THE WILDS OF SOUTHERN COSTA RICA

I've been thinking that there should be a scale for the “wildness” of places. At the top of the scale, (or the bottom depending on your point of view), would be ultra organized modern cities and gated retirement communities. Not far removed would come the entirety of The Netherlands. The only so called wild in that country is the aptly named “Den Bos” (The Woods), which in other places would barely qualify as a large park. Not so surprising in a country where even the grass meridians separating roads on the highways are used to graze sheep...

At the opposite end of the scale would be the jungles, deserts, tundras where humans have had little or no influence on the environment. National parks and protected wildlife areas would follow closely. Although, despite the very real wildness that exists in such parks, the signposts letting you know that “Ye have now entered the wild, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING”, does somewhat dampen the excitement of being in untamed territory...

Southern Costa Rica would appear towards the wilder end of the scale. The place is not totally wild, there are roads (mostly unpaved) with villages that have some version of modern amenities. But, my impression is that the human population there is borrowing space from the natural surroundings rather than imposing their will upon it. This lack of development could be due to the challenging nature of the environment but I suspect clever design is a more likely explanation. Back in the 90s, the Costa Rican government decided that most of country's future income should come from tourism. Even the Costa Rican currency, whose notes up to that point displayed pictures of their main exports, coffee and tobacco, were then changed to “eco designs” showing indigenous animals, fish and plants. And, to Costa Rica's credit, eco tourism is now a huge business.

The organized “eco adventures” we took part in were fun but it was the unplanned and random encounters with nature that brought the most pleasure. Outside our cabin in Dominical, nighttime brought out hermit crabs the size of pool balls. And during the day, iguanas would swagger through the brush and run up the trees. These scenes only a 2 minute walk from a Pacific beach with some of the hugest surf I've ever seen....

We heard and saw howler monkeys in a number of places. “Howling” doesn't begin to describe the sound they really make. Their calls sound more like a jet when flying low and directly overhead. We saw pairs of macaws in flight. (They say that macaws mate for life, and from the way they constantly squawk at each other while flying, I expect that bit of information is true !) Other birds we observed included flocks of brown pelicans and flying beasts so pterodactyl-like it was scary. Not too surprising that Jurassic Park was filmed mostly in the Drake Bay area of Costa Rica.

And, it was a boat trip we took when leaving Drake Bay that was my favorite bit of wildness so far. Access to the area is possible by road but slow and difficult so most people arrive/leave by charter plane or water taxi. This “taxi” is in fact a speed boat that first zooms across the bay, then turns up the Sierpe river to drop you off at a location where there are more buses and better roads. The trip would be worth it even if no practical reason was involved ! The Sierpe river is full of immense and dense mangrove trees. While there is no ground as such above the water, the roots of these trees are so huge and thick that one could walk across them. You wouldn't want to though... If there was ever going to be a convention held for venomous snakes, poisonous plants and just about any mythological beast a mind could conjure up, this would be the place. Major spooky !!

But, the apex of the trip is when the boat leaves the bay for the river. The Sierpe is a large and fast flowing river and it meets a part of the bay at the rim of a very strong Pacific ocean. To watch this natural conflict of relentless ocean waves pushing against a powerfully emptying river would be exciting enough from the shore. But, seeing it from the “inside”, on a small speedboat, is adrenalin incarnate ! How they even teach the boats' “drivers” to navigate this passage is beyond me. We literally had to thread our way between two surges coming from opposite directions, pausing long enough to get past one swell but not so long as to let the water push us back into the bay. In the middle of this maneuverer, there was the illusion of the waves moving backwards....

It would take pages and pages to describe all the natural sights, plants, insects and animals we came across. But, to quote a surfer, who was hanging out in a hammock talking to a friend on his cell phone, “Dude, you wouldn't believe this place ! Get off the phone, get on a plane and get down here now...”

Brett

Yes ... we do know the way to San Jose

The way to San Jose is inevitably by bus! We climb up into the hills from Quepos, going through a lovely town called Arenas spread out along the crest of the hills. You can see SJ as soon as you start to descend because it is a sizeable city spread out throughout the whole of the plateau.

