Costa Rica Trip Log, January 2013
A trip log by Mark R. Leeper
01/19/13
New Jersey to San Jose, Costa Rica
01/20/13
San Jose, CR and Poas Volcano
01/21/13
San Jose To Tortuguero, CR
01/23/13
Tortuguero, CR to Fortuna, CR
01/25/13
Fortuna, CR to Guanacaste, CR
01/27/13
Guanacaste, CR to San Jose, CR
01/28/13 San Jose, CR to New Jersey
We
took the
Caravan Tour of Costa Rica.
Caravan seems to have a special relationship with Costa Rica. This was the first tour the company
ever offered. And all over you see
places where it might be hard to walk you see handrails that say
Caravan Travel
provided them.
Oddly
the tour
is a winner two ways. The price of
the tour is very reasonable for what you get and the accommodations are
all
just about top flight.
At
this writing
we have stayed in four hotels. One
was in a rain forest that had beautiful foliage and monkey and sloths
in the
trees. That was the least
comfortable place to stay. The
other three were quite fancy hotels with beautiful decoration. The one we are currently in is a
five-star hotel. This is a ten-day
tour and I suspect you would pay more on your own just to stay in the
hotels. This tour includes all meals. We never had to buy a meal.
With the exception of maybe two meals
every meal was a buffet. The food
was for the most part good, and that is as much as you can hope for on
a buffet
table.
It
may not be
the best tour of the country. Our
Tour Director, age 21, has been guiding tours for only a year. That must be five or six tours.
Her knowledge seems just OK. At
sites she does not take us in but
sends us in. We pass other tour
groups whose leader is explaining the site, but we are sent in to glean
what
knowledge we can. The director is
quite personable, but just does not impart sufficient knowledge to make
this a
real learning experience. Some of
the tour sites turn out to be just ads.
The pineapple plantation tour is not a tour but a one-man show
promotion
for Costa Rican pineapples. But at
least it was on a pineapple plantation even if we did not tour it. The coffee plantation tour was a
two-man education and comedy show, nicely done, but not even on a
plantation. It was a promotion for
Brit Coffee. The Sea Turtle
Conservancy was actually at the Sea Turtle Conservancy, but they had
nothing to
show us but a film. And that came
down to an appeal.
Of
course the
heart of the tour were the wildlife cruises. The
animals we were looking for were smaller than the ones
in Africa and harder to make out.
I have a particular problem in following other people's
descriptions of
where to look to see an animal.
At
something
like $1400/person the tour is a great deal if not the ideal tour.
01/19/13 New
Jersey to San Jose, Costa Rica
I
guess the first
day going to a new country is always the best and worst.
You are exhilarated at going to a new
place you have to get to the airport, pass security.
Even with a LONG to-do list I am always afraid you have
forgotten your passport or some such other stupid action.
I seem to delight in torturing myself
against my conscious will.
Our
plane is at
9 AM so we wanted to get to the airport at 6 AM. That
meant leaving the house at 5:30. I set my
alarm for 4:15, but woke at 4. I had a
long checklist of pre-trip
action items like putting the lamp on a timer and turning off the
icemaker. I still was ready to go
at least 20 minutes early.
Breakfast was a tuna sub, left over from three days before. A sub shop wrapped it. It
was fast, filling, and it left no dishes
to clean. I have to remember that
for future trips.
On
the shuttle
we talked to a couple going to Cabo, Mexico. It
sounds like a nice place to visit.
At
the airport
there was a fast like no check our luggage and a slow line for security. The only problem I had was a piece of
candy in my pocket had to be investigated. I
assume it was the candy. I think some tart
candies are electrical conductors. I know
this on the basis of one
incident. At one point I had a
Jolly Rancher in the same pocket as a 9-volt battery.
I noticed at some point that the pocket was getting
hot. It seems a candy had come in
contact with both leads and right through the wrapper it shorted the
battery.
Our
gate always
seems to be the furthest out. I
got a good chance to try my new camera.
I got a great picture of the sun rising over an airplane in
foreground
and the New York skyline in the back.
My camera, a Lumix, looks to be a good camera, but it is really
tough to
remember where in the menus to find a given feature.
My last camera I knew how to get to all the useful features
and was a lot more self-explanatory.
Evelyn is taking my old camera and I have to remind her to set
the time
and date on it.
Waiting
to
board the plane we met Chris and Harry, also on the Caravan Tour. They are from the north part of
Philadelphia. They have done a lot
of travel in the US, but they did not mention much foreign travel. Almost everyone on the plane seems to
be speaking English, but there are a few Spanish speakers.
The guy sitting at the window seat took
a picture of the people coming down the aisle. I
offered to take his picture, but he did not
understand. I gestured me-photo-snap-you. He thanked me but said no.
We
got new
luggage for this trip and just a light touch pushes it in any direction
with
grocery cart type 360-degree wheels.
It is amazing to have to hold it back. Rather
than having to drag it I had to grab it when on the
jet way it started moving to the plane by itself. Usually
I have to carry my luggage kicking and screaming.
It
does not
look like there will be many empty seats.
Nope.
This
should be
a shorter flight for us. I think
it will be about five and a half hours.
We
are flying
on United. Each seat has a TV
embedded in its back. It is
running ads as soon as you sit down.
Then they interrupt it asking you to watch a safety message. You are a captive audience.
But do they put on a safety
message? Not before they put on an
ad for United that you are forced to watch.
When
they started
putting individual TV screens on seatbacks I knew where it was going to
lead. You have a choice of paying
to watch a movie or you sit through the whole flight with repetitious
advertising six inches from your face.
It does not make any sense.
If I could afford to stay in a fancy resort like they advertise,
would I
be flying coach? We are all in
tight little seats. Being on the
aisle I has had to get up and make way when one of the two others in my
bank of
seats gets up. Takes a long time
to unbuckle and put up tray table, etc.
