Category Archives: On the Road

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! Monteverde – Selvatura Hummingbird Garden

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On our last full day in the Monteverde area, I was ready to dial back the adventure. Instead, I wanted to hang out with hummingbirds. When we first checked in to Hidden Canopy Treehouses, Jenn had mentioned a few nearby attractions. She told us the birds at the Selvatura Hummingbird Garden would actually land on your hands while they sipped from the feeders. I obsessed about that for three days, and finally we went.

Selvatura Park is a conservation area with about 850 acres of protected land used as an eco adventure theme park. One attraction is the Hummingbird Garden with more than 14 species of hummingbirds that zip around to the various feeders and flowering bushes.

Sure enough, when I stood still next to a feeder, the hummingbirds would land on me. One perched on my hand for two minutes! I could feel his tiny heart racing, and I imagined him thinking, “Aw yeah, that’s the ticket. I can rest my weary wings and enjoy a drink for once.” After perusing this sign that was posted at the garden, I think my little friend was a green-crowned brilliant. In the meantime, other hummingbirds whizzed by my face and landed near my hand, creating a high-pitched whirring sound and a blur of wings.

Me playing with hummingbirds.

I love all the sounds.

Tony was less enthusiastic.

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! Monteverde – El Cafetal coffee tour

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Between nature walks with Koky, Tony and I took off to learn about the local coffee production process. We were picked up at Stella’s Bakery in town (after a delicious lunch), and taken to a family coffee farm in the San Luis Valley, right on the Continental Divide.

The San Luis Valley.

The El Cafetal Coffee Tour took us to the farm of Victor Ramírez, a local man who has worked in the Costa Rican coffee business for many years. In 2008, his family launched the coffee tour to give visitors a glimpse of their process, from planting to brewing.

Our tour guide, Gabby, walked us through the property and explained some of the eco-conscious practices aimed at sustainability. For example, all of the coffee plants are grown organically with a variety of fruit trees interspersed to provide shade, attract pollinators, and drop organic material that acts as mulch. She said Victor is constantly looking for innovative ways to reduce the impact of coffee production on the environment. He is presently working on new techniques to reduce the amount of water used in the process of washing the beans.

Baby coffee plants in the plastic bags.

A typical basket used for picking coffee cherries.

Gabby explained that a virus called roya is wreaking havoc on coffee plants in the region. Many of the plants on the farm have been affected and generate far fewer berries, so Ramírez is experimenting with different varieties of coffee plants in hopes of finding ones that resist the virus while also producing quality beans. Unfortunately, it takes several years for new plants to produce coffee, so there’s no way to rush to a solution.

Tony holds a leaf from a plant with the virus.

Unripe coffee cherries. Ripe ones turn bright red.

Machinery used for processing the coffee cherries.

Drying beans.

In an old house on the farm, Gabby showed us the way previous generations would have made coffee. We smashed beans with a pílon to remove the outer shells. Then we roasted them in a pan over a wood fire before pulverizing them with a hand cranked grinder.

This is the final product: Café San Luis. We sampled a cup at the end of the tour. Delicious!

Seeing this time-consuming, labor-intensive process – planting the seedlings, caring for the vulnerable plants, selectively hand-picking the ripe coffee cherries, and methodically getting the beans ready for roasting – reminds me of an exercise in my recent mindfulness training. We practiced taking “mindful mouthfuls” because we often eat mindlessly, not even noticing the taste or texture, much less honoring the work that went into getting that food or beverage to our mouths. After this tour, I can’t imagine I will ever drink coffee the same way again.

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! The Monteverde Cloud Forest – a guide hog meets her fantasy guide

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I’ve already waxed schmaltzy about our accommodations here in Monteverde: the magical Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel. What I haven’t mentioned is the resident guide, Koky Porras. We were strongly encouraged to book a tour with Koky, and you know I’m not one to walk away from a guided tour. That said, we had just finished two nature walks with guides in La Fortuna, so it was hard to imagine what could be so special about this guy.

Now I know.
He. Is. Brilliant.

Not just at finding and naming animals in the forest (which he does with an almost eery sixth sense). He also loves his job and takes pride in continuing to learn. He shared his stories of growing up here and evolving from a youngster charging through the forest with a slingshot to a deeply knowledgable naturalist who relishes an opportunity to teach others about the interconnectedness of living things. It was an honor to spend time with someone with such a gentle reverance for this ecosystem.

Koky hangs out with the guests during tea time at the hotel to chat about the area, wildlife, and his own personal experiences. While I was meeting other tourists and sipping red wine on our first evening, Koky borrowed my phone and shot this video through his telescope of a violet sabrewing hummingbird hovering at one of the garden feeders.

He also showed us how a scorpion (found by Jenn on the property) glows under an ultraviolet light.

I asked Koky how a rainforest differs from a cloud forest. He said it’s all about microclimates. A change of just 500 meters elevation has a big impact on the temperature and rainfall of a region, which ultimately determines which plants and animals can survive there. Monteverde is located in a high-elevation cloud forest, which tends to be cooler than the lowland forests. Most of the moisture comes from mist and clouds.