Technically, I think San Jose is just a small part of all the towns you can see. I read today that a third of CR’s population lives on this plateau. But as there are only 4 million people here perhaps that is not so many. It is colder than we were expecting and I find that I have to break out the fleece in the evening. I have adapted too well to the heat again and anything less than 24 degrees feels cold. (I can feel the waves of sympathy from here!)

There isn’t any sense of SJ being particularly crowded because it is so spread out. We have heard many stories about how dodgy it is here and we arrive suitably paranoid about losing all our belongings within half an hour of our arrival. However, either we get lucky or it is a lot better at the moment, because we don’t get any bad vibes from the place at all. Even the notorious downtown bus station area feels relatively harmless - there are certainly metro stations in NY, London and Vienna that we have found more threatening. Maybe the thugs here were getting ready for Easter.

We didn’t see any of the highrise development here that you see in other capital cities - mainly it is 2-3 storey buildings. Some of these are more traditional wooden or concrete with balconies etc. Some are probably from building works in the 70s. There are just enough examples of some Art Deco architecture that I wish I had been able to visit in the 50s or 60s, when the city was probably gorgeous and there are a few indications that they are trying to beautify the city with some restorations and new sculptures.

We are only staying for a couple of nights so we just have time to visit the used book shop to swap some books, wander through the central market, and shuffle around the one museum that they have here. The market is interesting because alongside the tourist tat there is a lot that the locals find indispensible.

You gotta have a machete,

Tuna shampoo,

and , guess what we´re bringing back from this trip!

This bloke was very insistant that I take his picture. He was selling herbs and dried flowers etc. that are essential for various potions.

And this bloke was thought his parrot was very funny.

Fancy a piñata? I quite like this cheeky chappie.

They LOVE their cakes, which is a very good thing because I haven't had chocolate since we left the UK and cake almost makes up for it.

I found the gold bit of the museum here quite interesting as they had some lovely examples of pre-Columbian gold artefacts which also gave me a bit of the history of the settlement patterns and cultural symbols. They also had an exhibition of their currency down through the ages. Most of it was similar to the development of any given currency really, but there were one or two snippets that were intriguing. For example, at one time they were worried about people with leprosy and those in the mental asylums contaminating others, so they drilled a certain type of hole in their coins and no-one else was supposed to use them. At other times, if they didn’t have enough of their own currency to circulate then they would stamp some coins from other central American countries and these would then be allowed to be used in CR. A very enterprising lot.

The main reason we are in SJ is so that we can fly … yes, I know, a plane isn’t a bus. Yippeeeeeeee. We decided to treat ourselves to fly up to La Fortuna where we will spend Easter. It is one of those 20 seat propellor planes, and the flight is only 20 minutes (as opposed to 4 + hours by bus) which is a great way to see a bit more of the topography. SJ lies in the basin of one set of mountains and La Fortuna lies just North of the outer rim of those mountains. The mountains are the cause of the time that driving takes here because, although the main roads are quite well maintained really, they are very narrow and windy and the buses are very old and can't manage the hills well at all. If, as is often the case, you also get stuck behind the mammoth trucks that use the roads, then you have no hope of overtaking and just have to literally crawl along.

La Fortuna is the stopping off point to visit the Arenal Volcano, which, since 1968 has been one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

The 'cloud' you can see drifting from the top right hand side of the volcano is actually steam and gases from the volcano.

The grey wisps bits around the side of the volcano is lava flow.


As night falls you can see that the wisps are actually red hot lava
You know who on the bridge at Arenal Lake, which has been dammed and is now used for generating electricity.

It used to be a small, dusty town until only 10 years or so ago, but they have really pushed their tourism because of the Volcan and now it is a bustling little town. However, it is ALL centered on catering for tourists and there isn’t much of interest in the town itself other than places to book tours or to eat and drink. The tours are very expensive so we decide to hire a car for a couple of days and to go exploring on our own. Everything of interest is within 10kms so it is easy to pootle around and it is very scenic as the main road takes you around the base of the Volcano.

We were a bit worried about things being closed because it is Easter weekend, which is their primary faith holiday here, but we needn’t have bothered because just about everything is open. Some of the business owners have shut up for the weekend, but the majority of things are open as usual. One thing that we didn’t get caught out by, is the fact that they don’t sell any alcohol in Costa Rica on Holy Thursday or Good Friday. We had read something about this in one of the travel forums before we arrived and asked when we were in SJ. So, Brett had sacrificed his spare socks and a hankie or two so that he could pack some wine to tide us over.