Air travel is just not fun any more.
We
got a meal
out of it. It was sort of an
omelet in a pita with optional Cholula sauce. I
have never seen hot sauce on an airplane before. It
is a welcome sight. The woman sitting next
to Evelyn did
not want hers so I got a can of tomato juice and added sauce to make it
spicy.
I
am listening
on my iPod to a radio adaptation of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE with
Humphrey
Bogart and Walter Huston. I think
the third voice is Frank Lovejoy.
Good cast. I guess that is my own in-flight movie.
One complaint, they left out the
Federales sequence. I guess nobody
could do a good enough Alfonso Bedoya impression.
I
could not get
much impression of the land from the plane since I had an aisle seat
and could
not see much out the window. When
we landed I asked Evelyn, "How did you enjoy your flight and how can
I?"
Naturalization
and Customs were each fairly easy, but too far apart.
In between we had to pick up our suitcase from the luggage
carousel. We waited and waited and
it did not show up. There were
fewer and fewer people standing around the carousel.
After standing there about 25 minutes I began to get
worried. I told Evelyn to keep
watching to see if it came out and walked around the carousel. Apparently our suitcase had come out as
one of the first, before we even got there and someone thought it was
his,
pulled it off the carousel, realized it was not his and just left it
sitting on
the floor. People can be so
thoughtless.
After
passing
customs we left and our group found us.
Actually there was just one other couple who landed at this
time, Mek(?) and Sandy, a Canadian couple
from Mississauga. The trip to the hotel
was a little
disheartening. We saw an awful lot
of the same restaurant chains we have at home. There
was KFC and McDonalds and a bunch of others. We
saw little we recognized as
distinctively Costa Rican.
Globalization has taken its toll of uniquely Costa Rican culture.
We
got to the
hotel, the Real Intercontinental.
The first problem I had to face was how to set up my CPAP. There was one outlet net to the bed on
the window wall. But I needed a
table to put the CPAP on. I could
have used the desk chair, but then we would have no place to sit while
working
at the computer. There was the
usual luggage rack, but the CPAP would fall between the straps. It was a nice little puzzle and I like
puzzles. This one had an easy
solution. I took a wooden hanger
from the closet and placed it on the rack perpendicular to the straps. This proved to be a nice stable base
for the CPAP.
This
was now
about 3:00. We decided we wanted
to see something of San Jose so we asked our guide, Fiorella (Fiorella
Matarrita),
what there was to see in the area.
Just the mall across the street.
Otherwise there are no interesting sites nearby.
OK we went to the mall. It looked a
whole lot like a US
mall. In the food court I think
that 2/3 of the venders were US chains. I think this country is already a lot like
another US state. I hope it proves
to be wrong.
We
stopped at
the food court to sample a taco al pastor. It
is slivers of meat (beef?) and a chunk of pineapple.
This as at one of the more Costa Rican
looking stands Fogoncito. And we
tried a mango sundae Jr. At the Burger King stand.
The
mall was
not a good place to learn about the local culture since the mall was a
lot like
malls in the US. Many of the same
shops. Evelyn did find a book with
essays by one of her favorite authors Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges. But even the prices were a little more
than in the US, but in the same ballpark.
The main bill here that people use when they start is the
10,000c
bill. That is just about the same
as the $20 bill in the US. It is
like in the US I pay most of the price of the item in $20 bills and
then the
rest in small bills or I pay all in 20s and get change.
After
the mall
we went back to the room to rest.
I wrote in my log. I talked
with people from Atlanta at dinner.
The dinner was a buffet.
The food was OK. What I did
not like is that as soon as everyone went through the buffet line once
the
management took it down for fear someone would come back for more. The quality of the food was mediocre.
Now
that we
have seen our tour mates we realize there are maybe three people
younger than
us and about 40 people older. Most
I would guess are in their 70s.
After
the
dinner we had a short orientation and introduction to the tour members.
That
is about
all of interest for the day.
01/20/13 San
Jose, CR and Poas Volcano
I
cannot say I
slept well. I was up early and
listened to Georgia by Plato, which I had on my iPod.
There
was a big
buffet layer out which had some Costa Rican dishes in addition to the
usual
American dishes. I had some meat
pie and plantains. There was a
good salsa picante, which I had on scrambled eggs.
They do a good hot chocolate.
We
were on the
bus and left about 7:25.
We
are on the
bus now and the drive will be about two hours.
Costa
Rica has
4.3 million people in a country about the size of West Virginia. Biggest industry is tourism.
Next is technology.
As
we drive the
feel of the land becomes more tropical and Hispanic.
Fiorella points out a Wal-Mart and a KFC. It
is as if she is proud that the
country is becoming a lot like America.
Security
is a
big part of life in Costa Rica.
All the windows on the houses have bars and fences and walls
have razor
wire.
If
you have a
house you have to fence it in to keep out squatters.
If you allow squatters for a certain length of time you lose
the right to the land. Even if you
fence the land you have bought it goes back to the state if you have
not
improved the land in a certain length of time. On
some (all maybe) houses only go to a certain altitude
because everything above is protected state park land.
Fiorella
our
guide who has a constant smile, also talked about the education system
in which
everybody gets educated. If
someone lives isolated with no neighbors for miles the government will
pay to
send a tutor.
Fiorella
has a
thick accent that is often hard to make out. Every
once in a while it is a real problem. Sometimes
she will say "over
there" or "tree grows like this," gesticulating. From
the back of the bus it is hard to
see it.
As
we drive the
road gets steeper and our ears crack.
We are going up to about 9000 feet. The
guide points out the most noticeable plant. It
seems to form a flat umbrella shape
more than a meter in diameter.
Poas
is a
volcano with a crater that you can look right down into from an
overhanging
point. But as even the tour
company said that 70% of the time the crater is covered with fog. This was one of the seven in ten.