One of my favorite Koky anecdotes centered on the concept that trees in the forest play host to so many other plants. He told of some researchers who spent time in Monteverde studying just one tree. They ultimately counted and identified more than 120 plants living on that tree. Koky said he likes to use that story to pose powerful questions to the children he teaches, including his own. “I like to ask them, who pollinates each of those 120 plants? Is it bees or birds or bats? And who eats the fruit from those plants? And who eats the animals who eat those fruits? And what happens when those animals die and decompose? Who eats them then? You can see that cutting down just that one tree impacts the whole ecosystem.”

I consider myself fairly eco-conscious, but that story was a wake-up call. It’s so easy in our busy lives to forget that our actions can have major repercussions and that humans leave big footprints.

On our first full day here, we took two tours with Koky. We were joined by sisters, Lauren and Emily, for the morning hike to the Curi-Cancha Reserve. Koky carried his scope, binoculars, and several guidebooks for our reference. While we were still driving in town, he noticed a two-toed sloth in a tree, so we stopped for a quick look.
“All you can see is a furball,” Koky laughed.

At the reserve, Koky demonstrated his wicked iPhone photography skills by taking a vertical pano of Tony and me in front of this massive ficus tree. (Who knew you could take vertical panoramas?)

Koky listened astutely and mimicked the sounds of birds, frogs, and insects to track them.

Koky pointed out the clay-colored thrush and said, “That’s our national bird. We’re always a little embarrassed that we have all these beautiful colorful birds, but that’s our national bird.” I didn’t get a photo, but this one is from the website CostaRica.com.

The sisters were dying to see snakes, and sure enough, Koky found a side-striped palm pit viper curled up inside some twisted tree roots. He said he often sees the same snake in the same spot for many days. That’s because tree mice scurry about at night to collect food and they mark their trails with urine to find their way back to their nests. The snake uses its tongue to “smell” the urine trail and then hangs out to wait for a delicious snack. Koky recalled seeing one snake on a stakeout for 18 days until finally he saw the snake nearby with a mouse-shaped belly.

At one point, we saw weird clumps hanging from a vine. Of course, I started to move in to touch them, but Koky stopped me. He said they were called mokuna urens, a seed pod with spiny hairs (worse than a cactus, he said). According to Koky, the plant is pollinated by bats. When the bats probe for nectar, the flower blasts pollen into their faces, which they carry to other flowers.

As the morning went on, we saw more interesting plants and animals, heard more wonderful stories, and grew more entranced by the Costa Rican cloud forest. Here are some pics and videos from our day.

We looked up inside this hollow 300-year-old ficus tree. It’s hollow because the tree that had been inside served as host for the ficus, which grew on its branches, sending down roots to the earth. Over time, those roots grew thick and intertwined, taking on the shape of the tree within. Koky said researchers used to think the ficus killed its host (hence the ficus’s nickname, “strangler fig”), but now it’s commonly believed those old trees would have died anyway.

An agouti, which looks like a giant guinea pig, about the size of a miniature schnauzer. Tony and I kept saying, “R.O.U.S.es? I don’t think they exist!” (50 points if you can name the movie.)

An orange-bellied trogon.

A three-wattled bell bird, which makes the most bizarre electronic “bonk” sound. Watch till the end to hear him.

A bare-necked umbrella bird, which Koky said was unusual to see here. We understood its significance when several other tourists came flying down the path to see it.

A rainbow-billed toucan. Tony saw it through binoculars, and Koky took this shot for me.

A sleeping baby porcupine. (A bit hard to see … His little hand is grabbing the branch, and his head is tucked to his chest. He has a long prehensile tail hanging down the tree.)

A blue morpho butterfly. With its wings closed, it looks like a drab moth. But then it takes off, spreading its vibrant blue wings.

The resplendent quetzal! This is the rare gem of the cloud forest, which every birder seems intent to find. He and his friends were gnoshing at an avocado tree, and he kept hiding behind foliage. We were ready to give up when finally Koky set up his scope and got a clear shot.

What a day! And we were just getting started.

Tony and I spent the afternoon at a coffee plantation (which I’ll write about later). After tea time, we met up with Koky again and a fun couple from San Antonio, Tim and Anna, for a night walk.

Hiking in the forest at night is something I would ordinarily NEVER do. Just the thought of it makes my stomach turn over with fear. However, with Koky in tow, I felt totally safe and never once worried about getting lost or eaten.

As we entered the the wildlife refuge, he immediately stopped at a patch of plants to point out about a gajillion little life forms. A massive walking stick insect. A pygmy rain frog. A bunch of katydids and grasshoppers.

Koky found a scorpion on a tree, some cartoonish yellow mushrooms growing on a fallen tree, a rhinoceros katydid, a leaf katydid, and a glass-winged butterfly.

We encountered several groups of leafcutter ants, working their tiny butts off. Some worked in expanding the tunnels, carrying balls of dirt out to the edge of the hole and dumping it. Others carried bits of leaves down into the nest. Koky explained that other ants had the jobs of cleaning the leaves and then coating them with bodily fluids. Eventually, the leaves would develop a fungi that feeds the whole colony, which can number up to 5 million. I could have watched these guys all night.


