I always believe that every cool stories should involve a racoon and I always wanted to say in a sentence "and there a racoon...". Today my dream came true as while we were strolling around the National Cahuita parc, a racoon came out of the blue and jumped in front of us. It was not shy as we managed to take a few pics of him as you can see below. We could spot many animals over the 9kms of sandy trail.
We are now ending our trip in Costa Rica after spending 3 days in the South East of the country in what they call the Jamaica of Costa Rica. To explore the area which is on the Carribean coast, we have based ourselves in a nice cabina in Puerto Viejo de Talamaqua which is a very laid back town, very colourful and with only has one concrete road(all these others are dirt roads). This little paradise is very touristy and full of expatriates which own a small business here: cabinas, vegan restaurant, cyber coffees, bike rentals. There we could enjoy the pristine sea, the waves and of course we got our first sun burns (and still more mosquitoes bites).
Pura Vida as they say in Costa Rica! Before our bus tomorrow morning at 6:30 am for Panama, we need to enjoy some last cocktails.
Showing posts with label Costa Rica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Costa Rica. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Arenal Volcano
Just after our return to San Jose we were booked for a full day tour to the Arenal Volcano, which is the most active one in Costa Rica. Mario our driver picked us up in a minivan, and then we rounded up the other tourists Mr. Klaus and two America ladies (gandma with granddaughter), which already took an eternity in the Friday rush hour in San Jose.
On our way we made a stop in Sarchi (you can see all the tours if you enlarge the map on the right), which is famous for the biggest decorated oxcart in the world. Slightly far streched, but it was nice to have a break from Marios driving and the church was pretty too. Later we stopped for lunch as well, where we could try to make pictures about colibris drinking from artificial flowers. On the way we were entertained by stories about Costa Rican agriculture and everyday life. Maybe more to that later.
Finally we arrived in La Fortuna, and got to see the volcano, which does look impressive. Mario assured us that it is not dangerous, although very active and that it does not really spit lava, as we might have thought from the pictures on the brochures, but hot stones, which glow in the night. Also he said, that we would be very lucky to see the cone in its entirety, because it is always surrounded by clouds. And so it was, but as said we we were not too sad about it.
In La Fortuna we finally got to see the touristy Costa Rica, which we have been missing in San Jose and Bataan. The area's speciality besides the volcano are hot springs. Mario took us to a brand new and very luxurious spa complex, were we could enjoy masses of different pools amidts colonial style buildings and an amazing natural setting. There was barely anybody apart from us.
Of course we had to try the in-pool-bar even though it was raining and of course i managed to order the most girly cocktail of all (i dont know cocktails...). Although we kept an eye on Arenal, we didn't manage to see the top all day.
After the dinner we went closer to the volcano to try to see some firespitting. So we waited in the dark with all other tourists and then after 30 minutes we actually saw something. It was like as if somebody would have thrown two red bicycle lights off the top, then it was cloudy and dark again. We somehow missed the great eureka moment, but we tried anyways...
On the way back we were trying to sleep and Mario tried to keep us awake with constantly changing the pressure on the accelerator, which made the little Hunday bus with disel engine go like a kangoroo. All in all it was a nice trip, but if we would not have been keen on getting the jungle smell out of our skin in the hot springs, it would have been a little boring.
On our way we made a stop in Sarchi (you can see all the tours if you enlarge the map on the right), which is famous for the biggest decorated oxcart in the world. Slightly far streched, but it was nice to have a break from Marios driving and the church was pretty too. Later we stopped for lunch as well, where we could try to make pictures about colibris drinking from artificial flowers. On the way we were entertained by stories about Costa Rican agriculture and everyday life. Maybe more to that later.
Finally we arrived in La Fortuna, and got to see the volcano, which does look impressive. Mario assured us that it is not dangerous, although very active and that it does not really spit lava, as we might have thought from the pictures on the brochures, but hot stones, which glow in the night. Also he said, that we would be very lucky to see the cone in its entirety, because it is always surrounded by clouds. And so it was, but as said we we were not too sad about it.
In La Fortuna we finally got to see the touristy Costa Rica, which we have been missing in San Jose and Bataan. The area's speciality besides the volcano are hot springs. Mario took us to a brand new and very luxurious spa complex, were we could enjoy masses of different pools amidts colonial style buildings and an amazing natural setting. There was barely anybody apart from us.