Here was a walk you could take to the
crater and one you could take to a lagoon. However
both sites were covered with fog and other than some
nature along the paths there was not a lot to see.
As
we walked
along the paths we passed other tour groups for whom the guide was
explaining
what his group was seeing. Our
group was just sent in and told to have a good time.
Lunch
was at a
bar and restaurant, El Mirador (meaning the lookout).
It had a nice view of a valley and a mountain.
After that it was about an hour's drive
to the Britt coffee plantation tour.
The Britt coffee plantation has whole comedy show put together
to teach
you how coffee is grown, processed, and tested. They
have a coffee souvenir shop and a separate coffee
shop. What they don't have is a
coffee plantation. It was a
learning experience, but the whole site was really an enjoyable ad for
Britt
Coffee. It is kind of a brash idea
for an ad. It was fun if not
authentic.
On
the ride to
the hotel we ironed out the details of tomorrow's plans.
Real
Intercontinental of San Jose, CR
++
Hotel is run
very well. I have no constructive
criticism (!).
+
Fancy hotel
with nice appointments
+
iPod player in radio
+
Many pillows
on the bed
+
Gymnasium,
Jacuzzi
+
Bathrobes in
bathroom
+
Sumptuous
breakfast buffet
+
iPod player in radio in room
+
wide screen high def TV
0
no fridge or
microwave
0
$4 for two
hours Internet time
0
All cable
stations in Spanish or English w/subtitles
Dinner
was
buffet again. For some reason
Evelyn picked a table with a sports discussion going on.
I do not follow sports.
Back
at the
room we purchased two hours of Internet time and took turns reading
e-mail. We got a PDF of the manual
for my camera. I had one already,
but it did not seem to correctly explain my camera.
Turns out it was a manual for a DM-ZS7 and my camera is a
DM-SZ7. Why do they have two
cameras with such similar names?
01/21/13 San
Jose To Tortuguero
At
breakfast I
concentrated on foods we do not get at home: Rice and beans, tortilla,
fruit
juice and cocoa.
It
is a long
bus ride to Tortuguero. I cannot
always tell what Fiorella is saying.
She was telling a story that made no sense about a frock. She continued the story long enough for
me to realize it was about a frog, not a frock.
The
butterfly
garden seems to be a side attraction of a restaurant.
They have an indoor garden of plants and trees and they
breed a wide variety of butterflies.
To get in there are two doorways guarded by
girls in
animal suits. They greet
the visitors, but their real purpose is to make sure the doorways are
kept
blocked by netting so the butterflies do not escape.
We spent about half an hour walking around and getting
pictures of butterflies. I think
Evelyn is better than I am at this.
Maybe I am just critical of my pictures.
After
you leave
they serve a snack, mostly of fruit and fruit juice.
It is a nice break on a day with a lot of travel.
The
houses we see
are more shack-like with metal roofs.
We drive through banana fields with acres of banana trees. There a re lots of the trees since each
tree gives only one bunch of bananas.
But it is a useful crop since it produces fruit all year around. The banana trees have blue plastic bags
placed on them to protect them from insects and weather.
To move the picked bunches out they use
a sort of rail system to move the big blue bags of
banana
bunches.
We
are also
seeing more cattle. While much of
the city looked like the US, you can really tell you are in the tropics
around
here.
After
a stop to
rest and use restrooms we boarded a boat to take us downstream on the
Lucky
River. Actually I think it is the
Surety but that means lucky. It
was on a small boat and we could see on the banks occasional animals. We saw a crocodile and caiman
lizard. We saw several egrets and
a spider monkey or two. That let
to the Penitent River, which is wider and much faster but besides some
birds at
a distance we saw no animals. This
hour or so water trio took us to Pachira Lodge of Tortuguero. This is a lodge accessible only by
water near the town of Tortuguero across the river and also accessible
only by
water. The lodge was carved out of
a tropical forest. It is very
open. The windows have only
screens and various wildlife can be hear or even seen in the trees.
Pachira
Lodge
of Tortuguero
+
beautiful tropical surroundings, sloth in
tree very near our
room
0
rustic feel
0
this is to
some extent roughing it
-
no temperature control beyond ceiling fan
-
no shampoo
-
electrical outlet not firmly in wall
-
bathroom tissue not flushable
-
walls very thin, you hear your neighbors
very clearly
Once
we arrived
and were given our orientation talk we took our luggage to the room. We talked about travel at lunch.
On the way back to the room a sloth was
spotted just feet from our room.
Each time we saw the sloth through the day he had climbed higher
in the
tree. At this point I am wondering
if he will still be in the tree tomorrow since he seemed to be on the
top limb
at dinnertime.
At
several of
the major tourist attractions: the Poas Volcano, the butterfly garden,
and the
Tortuguero dock, there are bright yellow railings with stickers that
say
provided by Caravan Travel.
Caravan seems to have a special in with the Costa Rican
government. That is a geographically
correct
statement. It is not like
yesterday when we supposedly toured a coffee plantation in a place
where there
was no plantation. We actually were
in the Sea Turtle Conservancy, but only to watch a movie that was a
pitch for
support for the Sea Turtle Conservancy.
This
area is
the most important nesting site for green sea turtles.
It is not really known why turtles come
here and this beach is so important to their reproduction, but that is
being
studied as well as all aspects of a sea turtle's life.
I think they have concluded that
geomagnetism plays an important role in turtle navigation.
The video gives just basic
information. A man named Archie
Carr founded the turtle research facility and lobbied for laws to
protect the
sea turtles. Harvesting was
killing off green turtles and Carr got them some legal protection with
laws to
restrict harvesting and a training program for marine biologists. What is now called the Sea Turtle
Conservancy is what they called the "epicenter" of turtle research
for the world.
It
seems to me
we could use a conservancy for a lot of other animal species. From there we walked on the beach the
turtles use when the mother lays the eggs and abandons them. There are no turtles this time of year.
