Bananas, Flooded Roads and Turtles

Note: I started writing this November 9 so pretend all my references to time are from that day, not today.

Last week, we had more rain.  And by more rain, I mean a lot more rain.  Thanks to Tropical Storm Tomas, we had another round of closed roads and mudslides (can’t get to Manuel Antonio right now), full with a Red Alert and National State of Emergency.  A mudslide in Escazu, a town outside of San Jose, resulted in over 20 deaths.  Many class field trips were cancelled and ISA recommended that students stay in San Jose this past weekend, but my Ecotourism class field trip to Tortuguero was allowed to go because the Caribbean side of Costa Rica was still in pretty good shape.  I can say with certainty now that I am very glad we were able to go on our trip.  This trip is worthy of its own blog post.

At 5:45 am Saturday morning, I found myself sleepily joining my sleepy class at the university to leave for Tortuguero.  One girl’s parents decided they did not want her to go on the trip because of the weather, so she wasn’t there.  Of course, seeing as it was before 6 am on a Saturday, she was not the only one missing.  Two of the three guys in my class did not show up, so there were many girls, our professor and his wife, our guides, and Mike.  Our guide started something on this drive that he would keep up the entire trip: He would address us as “Ladies, and Mike,” then he would laugh to himself, and continue.  This got to be so expected that we all would laugh at him laughing at himself.  So there we were, bright and early and giggling, and on our way to Tortuguero.

Banana plantation

Getting to Tortuguero consists of driving to a city in Limon Province, Caño Blanco from what I could tell, and then switching to a boat to go along the Canals of Tortuguero up into the town.  While a lot of the road was nice and paved, we did eventually have to turn onto bumpy gravel roads after our breakfast stop.  We passed a lot of banana plantations, and even stopped at one to take a mini-tour, take some pictures, and buy baby coconuts for snacking.  We learned that the banana bunches are covered in blue bags to protect them from weather and bugs, and that the blue helps keep animals from trying to take them because there really is not a lot of blue in plant life.  We took some pictures of the washing stations, and said hi to some of the workers.  There was a man with a cart selling baby coconuts that some people bought for the coconut water, but the part I discovered I like is the coconut meat.  The baby ones are a little sweeter and softer than mature ones, and a lot of the people who bought them to drink didn’t like eating them so I got a lot of free coconut!  Yum :)

Cutting the bananas off to rinse them

Then we continued on our way, until we saw that the creek along the road had flooded from all the rain.  For the most part, the flood was away from the road, but then we reached a part where it covered the road.  And I don’t just mean a little bit of water; I mean enough that we were nervous we might not make it.  Well, we did.  Continuing on, we came to many more parts like this where the road was completely flooded, but we also passed cars driving the other way and would ask them how bad it was.  Since they had all made it through, we figured we could too.  At some point during all this, the juice and coffee from breakfast kicked in and I had to pee.  I asked our guide and he said we were only about fifteen minutes away.  Unfortunately, he did not take the dead van blocking the road about 500 feet from our destination into account.  We had to stop in one of the shallower parts of the flooded road because we couldn’t get around the van, and nothing seemed to be happening.  Meanwhile, my bladder was getting quite annoyed with me so I asked the guide and my professor how much longer it would be, and they did not know.  Long story short, I peed behind our van into the water flowing off the side of the road as the class waded to a van on the other side of the roadblock to take us to the boat waiting to leave.  If it weren’t inappropriate, I would have asked for a picture because it was just that interesting of an experience.  Speaking of pictures, I would love to see a picture of the place where we got on the boat on a normal day when it isn’t entirely submerged.  Our van had to drive through more water and we had to jump a little to get from the van to a dry spot on the ramp up to the dock.  We got on our boat, and headed up the river to Tortuguero.

Hmm can we make it?

Flooded boat station

After this adventure, the trip consisted mainly of touring the canals, walking around the park and the village, and seeing a lot of wildlife.  The town was adorable, possibly one of my favorites, and they were having some sort of festival that I never did figure out what it was for.  During the boat rides, we saw a toucan, a few crocodiles, a caiman, some monkeys, some sloths, and many birds.  Apparently it was migration season, so the sky was full of birds just about every time I looked up.  While we were a couple weeks too late to witness sea turtles coming onto shore to lay their eggs, we were lucky enough to see quite a few eggs hatching and the baby turtles making their way to the ocean!  The first day, we only saw a couple and I was already ecstatic because my friends had been to Tortuguero the week before and did not see any turtles, big or small.  However, the next day was amazing.

