Swans on my bed

Afternoon in the rain forest

The timing for this part of the trip is good with morning activities, about 2 hrs of down time before lunch and then a little more down time before the afternoon cruise in a different part of the rain forest.

The Lodge offers free appetizers and fruit juice/ or tea each time we return from being out on the water and at one point a lady with a coffee/tea cart came thru our part of the facility, giving out complementary drinks. The service here is wonderful and we are becoming accustomed to being treated.

The afternoon cruise was in the same boats, with the same guides, but we spread out and didn’t see the other boats but a few times during the 2 ½ - 3 hr boat ride.

During this part of the experience we say different birds, osprey, heron eating shrimp and a burgundy colored bird called a northern jackinaw (realize this is my phonetic spelling, not sure how it is really spelled), toucan and cowbird.


We saw several iguanas, which are also protected. They have been used for food.


The afternoon cruise was a bit drier, however our shoes and clothing were already soaked from this morning.



We don’t have an over abundance of clothing to change into because for this part of the trip, we were instructed to pack enough for 2 days in an overnight bag to be taken to the Lodge. The rest of our luggage waited at the previous hotel, until called for by our bus driver. Sooo I had one pr. of shoes (soppy tennies) and two pair of socks (also soppy). I went to some meals barefoot rather than slosh. My hat, hard to describe- think braided cloth, was too big before getting drenched, when it dried, it shrank and fits much better. Many folks were in the same situation, not realizing that we would need more changes of clothes. Most didn’t have room for anymore stuff in their carry on luggage anyway. Oh well, it was an adventure. The reason for the carry-on thing is that we came here by boat, and they would have to have sent a second boat for our stuff. It worked.

Two other things of interest about the Lodge are the bed decorations and the bathroom request.


When we returned to our rooms after our afternoon adventure, our bed was decorated with towel swans which had a bright red hibiscus nestled in the beaks. It was so lovely, I didn’t want to shower or mess up the bed, but the swans eventually became towels again. Sad.
The other unusual thing, which I suppose isn’t that unusual, considering where we are and the condition of septic systems, reminded me of my time working at Montana Vista elementary school in El Paso. One of our jobs at MV was to teach the children from the poor barrios of Mexico (we had many of these children) to use the flush toilets properly. Our rule at school was after toilet paper was used to clean, it is placed in the toilet to be flushed away. The children were used to “non-flushing” toilets and were instructed by parents (for good reason) to place used paper in trash cans beside the toilet. The custodians sometimes had to sanitize bathroom floors several times a day to deal with this problem. This is a long way around to say, at the Lodge, we were requested to place used paper in trash cans, NOT in the toilet. There have been signs in 2 of our three hotels so far, the Ramada, in San Jose, being the exception

We have several folks who are not feeling well with stomach trouble. I am so grateful that I am not among them. Hope they are feeling much better tomorrow.

WE leave paradise in the morning at 8 (after a breakfast which I am sure will include rice and maybe beans)

We will have the long boat ride back to the mainland and then a really long bus ride on the gravel road.

It's hard to take notes on soggy paper

Rain Forest

Our accommodations at the Lodge are rustic but comfortable and charming. The grounds are like being in the rain forest itself. In the immediate area of our room we have seen Macaws, Toucans, and various other birds I’m not sure of the names of --along with caymons (small crocodiles) and several sorts of monkeys. Howler monkeys are our alarm clock. The first morning I thought that a car was peeling out on a gravel road—but there are no cars and no roads. That’s sort of what a howler monkey sounded like to me. They do their thing between 5 and 5:30 am.

Every meal we have been offered rice and beans and this place is no exception. One day we had the option of white or brown rice. Juice, freshly squeezed/blended, is available with almost every meal. The variety in the meals is lacking with the same meats and veggies offered at most meals. Breakfast usually has an omelet station, but we’ve not seen bacon or sausage at all so far.

After we saw the turtle exhibit, yesterday (this is the place where more turtles lay eggs than anywhere in this hemisphere), we walked along the beach to the town of Tortuguera, where there was a little shopping. (I bought a size 2 shirt for someone) As we were walking to the shopping area, I noticed a sign on a school porch asking for funds to pay the utility bills. Yep, you guessed it, I’m a sucker for troubled schools with money problems. I hope it was a legitimate request.