Following
that
we had time for a walk through town.
The stores may or may not have been built for tourist trade, but
the
stock and pricing certainly indicated that this is a town mostly
concentrated
on the tourists. This is not how
to learn about the life of a typical Costa Rican.
One
thing I
could tell about the tone is that they properly appreciated dogs. There were dogs all over town,, many very likeable.
Evelyn
and I
shared a coconut water before going back.
We
had a
briefing before dinner on what was upcoming. They had it in an open pavilion and
some of us had problems with mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes seem attracted to my metabolism.
Following
that
was dinner, a sort of mediocre buffet.
Back
at the
room I worked on my log until I got sleepy.
No
monkeys were
noisy in the morning. What a
disappointment.
Well,
the big
panic of the morning is that my palmtop started acting really strangely. Every time I brought up menu to showed
me a help screen for whatever application it was running.
I had to transfer the software to
another palmtop that Evelyn had far-seeingly brought.
I think I will have to send it to the shop.
Our
morning
activity is a outing on the river in an open boat looking for animals. We did see quite a variety.
We saw:
--
iguana
--
toucan
--
water snake (very short)
--
spider monkey
--
lizards
--
snowy egret
--
little blue egret
--
Jesus Christ
lizard
--
blue jeans frog (heard)
There
is some
sort of visual perception system I am missing. I
need more help than other people in seeing an animal
someone else has sighted. There
could be a hippo in a tree and I will just see limbs and leaves. I am a little better if the animal is
moving. But I am told that there
is a sex difference in males and females.
Women are better at picking out patterns and men are better at
picking
up on movement. It does not make a
lot of difference. I am slower
than most men at finding an animal in the brush.
And
once I do
see the animal I immediately lose it again if I take my eyes off of it
and try
to find it with binoculars or camera viewfinder. I
look at the pictures I take and they look terrible.
There is a lot of foliage and no animal
to be seen without a search. If
they are properly framed they look blurry.
But
at least it
is nice and cool being out on water.
I did see my share of animals, though not the obscure ones.
Getting
off the
boat my wraparound sunglasses fell out of my pocket and got stepped on.
They
had a
snack waiting for us when we landed.
It was pizza that had mostly gotten cold and some fruit juice
drinks.
Then
it was
back to the room. I mostly checked
out my palmtop, which was still misbehaving. I
tried to get some pictures of the butterflies on the tree
outside our room. Again I could
not catch them very well. Mostly I
got caught up on my log.
The
sloth seems
to have moved back down the tree and is resting a little lower. They climb a tree and only come down
once a week, mostly for waste management.
Whenever you pass by people are looking at the sloth.
Lunch
was
chicken in a sort of cream sauce.
The chicken did not have a lot of fat but everything around it
did.
After
lunch we
talked to a new neighbor about his Road Scholar tour of Costa Rica. I brought the PC to Wi-Fi range of the
office and I checked my e-mail.
Back home they are expecting a blizzard and here I am hot and
sweaty and
looking at tropical animals.
At
3:30 we had
another river cruise. It was much
like the morning cruise.
We saw a couple of Jesus Christ lizards. They
are so called because in their
youth they can run across the surface of the water.
It does not have webbed feet but somehow gets enough
resistance from the water that it can run across the top.
When they get older and heavier they
lose the ability. This makes them
morose and they start wishing they were back in the old water running
days.
We
saw an
otter, which took about 10 minutes to track by bubbles on the surface
of the
water. Finally he climbed a tree
and some people got a picture or two of him. I
was not fast enough and in the wrong position. I
think if getting animal pictures were
really my goal I would be much more disappointed.
We
saw some
monkeys on trees. It is clear that
when a boat pulls up the monkeys get really active.
They run over limbs and jump from tree to tree.
Some guides say they are showing off
for the visitors and others say they are afraid and agitated. I think they are trying to show there
numbers as a sort of threat that if we want to start something we will
be
outnumbered by tough monkeys.
At
one point
our guide pulled the boat to a riverbank and he and the pilot went off
together
into the woods. A few minutes
later they reemerged carrying a palm leaf. On
the leaf there was a "blue jeans" frog. So
named because it is bright red over
most of its body but with bright blue markings on 6ts legs. This is how I know I am not in
Alaska. In warm climate animals
wear bright colors. The whole frog
is only about three-quarters of an inch long, but he really stands out. I got a few pictures. The
frog was escorted the length of the
boat. Then he was taken back to
the woods so he could tell his family, "boy, you wouldn't believe the
day
I've had." We got back to the
room about 5:20 PM and at 6 they had a calypso party for us. I could no convince Evelyn to dance,
but I got up for the final number, Day-O, which seemed to go on and on
and on.
Then
at dinner
the sports people sat at our table.
There are three of them, two not fat
but just
large people. I was thinking
conversation would be hard because I have so little interest in sports. They turn out to be great
conversationalists and a wide range of topics. We
talked about lotteries, a little math, and movies.
Probably the best dinner conversation
of the trip.
I
wish I had
better communication skills.
I
got back to
the room after dinner. At one point we heard two alarms go off, one
from my
palmtop, one from the computer that was ailing. I
thought that was a good sign. In fact it
seemed to be back to normal. So I will
switch back from using it.
01/23/13
Tortuguero, CR to Fortuna, CR
At
about 6 AM
the howler monkeys started making King Kong sounds.
I am sure it is just a warning that they are wild and
vicious animals and that we all better leave the jungle and the hotel
to
them. Of course when you see them,
they are just not that formidable and they are all howl and no bite. They are probably trying to impress
possible mates.
Of
course
everybody hears them as the walls are far from sound proof. You hear the neighbors talking as they
wake up.
I
tried to have
a light breakfast that was mostly fruit so I do not gain too much
weight.
As
I said last
night I heard an alarm go off from my errant computer.