He stumbled upon this weird creature and admitted he didn’t know what it was. Chatting with a family at the hotel the next morning, we discovered their college-bound son was a budding entomologist. When I showed him the photo, he said, “That’s a velvet worm.” Sure enough, Koky did some research and said it’s been around since prehistoric times.

Koky took us to a hole in the mud wall, which was once the nest of a motmot bird. He shone his flashlight into the hole and illuminated an orange-kneed tarantula. Waving a thin stick in the hole to create vibrations, he lured the arachnid out to the edge, where we could see her clearly. Koky explained that tarantulas tend to stay hidden to avoid the tarantula wasp. The wasp paralyzes the tarantula and then lays its eggs in the spider’s abdomen. When they hatch the wasp larvae eat the live tarantula from the inside out. Ugh.

And for the grand finale of our night walk, we saw another side-striped palm pit viper, just hanging out and ready to strike, waiting for some little mice to return from foraging.

On our way out of the nature reserve, Koky found a sloth in a tree, but it was really too far away to photograph. Still, not a bad night, eh?

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 3: Monteverde – Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel

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Sometimes a place is so special, you can’t capture it with words or images. As I sit on my balcony at the Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel – sipping mint tea, listening to the wind whooshing through the leaves and the trickling waterfall and the birds whistling and chattering to each other, watching a coati at eye-level scurry across the limbs of the cloudforest canopy – I struggle to convey this feeling.

New Yorker Jenn King broke ground on this property in 2006 and has since transformed the cleared pastureland into an idyllic, leafy oasis. Her gorgeous lodge welcomes guests into a spacious area with stone floors, tasteful wood paneling and huge windows that look out at a hummingbird garden, lush forests, distant mountains, and the Gulf of Nicoya. Jenn and her “better half,” Gary, live upstairs. Her sweet boxer, Gazoo, greets visitors at the door, and her coy cat, Bear, occasionally allows us to scratch his head.

Breakfast is a glorious treat with traditional gallo pinto (rice, beans, fried plantains), eggs, fruit, homemade bread and cakes, and a tasty surprise each morning (banana pancakes, savory potatoes, French toast …), as well as locally grown coffee.

Tea time at 5 p.m. brings guests to the dining room, greeted by friendly attentive staff, twinkly lights, delicious snacks, drinks, and a gourmet dessert. So far, we haven’t felt the need to go out to dinner afterwards.

It’s easy to stay busy here. Guided hikes (day or night), canopy bridges, ziplines, rafting tours, art galleries, coffee plantations, chocolate producers, sugarcane tours, and attractions for lovers of bats, hummingbirds, butterflies, reptiles, monkeys, and well, everything related to Costa Rica.

However, it’s also easy to let it all go and sit on this balcony.

More shots from this magical place.

Jenn and Bear.

The main lodge.

Gazoo.

The coati who raids the hummingbird feeders in the garden and who is likely the same visitor who cruised through the trees by my balcony earlier.

The reception area, open kitchen, and sitting room.

The dining room at tea time.

Evening view from the dining room.

Johanna, my favorite staff member, and a gorgeous sunset on our last night here.

Our treehouse, called Rising Sun.

A lovely little waterfall runs down the hill through the property, forming several ponds.

On the trail behind the lodge.

I wish I could live here forever!

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 3: Monteverde

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Another sweaty but happy yoga practice on Saturday morning. Another delicious breakfast. And then we were off. Although it was only about 18 miles to our destination as the crow flies, we’re no crows. That meant we had to drive 65 miles around Lake Arenal, the largest lake in Costa Rica. Tony drove for the whole twisty, turny, steep hilly, muddy, potholey, narrow bridge-y, rather scary but beautiful three-hour journey. He was pretty tense when we finally arrived.

Fortunately, when we pulled into the parking lot at Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel in the early afternoon, Jenn, the owner, welcomed Tony and me with a diet Coke and a beer. She gave us the run-down and showed us to our treehouse. We returned to the lodge for tea time, but then we were too pooped to head out to dinner, so we crashed early, ready for a full day of cloud forest exploration tomorrow.

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust! Arenal Volcano and Tabacon Hot Springs

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Our Friday tour didn’t start till after lunch, so Tony and I looked forward to sleeping in and relaxing for a while. Except that we suck at that.

Instead of sleeping in, I got up and went to yoga at 6:30 a.m., which was dreamy. See yesterday’s post about it here.

After breakfast, we chilled in our room, looking out at the intermittent pouring rain. We read our books, wasted some time on Twitter and Facebook, and finally succumbed to the lure of Netflix to watch “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Finally, it was time to meet our tour, so we eagerly donned our raincoats and headed out.

Today’s itinerary included a guided walk at the Arenal Volcano and an evening of soaking in hot springs.