We have 2 cruises today, the morning one in the smaller canals of the Rain Forest and afternoon in the more open areas.



Duh! They call it the RAIN forest for a reason. We rode in 3 open boats, for better visibility of the canopy and got soaked. The boats carried vinyl rain ponchos which were needed, but we were still absolutely soaked to the skin (in the morning)



Our guide was Noel, who was very knowledgeable, but wasn’t very loquacious. He didn’t chat, or tell stories much, just the facts ma’am. We heard later that another guide, made hats with a sort of tree bark, and was real talkative. Oh, well, we enjoyed our morning time on the cruise.

We saw all different kinds of herons, as we went from lagoon, to lake to river then canal. We saw mahogany trees and royal plams and raffia palms. Almond trees have very hard wood which makes the wood very expensive to buy and use.

When we saw a termite nest, my thought was “kill 'um”. The guide told us that they are one of the most important species in the forest. They recycle the dead wood. Without them, rotting logs would be everywhere. I guess they are the vultures of the rain forest cleaning up the place. And all creatures have a purpose, we just need to understand where it is.

We saw a “caymon” very close up. This is a small crocodile that is not strong enough to attack people. It is actually a different animal from a croc.




Our guide “called” to some monkeys and they answered back and came to where we were so check us out. My little camera didn’t do well, but some folks got great monkey pictures..

Now remember all this time we’re roaming around in boats,-- it is raining, hard. Sometimes drizzling, other times coming down in buckets. It is really hard to take notes on wet paper.

Tortuguera became a National Park area in 1975. Before that date, this area was a major place for lumber harvest. This part of the rain forest has been saved and is being reforested.

We were about to head back for lunch and our boat turned. We heard a slapping on/in the water and before we knew what happened, Connie, the lady in front of me and I were shrieking. A fish had jumped, hit her shoulder and landed in my lap. The guide came back to get it, he thought about throwing it back, but instead said it would be his lunch. Actually, we tasted it for supper. He said it was a Snook and that this happens often, that a fish jumps in the boat, trying to get away from a barracuda.

Ceiba tree and bananas

Caribbean

Wednesday-April 6

Last night's supper was really elegant, with very well dressed waiters seating us and generally being quite attentive. We had a choice of steak or chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes followed by a coffee flavored mousse-- really good meal and nice atmosphere The walls of the hotel common area were covered with very unique and peculiar art work. The artist is Munquia- you might want to look him/ up to see some really unusual art





This hotel, which we will come back to the last day, has an environmentally friendly theme--as we are discovering-- seems to be the theme for the entire country as well

Bags out at 5:15 and we leave at 6 for the Tortoguero National Park. We'll stop along the way for breakfast

Since i'm writing this on the iPad, one finger at a time, I'll refrain from including all the plant and animal info right now-- that will come later. We are staying in an Eco friendly lodge in or beside the National park. No Air conditioner, no glass in windows. Very outdoorsy.

We did see sloths where we stopped for breakfast and N got some wonderful video of the critter up close and personal.


Breakfast consisted of rice and beans with a poached egg on top it seemed rather huevos ranchero-esque . Breakfast also included cooked plantains, fresh pineapple, watermelon and to top it off Vienna sausages.

Also at the place where we stopped for breakfast was an enormous CEIBA tree. This tree was the model for the huge residence trees in the movie Avatar. This one was a giant.


Even tho we had left early to have plenty of time for our appointments of the day we were late. While we were loading the bus a group of protestors had blocked the road ahead. We waited about 20 min and the protesters, who were unhappy with the banana company's management, were being negotiated with by the police. We passed by them with no incident.

We went to the banana packing house and watched the workers cut the stalks into manageable sizes. I really wouldn't want to spend 10 hrs a day at that work.




We did learn that it takes 9 months for a banana shoot on a tree to produce a stalk of bananas. Blue plastic bags are slipped over each stalk at some point to keep birds and bugs off the fruit. Since there is no Internet or phone service here, this will obviously not be posted today.
Hasta Luego

Additional Wednesday info.

