Sunday, June 25, 2008: We woke up early in the morning to go looking for the Resplendent Quetzal in the forest. Marcos heard one shortly down the road when we got to the spot that you can often spot them in. A while later we saw a young male Quetzal in a tree, with Marcos' spotting scope I got a fast look at him. I'll put a picture of one I didn't take on here because the bird is really amazingly beautiful- resplendent, really. They're rare, only found in this area and are related to my favorite Mot-Mot. This bird, as I have come to find out traveling with a heavy birder, is on pretty much every passionate birder's "life list." This is really something with the birders- life lists of birds they always want to see. I'm getting to see something really rare, amazing and special and I was happy about spotting one.
The
one on the far left, obviously, is my very far away shot. The others are professional.
After this trip, we ate a nice breakfast and drove to our place in the canopy
cloud forest (which is very rare habitat) to get to our zip line tour. We were
excited to get out there through the canopy, hoping to see lots of fauna in
the canopy, but we actually didn't see much of anything. One sloth which was
rather high up there and out of our sights for any good shots.
Once we got to the zip line place, we got an introduction to zip lines and how to ride them then got into the business of actually zipping which was awesome fun. Some were super high up, and you're zipping through dense forest sometimes very, very high off the ground to the next platform station which is waiting for you. It was wild fun. One of the guides I was talking to while we waited and waited at the various platforms for the entire group to zip in front of me, then move on to the next all as a group so it was a lot of waiting between zips- since i was last in line I was chatting with one of the guides who let me know that these zip lines are basically in the middle of fun- there are some which are quiet sedate, and some which are really, really fast and dramatic. He was laughing that I was so good at them I should go out for some of the more beefy ones (probably just trying for a bigger tip). They really were fun.
This is the group before the zip lines. Marcos in front, Charlene in the yellow
and gloves next to him, me in the white fleece, and all the way in back in the
white helmet with the white beard is John.
Getting the lesson in how-to...
Loved
the lines. Very fun. Just needed less of a pack in the pack and more time zipping,
less waiting. ha ha. Sure. I kind of wondered how everybody in the group managed
to do it- like Joy or Gerry or Tommy were going to have an MI or something with
all that speed.
After the zip lines we had lunch and a free afternoon in which I spent reading my scary book. I must have been really engrossed in this book because in my journal from the 24th until the 28th all I did was make lists of what we did... funny. Dinner was in the main dining room, and was as good as the food the night before, although I didn't write down what it was. After dinner was actually pretty fun- we all ordered wine, which was I think Chilean merlot (El Diablo if I remember correctly) and somehow it tasted really nice at the time. I remember laughing a lot and feeling pretty good. After dinner we all sat around for a while in the rec part of the great lodge room and actually played charades. We made things up, the two young girls seemed to be the most gusto to do the charades, but I do remember having some fun. Even after that, Tom was wanting to play pool so we did a couple rounds with even more wine, which Tom was all jazzed to pick up the tab on. We played a few rounds of pool and he walked me back to my room in the pitch black of the Trogon night.
Monday, June 26 2008: today we departed from El Trogon and I was much depressed to go. John and Charlene and a couple of others woke up at 6am again to go looking for the Quetzal before breakfast, but I slept in because I couldn't get up with all the wine the evening before. So surprisingly when the alarm went off, I reset it and skipped the Quetzal hunting. Fortunately I didn't miss much since they didn't see any Quetzals. I would have been really upset in retrospect had they seen any and I had missed them! I got lucky.
The drive was back to San Jose since the main part of the tour was over, and several of us who didn't book the optional post-tour were going to be departing. We headed back to the same Corbici hotel in San Jose which we got to by about noon. Checked in and all set to go, I had the idea to go out to a bike shop and find a new Costa Rica riding jersey for David. I found a place that was close enough and walked there in the afternoon heat, sweating walking down the heavily trafficked roads in San Jose kind of afraid for my life at cross walks since, well, there are no cross walks, no walk signs, and traffic seems to not want to stop for pedestrians at all. I found the bike shop, quelled my urge to go running in fear that they speak no english, I speak no spanish, how is this going to go down? I came in, they were friendly, knew a few words of english so I said "chico" which is small and pointed at a red, white and blue (colors of CR) jersey which said "Costa Rica" on the front and back. They brought it down, we all smiled and I pulled out my bank card and paid. I left with a jersey which I thought was a traditionally Shelby-well-thought-perfect-gift, and realized I paid about 50 bucks for it, which is what I would have paid at home. I wondered how that worked... Especially since there were no prices on the jerseys before I went to the register. Oh, well. I got totally fleeced. And the narcissistic piece of shit for whom I actually purchased the jersey was able to choke out no more than an "Oh, thank you." When I got back to give it to him. Go figure. Worthless bastard.
After
shopping for David's jersey, I took advantage of the workout center the Corbici
is attached to and worked out on the elliptical for 45 minutes, checked my email
in the business center and took a shower. We all went out that night to a local
woman's house for a "farewell dinner." The place was a very small
restaurant in San Jose run by a local family which probably only sat 20 people
at max and we closed the place, had one long table at which we all sat in the
center of the restaurant then had a progressive, nice but not amazing "local"
costa rican meal which was really quite good, but like most all food in costa
rica, not as spicy or flavorful as I tend to like. But it really was good. I
remember eating plenty and being rather full when I left. I went back to a quiet
night watching some english tv on the in-room television before I fell asleep
quite peacefully at the Coribici.