We met our guide, Carlos, and had barely left our hotel when we drove by a group looking up at a tree. Sure enough, it was a sloth. Our driver, Minor, parked the van, and Carlos quickly set up his scope. The sloth was curled in a ball, breathing rhythmically. Based on some lighter-colored fur poking out from the ball, Carlos said it was likely she was wrapped around a baby. No matter how much I pleaded, mama would not let me see the baby (much less play with it). Suddenly, Carlos got really excited about activity near the sloth tree. A fruit-laden bush had attracted about a gazillion birds. This one, a crimson-collared tanager is a rare sight, Carlos said.

Before reaching the trail, Carlos spotted another three-toed sloth sitting in a tree above the road. This one was also curled up with its head tucked. After setting up his scope, Carlos used a piece of torn plastic to make a loud whistling sound. The sloth raised its head, and Carlos snapped a few photos. Eventually, the sloth must have realized we posed no real danger, so it tucked its head back down for a snooze.

At the El Silencio Reserve, we headed up the Lava Trail of 1968. Hiking to the volcano crater is illegal, so the trails are at the base of the 5,300-foot (1,633-meter) volcano, weaving through rainforest and more desolate old lava flow. Carlos pointed out Arenal is a stratovolcano, which is a conical volcano created by layers erupted materials.

Here’s more information about the Arenal Volcano, from the Arenal Observatory Lodge website.

For centuries, the Arenal Volcano was a nearly perfect cone-shaped, rainforest blanketed volcanic mountain considered by many to be extinct. However, at roughly 7:30 a.m. on Monday, July 29, 1968, the dormant Arenal Volcano suddenly and violently erupted with a tremendous explosion. Extreme eruptions continued unabated for several days, burying over 15 square kilometers with rocks, lava and ash. When it was finally over, the eruptions had killed 87 people and destroyed three small villages – Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luís – affecting more than 232 square kilometers of land. It was a difficult time for the people of Arenal. Crops, property and forest were damaged, and livestock died.
At the height of the eruption, Arenal Volcano was spewing out massive amounts of lava and ash and tossing giant rocks for distances of up to a kilometer at speeds of some 600 meters per second.
For 42 years, Arenal Volcano was Costa Rica’s most active volcano with flowing lava and pyroclastic surges that blasted huge rocks and cauliflower-shaped ash clouds into the air. Explosions were often accompanied by loud rumblings, which would wake tourists up at night.
The last big explosions occurred on August 25, 2001; March 2007; September 18, 2008; March 2, 2009; and May 24, 2010. None, however, compared to that of 1968. Since 2010, Arenal Volcano has been in a resting phase with very little activity, a process that is natural for active volcanoes. In 2012, Arenal Volcano revived a little, spewing columns of water vapor and gases into the air from the summit. These emissions can still occasionally be seen.

Unfortunately, the volcano refused to emerge from its cloud cover during our visit.

Fortunately, we had a glimpse of it when we arrived to town the other day.

Tony and I spent the evening at Tabacon Hot Springs. The volcanic thermal waters flow over elegant stone waterfalls, cascading into warm pools that are surrounded by lush tropical gardens. That said, it was a little anticlimactic, considering we didn’t really need to leave our own resort to get to some hot springs, and it was also hard to find a private spot in the pools without loud talkers or splashy children. Still, we had fun, especially sitting on the stone bench behind this powerful wall of water.

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Rainforest yoga – showered with bliss

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I woke up this morning with my calves in knots (bounding up 500 steps will do that to you). I dragged myself out of bed, waited for a break in the rain, and walked to the yoga deck for a 6:30 a.m. class. Although not quite awake, I couldn’t help but appreciate the peaceful setting, and I looked forward to loosening up my tight muscles and stiff joints.

In nearly every asana, I noticed something special.

Standing in a wide-legged forward fold, I turned my upside-down focus to the blooming plants surrounding the spacious gazebo. I watched a hummingbird hover and sip at a huge persimmon-colored trumpet blossom before zipping away. The light rain tip-tapped on the metal roof. Back upright, I looked out at the heavy fog blanketing the Arenal Volcano. Moving into a balancing pose, I fixed my gaze on a fountain in the garden, steadily pouring water into a small pond. By the time we reached savasana, resting pose, torrential rain obscured the view and drowned out the gentle voice of our instructor, Griselda. Lying on my back, I smiled up at the draped white fabric and ornamental lamps hanging from the dark wood rafters before closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and letting the downpour provide a backdrop for deep relaxation.

At the end of the class, we all enjoyed a cup of tea while waiting for a relatively rain-free moment to head out. Eventually, the deluge dwindled to a drizzle, and I jogged the short distance to meet Tony for breakfast, ready for another Costa Rican adventure.

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Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 2: La Fortuna

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We are feeling pretty lucky about our full day in Tortuguera, cruising along the river under partly cloudy skies. When we got up the next day, the rain was so heavy we couldn’t see beyond the edge of our restaurant terrace. Our hotel’s water taxi took us back to La Pavona, where the downpour paused long enough for us to get our rental car out of the parking lot.

