landing called Moin, which is near Limon, Costa Rica’s largest port city and second largest overall. It’s a pretty good trip that takes us nearly three hours. The river habitat is quite varied and mostly quite picturesque apart from one section where we pass a stretch where the riverbank has been cleared of vegetation and dug-up, probably to make way for a banana plantation or something. There is a slightly hairy moment when we reach a river mouth and the driver of the boat actually steers into the breaking waves where river meets the ocean in order to steer around a large accumulation of fallen trees and into the next river. The river boat is not designed for this sort of choppy water and is thumped around alarmingly by the incoming sea. The driver knows what he’s doing though and manages to steer us back into the safety of the river.
We get off at Moin only to find that the guys taking us have not organised a bus for us, which was the plan. A call to their office produces no results. I’m not particularly impressed with these guys so far, but to his credit, the guy in charge does manage to rustle up a bus for us in about half an hour. The landing at Moin is the diametric opposite of Cano Blanco. It is right next to the port of Limon and yet the only building is a run down block of toilets with doors that don’t shut properly and mostly don’t have toilet seats or toilet paper. The only seating is a couple of decrepit old wooden benches with slats missing. There’s barely any shade and no other facilities. In other words, not a nice place to spend any time at all, especially in the hot sun.
The bus ride is pretty crazy. Driving in Costa Rica is pretty much a free-for-all. The road signs are promptly ignored. Slower vehicles are overtaken at any opportunity. Cyclists are given no quarter. The only good thing is that the roads are not particularly busy. Andrew reassures us by claiming that Costa Rica has the safest roads in Central America! There’s certainly a few buttock-clenching moments but we do arrive in one piece at Puerto Viejo.
Puerto Viejo (or PV as I will refer to it from no on) has a slightly unsavoury reputation to say the least. It’s a haven for surf-bums, ex-pats from America and Europe, backpackers and pot-heads. The last time a group from GVI went here, there were 4 separate muggings – one guy even got smashed over the head with a coconut. To be fair he was drunk as a skunk and wandering about in the middle of the night, and some of the other cases were people that were carrying around expensive camera gear in full view. Still it’s hard to shake the feeling of unease as we arrive. The town itself is much like Turriabla in that its completely different to what I was expecting. I was expecting a fairly large coastal town but its actually quite a small jumble of buildings, each of them differently constructed, many of them wood with the odd larger concrete building standing out amongst them. There is one paved road running along the coast with dirt tracks branching off at intervals. Virtually every building is either a bar, restaurant or souvenir shop. The Caribbean influence is clear by the amount of Afro-Caribbean folk with their richly accented speech, Bob Marley flags and food menus full of traditional dishes just waiting to be tried (there’s also an abundance of ‘pipes’ in the souvenir shops!). Thankfully on the outskirts of town there is a bank with an ATM that we all get to use. I have a feeling it may be an expensive trip!
Rocking J’s is our hostel for at least one night and it’s on the far side of town. It’s a very open plan hostel with a bar and seating area with a pool table upfront, and then behind a mixture of camping area, lockers and random seating areas and lawns. There’s a room full of hammocks that you can hire for the night if you’re on a really tight budget and the upper wooden floor holds around 50 tents set out, each with a mattress and blanket, which you can also hire out for slightly more than the hammock. There are a handful of dorms and rooms available as well. We all opt for different options and I choose the tent, which turns out to be pretty comfortable. The lockers provided for the hammock and tent users are large and padlocked. The décor is completely unique with the floor made up of tiled crazy-paving in a random variety of colours. The walls and doors to the toilets and lockers are all covered in hand-painted murals of varying quality and subject matter. My favourite is one of the toilet doors which features the picture of a gorilla sat on a toilet and the caption “Apes**t”. I’m also tickled by a ‘Deadhead Parking Only’ sign which makes me think of home (my Dad being a huge Grateful Dead fan). The vibe is pretty relaxed and we quickly settle in getting some beer and food (I order the ‘Sexy Steak Sandwich’ which is suitably sexy and very tasty. The pool table is pretty shoddy but for 300 colones a game (about $0.50) who’s complaining?