Tuesday, June 27 2008: I woke up at 6am to spend 45 minutes on the ellipse working out, fortunately I found one free and did just that. After a shower, I went down for breakfast in the breakfast room where I got the same omlette I did when we were first here, and a pile of fruit with fresh fruit juice and coffee. Almost as I was finished, J&C came in and sat with me for a few minutes before I went back upstairs to get my luggage out on time.
Since I was still only making lists of my impressions at this point, what I wrote was:
"Tommy sucking his teeth the whole ride; Carolyn on my nerves like a cheap suit; Crazy new driver; Evils of the banana plantations by Marcos including coral reef destruction, monoculture and habitat loss, and only 50% of the crop is actually able to be marketed, so it's unreliable.
We departed San Jose for those of us who went on the post trip which was basically everybody except Joy, Gerry, the girls and Lynne and Bert for our destination back in the oppressive jungle heat of Almonds ay Corrales resort on the Caribbean side of the country. We were definitely back in the heat here, with oppressively hot temperatures and the humidity, of course. The approach to the beach was filled with heat and humidity much like the Pacific coast side was, go figure. The vegetation is very thick and lush and Almonds y Corales is a series of single tents raised off the ground in the middle of the jungle. We drove through the town, which looked adorable and charming and I was due for a new book, so getting back there to the book store seemed like a very good idea. The great thing about the hotel is that it's secluded and gorgeous and very dramatic, but it's 12 kilometers outside of the town, so the location wasn't convenient to town. But, they had bicycles (if you cared to ride 12km in the heat! I did not) and the property is connected by a series of raised, lighted plank walkways and there is one that goes through the jungle right onto the beach. I just couldn't get over how thick the jungle was!
My bungalow: #20, across the walkway from J&C. The picture with the lights was an attempt at night to get the lights which were really cool, my camera was just totally unable to get a shot in the very low light and you can see the obvious humidity. The "tents" are large and are basically open air nets, with more netting around your bed. The sound is a constant symphony of cadidids and insects. We wandered around the property, J&C went to the beach and Charlene went swimming. I was irked by all the little noseum type bugs all over the beach so I headed back. The property also has jungle hiking trails all over that are easy to walk to. I spent the afternoon in the hammock you see above listening to the cadidids and reading until dinner.
This
golden orb spider was HUGE, like the size of my entire hand. There were lots
of these spiders all over the place and it was really kind of cool this pattern
they had on their backs, which didn't turn out well in my photo. They were huge.
Oh! And we were in indigenous tree frog territory, you could hear them croaking
in the jungle noise. I was hoping to see one on the grounds but I was also too
afraid to really go mucking around in the jungle looking to get bit by a viper
or something...
We had dinner together out at Almonds' kitchen, which is all open air type of very large gazebo area. In the jungle on the side of the gazebo John spotted a white collared manakin, and a montazuma oroppendula. I also spotted an agnoti, which is a very large rodent in the jungle as well. And those crabs that we saw at Manuel Antonio were just all over the place. The food I don't remember being particularly good or bad at this location. After dinner Marcos who is a high strung, edgy guy to begin with, and he was edgy and let us see that there was a lot of mess going on in his personal life seemed particularly edgy for the entire post trip. While he was talking about the next day's activities John made a joke (which I thought was really funny) about the sunscreen, comfortable, closed-toed shoes and bug spray once again and Marcos had this almost unbelievable outburst jumping down John's throat. Stunned at how unprofessional that was, no matter what his feeling were Marcos stomped off furious and I thought at the verge of tears and all of us just sitting there, shocked. At that point I thought "Obviously this guy just totally blew his tip."
After dinner it was just dark and hot and there isn't much to do, so I went back to my bungalow, glad to have a new book which gave me something to do. I hung out in my tent and read until I turned out my light at 10pm and tried to sleep. I really was pretty much wide awake all night totally paranoid about bugs and snakes in my tent, and waking up for torrential thunderstorm at 11pm which thundered away most of the night. Whenever the power went out (which was frequently) these flood lights would turn on which was also rather distracting. The little teak frogs were everywhere and LOUD all night long.
Wednesday, June 28 2008. Breakfast was at 6:30am. Then we loaded onto the wagon to go to an indian village in the jungle which was in a fairly remote locale. The drive was slow, all really bumpy dirt roads so the going was very slow. We stopped for a pee break at a local house and I actually urinated in a toilet in this random local house where there was no toilet seat but I had to go super bad, so I bit the bullet and did it. That was strange, and gross. Carolyn was grating on my nerves and it was taking a lot of energy not to rip her throat out to shut her up. The woman is so obnoxious. It was a long, slow ride. We got on a boat to cross a river which was swollen with last night's rain and watched the men going down the river in hollowed out canoes piled high with bananas then loading them onto waiting trucks at the riverside. There were a bunch of blue headed parrots in the trees nearby.
