One of the last things that we saw in Corcovado NP was probably the most unusual and amusing sight that we have seen in Costa Rica.
At first glance, this tree appeared to have a brown mossy spot on it. On further inspection, we noticed it was hundreds of caterpillars grouped together. An army of caterpillars. The funny part of this is that they would react to certain sounds. Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Parque Nacional Corcovado
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| Female Black-throated Trogan |
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| Male Black-throated Trogan |
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| Slaty-tailed Trogan |
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| Plane landing on the airstrip at the Sirena Ranger Station |
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| King Vulture |
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| Caiman |
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| Tapir (we woke him from his nap) |
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| White-faced monkey |
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| Hermit Crabs The beach was crawling with them. We learned that if you blow on them they relax in their shells and you can pull them out. The lower part of their body is soft and unprotected so they need the shells to live in. |
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| Collared Peccary It was very hard to get a good picture of him. He was walking in the forest and his head ended up behind a tree in most of our pictures |
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| My favorite bird, Blue-crowned Motmot His tail would twitch back and forth like a pendulum. |
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| Spider Monkey |
Monday, January 10, 2011
Pictures from the flight to Drake Bay
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| Ready for take off. |
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| Boston Scientific, Coyol from the air |
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| Manuel Antonio/ Quepos area |
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| Drake Bay |
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| Mid stream |
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| Drake Bay airport |
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Viaje a Osa, Parque Nacional Corcovado y Isla Cano (or in the footsteps of David and Rachel)
Way back in March of 2010, when Jim made his first trip to Costa Rica to explore the work assignment, Nancy sent a text message informing him that nephew David and niece Rachel were in Costa Rica. He was not able to connect with them then, but in a later conversation, David was as ebullient and effusive as he could be regarding a place we had never heard of called Drake Bay on the Osa peninsula. As a result, we put it on our “must see” list.
Getting to Osa is no easy task. Driving was our first thought, after all, we have a car and the map shows a road going all the way there. For some reason the maps here don’t show mountains and rivers very clearly, and while we doubted it would take the 8 hours a guidebook suggested, the more we talked to friends, the more it became apparent that the last and shortest leg of the journey was the most treacherous. I think it was that last part that got our attention. A shorter drive of 4 hours, followed by a 2 hour boat ride did not seem to take much of the travel time commitment out of the equation. We finally decided to fly, with one of us expressing more than a little doubt about the safety of a single engine plane over the jungles and mountains of Costa Rica (see treacherous above). The other of us suggested that it would be way cool to see the country by air and be able to spend a combined additional 70 hours “in country” as it were, instead of on the road. The other of us also underplayed the comments by his coworkers that the plane would be a rough ride due to the jet stream winds we experience on the ground on a daily (and nightly) basis at our house.
Early on December 26 in a light rain, we climbed aboard a Cessna Grand Caravan with room for 12 passengers, 3 propeller blades, 2 pilots and (only) 1 engine. For the most part, the trip was smooth as silk and provided tremendous views of the coast and mountains from Jaco’ south. Not having been at work for a week, Jim snapped a picture of the plant to see if anybody else (like his boss) was there.
After we landed on what looked like a paved driveway, we deplaned at the Drake Bay airport and waited for what seemed like … seconds to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim area, which doubled as the … runway. As promised, a cab was waiting to take us to Cabinas Manolo, where David and Rachel had stayed (as indelibly inscribed by David in the hotel guestbook).
The cab ride quickly confirmed our choice for air travel as the cab forded two rivers and enough huecos in the dirt to make the roads around San Jose seem like … paved roads. After checking in, we headed to the beach where we found surprisingly calm surf, and hardly any people, although it was only about 10:00.
Early Monday morning we boarded a boat and headed for Corcovado, perhaps the most remote park in the country. During our 6 hour hike, we saw a large variety of colorful birds, 4 species of monkeys, two types of sloths, two Peccaries, a Caiman and a Tapir. We also saw more people than we expected – about 5 other groups of 10 or so. The hour and a half boat trip back to Drake Bay reconfirmed our choice to fly from San Jose. One of us started feeling crummy even before we boarded the boat, and by the time we made it through the rough surf at the beach and into the rolling waves of the ocean, she (okay now you know who) was grabbing the gunnels and sending Poseidon her breakfast and lunch. We could have flown to Sirena station at Corcovado, too, but that would have involved an even smaller plane on a grass runway.
Tuesday we were promised a later start which proved to be correct, as we were delayed an hour while they pulled a spare boat out of dry dock for our venture to Cano island. The delay paid off, however, when Tim spotted spouting in the distance. The captain obliged us with a detour to see up close a passing pod of Humpback whales, and later dolphins.
We joined the flotilla of snorkelers after arriving at the coral reef off the sea side of the island, and then headed to lunch after the motion of the ocean began to take its toll (again). The beach at Cano island was crowded with lunching snorkelers and divers where we ran into a coworker of Jim’s, but a short hike down the beach revealed the remoteness and beauty of the area.