We’re visiting a tropical rain forest with a huge diversity of species of plants and animals. The majority of the animals are nocturnal. There are more butterflies in Costa Rica than all of Africa and more birds here than the U.S and Canada combined.

Precipitation is difficult to measure because it is constant and plants absorb moisture from the air. Orchids and bromeliads are two plants that do this.

As mentioned before we saw both 2 and 3 toes sloths, which are cousins of the armadillo and anteaters.

When we saw cocoanuts growing, we were confused because none of them were the brown nutty looking items we see in the grocery story. We saw green and orangy/yellow cocoanuts, the green is not ripe but is used for the milk. The riper one (orange) is used for the meat. The brown husk is inside the outer colored pods.

All the roofs we have seen are metal (they seem to be tin, but may be other metals also). Not sure with all the moisture how they are maintained, some do have moss growing on them. Some of the metal is formed to look like tiles.

After a r e a l l y long ride on a bumpy gravel road, we got to the Tortuguera lagoon (I think that is what it was called) to take about an hour and 15 min boat ride to the Tortuguera National Park Lodge. This “hotel” is rustic with no air conditioning expected and definitely no Internet connection. We saw the Caribbean Sea several times as we snaked our way thru the canals to get to our Lodge.

We went to the CCC (Caribbean Conservation Corp) which is keeping the large Green turtles from being extinct. They protect the eggs which are laid and hidden in the black sand of the Tortuguera portion of the Caribbean. The Turtles were declared endangered in 1950 and have been protected ever since. They were used for meat, and shells previously.

Fog and Rain, and yucca root and coffee

This huge bug seemed to be a pet of a vendor selling cocoanut milk.


Couple of items left off yesterday's information. All bags (and purses) had to be scanned before leaving the airport. Scanned like they are when entering an air port in the U.S. Not sure what they were checking for, but.....
N exchanged some money at the airport and came back where I was watching the luggage with a slightly "dazed" look. He gave them 380 dollars or so and received 170,000 Costa Rican colones. We've figured that one us dollar is worth about 500 colones--depending on the particular exchange rate. Really makes a person feel wealthy- until you realize that it is the same amount of money, just in different currency.

NOW--Here it is Tuesday morning and breakfast is really good. Waffles, omelet bar, luscious fresh fruit. Yum! This hotel is like a garden with pools and flowers and beautiful shrubs everywhere.

We met with the entire tour group (except for the 2 who didn't make it in last night cuz they missed a connection at Heathrow). We are with a much more diverse group than usual. We have 15 from Texas, and 13 from Canada, England and Scotland. The rest are from California, North Carolina, Oregon,and N. Dakota. Our guide, Jose, is a native Costa Rican who has been guiding tours for 21 years. His quote for the day was "The only flat thing in Costa Rica is beer when it is warm". Lots of mountains and valleys.

We learned that the reason for all the barbed wire and bars on homes and buildings (sort of like El Paso) is because years ago, the police was not particularly efficient and the major way natives had of protecting themselves was to install their own protection. This has changed in the past decade and safety of people and goods has become a priority.
Costa Rica exports pineapple, bananas, strawberries, coffee and microchips. While tourism is not the major industry it is one of the top ones. Minimum wage here is 66 dollars a week and there is about an 8% unemployment rate. The literacy rate is 97%, one of the highest in South/Central America.

We've seen sooo many lovely flowers here and I'll dwell on that later, but let me mention that hydrangeas are everywhere and they are huge.




Driving thru San Jose this morning we saw a KFC with a sign advertising an 8 piece meal with all the fixin's for 9,000 colones.

On a very bumpy and winding road we made our way to the Poas Volcano. After walking uphill (about 4-5% grade) we arrived to see FOG. No way we could photograph or experience the crater cuz it was socked in totally. We waited about 15 min, hoping the fog would lift, but it didn't, so we walked down to the reception area/ gift shop and bus park. I did get 2 very good postcards, so I have an idea what we didn't get to see.

This obviously is an aerial view, not from where we would have seen the volcano.


On the way to and from the volcano we saw these "poor man's umbrella" plants.