Of course we had to try the in-pool-bar even though it was raining and of course i managed to order the most girly cocktail of all (i dont know cocktails...). Although we kept an eye on Arenal, we didn't manage to see the top all day.
After the dinner we went closer to the volcano to try to see some firespitting. So we waited in the dark with all other tourists and then after 30 minutes we actually saw something. It was like as if somebody would have thrown two red bicycle lights off the top, then it was cloudy and dark again. We somehow missed the great eureka moment, but we tried anyways...
On the way back we were trying to sleep and Mario tried to keep us awake with constantly changing the pressure on the accelerator, which made the little Hunday bus with disel engine go like a kangoroo. All in all it was a nice trip, but if we would not have been keen on getting the jungle smell out of our skin in the hot springs, it would have been a little boring.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Top Jungle Experiences
The loudest in the jungle: When you think that breaking waves on the shore are louder than city traffic, then you will be amazed how loud tropical rain on plastic/corrugated iron can be. By far louder than howler monkeys
The most disgusting jungle story: Water is coming from a well, and is stored in a container in the trees for pressure (eco-power shower). Shorly before our arrival people started to fall ill with stomach problems. Turns out a snake and the frog died in the water container. (it was never confirmed if they were fighting before)
The coolest jungle outfit: Take wellies, because you need "safety" when using your chainsaw. Take shorts, but obviously no T-shirt. Take a cowboy hat - instantly doubles your coolness factor everywhere. Get the biggest machete you can find and tie it on your waist. If neccessary you cound round things up with a goldtooth. (sorry no pictures, the camera could not take it)
The most disgusting jungle story: Water is coming from a well, and is stored in a container in the trees for pressure (eco-power shower). Shorly before our arrival people started to fall ill with stomach problems. Turns out a snake and the frog died in the water container. (it was never confirmed if they were fighting before)
The coolest jungle outfit: Take wellies, because you need "safety" when using your chainsaw. Take shorts, but obviously no T-shirt. Take a cowboy hat - instantly doubles your coolness factor everywhere. Get the biggest machete you can find and tie it on your waist. If neccessary you cound round things up with a goldtooth. (sorry no pictures, the camera could not take it)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Our turtle weeks
We are now back to San Jose-or what we like to call civilisation- after 2 weeks spent volunteering at La Tortuga Feliz project. This project is located on the Carabean cost of Costa Rica 50km north from Puerto Limon in a pretty remote area. To get to the project, we had to take a bus (2h from San Jose to Bataan), then a car for 35 mins and finally 35 mins of motor boat on a river in the middle of the jungle. Amazing view on the Jungle, it was breath taking. We didn t spot any caimans though. Well that´s ok as we´ve seen all in all in the last 2 weeks many ugly creatures: Giant spiders aka radioactive ones, toads, mosquitoes, cochroaches, sandflies, crabes from all colours and sizes..but nice one too: Green turtles, funky birds, Gekos... The project is located near the beach surronded by a small Costa Rican community.
La Tortuga Feliz project-managed by a Welsh 43 years old man- aims to protect sea turtles that come and lay their eggs on the Costa Rican beaches. At the project depending on the season, you can find 3 species of sea turtles: the Hawksbill, the Green Turtle and the leatherback turtle.
At the project we were around 15 volonteers (German, American, Dutch and one Irish)sharing all the same core job with a very different schedule: saving turtles and maitining the project.
Saving the turtles was definitely the most exciting and gratifing activity. One of the task was the night patrols: 4h walk or 12 kms in the sand in the dark (no flashlight allowed)with a local. The goal of these patrols (running from 8 pm to 3 am) is to find turtles and their nest before poachers find them. Despite it´s forbidden to kill turtles in Costa Rica, we could see many poachers. There´s a no confrontation rule with them:if they find a turtle or a nest, we just have to walk away and we can´t interfere. In the community surronding the project, the turtles play an important role as it seemed to us that half of the men work for la Tortuga Feliz and half of them are poachers. Most of our guides were poaches before the project started 5 years ago. As we were there at the end of the nesting season, I saw one turtle in 20h of patrols and Peter none in 12h.
The 2nd activity involving the turtles was garding the hatchery where they were around 40 nests. At night, 2 volonteers were checking the nests every 15 mins in case it would hatch. The last night shift is from 2 am to 6 am (which is a very challenging time!). In case a nest hatches, the babies turtles have to be measured and then realesed in a safe place on the beach..It´s thrilling to see them crawling to the sea..Who would have known that baby turtles are pretty fast! If everything goes fine for them, they should come back in 20 years to lay eggs on the same beach.