The after lunch snorkel was even more spectacular than the morning. Our guide pointed out dozens of sea creatures, including 3 white tipped reef sharks and fish of every color in the rainbow, but alas, we had no underwater camera. On the trip back to Drake Bay, we were treated to two frolicking dolphins. We knew we were seeing something special when even the guide got out her camera and ooh’d and aah’d with us.
Our package deal included 3 squares a day. Nancy and Jim are not known for their consumption of fish, but when dinner the second night was a fillet of fish, we dug in and were presently surprised at how good it was. The third night as Jim began eating “the most tender steak I have ever cut into” Brad (ever the contrarian) said “that’s because it’s fish”. “What? It looks like steak.” “Yeah, but it tastes like fish.” “No, it tastes like steak cooked in a pan that fish was cooked in”. “It was, because it’s fish!” ”Let’s stop talking about it before I stop enjoying it”. Later, Jim asked the waiter “como se llama el pescado?” (those of you who speak Spanish can stop laughing now, those of you who don’t, it was perfect), to which we believe he said “Guapote”.
After a pleasant hike and swim on Wednesday, we headed back to the Drake Bay airport, leaving plenty of time to get through security and a quick trip home.
David and Rachel: good call.
(Pictures to come)
Getting to Osa is no easy task. Driving was our first thought, after all, we have a car and the map shows a road going all the way there. For some reason the maps here don’t show mountains and rivers very clearly, and while we doubted it would take the 8 hours a guidebook suggested, the more we talked to friends, the more it became apparent that the last and shortest leg of the journey was the most treacherous. I think it was that last part that got our attention. A shorter drive of 4 hours, followed by a 2 hour boat ride did not seem to take much of the travel time commitment out of the equation. We finally decided to fly, with one of us expressing more than a little doubt about the safety of a single engine plane over the jungles and mountains of Costa Rica (see treacherous above). The other of us suggested that it would be way cool to see the country by air and be able to spend a combined additional 70 hours “in country” as it were, instead of on the road. The other of us also underplayed the comments by his coworkers that the plane would be a rough ride due to the jet stream winds we experience on the ground on a daily (and nightly) basis at our house.
Early on December 26 in a light rain, we climbed aboard a Cessna Grand Caravan with room for 12 passengers, 3 propeller blades, 2 pilots and (only) 1 engine. For the most part, the trip was smooth as silk and provided tremendous views of the coast and mountains from Jaco’ south. Not having been at work for a week, Jim snapped a picture of the plant to see if anybody else (like his boss) was there.
After we landed on what looked like a paved driveway, we deplaned at the Drake Bay airport and waited for what seemed like … seconds to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim area, which doubled as the … runway. As promised, a cab was waiting to take us to Cabinas Manolo, where David and Rachel had stayed (as indelibly inscribed by David in the hotel guestbook).
The cab ride quickly confirmed our choice for air travel as the cab forded two rivers and enough huecos in the dirt to make the roads around San Jose seem like … paved roads. After checking in, we headed to the beach where we found surprisingly calm surf, and hardly any people, although it was only about 10:00.
Early Monday morning we boarded a boat and headed for Corcovado, perhaps the most remote park in the country. During our 6 hour hike, we saw a large variety of colorful birds, 4 species of monkeys, two types of sloths, two Peccaries, a Caiman and a Tapir. We also saw more people than we expected – about 5 other groups of 10 or so. The hour and a half boat trip back to Drake Bay reconfirmed our choice to fly from San Jose. One of us started feeling crummy even before we boarded the boat, and by the time we made it through the rough surf at the beach and into the rolling waves of the ocean, she (okay now you know who) was grabbing the gunnels and sending Poseidon her breakfast and lunch. We could have flown to Sirena station at Corcovado, too, but that would have involved an even smaller plane on a grass runway.
Tuesday we were promised a later start which proved to be correct, as we were delayed an hour while they pulled a spare boat out of dry dock for our venture to Cano island. The delay paid off, however, when Tim spotted spouting in the distance. The captain obliged us with a detour to see up close a passing pod of Humpback whales, and later dolphins.
We joined the flotilla of snorkelers after arriving at the coral reef off the sea side of the island, and then headed to lunch after the motion of the ocean began to take its toll (again). The beach at Cano island was crowded with lunching snorkelers and divers where we ran into a coworker of Jim’s, but a short hike down the beach revealed the remoteness and beauty of the area.
The after lunch snorkel was even more spectacular than the morning. Our guide pointed out dozens of sea creatures, including 3 white tipped reef sharks and fish of every color in the rainbow, but alas, we had no underwater camera. On the trip back to Drake Bay, we were treated to two frolicking dolphins. We knew we were seeing something special when even the guide got out her camera and ooh’d and aah’d with us.
Our package deal included 3 squares a day. Nancy and Jim are not known for their consumption of fish, but when dinner the second night was a fillet of fish, we dug in and were presently surprised at how good it was. The third night as Jim began eating “the most tender steak I have ever cut into” Brad (ever the contrarian) said “that’s because it’s fish”. “What? It looks like steak.” “Yeah, but it tastes like fish.” “No, it tastes like steak cooked in a pan that fish was cooked in”. “It was, because it’s fish!” ”Let’s stop talking about it before I stop enjoying it”. Later, Jim asked the waiter “como se llama el pescado?” (those of you who speak Spanish can stop laughing now, those of you who don’t, it was perfect), to which we believe he said “Guapote”.