That seems to indicate to me that its
problem was just the moisture in the air and with an airing it would
cure
itself. I moved the data card to
my traditional computer and the problem seemed to be completely gone. Diagnosis: the humidity caused the
problem and it was just a temporary fault.
We
had an hour
ride up the river to rejoin with our bus.
We stopped to see two or three crocodiles and one Caiman lizard.
Then
we changed
back to buses after a half hour stop in the restroom bar.
Then back on the bus for what is mostly
a travel day.
We
see banana
and coconut trees.
95%
of Costa
Ricans have cell phones. Fiorella
did not say, but part of the reason is the cost of setting up landlines.
I
was listening
to a podcast about tours. Costa
Rica is really expanding as a tourist destination.
It still can be a site for an inexpensive vacation with
cheap prices if you know where to find them. They
have eco-lodges that are environmentally sustaining.
If
you have
some time they recommend you go to central markets (Mercado Central) to
meet
the people.
We
went to El
Zeibo for lunch. It was an OK
buffet. The deserts we get seem
frequently to be squares of a custard cake. They
had a musical show sponsored by Caravan travel. It
was three musical numbers, each with
some reference to Charlie Chaplin.
This sparked a fun conversation about older films.
We
see a fairly
large set of references to Charlie Chaplin in Costa Rica.
He will appear on billboards, in ads,
etc. It could be just
coincidence. But he seems very
popular here.
After
dinner
someone pointed out there was a very lonely dog out back.
I went to see and there were four very
friendly dogs. Coming back to the
front a number of women had found a tree out front that had dropped
some
beautiful seedpods. I told them
that they should not take them home.
It is quite dangerous to introduce unfamiliar plant materials to
our
home environment. And another
tourist was explaining to them how best to sneak them past customs. It was clear they were more interested
in his advice than mine. His would
reward her with a nice ornament and it would be at someone else's risk. Self-interest wins over citizenship
again.
Our
next stop
is at a pineapple plantation.
Pineapple is a major export of Costa Rica.
OK
we had the
pineapple plantation tour. Unlike
the coffee plantation tour there was a genuine pineapple plantation on
site. We could see it from the bus
on the way in. Our pineapple
plantation tour was taken without us leaving our seats.
A comedian came out and gave us a
routine that told us incidentally how to choose a good pineapple, what
they do
with rejected pineapples, not a lot.
And we sampled pieces of pineapple, pineapple juice, and
fruitcake. All very tasty.
Mike, who gave the presentation, has
cutting skills with a knife that would do a Japanese hibachi chef proud. I over-indulged, I think.
I really like pineapple. It just
barely edges out fresh
mango. And pineapple is much
better canned.
It
was about
two and a half more hours to Fortuna in the San Carlos valley. This also seems like a posh resort and
our room looks a lot like a bungalow.
It is a beautiful area with a volcanic mountain.
Arenal
Springs
Resort of Fortuna
+
Very nice
room seems like a luxury bungalow.
+
Refrigerator
in room, two bottles of water included
+
Good food in
restaurant
+
Beautiful
shower with walk-in
+
Two big
double beds
+
Free Wi-Fi in
room
+
Soap and
shampoo
+
Hi-def TV
+
Very nice
buffets with a lot of choice
0
have to
insert room card for dome of the
0
computers in
lobby for charge
-
Hard to use
drying line because it goes right through plants
-
Have to wear
a band around wrist for the whole visit.
-
Toilet must
be held down for seconds to flush
Dinner
one of
the other tour members said he saw me with the dog and was impressed I
knew how
to handle a dog. She had at first
pulled away dorm mu hand and I had turned it to let her smell the back
of my
hand. I don't know where or if I
had learned that. I do know dogs
are distrustful of the palm side of the human hand.
I have found horses that were also. Hands
do things that dogs and horses
don't like. But the back of the
hand cannot reach out and turning it gives the dog an opportunity to
sniff
without being threatened. Once a
dog smells nothing threatening, the dog feels more comfortable.
Dinner
was
quite good and dessert was ice cream with chocolate syrup.
Very nice. I wonder what this trip
is doing to my weight.
Well,
we
started the day getting some nice pictures of a parrot.
The day is kind of foggy and gray, but
I am hoping it will burn off.
The
breakfast
buffet is quite good. Caravan
Travel has booked us into some very good hotels.
I
was reading
about Costa Rica in Wikipedia. It
is the first country in the world to outlaw sport hunting.
That may be because there are so many
rare and valuable animals. And if
the wildlife feels secure around humans it make for a better tourist
experience
and tourism is the country's largest industry. It
also was chosen as having the highest quality of living.
As
we drive we
pass and Iguana tree. It appears
to be two or three trees that have become famous as a nest of iguanas. All over in its branches you see large
iguanas. Growing we see teak
trees. I am not sure which trees
were teaks. Also there were sugar
cane fields and a refinery, which turned them into brown sugar. This area also has oranges growing.
On
the bus we
also heard about the Google War in 2009.
Apparently misstated the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Nicaragua threatened to go to war to
get the Google borders that gave more land to Nicaragua.
Costa Rica has no army having abolished
the army in 1959. This gave them
no armed defense against Nicaragua.
Canada agreed to defend Costa Rica and had its army on standby. The World Court apparently ruled for
the old borders. Nobody ever
fought in the Google War but Costa Rica won even without an army. Google now runs a disclaimer with its
maps.
One
more river cruise this morning. The
embarkation point was Los
Chiles. I told Fiorella that with
a town with that name I expected lunch to be piquant.
She said it wasn't, but later they did have hot sauce on the
table.
The
cruise was
on the Rio Frio to the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge.
Again on the cruise we saw egrets and caimans.
We saw some of the white-faced monkey
and close up saw an orange howler monkey nicknamed Blondy. They it was
a spider
monkey with a recessive gene. Also
I believe we saw a capuchin and a gold-billed heron.