After about three hours, we reached La Fortuna, a tourist town full of hostels, souvenir shops, and restaurants. We drove through the town and then turned off the main road to reach our hotel. Following the signs to Arenal Springs Resort & Spa, I started to get anxious. The signs themselves looked dated, and they pointed us up a hill to an unimpressive entrance with a gatehouse and a bunch of people loitering about. “This looks dodgy,” I said. Once we passed through the gate, however, it was like Walt Disney himself waved a magic wand to make this glorious place appear in the rainforest. We checked in and drove to our room, which is really half a duplex, and like all the guests here, we have a view of the Arenal Volcano (although presently it’s shrouded in clouds).

After a quick lunch, Tony and I changed into swimsuits and walked to the pool complex, which includes two pool bars, a sushi bar, and four thermal pool ranging from 93° to 104° F (34° to 39°C). This is from the hotel website:

Our hot springs have been created to give you the feeling that you are in natural thermal river in the middle of the rainforest. Tropical gardens surround the river to add to the sensation. The floor of the pools is made from limestone which adds to the soothing atmosphere. The light color allows you to see your feet and verify the cleanliness of the waters.
The thermal water is naturally heated by the Arenal Volcano and its underground rivers. The water reaches our thermal pools taking advantage of the force of gravity without the need for pumping or drilling. The minerals naturally found in the water, such as calcium, magnesium, sodium bicarbonate, and chloride contribute to a complete relaxation of mind and body, promote circulation, and help to balance pH levels, liberate free radicals, soften both skin and hair, and promote better sleep. We have also created special features like carefully chosen river rocks to form the bar stools of the wet bar, waterfalls to offer you a relaxing hydro-massage, and a soothing jacuzzi.

We hung out at the pool for a while and then ventured in to town for dinner at Restaurante Don Rufino. I had charged Tony with picking a restaurant, and he chose well. (It was a bit pricey, so we pretended we were celebrating our anniversary.) I discovered my new favorite thing: guaro, which is liquor made from sugar cane. Yum!

We spent today guide hogging with Tony of Rainforest Explorers. He took us to the Mistico Hanging Bridges Park. According to the park’s website:

The history of Mistico Park, where you can find Costa Rica’s famous hanging bridges, began at the beginning of the 20th century. Spouses Landelina Rodríguez Sánchez and Adrian Castillo, who were natives of La Fortuna, San Carlos, dedicated their time to working the land they had inherited from their parents in the foothills of the Arenal Volcano.
In those times, this incredibly rich natural land was ignored as it was far from the city and difficult to access. However, the Castillo Rodriguez family had great vision, as they knew the true value of their land could be found in its natural resources. Thus, they made the decision to keep this wooded portion of the mountain intact.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the family decided to open this natural forest sanctuary to the public, and they hired a company in order to develop the Hanging Bridges of Arenal eco-tourism project, which would allow thousands of people to enjoy the forest’s beauty comfortably and safely.
Twelve years later, as per the initial agreement, the development company returned the project to its owners, and the family’s third generation currently manages the nature reserve.

Tony, the guide (who I will call TG from now on to differentiate him from Tony Dent), had a brilliant sense for spotting wildlife, and he shared fascinating facts about the rainforest. He also used my phone to take photos from his telescope. Before we reached the park, TG told the driver to pull over. He jumped out of the van and quickly set up a tripod to show us this, a rainbow toucan.

At the park, TG spotted quite a few other interesting critters:

a scaly-breasted hummingbird

a howler monkey enjoying a snack (That’s TG making the howling sound, fyi.)

a rufous motmot

a greater white-lined bat

an eyelash viper (This guy – whose bite can be fatal – was actually pretty small, but he was just a few feet from the path.)

a couple blue jeans poison dart frogs, croaking at each other

We also saw a tarantula guarding its egg sac inside a small hole in the side of the hill. I couldn’t get a photo of her.

The animals were not the only attraction in this park. During our 2-mile walk, we crossed 16 bridges, including a suspension bridge 318 feet (97 meters) off the ground. From there, we could see nature’s battle for survival. TG had explained that 60 percent of rainforest plants do not grow from the ground up but rather grow on other plants. Our bird’s eye view revealed trees whose trunks were completely overtaken by other plants, such as ficus, moss, and ferns that had won the race for sunlight in the canopy.

TG called this a “broccoli tree.”

Guide hogging while TG points out some tiny bees with a hive in this tree.

Posing by a little waterfall.

After leaving the park, we drove to the La Fortuna Waterfall. I left my phone in the van, which was a bummer because the place was stunning. We walked down 530 steps to the spot where the 230-foot (70-meter) waterfall crashed into a churning pool of chilly water. I snagged this photo from the Catarata Río Fortuna website.

Another member of our little tour group took this shot for us.

I loved getting in that water and soaking up the scenery, but it was dang cold and the force of the waterfall created waves that nearly thrashed us to death against the rocks. Sooo… it was a short but fabulous swim.

Our tour wrapped up with a traditional casado lunch at a family’s covered pavilion in a riverside village. So simple, and yet, so delicious!

Tomorrow, we’re hiking on the volcano. Can’t wait!