The really funny thing was that although you couldn’t buy any beer, the local supermarket and the bars were selling wine! One of the locals told us that normally this isn’t allowed, but it seems that in tourist town they had decided not to impose the total ban. He reckoned that it won’t be long before they don’t bother with the restriction at all here. Personally, I suspect that it is something that is strictly imposed in most other places - not least because nothing is usually open. When we left SJ on Thursday morning we couldn’t even get a cup of coffee because nothing was open.

On Friday morning we decide to try out a local canopy tour, which is something that we have been hankering after for a while now. This consists of being attached to various zip lines and zooming through the treetops! It was great fun and we now feel that we have to do another one, so that this time we can actually get to see what’s going on in the treetops rather than just holding on for dear life while anxiously checking that you’re not going to crash into the next landing platform.

The weather is unusually clear today and we get a rare view of the top of the volcano, as it is usually shrouded in cloud.

It is awe inspiring to see it steaming away and the next day when we have the car, we manage to get around to the other side, where the lava flow is and see how active it actually is. The lava flows pretty constantly in fits and spurts. Not huge eruptions but certainly a steady flow. It is hard to get a good picture because during the day it just looks like steam coming down the mountain and in the evening when you can see the red glow of the lava, the light conditions aren’t that great for the automatic focus. Still, it is amazing to see. We had driven around that afternoon, and found a good viewpoint at a local village football pitch. The tour companies charge an outrageous $25 - $30 dollars per person to take you to a bridge at the side of the road - when in fact you can stop anywhere see it for yourself for free - you just have to be able to get to the right side of the volcano.

The other favourite tourist activity is to go to the thermal springs - a mere $25 per person! We were lucky as another local told us how to get to the river that feeds the springs before they get to the resorts. It is an open secret for all the Tico visitors but very few westerners get to know about it. It certainly isn’t advertised anywhere. As you drive along the main road it is difficult to miss all the cars that are parked by the side of the road, and all the Ticos wandering off into the bushes in their bathing suits with their coolboxes! This isn’t so strange as there are many rivers around here and the locals will stop anywhere and just set up at the side of the road for the day. If you didn’t know why they are here you certainly wouldn’t be any the wiser.

We duly follow the crowd and find this amazing sight of 40-50 people lounging in various pools and sitting in an amazing weir, with the hot spring water flowing and cascading everywhere. Even having all of them staring at us like we’re from another planet doesn’t detract from the fantastic experience for me. I have a fleeting thought that they are silently thinking, “Oh no, now the gringos know about it they’ll be all over the place” but we‘re not telling.





Another foray we make is into a nature reserve that has put in some bridges across the various ravines, which means that you can walk amidst the treetops and have a bird’s eye view of the canopy.

We don’t spot too much wildlife - but it is fascinating all the same.



The hummingbirds love this purple plant



It is amazing how humid it is lower down in the canopy, even though it doesn’t rain that often.

I read in the guidebook, that there is a particular type of fungus that breaks down the foliage which probably accounts for that really musty smell that pervades the air. Apparently, where it takes up to a year for a leaf to decompose in North American forests, here things would only take a month.

I have tried to be a bit clever with the photoshop for this one - didn't quite get around to cropping it, but such is life.

On Easter Monday everything is open and back to normal here so we are on the move again. We are heading to the Nicoya peninsular in search of a beach where we can swim; as opposed to a beach where the surfers can surf. Our research suggests the bottom of the peninsular should be OK as the Pacific is slightly offset by the gulf so it is calmer. We are aiming for a place called Montezuma and hope to finish our stay in Costa Rica there as it will be ‘autumn/winter’ further south and we suspect (with shock, horror and dread) that it will be our last beach stay on this trip.

Unless something spectacular comes up I don’t aim to blog again until we get to Uruguay and our South American blog will begin.