We head out to explore and walk back into the main strip of town, browsing the tourist shops along the way. They vary tremendously in presentation from proper shops with pleasant music, to stalls blasting out reggae music and manned by some rather nefarious looking individuals, but in essence they all end up selling pretty much the same things. We end up enticed into a bar-restaurant named Chile Rojos (Red Chillies) that has a happy hour on. A nice American waitress named Autumn keeps us plying with Mojitos, Pina Coladas, Mia Tia, Screwdrivers and beers. It’s a very pleasant comfortable place situated on the 1st floor of a large mini-shopping mall, which means it’s above the dust and bustle of the streets below. The furniture is comfortable and the lighting subtle and the drinks are cheap and very nice. We end up ordering sushi to eat, which is fantastic. Jeremy and I have a mixed platter of Tempura Shrimp, Eel, Tuna and more. I also love the ginger that is served with it, primarily as a palate cleanser between different sushi types. It looks like Salmon, pink and thinly sliced, rather than ginger and has a very sweet flavour. I end up eating all of it because Jeremy doesn’t like ginger. I highly recommend this place – it turns out to be my clear favourite of all the places we will visit over the course of the weekend; relaxing, comfortable, affordable and high quality. We head back to the hostel around 10:00 and half of us turn in, including me as I am planning to be up early to head further down the coast to visit Manzanillo, a smaller town with a trail through a Wildlife Refuge that is highly recommended both by Mario Rasta and the Lonely Planet. Nicky, Jeremy, Andrew and Sophie decide to head back out again to continue drinking. I’m a little worried about them to be honest, but it’s their choice – I just hope they look after each other.
DAY 33
Feb 10th 2010
The early bus is at 07:00am to Manzanillo, some 13km on from PV and pretty close to the Panamanian border. It’s a pleasant journey and Manzillo is a pleasant place. Its pretty much just a strip of buildings, many with small rooms for rent (or cabinas), camping or kayak/bike/snorkelling hire advertised. There are also a couple of cafes and a large Mediterranean restaurant. The centrepoint of the village is where the bus stops and turns around to head back up to Limon via PV, and is dominated by Maxis. Maxis is a large two storey wooden building with a couple of bars and a café and souvenir shop on the ground floor, some cabinas round the side and a restaurant on the 1st floor. Having walked up the road and seeing none of the places I’d written down to stay in on the way I decide to opt for one of the cabinas at Maxis. I am shown my room by a lady that takes surly unpleasantness to new levels. She has little patience for my attempts at Spanish – “You are English? Then just speak English then” she tells me brusquely. The hospitality industry in Costa Rica doesn’t always seem to grasp the point that if you are rude to the customer they won’t stay. Quite honestly, if I had seen anywhere else on the way I would have gone there instead, but I haven’t and the room is nice (it’s a double room with fans, a fridge and hot showers – ooooh the luxury!), so I take it.
After throwing all my stuff in the room and having a quick freshen up I go and have a look at the beach. The beaches down here have quite an exalted reputation but to be quite honest at PV and here at Manzanillo, they’re not all that. They are good for surfers and nice in the fact that you can actually swim off them unlike at Tortuguero with the dangerous riptides, so this is probably something to do with it. But I’m not really a beach person anyway, so I go and get some breakfast in a pleasant looking local café. The lady serving me is much more patient with my attempts at Spanish and I manage to establish what time the bus leaves back to PV tomorrow and where the hiking trail starts. I also have a delicious Gallo Pinto (fried rice and beans in coconut milk) with scrambled eggs and toast and some much-needed coffee.
After I’m suitably satiated I get myself ready for a hike. I must admit to feeling somewhat out of place amongst the shorts and vest clad tourists and locals, wearing my long trousers, walking boots, long-sleeved shirt and rucksack. I grab a few supplies at a shop opposite. The woman who showed me the room is sat outside and actually musters a half-smile at me and makes a little conversation. Maybe she’s warming to me?
The trail starts at the end of the beach after crossing a small creek and wends its way up a muddy hill into some forest. There are periodic viewpoints out along the coast, which looks really nice from this perspective. You can’t really see any of the buildings and it just looks like a forest swathed coastline in either direction. Apparently at the end of this trail, Punta Mona (Monkey Point), you can see Panama. The trail is not very well marked and because of the previous night’s rain quite muddy and treacherous at times. There are a few birds about and the pick of them is arguably the fierce-looking Hook-billed Kite.