There was also a cormorant.
The
highlight
for us was that we went a short distance into Nicaragua.
Depending on how you count that is 66 countries
we had been too.
I
told the
guide that there was an article about one of these monkeys being
narcoleptic. It might not be true
but it is the legend of the sleepy howler.
Lunch
was at a
place called Helicon. It was a
buffet of rice and a hint of chicken, chips and black beans, and
pineapple.
It
is a long
afternoon drive back to Fortuna.
Fiorella lets her old people sleep.
Our
activity of
the afternoon is the Baldi hot springs.
This is a set of mineral springs piped into baths of varying
temperature. I had never been in
mineral baths before. I guess the
hot water is soothing. Each of
several pools seems to have a waterfall.
I particularly just letting hot water fall on my neck. I think it eased a stiff neck I had
been having. The problem was that
there were no clocks around so we had to finish early for fear of being
late. While waiting I folded a
flower for Fiorella and left it on her seat on the bus.
Back
at the
room we worked on the computer, wrote in our logs, and packed.
This
was
interrupted by dinner that was a good buffet except for the main
courses--Hawaiian Roast Pork and beef.
There was guacamole and chips as an appetizer.
That is nice.
01/25/13
Fortuna, CR to Guanacaste, CR
As
soon as
Evelyn was up and we had our bags out I decided to get a picture of the
volcano
mount unspoiled by people. I went
out to the end of the street to gat the best view.
There was someone else one block up doing the same
thing. He got in my picture.
I guess most of my ideas someone else
thought of first.
There
is one of
our trip members--I will call him Steve to protect his privacy (but
more
because I still have not memorized people's names)--had a really
interesting
experience. He had taken a
motorcycle into the mountains. He
had stopped and a Coatimundi came out of the woods over to investigate
him. The Coatimundi was satisfied
and gave a whistle. A couple dozen
Coatimundis came out of the woods to look at his stuff.
One climbed his leg. He caught this
all on camera. That was an experience.
We
had bags out
at six and went to breakfast at 6:30.
Evelyn is going slowly because she leaned on one of the bags
with
360-degree wheels and it slipped out from under her.
I am hoping that she will not have problems.
It
is a rainy
day and the bus will go in and out of clouds into the hills. Fiorella tells everyone to turn on the
reading lights over their heads.
Then she says to turn them off.
"That was to make the bus lighter."
The
Hanging
Bridges in Arenal offers three trails into the rain forest. To build them they have placed bridges
over gorges. Some bridges are just
plain steel bridges. OK, but not
great. Then there are the hanging
bridges. To build one they shoot
two cables over the gorge. They
secure them--that's the hard part.
Then they suspend a bridge from the cables.
With two supporting cables the flat of the bridge stays
perfectly parallel to the plane of the two cables.
You can walk across the bridge and it stays perfectly
level. That is the power of a
parallelogram. Very
convenient. The people who scream do not like that the bridge shakes them
left and
right, but it stays perfectly level.
We
did not see
any wildlife, but we saw a lot of rain forest.
Lunch
was at a
restaurant called La Troja, supposedly a place with very good chicken. Actually it was a little dried out, but
they served it in big pieces like a quarter chicken.
Whenever we have had chicken here we have had it cut in
small pieces. I think that is why
it had such a good reputation.
From
there it
was back on the bus and a long ride to Guanacaste.
Guanacaste is what we call a Mimosa tree.
We
had a stop
in Liberia to allow some cheap shopping.
We went into a grocery and got some coffee as souvenirs for
people back
home.
Fiorella
tells
us that Guanacaste is a town of supernatural legends.
This, of course, interests the horror fans in both Evelyn
and me. I guess Costa Rican horror
stories are set in Guanacaste.
Many
of the
legends of Costa Rica are shared by Mexico and much of Latin America. Some of these legends are similar to
folk-legends from other parts of the world. Most
of these stories are thinly disguised morality tales of
someone who does not behave the way society says they should and by
misbehaving
they are opening themselves to being vulnerable to hellish demons. Also of the stories I was able to find
in other places, there is no consistent version of the story. I guess that is what makes them
folktales.
La
Segua
This
story is
reminiscent of Japanese ghost stories.
La Segua is what appears to be a beautiful woman who looks for
young men
traveling on the roads. She
attracts these men like a succubus does.
They cannot resist the combination of strong drink and a
beautiful and
willing woman. The Segua parties
with unsuspecting travelers, all the while getting them drunk and
trying to
seduce them. She succeeds and she
takes them to bed, but at the crucial moment her lover will see either
her head
or her whole body transform to the head or body of an animal. The traveler finds he is making love to
a female horse.
La
Llorona (The
Crying Woman)
This
is a
famous story I ran into as a Mexican horror film, THE CURSE OF THE
CRYING WOMAN
and later as LA LLORONA. It is a
legend in some ways very similar to the legend of the Flying Dutchman. Maria is in love with a man who does
not want her. In specific he does
not want to be tied down with her two children. But
Maria is obsessed.
If her two children were all that stood in her way they could be
removed. She drowned both of them. But still the man she wanted spurned
her, and let's face it, a woman who drowns her own children might not
be a
really great marriage prospect.
Maria is heart-broken and given to crying. Finally
she drowns herself, but even heaven does not want
her. Her sin is so bad her spirit
is sent back to earth for eternal penance. She
wanders the world as a crying spirit.
La
Carreta sin
Bueyes (The Ox-Cart without an Ox)
Our
magical
hour is midnight; in Costa Rica the scary time is 3 AM.
Magical things happen at 3 AM. In
this case you can hear at 3 AM an
evil ox-cart, which moves without an ox to pull it.
I guess it is just one of these enchanted ox-less
oxcarts. Actually the story of a
man named Pedro who tilled the soil and was unkind to his oxen. On the day that the village animals
were to be blessed Pedro tried to bring his oxen directly into the
church where
they would do damage. The oxen
knew they did not belong in church and would not go in.