Bye for now …

Up the coast

Today we are heading up to Dominical which, the guidebook tells us, is a surfer’s paradise just up the coast. We take the boat out of Drake’s Bay which was a great way to travel. The boat went up the coast for about 10 minutes and then it turned inland to go up the river. Picture the sea where the tide is making 6 foot waves meeting a fairly large river that is also riding high in the opposite direction. It was amazing how the boatman managed the crossing. It felt like we were going to ‘surf’ in on the waves but, in fact, he took the boat crossways between each of the waves until we were out of the tidal flow. The rest of the journey took us up a beautiful river fringed with palms, mangroves and the odd house. At one point we were taken through a ‘shortcut’ through the mangroves which was lovely. The darkness of the water alongside the constant shadow of the trees made everything look and feel very prehistoric.

We arrived in Palmar Norte at just after 9am, which was a bit of a pity because the bus didn’t leave until 12.45! We were offered taxis at a mere $40 for a 60km journey but decided to bite the bullet and wait. The buses only cost a couple of dollars each so, although they are noisy, dusty and uncomfortable, it is hard to justify the extra expense. The 12.45 bus arrives with ‘Dominical’ duly written on the front windscreen so we grab our packs, scramble in the scrum of locals trying to catch the same bus and climb on board. The bus driver took one look at us and asked us where we were going. When I replied ’Dominical’ he shook his head and said “No, la Una”. Which I think you can roughly translate as “boy, you gringos don’t know anything, this isn’t YOUR 12.45 bus to Dominical, this is OUR 12.45 bus to Dominical”. We couldn’t make any sense out of why this wasn’t our bus but decided to wait until 1pm to see if OUR bus would turn up. We were a tad worried that we were perhaps waiting for a bus that wasn’t going to come and asked a couple of people if there was a bus due. One man said he was waiting for it so we relaxed a little bit.

Brett was befriended by a young deaf girl and managed to have an extended conversation with her about the bus we were now all waiting for. It seems that his Spanish sign language is much better than his spoken Spanish.

I don’t know why we worry so, the bus does eventually come and we hoist ourselves onboard. Another 60km journey that takes 2 hours. I think I may have been a bit harsh about the roads here after all. It is only really the side roads that are dreadful. Otherwise, they are quite well paved and not too many potholes. It doesn’t feel too long before we arrive. It is hard to know what to call Dominical. It isn’t really a town or a village. Originally, it was probably just a crossroad stop, but it has evolved into a collection of shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, cabinas and B&Bs for tourists and travellers.

Ticos camping on the beach for the weekend

The beach is absolutely stunning and it has the highest surf that I have ever seen outside of the telly. Unfortunately, this does mean that we aren’t allowed to go into the water too far because there is a very bad riptide by all accounts. I try to get a picture that captures the surf and Brett suggests that the best shot will be actually from the waterline - but I decide not to risk my camera or my life.

While there are more westerners here than we have seen at once since we left home, there is still a Costa Rican feel here and it seems as good a place as any to kick back for a few days. The first evening we are here it absolutely pours with rain, which brings out all the crabs around our cabin. They gave Brett quite a scare at first, until he realised what they were. You have to be quite careful not to tread on them as you walk around because there are so many of them scuttling to and fro.

This crab can't decide whether to come out from under our cabina.

The highlight of our stay here is a trip up to the local waterfall. This entails an 8am start followed by a 1 hour trek on horseback to a lovely little posada in the hills where we are served breakfast. Then another hour on horseback up to the falls.

The trek is really fabulous. Any other time I have been on a horse it has been a fairly gentle walk along country lanes or across fields. Not this one! The horses clamber up and down loose shale, muddy, and/or rocky trails and we ford a couple of river beds and tiptoe through rocky outcrops. I am amazed that I can even keep on the horse, let alone actually enjoy it.

Up the mountain

and down the rocky glen

As is the way with any trek I think, the horses know exactly where they are going and exactly how they want to get there. When my horse decides that it is time for a little trot he picks up his hooves and off he goes. If I really insist he will pretend to slow down - but really we both know who is in charge. Brett’s horse is the leader, he puts himself out in front and just ambles along keeping enough distance between himself and the group to reinforce his pre-eminence - a position that Brett is more than happy to assume. Mine is a follower; if he can’t see a horse in front of him he gets very twitchy and doesn’t seem too sure what to do.

The waterfall is just perfect for swimming. The water is a bit chilly, but blissful as we are so hot. We spend a lovely hour at the waterfall.