After a pleasant hike and swim on Wednesday, we headed back to the Drake Bay airport, leaving plenty of time to get through security and a quick trip home.
David and Rachel: good call.
(Pictures to come)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
The First Week
During the boys first week in Costa Rica, we experienced day trips that took us to places mainly around the Meseta Central. We started off with a canopy tour at Colinas del Poas. This took us north of San Jose, where we zip-lined our way across several valleys. This tour was different from the one Jim and I had previous taken in Arenal. Here we had a work out, hiking between the platforms before we had the last exhilarating ride on a cable over 600 meters long (1/3 of a mile).
We visited Irazu and Poas Volcanoes and LaPaz Waterfalls. All places that Jim and I had visited before. The main difference was that there now was water in the Irazu Volcano crater. When we visited it back in August it was bone dry.
One day took us to the Pacific coast. We took the “Crocodile Man” tour on the Tarcoles River. National Geographic states that this river has one of the highest concentrations of crocodiles in the world and we saw many huge crocodiles. The guides have names for each one and they even get out of the boat to feed them. The pictures included are of Greg and Tim in front of “Osama” and the man is feeding “Brad Pitt”. He (that is Brad Pitt, the crocodile) had been sunbathing on the bank with “Angelina Jolie” but she decided she didn’t want to be gawked at by a bunch of tourists and had slipped into the river and swam away. Afterwards, we ended up on the beach in Jaco, where we enjoyed the sun and surf.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Where to Start
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| Greg |
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| Nancy |
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| Tim |
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| Brad, notice the dry shoulder |
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| Nancy, on the left |
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| Jim |
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| Jim |
The boys packed up and left on Saturday after two weeks of adventure and vacation. Nancy and I really enjoyed their visit and have been trying to come up with a way to compress all that we saw and experienced into a blog that will be of interest to our faithful readers. In our time together we traveled from the top of Irazu (over 11,000’) to the depths of the sea (well, 5 meters underwater); we rode planes and boats, saw whales, dolphins, fish, birds, reptiles, a lunar eclipse (since Greg was thoughtful enough to get up and take pictures), and more parts of Orion than I knew existed.
Perhaps the best way to sum it up is to reflect on our lunch conversation last Friday, when Brad asked all of us for our Costa Rica “top 5”, and Nancy proclaimed that Canyoning was definitely one of her’s. So let’s start with that.
We traveled back to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano on Thursday and Friday. There was a fairly low cloud deck for most of the visit. Readers will recall that in July we saw the whole enchilada for about 5 minutes when the clouds rolled away. Anyway, while there, we participated in a tour of a slot canyon where we rappelled down 5 cliffs, four of which included waterfalls. After about 3 minutes of instruction which basically amounted to “don’t worry about falling, we’ve got you covered three ways”, they grabbed Nancy by the harness, clipped her in, pushed her to the edge of a 170 foot precipice, turned her around and told her to lean back and let go. And she did. It all happened so fast that there was no time to worry about whether they really knew what they were doing (they did) or whether the fact that their triple redundancy was based on wooden planks built over a deep canyon in a rain forest, or that all of the ropes were hooked to one cable, somehow anchored to the canyon walls. Wet and wild. We still don't know how Brad ended up with a partially dry shirt. What more can I say – the pictures tell the story.
More to come.
Perhaps the best way to sum it up is to reflect on our lunch conversation last Friday, when Brad asked all of us for our Costa Rica “top 5”, and Nancy proclaimed that Canyoning was definitely one of her’s. So let’s start with that.
We traveled back to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano on Thursday and Friday. There was a fairly low cloud deck for most of the visit. Readers will recall that in July we saw the whole enchilada for about 5 minutes when the clouds rolled away. Anyway, while there, we participated in a tour of a slot canyon where we rappelled down 5 cliffs, four of which included waterfalls. After about 3 minutes of instruction which basically amounted to “don’t worry about falling, we’ve got you covered three ways”, they grabbed Nancy by the harness, clipped her in, pushed her to the edge of a 170 foot precipice, turned her around and told her to lean back and let go. And she did. It all happened so fast that there was no time to worry about whether they really knew what they were doing (they did) or whether the fact that their triple redundancy was based on wooden planks built over a deep canyon in a rain forest, or that all of the ropes were hooked to one cable, somehow anchored to the canyon walls. Wet and wild. We still don't know how Brad ended up with a partially dry shirt. What more can I say – the pictures tell the story.
More to come.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Happy New Year
Felicitaciones! It's dos mil once. We have never seen so many fireworks displayed at once in our lives. At midnight the five of us watched from our balcony literally hundreds of simultaneous displays across the valley. It's 12:35 and many continue. Anyway, to our faithful blog followers, we say thank you, more to come, enjoy the pictures, and happy new year!
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