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Costa Rica or Bust! Stop 1: Tortuguera

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Although our airline debacle had sucked away a whole day of our vacation, Tony and I were ready to kick it into gear. We spent the night in San Jose (with our luggage and our rental car!) and got up early to drive to the Caribbean coast. Two quick notes: The traditional Costa Rican breakfast is like a little Latin party in my mouth. Black beans and rice with fried plantains? Yes, please! Also, our rental car is a Suzuki Jimmy, which looks like a small SUV in pictures but is, in fact, a moped wearing an SUV costume.

Our drive to Puerto La Pavona took about 3.5 hours, including convoluted city traffic, misty mountainous curves in the Braulio Carrillo National Park, and country roads that passed through quiet villages. We arrived at the riverfront during a torrential downpour and hauled our luggage into the expansive waiting area, along with other waterlogged tourists waiting for buses and water taxis. Eventually a guide from Tortuga Lodge and Gardens arrived and led us to a small boat for a one-hour cruise to our hotel.

Tony and I are both reading a book by Jack Ewing, an American who came to Costa Rica as a cattleman and ended up a naturalist. The book, Monkeys are Made of Chocolate, creates the perfect backdrop for our journey with heaps of information about wildlife and conservation efforts. We learned about “living fences” from reading the book, and on our road trip, we saw many of them. Fence posts that can’t help but burst into life in this rich, lush ecosystem.

The waiting area at La Pavona.

Our boat puttered along the Río la Suerte (Lucky River) until it merged with the Tortuguero River and ultimately fed into Penitencia Lagoon. Our lodge sat on the banks of the lagoon, accessible only by boat or plane. Across the water, another stretch of land provided views of dense foliage and macaws nesting in the tall tress, and just beyond those trees was the volcanic sand beach of the Caribbean Sea.

Our first afternoon at the lodge, we mostly pottered about, checking out the premises, reading our books in the terrace restaurant.

One of the guides pointed out a tiny leptodeira “cat-eye” snake, which was wound around the branches of a small bush.

I became a bit obsessed with the montezuma oropendula bird, which builds suspended nests and has a gurgling call like an old-fashioned bicycle bell. This tall palm in front of the reception area featured many nests, including one uninhabited one for visitors to see up-close.

I’ve spent some time on the website BirdNote and learned that this cool bird is a colonial breeder, so the male (which is, by the way, twice the size of the female) maintains a little harem of ladies, who weave the incredible nests.

You would think that taking a plane to a city, then a car to the country, then a boat to a reclusive lodge would land you in the quietest place on earth. But, guess what? Nature is freakin’ loud! In a good way. The rooms at our lodge have open screened windows, so we felt like one with the rainforest. At bedtime, we could hear crashing waves, humming cicadas, chirping geckos, croaking frogs, occasional bird calls, and as the night wore on, it sounded like a freight train was about to crash into our room – rain. We lived in Laos and India, so I’m no stranger to monsoons. But this was a crazy amount of rain in a short amount of time. Around 4 a.m., I woke to a roaring animal in the garden behind our room. I would have thought it was a big cat dry heaving and hacking up a fur ball, but we had been warned about the howler monkeys. For much of the morning, they belted out their throaty howls, which can be heard for more than three miles. We loved it, but Tony pondered whether the locals ever dreamed of moving to the big city to escape the noise.

I chose gallo pinto for breakfast again and was not disappointed. Afterwards, we met up with Willis and a few other guests for a boat tour in the Tortuguera National Park. Before floating far from the lodge, Willis – with help from Tony, who has a superpower for spotting camouflaged critters – had already pointed out these attractions:
* a three-toed sloth,
* a two-toed sloth,
* a female anhinga (a water bird),
* a vulture,
* all three of the most common kingfishers in the area, including several Amazon and ringed kingfishers, and a tiny green kingfisher, which speared a fish and gobbled it up for our entertainment,
* many green macaws,
* howler monkeys, which looked exhausted from all that early morning howling and lounged lackadaisically with their prehensile tails wrapped around the branch for stability,
* collared aracari toucans, which have colorful bodies but plain beaks (unlike the Froot Loops mascot), and
* a boa constrictor that was about 4 feet long and so tangled up in a bush that we couldn’t find its face.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good photos. (a) Camouflage really works, and (b) these guys were not posers.

Here’s Willis, our guide. He said his great-grandfather came to Tortuguera to hunt turtles and other game. His grandfather followed suit, and his father also became a hunter until conservation became popular, and then he started working as a guide. Willis remembers riding in his dad’s boat and learning how to spot wildlife by sight, sound, and smell. He is the first generation not to carry a gun or knife, he said, and only to work in the interest of the ecosystem.

The snoozy howler monkeys.

The shy boa.

The nearly invisible tiger heron.

The wildlife extravaganza continued after our boat entered the national park. We saw:
* several bare-throated tiger herons,
* many blue morpho butterflies, which have wings that are brilliant iridescent blue when open and dull brown when closed,
* a male anhinga,
* two green herons,
* several white-faced capuchin monkeys,
* a few spider monkeys,
* a great curassow, which Willis called a turkey, hopping up a tree from branch to branch,
* two northern jacana birds foraging in the water lillies, and
* several caimans, a smaller cousin of the crocodile.