The guides rig up a rope so that you can climb up the fall and jump off one of the ledges into the pool below.

Spot the boy diving from the ledge in the middle!

Although it does look like fun, jumping anywhere from any kind of a height has never been my idea of a good time, so I am happy to watch the brave few who do decide to try. One poor woman missed her landing a bit and there was a collective intake of breath, and we winced as one, at the sound that her bottom made as it hit the water too flat.

The place where we stopped for breakfast and lunch was a private eco-lodge of sorts and they showed us a couple of the animals that they had. There was a lovely Toucan and a whole family of Tetse something or others (!) that they have been rearing to re-introduce back into the wild. Although the Toucan does sleep in a cage it is free to go out and about during the day - I did mean to ask why they had it, whether it was a rescue-bird, but I didn’t get around to that.

All in all it was a lovely morning, and it only took 3 days for my own bottom to recover from being saddle-sore, so worth the effort really.

I noticed this banana tree with a massive flower on the end. I hadn't seen it before and thought it was lovely.

We are still heading up towards San Jose, but we have a couple of days before we need to be there so we go in search of a beach where we can actually swim. The surf has been too high here and the riptide too dangerous, for anything more than a paddle. One day they even closed the beach to the surfers because it was so treacherous. The local paper warns of an extra high tide just before Easter - with anything from 10 - 20 foot waves - and the surfers are practically drooling in anticipation.

After Dominical we spent a couple of days in Quepos that doesn’t really have that much to note here other than I was able to do a bit of snorkelling off the beach and saw some lovely fish and a bit of coral. It is great to be able to do it without having to book a 'snorkelling tour'. Oops, nearly forgot, we heard and saw some howler monkeys while we were on the beach. At first we didn't know what the sound was but then figured out that it could only be them making such a racket. We saw a pair in the trees as we were walking off the beach. The sound that they make is so loud that I thought they must be at least the size of a small gorilla - but I was very surprised to see that in fact they are quite small. Apparently they have developed a very large larynx in relation to their actual size.

We were going to go into the national park here but it is so expensive to stay that we decide to cut short our visit and head up to San Jose instead.

Pirate's Cove - It's all a matter of perspective

Today we are aiming to get to Drake's Bay


- where Sir Francis came ashore having circumnavigated the globe to get there. We have been told that we can do it by taking two buses. It is interesting that the historical perspective here is that he was a pirate and general all-round bad guy. Which is true from this side of the fence, but a bit different from the great explorer and brave sea-faring adventurer bloke from my history lessons. I wonder what the children at home are taught today - in this era of truth and reconciliation?

Like good tourists we wait at the assigned street corner for the bus from 8.15am. And we wait … At 9am I run across to the booking office to check that we are actually at the right place. The woman looks shocked that we are still there, which doesn’t do much to ally our fears that we have missed the bus somehow. The only solution she can give us is to continue to wait. Realistically, we know that we will be OK as long as the bus turns up by 10.15 so that we will make our 11.30 connection. As the roads are so unreliable here it is difficult to know exactly how long any given trip will take. We have had to take the 8.30 bus only because the 10.30 bus, which should be more than enough time for our connection, in all likelihood wouldn’t make it on time.

Eventually the bus turns up at 9.15, with no aknowledgement of the delay the driver loads up our bags and off we go. We arrive at Las Palmas, which looks like quite a nice little village with a couple of shops a pizza parlour and 2 bakeries - there are probably a few local restaurants nearby but they aren‘t too obvious. There are a couple of locals hanging out at the corner where the buses come in and they are keen to make sure that we know we are at the right place and at least 3 people remind us that the bus is at 11.30. It makes a bit of a change from this morning when no-one seemed to know or care whther the 8.30 bus would ever arrive or not.

Las Palmas bus stop

Not long after we get there we notice a young man in full jungle attire, with a good layer of sunblock on his face and various camping implements hanging from his rucksack. He is trying to find the best travel option to get out of the village. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to speak any Spanish, nor to know where he actually wants to go or even what day of the week it is. I wander over to try to help and it turns out he has been in the national park roughing it for 3 days and now what he really needs is to get back to some sort of civilisation. We figure out that he can get the bus out at 1pm and he wanders off to find something to eat and a beer. If he had told us he had been in the jungle for 3 months I would have believed it as he was fairly out of it. We were surprised that he had made it out at all.