Town of Tortuguero

First, we went on a long boat ride on which we saw most of the wildlife from the weekend.  Then, to get to where we were eating lunch, we had to walk through a flooded town.  We all took our shoes off/put on flip-flops to walk through the layer of water that covered most of the streets.  That was definitely an experience.  After lunch, we stopped to take a quick walk through the National Park.  While interesting, it was also very hot and humid, the air was full of mosquitoes, and the ground was covered in ants that started climbing up our legs every time we stopped to discuss something we saw.  Overall, we were a very grumpy bunch and could not wait to get back on the boat and just head home.

These guys blend in surprisingly well

Right before it dove in the water

But then we walked out of the forest onto the beach right as what appeared to be an entire nest of turtles had just hatched and were crawling out of their ditch in the sand towards the water.  Excited beyond belief, we followed the bunch of them, cameras in hand, as they scurried to the shoreline.  I couldn’t believe I was seeing this, but I was also saddened by the amount of trash on the beach that they had to crawl over, and by the woman in our group who would pick them up and get in their way despite our guide explicitly telling us not to.  Yes, she was just helping them over tough spots, but when I asked the guide, he said that other than turning them around if they start to crawl in the wrong direction, it’s better to leave them alone because they will make it on their own.  However, despite this, it was an amazing thing to witness before we got back on the boat to head home.

I think I can...  I think I can...

Amazing

If you're going to San Francisco...

This post is dedicated to the 2010 World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants!!!  I am not usually one to get homesick, but I find myself wishing it was easier to fly from San Jose, Costa Rica, to San Francisco so that I could go home and celebrate with everyone.  As much as I love traveling, I seem to be learning more and more that I am truly a San Francisco girl at heart.  I really do love my city by the bay and the amazing team that I've been following from all over Costa Rica :)

The Long Overdue Update

Where to begin?  I guess I’ll just go chronologically, starting with the weekend trips, and then I’ll give some updates on my life in and around San Jose.

Volcan Arenal from the lookout

Arenal/La Fortuna: This place was beautiful.  The volcano was amazing and while I did not get to see it erupt lava, I did see it erupt some smoke on the way there.  We stayed at Los Lagos, which was a very nice hotel that had hot springs and hiking trails on the grounds.  This is the only place where I’ve seen a hot water pool, and it was great!  Also, the hike to the lookout spot leads to an amazing view of the volcano, including a seated area to watch from.  The view for the sunset was spectacular as well, but I was definitely grateful for my bug spray!  I also went canyoning (aka rappelling down cliffs and waterfalls) and had a blast!  I am definitely spending a lot of time making my body move past the instinct to back away from cliff sides, but don’t worry, I think the instinct is still there as the first time going over the edge is still the hardest part.

Canyoning

Manuel Antonio: This is where I was during my first week here and it was still amazing, but I definitely saw more animals this time around.  I decided not to do any special tours on this trip and instead stuck to hiking in the park and relaxing on the beach.  Oh how unfortunate ;) Just a few minutes after entering the park, we were lucky enough to see a sloth just feet away from the main path.  As I later heard on a night tour in Monteverde, seeing sloths moving in the daytime is very rare so I guess we were even luckier than we thought.  I also saw raccoons raiding the trash bins, and monkeys stealing food out of people’s hands.  Even weirder was watching them eating and drinking out of containers that they clearly knew how to use.  Like when I was here before, it rained a lot in the afternoons so that led to a lot of hotel relaxing and hanging out, too.  Also, I revisited El Avión and maintain that the not-so-cheap (though not bad) prices are definitely worth it for the quality of the food, the view, and the plane sitting next to you.