We crossed the river in light rain to load onto 2 local busses (no they really were!) to get to the village. School children went past us on the roads and got on and off the bus at the various local stops. Charlene told me that this was much more like what they usually have with the other company they like- much more authentic type of stuff like this- local busses to get places, etc. The Cabrichi village was a series of conical huts in a central clearing in the jungle. We all piled into the main central hut which was dark, had a dirt floor, and a bunch of low benches around the periphery where we sat. There was a small fire burning in the middle of the hut and the village elder talked to us as Marcos translated. The elder gave this load of steaming BS in response to Charlene's question about the role of women in the tribe: Oh, women are considered "equals" but they cannot be elders, healers, or leaders of any kind. Their job is cooking and rearing the children. Yeah, that's equal. We took a walk in the woods outside of the village, passing absolutely filthy natives and naked filthy children and chickens running around in the mud. This tribe is much less assimilated than the other one we visited. The short walk the elder was pointing out some native plants that are used for various healing purposes. Back on the busses, crossed the river to get back to the geriwagon. We geriwagoned to the cute little town of Puerto Viejo where I heard there was a used English bookstore on the little main strip and I was in dire need of some new reading for what was listed as 3 free afternoons at Almonds. The little town was really cute and I would really have liked to have time to explore the shops and stuff, but Marcos only gave us a half an hour to be in town. There was free time from 3-7 before dinner and Charlene went back to the beach, I did a little bit of exploring the area and reading this pseudo Agatha Christie book that was just *so* bad I had to donate it to the measly library collection of take and leave books at Almonds (there were like a total of 3 books there). I debated going back to town, but the cab drivers actually charge you to come to you as well as drive you to town, which doubles the cost and i think it was like $15 bucks. It seemed not appealing at the time.
At dinner, Marcos finally apologized for his outburst the previous evening and then disappeared while the rest of us ate. After dinner, I tried to force myself to read some more of another not interesting book I picked up at the store. By 9pm I turned the light out, tired and slept most of the night but woke up a few times for bursts of torrential rain and a pack of howler monkeys coming through in the distance with their creepy call.
Thursday June 29 2008: Marcos gave us an optional walk at 6:30am but nobody showed up since it was still really pouring. I slept late and must have screwed up my alarm because I first woke at 7:30am to the sound of J&C's door slamming shut. After breakfast at 8:30am, we left for a very short drive down the road to a trail in the Natura Preserve, in which Almonds is actually situated for a nature walk. This was about my favorite part of the extension since we really saw a lot of cool things all right there in the wild, including tree frogs!! I saw all of them right in the wild! They have the poison dart red frog as well as the striped green and black poison dart frog, we saw an eyelash viper coiled up on a tree which Bill actually spotted and I was super jazzed to get to see and wanted to slam Carolyn's face in front of the viper and watch it bite her while she was making her usual obnoxious comments about "calming the girl (me) down" at which point I actually turned around and gave her an unmistakable scowl. They had a few sections with signs as well as a couple of ferdelance snakes in cages.
The pictures are: obviously the tree frogs, the snake on the top is the eyelash viper, named because of it's little eyelash-like projections near its eyes- they're very cool snakes, and a ferdilance on the bottom, which is potentially one of the most deadly venomous snakes in the world. He was in a cage on the interpretive trail.
I was positively DRENCHED with sweat and it continued to rain at intervals and all I had on was a flimsy white shirt (of course). I studiously tried to avoid Tom for his pungent body odor and constant severe halitosis.
There were some very cool spots, though. Mating colorful millipedes on a log, fluttering blue morphos, firey aricari up in the canopy, howler monkeys with their very scary call in the distance. Shelby getting devoured by mosquitos and absolutely dripping with sweat and my pants sticking to my legs on the walk back to the hotel.
Cold shower back at the bungalow set me up right. Pure cold. 100% cold. Lunch of spaghetti carbonara and an afternoon on our own. I called Taca airlines and tried to see about getting an earlier flight out of San Jose for myself, let alone for J&C as well. So we were going to have an entirely free day in San Jose before we had to be at the airport for the night flight. It just seemed like a waste of time but all of the flights were completely full. I packed everything up and everything is just persistently damp and mildewey with this weather. I caught up on the journal and sorted out the money I had left, which was plenty. I felt glad to be leaving soon, it was definitely time to get rid of Carolyn and for this trip to be over. There was still some persistent tension and kind of a hush that remained in the group after Marcos' outburst despite the apology, which seemed oddly timed, but he was probably still mad the next morning. I don't know. Almonds is a great place, but it lacks any internet access and in the jungle like that it would have been nice. And I would have liked a bit closer to the town just for something to do.
We drove back into San Jose and had to find something to do for our completely free whole day and Charlene came up with the really cool idea of going to this place that looked incredible called La Paz Waterfall Gardens which sounded cool, but was like $50 to get in which I thought was outrageous. Since i had plenty of money left over, I just did it, and really, what else was there to actually do?
This was a stellar idea, as it turned out. Marcos offered to drive us there in the van, pick us up after to bring us to the airport.