Unfortunately, about half an hour in the trail has been obviously cleared in maybe a 15-20ft swath. Even the under-storey has been chopped down with a machete and trees have been felled. It looks pretty fresh as there is a lot of recent plant debris. Its looks as though this may have had a knock-on effect as several trees perhaps weakened by the sudden exposure to the elements and removal of supporting vegetation, have fallen across the trail. This is a wildlife refuge and not a national park, which means it’s less protected but still it’s an unsettling and heavy handed act. It’s even more of a shame because the forest surrounding it is really nice and there are some really nice big rainforest trees. There are some very interesting bird and frog species here that are all indicators of good forest habitat so it's a shame that it seems to be getting fragmented like this. I also come across an area on the trail where a house has been built with quite a sizable chunk of land that has mostly been cleared down to a rough lawn. It must be at least a hectare – which given the land its in seems very greedy to me. I think it would have been much nicer to have a smaller lawn and still retain the forest around it – but of course that’s my mindset and not the owner of the house’s. I don’t have too much more time now and decide to head back before dark with the intention of heading out early tomorrow.
I spend my evening in Maxi’s restaurant, which turns out to be a pretty wild place in terms of the animal clientale. It’s on the 1st floor of the building and in similar style to Chile Rojos and most other buildings here, there are no windows just open sides to the room to let the air flow through (poor man’s air conditioning!). I am served by a very big, but friendly fellow whose footsteps shake the room as he walks past me. I opt for the fish, which is something I don’t get enough of at base. Whilst I sit reading my book (Shantaram. Read it – it’s fantastic!) and sipping a delicious Bavaria dark beer (brewed in Costa Rica) there is a horrible clattering noise from a duct up near the ceiling. All of a sudden a small grey rodent-like animal (it could be a rat, mouse, mouse-opposum – I don’t get a clear view) comes hurtling out to the floor and scurries under a couch in the adjacent lounge area. It is swiftly followed by a scrawny grey cat, which pounces on its victim as the unknown creature scurries out from under the couch. There is a quick scuffle, a horrible squealing and then a sickening crunch and the cat scampers off round the corner with its victim/next meal. A few minutes after that, something large lands on my arm and the irrational thought that another ‘rat’ has been chased out of a hole somewhere and has landed on me, crosses my mind before I realise that, in fact, it is a moth the size of my hand. Many people would panic here, but I am fascinated and unfortunately the moth flies off before I can get much of a look at it. My fish arrives and is very rich and tasty (and served with Gallo Pinto of course!) and I eat pretty quickly and then finish off with another beer. There is a strange and quite loud chuk-chuk-chuk sound coming from above me and I look up to see two geckos squaring off with one another, over some prime stretch of ceiling. The noise is not something I would ever imagine a lizard, especially one so small, to be capable of emitting. There are several of them dotted about throughout the room and they are clearly quite territorial as I can hear them ‘arguing’ several times whilst I drink my beer and read. None of them seem to come to blows whilst I am watching. A pleasant dining experience all in all – good food and some interesting beasts.
DAY 34
Feb 11th 2010
I’m up at the crack of dawn today and squeezing back into my sweaty trail clothes of yesterday. I’m kind of used to it by now.
The hike is much more pleasant in the cool morning air and with no rain in the night, it’s also a little less muddy. I follow the same route and see many of the same birds and animals, though there is a very interesting small red frog in the leaf-litter that seems highly abundant this morning. They are very vocal and I manage to locate a couple of them croaking away. From this I can deduce that there are even more around than I can see judging by the number of croaks I hear as I walking today. Frog diversity is very good here and get some interesting pictures of some more species – one of which I’m sure is a Poison-dart Frog. The forest is still just as good for birds and there are plenty of species here different to those in Tortuguero, and one in particular, the relatively innocuous Spot-crowned Antvireo is only found in this area of Costa Rica. Interestingly, I also meet the owner of the mystery house in the forest. He rides up on horseback along the trail behind me accompanied by a small but friendly little dog. He is actually quite a pleasant chap and I manage a basic conversation half in English and half in Spanish with him. I don’t really want to like him as he has chopped down some of the forest, but then again he has got a machete, so I’m inclined not to try and start an argument. Worryingly, later on, in a particularly nice area of forest, I find a for sale sign tacked to the trunk of a fantastic, huge rainforest tree. It would be really criminal to cut this giant of the forest down, as it must be pretty old (though trees do grow quicker here than back in England). I wonder if I’ll ever come back here in the future and see more houses and trails cut through this precious habitat. I don’t get much further than last time as I need to be back to check out for 12:00 and leave on the 12:45 bus back to PV. I have decided to save some money and go back to Rocking J’s for the last night and that also means I get to spend some more time with the rest of the group and with my roomie Emily, who is leaving tomorrow.