Sloth

Monkey drinking a juice box

Monteverde: This is where we were supposed to go with ISA that first weekend when the rains caused most of the main roads to close.  This was also the first weekend that we did not have an ISA excursion (those are done).  I used the recommendations in Let’s Go Costa Rica and on Hostelbookers.com to choose and book beds at Cabinas Vista al Golfo and they were definitely good ones.  It was clean and the people at the front desk were very helpful with planning tours.  There were also a few good hangout spots, including a section of ceiling-hanging hammock chairs and a beanbag room with a TV (though they were having trouble getting all of the channels as I learned while frantically trying to find the last Giants game against the Phillies).  They also provided a pretty good hostel breakfast, including fruit, cereal, toast, and eggs.  We chose to do a Canopy + Hanging Bridges tour with Selvatura and it was definitely better than the canopy tour in Tamarindo.  Cheaper too.  The cables were longer and higher, and the forest was denser and greener.  We also got to do a Tarzan swing at the end (more practice ignoring the instinct not to jump off of tall platforms).  That night, I did a night tour with one other girl.  Why someone with arachnophobia would decide to do this is beyond me, but I did.  We saw a sloth, two snakes, two tarantulas, a frog, a massive ant colony, and plenty of other bugs here and there along the way.  I also learned how to lure tarantulas out of their holes as I witnessed from about 3-4 feet away (yikes!).  The guide put some saliva on the end of a stick and poked it near the tarantula so it would think there was an animal nearby to eat and it came crawling/pouncing out.  I also learned that my waterproof jacket and shoes and water-resistant pants were essential purchases as they kept me dry until my pants finally couldn’t resist the water anymore near the end of the 2 hour tour in the rain.  The next day, we went to wander around in the Monteverde Nature Reserve and made it up to the Continental Divide.  The park is beautiful.  Everything is green and the views were spectacular.  It was also surprisingly empty.  One last note: If you get motion sickness or don’t like being able to look over the edge of a cliff as your bus leans over it while turning then you might want to ensure that you pass out on the bus ride to Monteverde.  They even sell license plates that say, “I survived the Monteverde road”.

Hanging bridge

At the Continental Divide

This past weekend, I stayed in San Jose so now I’ll move on to the local updates and goings on...

ISA: Excursions are done so now we’re on our own for traveling.  They are doing some cultural activities in the afternoons, but so far the one museum trip they did was during my class.

Daily Activities: I am now done with my Spanish class and just have my electives left for the rest of the semester.  My ecotourism class is going on a field trip to Tortuguero this weekend, and to Montezuma the first weekend of December.  My dance class has gone on one field trip to a salsa club and will be going on another one this Wednesday.  If you can’t tell, classes here are horrible (please note sarcasm).  I started my volunteer job (ELAP through ISA) last week at the Ejercito de Salvacion (Salvation Army).  I am working at a daycare center for underprivileged children, specifically with the super young ones.  I can’t tell exactly how old they are, but I would guess in the 1.5-3 range.  They are adorable, but definitely get crazy sometimes.  The small space for the number of kids and the mostly broken toys don’t help, but they all seem perfectly happy with it.  It is unfortunate that there are not enough teachers to separate the kids into more specific age groups, as some of the activities that the teacher uses are above the heads of some of the kids.  However, even with the help of my friend and me, I don’t think it would be possible to split them up.  I think the teacher takes a break as soon as we get there and I don’t blame her.  I don’t know how she does it alone.

Spanish Class Field Trip: One Friday, we went to see an artisan where he works and visited the Peace University.  The artisan shop was cool, as we got to see his workshop and talk with the man who lives and works there.  He is in a wheelchair and is missing a leg.  His house is small and not the nicest place, yet he seems completely happy.  The Peace University was interesting, but not worth the tour.  We didn’t know our 45-minute tour cost $5 per person.

The artisan

Tamale Festival: When I told my Linguistics professor that I was staying in San Jose this past weekend, he told me about La Fería de Tamal in Aserrí and said that I should try to check it out.  He said it is a good, free cultural experience in a town in the mountains outside San Jose.  My roommate and I went on Saturday and I loved it!  There were plenty of tamales as well as a lot of artisans selling their crafts.  I even found churros rellenos con dulce de leche!!!  Those are churros filled with dulce de leche, the caramel-like substance I became obsessed with in Argentina last summer that I have also found at the grocery stores in San Jose :)  The town also had an amazing view into the valley between the mountains, and was just a cute little town.  It was nice to see how easy it is to take a bus out of the city for a few hours.

Mmmm tamale :)

Halloween: Since I learned that they do not celebrate Día de los Muertos and they actually kind of do celebrate Halloween here, I decided last week that I had to dress up.  It is basically just a bar-holiday here, so no kids trick-or-treating in their cute kid costumes, just adults in the same kinds of costumes they wear in the states (ranging from prepackaged and skimpy to legitimately well-done).  Anyway, I was trying to decide what I could do with a black dress I already had.  After getting through the easy things like witch or cat, I stumbled upon penguin.  So that’s what I did :)

With my roomie on our way out