Unfortunatelly 1 baby out of a 1000 makes it to the maturity stage, this rate is higher at the project as their first minutes are really super safe.
Three days after a nest hatches, we do an exhumation to find any remaining alive babies and we take the dead ones and egg shells for autopsy. Digging a nest can be great (many baby turtles at the day light) and gross at the same time (Imagine old eggs smell and add to it some maggots...).
Mainting the project was less fun and consisted of raking (better not to do it in flip flops as you can find many ugly crawling creatures under the leaves), cleaning the bathrooms, washing the dishes, preparing the meals and garding an empty school building.
We were doing 1 or 2 shifts of 4h a day..what was very special is that you could work at any hour of the day (or of the night).
During our free time, we could enjoy the beach when it was sunny (beautiful but dangerous because of riptides and bull sharks), the hamocks and we attented for $80 a very gramar focused and intense Spanish course. We didn´t know that we would learn some much in 8 classes. It was useful to communicate with the guides during the patrols.
We defintely enjoyed our 2 weeks there despite it was challenging at times: no electricity (the night falls around 5.30 pm), no hot shower, same food everyday, many mosquitoes bites, many sandflies bite, the heat and the humidity (Peter´s wallet got moldy). It was a great way to start our 3 months journey.. Here we are thougher, closer to nature, more spiritual, tanned...yeah yeah all of that.
Now we´re back in San Jose in a slighty better hotel ($33 a night but there are hot showers! and internet) and we´re enjoying music, coke, ice creams and walking in clean clothes.
La Tortuga Feliz project-managed by a Welsh 43 years old man- aims to protect sea turtles that come and lay their eggs on the Costa Rican beaches. At the project depending on the season, you can find 3 species of sea turtles: the Hawksbill, the Green Turtle and the leatherback turtle.
At the project we were around 15 volonteers (German, American, Dutch and one Irish)sharing all the same core job with a very different schedule: saving turtles and maitining the project.
Saving the turtles was definitely the most exciting and gratifing activity. One of the task was the night patrols: 4h walk or 12 kms in the sand in the dark (no flashlight allowed)with a local. The goal of these patrols (running from 8 pm to 3 am) is to find turtles and their nest before poachers find them. Despite it´s forbidden to kill turtles in Costa Rica, we could see many poachers. There´s a no confrontation rule with them:if they find a turtle or a nest, we just have to walk away and we can´t interfere. In the community surronding the project, the turtles play an important role as it seemed to us that half of the men work for la Tortuga Feliz and half of them are poachers. Most of our guides were poaches before the project started 5 years ago. As we were there at the end of the nesting season, I saw one turtle in 20h of patrols and Peter none in 12h.
The 2nd activity involving the turtles was garding the hatchery where they were around 40 nests. At night, 2 volonteers were checking the nests every 15 mins in case it would hatch. The last night shift is from 2 am to 6 am (which is a very challenging time!). In case a nest hatches, the babies turtles have to be measured and then realesed in a safe place on the beach..It´s thrilling to see them crawling to the sea..Who would have known that baby turtles are pretty fast! If everything goes fine for them, they should come back in 20 years to lay eggs on the same beach.
Unfortunatelly 1 baby out of a 1000 makes it to the maturity stage, this rate is higher at the project as their first minutes are really super safe.
Three days after a nest hatches, we do an exhumation to find any remaining alive babies and we take the dead ones and egg shells for autopsy. Digging a nest can be great (many baby turtles at the day light) and gross at the same time (Imagine old eggs smell and add to it some maggots...).
Mainting the project was less fun and consisted of raking (better not to do it in flip flops as you can find many ugly crawling creatures under the leaves), cleaning the bathrooms, washing the dishes, preparing the meals and garding an empty school building.
We were doing 1 or 2 shifts of 4h a day..what was very special is that you could work at any hour of the day (or of the night).
During our free time, we could enjoy the beach when it was sunny (beautiful but dangerous because of riptides and bull sharks), the hamocks and we attented for $80 a very gramar focused and intense Spanish course. We didn´t know that we would learn some much in 8 classes. It was useful to communicate with the guides during the patrols.
We defintely enjoyed our 2 weeks there despite it was challenging at times: no electricity (the night falls around 5.30 pm), no hot shower, same food everyday, many mosquitoes bites, many sandflies bite, the heat and the humidity (Peter´s wallet got moldy). It was a great way to start our 3 months journey.. Here we are thougher, closer to nature, more spiritual, tanned...yeah yeah all of that.