I meet Andrew on the way back. He has a map that I somehow failed to find anyway which shows that the trail may continue for some distance more and there is also another one to the south, which is longer and leads to some marshland. Shame, I haven’t got more time to spend exploring. Maybe a future trip is in order.
My temporary landlady is no more pleasant when I check out. I won’t be using Maxis again if I do return. That’s for sure.
Everyone is pleased to see me back at the hostel and I set myself up with another tent for the night. I have a look round town in the afternoon and browse a few shops and use the internet café. PV certainly has a certain kind of lazy ambience that I’m starting to like a bit more. We head out for a group meal in the evening, with a few people suffering from a heavy night last night. We find a cheap restaurant, which is fairly nice and serves a nice array of drinks. The service is pretty slow though. But all in all, it’s a nice evening. We probably should have gone to Chile Rojos though…
DAY 35
Feb 12th 2010
We are up to see Emily off today on the bus to San Jose. It’s a hot day today and I don’t envy her the 4 hour journey. She was the first person I met on this expedition and we’ve been room-mates for the last few weeks. She’s exactly the sort of person that every expedition needs. Always cheerful and smiling, finding the positive in every situation and constantly enthusiastic and excited about everything we see. She’ll be missed and I hope to come visit her in her hometown of Adelaide. The only thing is, if I manage to get all the way to Australia again, I just know I’ll want to head over to New Zealand again. Could be an expensive trip! Anyway, Emily, when you read this as I hope you do – keep in touch and let us know how you’re getting on.
The return journey to Tortuguero is a bit of a nightmare to be quite honest. The bus ride is uneventful although still pretty scary, but it's the boat ride that causes the most problems. Our boat is going to be a hour late (at least) so the guy at Moin landing tells us we can go on a public boat. The owner of this next boat tries to get more money out of us, which we are having none of. We then head off extremely slowly because the boat needs refuelling up ahead. We are hot and tired and just want to get going so it’s a bit frustrating. Finally when we pick up the fuel and learn that our original boat guys were not happy that we left without them (too bad guys – try not to keep being late next time!), the boat picks up speed properly. And then promptly breaks down. We are then subjected to a snail-pace crawl back down the river presumably to the re-fueling station where we don’t know whether they’ll be able to fix the boat or whether we’ll be able to get another one? Normally, I love being on the river but at this point in time it's incredibly torturous and frustrating – especially knowing that we have barely started our 2 ½ hour journey and we’ve been on the go for over an hour already. Luckily, we are saved by another public boat coming back the way we actually want to be going. The drivers negotiate and thankfully we don’t have to hand over anymore money and are able to cross over into the new boat which promptly sets off at a reasonable speed. Almost immediately the mood lightens and my headache stops and I can start enjoying myself again. We are treated to the sight of a medium-sized crocodile on a bank and numerous river birds. It has just grown dark by the time we reach our landing beach. Remarkably, the boat crew have nothing to navigate by in the dark except the light from the captain’s mobile phone!!! We do hit something with quite a bone-jarring crunch (hopefully it wasn’t something alive) but luckily the boat is not damaged and eventually we end up at the beach where we all thankfully hop off onto dry land again. There is an ominous set of orange-shining eyes further up the beach, which almost certainly belong to a crocodile. It’s the start of nesting season so we are going to have to be careful on this stretch for a while. This is incentive enough to hurry back along the forest trail as soon as possible and thankfully there is some food left over from tea for us. There are also three new additions to the volunteer team: Jess from Seattle, USA (the inevitable talk about grunge music starts up pretty soon), James from Bristol, and Kyle from Atlanta, USA (same as Jeremy) although he has spent the last 3 years in the UK. They all seem nice and I’m sure they’ll fit right in.
RSS Feed