Pedro told the priest that his oxen did
not need blessing since they had already been blessed by the devil. The priest blessed the oxen and cursed
Pedro and the oxcart so that he and his oxcart to walk the earth with
his
oxcart travelling by itself as if enchanted. That
may sound a little too magical so some versions say
there is a casket in the back of the wagon and it is carrying Pedro.
The
Mica
[Note:
I was
not able to find anything about this legend on-line even trying
possible
alternate spellings.]
A
Mica
(pronounced "Meeka") is a demonic dog-wolf combination.
He haunts people and then jumps into
ceilings to hide. I guess he finds
ways to hide in ceilings. (This
must be considerably easier in office buildings that have suspended
ceilings.) Midnight is the scary time
for Micas. At midnight he does
three back flips and three front flips.
Then his skin falls off.
That seems horrific. But it
is then that the haunted have an opportunity over the scary beast. If you take his skin and put in a meat
bowl with meat and add salt he loses the ability to transform back. [I hope I have that right.
It does not make a lot of sense to
me. But the legend is probably why
I don't want to eat in the restaurants in this town.]
The
Two Cadejos
There
is not
one but two Cadejos. They are big,
mean-looking hairy dog-like creatures.
The black cadejo is vicious and evil. The
white cadejo is angelic and good. (Some
places it is the other way
around.) The black cadejo hides in
shadows and attacks the unsuspecting.
But the white cadejo comes to their rescue.
Some versions of the story say the black cadejo is the Devil
Himself.
The
afternoon
drive was a long one but we finally got to our hotel in Guanacaste.
J.W.
Marriott
Guanacaste
+
A beautiful
five-star hotel
+
Luxury
appointments
+
Very large
bathroom
+
Opaque
curtains make room very dark
+
Big bed
+
Screened
patio
0
bedroom has
big voyeuristic picture window into bathroom with view of tub and
shower, can
be closed with panels
-
No grabber in
shower
-
Heavy charge
for Internet access
-
No clock in
room
-
Very spread
out, our room paced at a 9-th of a mile from the lobby (shorter id you
cut
across open areas
-
Most
activities come at high additional cost
-
Smoke alarm
flashes brightly and irregularly all night
-
Found
bloodstain on one of the pillows
-
Ceiling fan
squeaks'
The
room was
luxurious, but that bathroom was a very string touch.
It is like there is a big picture window (no glass) between
the bed and the bathroom. The
toilet is in an alcove at the far end of the bathroom and that has a
door. But one is free to leave the panels
open to watch people take a bath in the tub or shower.
DE
on TV that
had old Mexican B movies. I don't
understand the Spanish dialog, but it is interesting to watch a few
minutes now
and then.
Dinner
was very
good with a large choice though I got the sea bass.
Sadly I got careless and took just a bite. A
bone wedged itself between a tooth
and the gum and broke off. I don't
know what happened to the splinter.
My hobby for the evening was to try to get the spine out of my
gum. Nothing worked. The
next day I felt it less but it was
still there. Then it just
mysteriously disappeared. It is
either dissolved or it has buried itself too deep to feel.
And
that was
about it for the day.
This
was a day
at leisure. There was not a whole
lot of learning about the culture so I will go through this quickly.
Breakfast
was a
nice buffet. This was a day at
leisure so I decided that we should do what we rarely do when we travel. We sprung for the $10 plus tax and got
Wi-Fi for our room. I got caught
up on my email, picked up some podcasts for my iPod.
Evelyn checked the TV and they had one of her favorite films
on, APOLLO 13, but dubbed into Spanish.
I
got off the
computer and so Evelyn had it for a while. The
resort is on the Pacific and has a nice beach. Evelyn
and I decided go down and walked
on the broad tan-colored beach. I
saw one of the women from our tour and told her "there supposed to be
an
ocean around here. Is that
it?" Apparently she thought
it was.
Lunch
was
pretty good. Evelyn thought it was
better than dinner the previous night.
And it had no bones.
After
lunch we
went back to the room, but it was still being made up.
There were a couple of hammocks. I
helped Evelyn into one. But I had
considerably more trouble
positioning myself into mine. I am
not sure the lowest parts of me were actually off the ground. I have to brush up on my hammock
skills. It is really embarrassing.
The
tour
company had arranged a "happy hour." I
guess that means a free drink by the pool. I
hate the taste of alcohol so I
invented a drink. It is mostly
coke with a finger of margarita syrup.
That was darn tasty.
Back
at the
room we checked the news on the computer.
We tried TCM and the film was SPARTACUS. That
is a favorite film of mine. I was keeping
track of when sundown was coming so we could
photograph it. I went overboard on
the picture taking. Well, it is all free. I may
get only two or three very good pictures.
Speaking
of
good pictures, on our Southern Africa trip I was jealous of the people
who
could get really good close-ups on the animals we saw.
I did not get pictures nearly as good. I
needed a camera that had better
telescopic. I got myself a Lumix
fairly inexpensively from Costco.
Well it did get better pictures, but they were still small
animals in
the middle of big backgrounds. The
Lumix has a very big manual from which I learned what I needed to know
to take
pictures, but the pictures were disappointing.
While
I was
playing with the camera this evening I wondered what would happen if I
played
with the telescopic control while reviewing a picture.
I got controls that could expand the
picture around any picture I picked.
I could view a close-up of a picture I had taken.
I took a picture that had been
disappointing and expanded around a point of interest and there was a
really
good picture. I had not understood
what I was envious of in Africa.
It was only partly the telescopic power of the camera. The other part was being able to zoom
in on the picture in display. Not
a lot but some of my pictures turned out a lot better than I was
expecting. They have to be cropped
a bit--really the camera display does not improve the final picture,
but it
looks good in the camera.
Sundown
was
very impressive with a bright red sky.