Green heron.

Caiman #1.

Caiman #2.

Caiman #3.

At one point, Willis spotted a Jesus Christ lizard. The bright green crested lizard got its name from its ability to run across water, something we got to see in action. Willis reached down out of the boat to splash water on the lizard, and it leapt off the stump and dashed across the water in to the jungle. At the same time, caiman #1 raised its head out of the water and settled mostly submerged and still.

After marveling at the caiman for awhile, we motored a short distance away to watch a white-faced capuchin monkey feeding in a tree. Suddenly, caiman #3 started swimming toward us. Tony saw him first and later said it looked like a cartoon, with only his eyes poking up out of the water as he drifted toward our boat. I couldn’t decide what to focus on: the monkey or the caiman! Eventually, the monkey swung out of view and the caiman found a sunny spot to rest, so we moved on.

Caiman #3 started swimming toward us at the same time this guy was jumping around in the branches of a tree.

Many rainforest trees have incredible buttress roots.

Pretty scenes from our boat trip.

On the way back to the lodge, Willis took a detour to show us the nesting area for green sea turtles. According to Lonely Planet:

Female turtles return every two to three years to lay their eggs on the exact same beach where they were born. These behemoth animals average about 120 cm and weigh as much as 150 kg, so seeing one in person at such close range is a truly spectacular experience. Each female turtle lays eggs six times during the nesting season, and researchers discovered 18,000 nests along Tortuguero’s coast in 2015 alone.

Maybe we’ll return during nesting season some day.

Back at the lodge, we enjoyed a tasty lunch and then met up with Norton for a guided walk around the gardens. He took us to the southernmost point on the back of the property and set up a telescope, aimed at a tree across a small stream. “There was a sloth here earlier … oh good! He’s still here,” Norton said.

Sure enough, the two-toed sloth was hanging upside down and scratching his arms with his long curved claws. “Sloths have a lot of fleas,” Norton pointed out. I love the way the Costa Rica Experts website explains it:

The fur of a sloth is actually an entire ecosystem in and of itself with colonies of algae, fungi, moths, mites, and the like. The ecosystem serves as a sort of symbiotic relationship with the sloth as it gives them a green tint that allows them to hide from predators and also serves to make them rather unappetizing.

Sounds gross, but that sloth was freakin’ adorable. I could see his sweet little face plain as day as he slowly scratched his itchy armpits.

Norton walked around to a tree and pointed up. “Have you seen the bats?” he asked. I looked and looked and could not see them. “How can you not see them? There are 9, 10, 11, 12 of them,” Norton said, counting the invisible bats. Finally, Tony pointed out that they were lined up on the branch and blended in almost perfectly. Little bitty bats in a row. Norton noted they look like a snake when they sleep like that, and if they sense danger, they move along the branch one at a time to give the appearance of a slithering snake. How crazy is nature?!

Don’t worry … I won’t shame you if you can’t see the bats.

Next, we walked through the lodge’s back yard, learning about different plants and their medicinal value. Norton pointed out two bright red tiny tree frogs, a baby hummingbird in the smallest nest you ever saw, a ylang-ylang tree with blossoms that smell like heaven, and finally, he aimed his telescope across the lagoon to a tree full of green macaws. What a treat!

Hmmm… taking a photo with your phone of an image on a telescope does not work well. Plus, the dang macaws had mostly taken off by the time I got it to focus.

Tony poses with the “walking palm.” Can you say “Lord of the Rings”??? Norton explained that the palm follows the sun, so the “legs” dry up if they no longer support the tree, which gives the illusion that it’s walking.

Because our visit here was cut short by Latam Airlines, every minute counted. So after our garden walk, we hitched a ride on the lodge’s water ferry to the beach across the lagoon. We climbed out of the boat, walked across the air strip (which felt a little dangerous), and through a break in the trees. The beach was completely deserted except for one other family from our hotel. I immediately kicked off my shoes and ran into the warm surf. We walked up the beach for about 30 minutes. I practiced a few yoga asanas while Tony poked around for shells. And in one magical moment, a huge flock of macaws buzzed our heads and swooped in a circle before landing on some beachfront trees.

We had been warned about staying too long. That’s because the only way to get back to the lodge was to stand at the shore and wave your arms frantically until somebody saw you and sent a boat. They told us if we waited too long, it would get dark and they wouldn’t see us. Sure enough, someone spotted me gesticulating and came to get us.

Look who was waiting for us.

After a dip in the saltwater infinity pool, we hunkered down for a little break. Right on cue, the rains started up again. Perfect timing.

I can’t believe how much we did in one day. Tomorrow, we’re off to Fortuna. Stay tuned!

On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust!

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I was truly bursting with excitement about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica. This girl needed a dose of nature. George, our latest pet sitter for Ella (from trustedhousesitters.com), arrived on Friday, so we took him to Tiramisu for our now traditional pisco sour toast.

Awwww… here we are, feeling all optimistic that things would go as planned. (counterclockwise, Tony’s giant face, our friend Lisa from Nido, me, our visiting friend Brian who worked with us in Delhi and now works at our old school in Shanghai, our petsitter George)

Tony and I hit the road on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.