We now have an hour of observing the locals come and go while we wait for the bus. We copy the locals and wait in the shade of the pizzeria which is closed at the moment.

We attract the usual curious glances and series of “ola”s and “Buenos”s as people walk, cycle and drive past us. The Ticos are a friendly lot.

The next part of our trip is 30km more or less off-road in a minivan type of bus. The boy driving it looks to be about 12! There really is no real road and, at times, the incline has to be 1:3. We ford little rivers and cross log bridges - each time wondering how anyone who doesn’t know the road would ever make it. Overall, I think I would describe the journey as adventurous rather than arduous though, as it is interesting to be driven through rainforest, past the local farms and small homesteads. There are said to be wild jaguar in this part of the forest, which is mainly protected rainforest at this stage which is a good thing. Some tracts here and there have been deforested but it is mainly virgin forest apart from this. At one point an ENORMOUS iguana runs across the road in front of us a scurries up a tree. It was easily 1.5m long and very portly. I suspect it was a great, great, great granfather/mother of an iguana as most of the others we have seen have only been 1/10 of its size.

In the end it only takes us 1.5 hours to do the 30kms so we arrive at our lodgings in time for lunch.

We have figured out that they regulate the amount of tourists getting into and out of some areas just by limiting the transport and lodging alternatives. In the main, they discourage you from driving here yourself and other than that it is probably only possible for 60-100 people to get here on any given day. There are more lodging options than you first think but, apart from the mega-expensive luxury resorts, there only seem to be 5 or 6 places to stay. Because the area is so remote most hotels only do a package that includes meals - you would certainly find it difficult to do self-catering here. We didn’t even find the one restaurant that was apparently in the ‘town’ and if we had really needed it we would have had a 4km walk to it for each meal. We have booked to stay at the Hotel Ojala which Fred and his family run. Fred is originally from the US and came here 17 years ago. He married a local woman and he built the hotel and started running his business about 12 years ago. It is a lovely wooden, 2 storey building with 2 verandas. There is one main living room and kitchen that the family uses and a large roofed dining area for guests. It has a lovely feel to it and, if you jump up on tiptoes on our lower balcony, you can see over the treetops out to sea.

Fred is a sports fisherman and quite a few people who come here do so for the fishing. This turns out to be a VERY good thing on the second evening when we sit down to tuck in to fresh tuna - both sashimi style as a starter and also ‘blackened’ on the grill. It is the first time that I have had fresh tuna that has been filleted lengthways rather than as a steak - and it is easily the best tuna I have ever had.

This is the tuna that we had for supper ............................. and this was the tuna we didn´t.

We were worried about what the food might be like - hotel catering isn’t always that great - but all our meals are freshly cooked and really delicious. Fred is a lucky man with a wife who cooks so well.

It is easy to see why someone who had just sailed around the world would stop here. It is very beautiful with lush vegetation, great wildlife, fish and fresh water. We opt to go for a snorkeling trip on Thursday and cross our fingers that we might come across some dolphins on the way. We are not disappointed. We spot two different schools of spotted dolphins swimming on the way out to the island where we will snorkel. They are small schools so we don’t get any David Attenborough displays or Disneyworld acrobatics - but it is fantastic to see them in the wild.

Brett snorkelling

The snorkeling is good fun. There are a lot of fish here and our guide takes us through some good areas to spot stingrays, lobster, reef sharks etc. I do love being this close to the fish. At one point I had looked up to check that I was swimming in the same direction as the rest of the group and when I put my head back in the water there were about 50 silvery fish swimming just below me. It gave me a bit of a shock until I realized they weren’t going to eat me, and then I could just enjoy the display as they all sped past me. Isla Cano is a protected reserve now and there are millions of crabs shuffling all over the beaches all the time.

Isla Caño

Crabs with homes ... and those without.

The birds here in particular are lovely. Just sitting quietly in any given spot rewards me with an array of birds and butterflies that come and go.

It is a wonderful place but it is a bit expensive for us to stay for too long so we are off further up the coast. We decide to take the water taxi out so it is an early start for us tomorrow.

A couple of local businesses in one of the towns we pass through; the tailor, the barber and the dentist.