Later as it went further down the clouds were blue and pink,
what I call
Maxwell Parrish colors.
I
saw the last
half hour of SPARTACUS and enjoyed it quite a bit.
When that was over what was the next film? CHAPLIN. Costa Rica loves Chaplin.
Dinner
was
pretty good. As nearly all meals
we get it is a buffet. Back in the
room I did some writing, but mostly played with the camera.
01/27/13
Guanacaste, CR to San Jose, CR
We
had to have
luggage out at 6:30. After that we
went to breakfast. We left at 8:00
AM. In the morning we drove through
the cattle-raising region of Guanacaste.
Some of the topography is a lot like the US Southwest with flat
land and
hills in the distance. You could
film a Western here. Or you could
film a Guanacaste in Arizona.
We
pass through
the Blue Zone of Nicoya. This is a
place where people live a long time.
The people live unstressed and that is what they say is the
reason for
long life. How long do they
live? Fiorella says people live 70
to 100 years. Somehow that does
not seem like a lot. I think the
Nicoya people have been sold a bill of goods. They
are living so long. They are just taking a
dull town and trying to make that
sound like a good thing.
We
stopped at a
snack stand and there were yellow banisters provided by Caravan. There is clearly a deal where the stand
provides plumbing and Caravan provides banisters and a steady flow of
customers.
Lunch
was at
Nambi in Punta Reynia. Another
buffet. Fish and beef.
A macaroon for dessert. Evelyn
bought a souvenir for a niece.
After
some
shopping we headed out to the Tarcoles River for our last river cruise. We saw lots of birds: great blue
herons, falcons, egrets, and several jacamars. But
the prize find was a crocodile about 15 feet. He
was something like 12 feet
long. He seemed a little old and
tired, but he did represent proof of concept. We
were told he was about 75 years old. The
only part that was moving easy his
tail in the water.
On
the bus on
the way back I checked my photos.
I got a couple of shots of birds in flight that looked pretty
good to
me. Most were not that great.
But we shall see when we get home. The
camera helps a lot in getting
better pictures. With this many
pixels you just have to get the subject in the picture somewhere and
crop it
down later. An approach of
ready-shoot-aim works better than it should.
We
were in some
fancy hotels earlier this trip.
Today they just wanted one near the airport.
It is OK, but not terrific.
Quality
Hotel
Real Costa
+
Convenient
little motel
+
Free Wi-Fi in
room
+
Coffee maker
and iron in room
+
High def TV
+
Shower is hot
and has a good stream
0
no fridge or
microwave
-
Fluorescent
over door irritatingly flashes
It
was nice to
get a hot shower after being hot and sweaty on the river.
At 5:30 we congregated for a dance
show. They had some really
professional dancers doing Mambo, Bathgate, Tango, and Salsa. Then they picked unfortunate tour
members and tried to teach them to dance.
It made for a fun party.
One
guy who had
been telling me about his Christian studies, trying to get me
interested
apparently was a little taken aback to find out I was Jewish. He wanted to know what Jews thought
happened after you die. I told him
that different Jews believe different things. There
is no central authority that all or even most Jews
accept. Most Jews seem to find
atheist and agnostic Jews perfectly good Jews.
After
dinner we
posed for group pictures and then went back to the room to pack and go
to bed.
01/28/13 San
Jose, CR to New Jersey
Breakfast
was a
little light, but mostly because I had previously eaten sampling as
many
different foods as I could. That
made for some full plates. There
were the usual farewells at breakfast and all the way to the airport.
Not
much
unexpected to report about going through security.
There were maybe two people ahead of us in the security
line. But they have all the same
rules. Take off your shoes and
belt, that sort of thing. Here you
also have to take off your wristwatch.
We
got to the
waiting area about 10 for a 12:45 plane that we were told when we check
in that
it would be 30 minutes late taking off.
That is more than three hours of waiting.
They
picked a
few random people at the gate and gave them a separate security check. Then when we went through the jet way
everybody had to open their bags and have them inspected.
On me they found some adhesive tape I
use to repair my palmtop. Adhesive
tape is a forbidden commodity apparently.
They confiscated it. Who
knows? Maybe terrorists can attack
a plane with adhesive tape.
Actually I guess it could be used instead of rope to tie up a
hostage,
but I think they have to have imagination to think that one up.
The
flight home
was dull and uneventful. The
airlines claim they serve a snack, but I will give them credit that
what they
serve I would call a meal. They
had chicken and cheese on a roll.
Evelyn didn't care for it, but I liked it. I
don't think the packet of Cholula sauce went with it.
I don't know. I did not try it.
But I think the packet was really just an ad for then sauce with
a
sample inside. They would have
served it with oatmeal.
There
was a
long line through Customs, but it really did not spend that much time
with only
one person. We were home by 9 PM.
I
made general
comments about the tour. I will
finish with comments about our guide Fiorella Matarrita.
Fiorella is 21 and has been given responsibility for 44
tourists, the large majority of which are more than three times her age. She is a very capable woman who at the
same time has a lot of charm and a big smile. On
the whole tour nobody had a negative thing to say about
her. So I will. It
is not her fault, but I have a hard
time understanding what she is saying through a thick accent. Occasionally I have had to think for a
few seconds to understand what she has said and by then I have lost the
next
thing she has said.
Also
occasionally I think she made some minor mistakes like point out
something a
"over there." From the
back of the bus we cannot see where she is pointing.
There were some sites like the butterfly house where her
people were just sent in rather than guiding them in and explaining
things. This was not her
fault. She is a 21-year old.
The company was expecting so much from
her already. But it made obvious
that other tour companies could at times provide more.
Overall
I have
to say that Fiorella is a bright and attractive
and
responsible woman of whom a lot is asked by her company and who does
surprisingly well. She also
has the affection of all of her charges.
She does a lot to make the tour a travel bargain.