And then it all went to custard.

We called an Uber at 5 a.m., but when it arrived, the driver refused to take us to the airport. Another Uber answered my call, but he also refused. I later found out an Uber driver had been shot by police at the airport the other day, so I understand their trepidation. Still, we were stressed. Our concierge called a taxi for us, and we got the airport with plenty of time to spare.

As it turned out, we had way too much time to spare. Our 8 a.m. flight was delayed. And delayed again. Until eventually it became clear that we would miss our connection in Lima, Peru. I was determined to get to Costa Rica on time so that we could kick off my amazing itinerary and head straight to Tortuga Lodge and Gardens. Check it out. Can you see why I felt eager to get there?

We had already planned to spend one night in San Jose, Costa Rica, and then drive to La Pavona on Sunday to catch a boat to the lodge. However, if we got stuck in Lima, we wouldn’t be able to get to that paradise till Monday. Maniacally, I researched flights and thought I found a solution: We would book on another airline.

So we finally boarded our Latam Airlines flight from Santiago to Lima. The plane had to have been from the Wright Brothers era. I mean, our seats felt like they were made from plywood, and our armrests had ashtrays! I started watching “Pitch Perfect 2” on the in-flight entertainment, but the system broke down about halfway through the movie and never recovered.

When we arrived in Lima, our luggage didn’t. We were among about 20 people who had missed connections and whose luggage had gone AWOL. We waited at the luggage carousel for about 30 minutes while a Latam representative calmly and kindly kept reassuring us that they would find our bags. Finally, she gave us vouchers for a hotel in Lima. It was Novotel, which I know to be a lovely and fairly upscale hotel chain. Unfortunately, it turned out to be mediocre. Tony called it the “No Votel.” But, whatever, they gave us three free meals.

I continued to research alternate flights to Costa Rica, but we couldn’t do anything until our suitcases surfaced. Dang it.

I’ve been doing a 7-day gratitude challenge on an app called Calm, and today the meditation was all about feeling gratitude in the face of adversity. F**K that. I was cranky.

I washed my underwear in the sink, and Tony ventured out to find toothbrushes and toothpaste. (Yes, yes, we’ve been traveling for umpty million years and we should know to pack a change of underwear and toothbrushes in our carry-on. Please don’t lecture.)

We were so exhausted that we crashed at 7:30 p.m. and slept all night. In the morning, I checked with the hotel’s front desk. No call from Latam. No luggage. Tony thought he was so funny with his jokes like, “What are you going to wear today?” and “We have to leave in 30 minutes and we still haven’t packed!”

We headed back to the airport at 8 a.m. The Latam lady said our bags were still lost. She asked us to check back in an hour. We wandered around the airport until the designated time, at which point she told us to come back in 30 minutes. So we did. Still no news. She gave us a voucher for lunch at the food court. After our greasy lunch, we wandered back to the Latam counter, where she told us our luggage had been found! It was put on our flight to San Jose. Hooray!

We walked buoyantly to our gate, feeling like FINALLY we were kicking off this vacation. We hunkered down to wait for our flight to Costa Rica. I had come to grips with the fact that we were going to miss one day at Tortuga Lodge. I was disappointed, but more than anything, I just wanted to get there.

Suddenly, a crabby Latam Airlines lady invaded our tranquility to ask for our yellow fever paperwork. We were like, “What?” She asked if we had stayed in Peru … because apparently you need a yellow fever shot if you travel from Peru to Costa Rica. “Well, yes, we did stay one night here because Latam lost our luggage,” I told her. She huffed and stomped away with our passports. Another passenger, a British guy who we now call Tony’s doppelganger because they looked freakily alike, overheard our conversation. He had also missed his connection to Costa Rica and stayed at our same hotel the night before. Apparently, the airline had warned him that he might encounter some problems because of his lack of yellow fever certification.

Eventually, crabby lady brought our passports back with “OK” scribbled on our boarding passes.

When we arrived in San Jose, we hustled to the immigration line, sweating about whether we would be asked about the yellow fever thing. The doppelganger was a couple people ahead of us in line. We watched him with bated breath and sighed with relief when he got his passport stamp without any drama. When it was our turn, our guy was pretty friendly and chatty. He didn’t balk at the fluorescent pink Peru stamps in our passports, but simply asked us about our professions, made a little small talk, and then found a spot to plant that coveted Costa Rica stamp. Whew!

We proceeded to the baggage claim, where – hallelujah! – our suitcases actually plopped on to the carousel with a smug sense of accomplishment. We got local SIM cards for our phones and cash in the local currency (colón), which is confusingly .0018 to the dollar. Then we caught the shuttle to the rental car agency, picked up our Suzuki Jimmy, and headed to a nearby hotel for the night. Tomorrow morning, bright and early (because we found out there will be a protest about some proposed tax), we’ll head to Tortuga Lodge.

Here we are, all stinky and greasy and relieved to finally get our luggage.

Stay tuned for our Costa Rica adventures!