Now we´re back in San Jose in a slighty better hotel ($33 a night but there are hot showers! and internet) and we´re enjoying music, coke, ice creams and walking in clean clothes.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hostel
We are still staying in San Jose and as today we were visiting museums and shops (no hat yet...), so here some things about our hostel. It is a great place close to the even greater high court - some more of that later on.
The centerpiece is a pool, that is surrounded by a nice garden with hammocks and a bar. The people are the usual international travellers, easy to get on with. Our room is very simple, but then again it has all we need including a fan. So all in all we like it very much.
To the more interesting things:
The showers: Here hot showers are done a little different then in other parts of the world. The solution is called suicide shower by our guide (the rough guide). Basically water is heated just before it comes out of the pipe above your head. You can set the temerature, by regulating the amound of water that is coming through (the more the colder). The suicde part is the way local engineers bring electricity to the heating device, which is again, let me emphasize above your head. (see pictures)
The computers: Not too concerned about IT security everybody is logged in as admin, which came very handy when I tried to install picasa. What i didn't consider, that the old boxes will die when just thinking about the 18MB raw files that one of our camera produces. So when you look at the pictures, think that there is a big protion of patience in them. On the other hand from where i am sitting now i can see the pool, the weather is warm and i am drinking a beer - not really in a hurry.
The centerpiece is a pool, that is surrounded by a nice garden with hammocks and a bar. The people are the usual international travellers, easy to get on with. Our room is very simple, but then again it has all we need including a fan. So all in all we like it very much.
To the more interesting things:
The showers: Here hot showers are done a little different then in other parts of the world. The solution is called suicide shower by our guide (the rough guide). Basically water is heated just before it comes out of the pipe above your head. You can set the temerature, by regulating the amound of water that is coming through (the more the colder). The suicde part is the way local engineers bring electricity to the heating device, which is again, let me emphasize above your head. (see pictures)
The computers: Not too concerned about IT security everybody is logged in as admin, which came very handy when I tried to install picasa. What i didn't consider, that the old boxes will die when just thinking about the 18MB raw files that one of our camera produces. So when you look at the pictures, think that there is a big protion of patience in them. On the other hand from where i am sitting now i can see the pool, the weather is warm and i am drinking a beer - not really in a hurry.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
24h in Costa Rica
We have already been spending 24h in Costa Rica and already so many discoveries: Tasted the world famous costa rican coffee, saw a national park, saw a squirrel and discovered that our rain equipment is really waterproof but as well that a beige walking trousers can become in Costa Rica transparent in 1 minute..Anyway "nude" is quite fashionable nowadays.
This year it seems that the rain invits itself at all our holidays. It´s right now the low season for tourism as it´s the wettest one. But no problemo as said above we´ve good equipment.
Today we woke up very early and therefore decided to take the bus at 8 to see the Irazu volcano which is 20 km from San Jose. At the bus station we met an other backpacker and after talking to her for 5 mins, we discovered that we were not at the right bus station for the Irazu volcano, but we could still catch a bus for the Poas National Parc..porque no? After 2h ride where we could spot some coffee fields, we arrived to the Parc where the main attraction is the volcano crater. Unfortunately it was so foggy (2600 meters high) that we could not see much until it started to rain like crazy where we could finally have a glance:) Who would know that we would welcome the rain with so much joy?
Otherwise we walked a bit today around San Jose which is described by the guide book as "painful but inevitable". ´The guide seems right but still we decided to spend tomorrow exploring the city and its museum.
This year it seems that the rain invits itself at all our holidays. It´s right now the low season for tourism as it´s the wettest one. But no problemo as said above we´ve good equipment.
Today we woke up very early and therefore decided to take the bus at 8 to see the Irazu volcano which is 20 km from San Jose. At the bus station we met an other backpacker and after talking to her for 5 mins, we discovered that we were not at the right bus station for the Irazu volcano, but we could still catch a bus for the Poas National Parc..porque no? After 2h ride where we could spot some coffee fields, we arrived to the Parc where the main attraction is the volcano crater. Unfortunately it was so foggy (2600 meters high) that we could not see much until it started to rain like crazy where we could finally have a glance:) Who would know that we would welcome the rain with so much joy?
Otherwise we walked a bit today around San Jose which is described by the guide book as "painful but inevitable". ´The guide seems right but still we decided to spend tomorrow exploring the city and its museum.
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