Lunch was next and we had choices of Casados (rice and beans) with beef, with chicken, or vegetarian (con queso) or vegetable soup. Included with the Cascados was a dab of cole slaw, potatoes, a hush puppy looking item and a caramelized plaintain followed by corn pudding. Lets talk about the hush puppy looking thing. No one at my table could tell what it was by the taste, so we asked the waiter and it was made of yucca root. It was really good. Now the plaintain (banana)--we asked how it was prepared and it was rolled in butter, then sugar, then put under a broiler. Had a creme broule kind of crust and was really, really good. The corn pudding had the consistency of cheese and was okay. Not too sweet just okay.
The folks who had missed their connection (Pat and David) joined us at lunch, so we now have a complete tour group.

From there we ventured to the Doka Coffee Plantation also called Tres Generation . We learned all about the growing and production of the coffee that is exported to Europe and America.


It takes 25#'s of coffee cherries (unpeeled beans) to make 7#'s of ground coffee. We were told all about the picking (by hand) the cracking, sorting, drying, and finally roasting of the beans. A coffee tree doesn't produce any fruit until it is 4 years old and is "taken out of production" at 20 years of age. We saw baby plants (2 months), up to year old plants which are ready to be planted in the field.
The sort of coffee that this plantation produces is Arabica and they have several varieties of Arabica. Once the beans are sorted and ready to be exported they are bagged and stored to rest for 3 months.


Our tour guide was Diana and she would make a really good elementary teacher She repeated, spoke clearly (even tho' her accent made her hard to understand at times) and quizzed us about what she had just said.
Weather has not co-operated with us today. We were rained on at the volcano and also at the plantation. Glad my jacket has a hood.

Gonna get ready for supper Talk to you later. Yea! for free WiFi!

Sprinting thru Atlanta (airport)

Since we no longer live in Bwd, our getting to the airport was easier and quicker. We made reservations for Super Shuttle to pick us up at our house and they were even early. We arrived at the airport way early, but had been told to be there at least 3 hrs early for an international flight. Check in was fast and easy at that time of the morning and we found our gate and waited and waited. I phoned the Bwd group, which is coming by bus and they were in Granbury. And we waited. We had breakfast, since we won't have a real meal til we arrive in Costa Rica late tonite. The group finally arrived after having to stand in lots of lines to go thru security and get checked
in.




Our flight for Atlanta was posted as leaving 45minutes late and we have less than 2 hrs scheduled to make our connection, if everything is on time. We arrive in Atlanta, late, and sprint from our gate at terminal A to Terminal E (international) arriving just as the flight we need is making a last call for boarding. WHEW! We settle in for the last leg of our flight.

We found our tour guide and some other folks on our flight, and got on the bus for our hotel. When we had finally checked in, we found a restaurant and had some long needed supper. It has been a really long day. We will have a meeting in the morning, to meet the rest of the group and find out where we go from here.

One more week

In 61/2 days we'll be on our way south to Costa Rica. I've checked on the hotels where we're scheduled to stay and discovered that 3 of the 5 have free WiFi. WooHoo!!

I've worked on using the iPad to write blog entries and then download them to blogspot. It is a bit different than using the computer, but much, much lighter and easier to tote.

Before we can step on the plane--- the hot tub must be emptied, sewing project MUST be finished, mail and newspaper put on "vacation" and various other projects completed.

Come along on our adventure. Maybe you can even soar through the jungle canopy with me. Be seeing you

We're going SOUTH!

SOUTH, SOUTH, SOUTH!
In early April the Brownwood bank group is headed to Costa Rica. Several exciting activities are on the agenda and we'll get to see some lovely places. This is our first excursion in this hemisphere---so, we won't be dealing with a time change, and the flight will be relatively short, compared to our other trips.

We're getting excited! We've bought a guidebook and have marked it to show our route for the 9 days we'll be there. Nick wants to scuba/snorkel (I will, too, if it is warm enough) and I think I want to do a zip-line experience. I'm not very comfortable with heights, but since it is a once in a lifetime opportunity, I should take it.

On the agenda are 3 National Parks where we'll experience rain forests and volcanoes, as well as a Pacific beach. The fine print states that we'll be staying in small comfortable, but rustic, hotels that may or may not have air conditioning and elevators.

We will be visiting a coffee plantation, a banana plantation, a school, a dairy farm (where we'll have a cheese making demonstration), a produce farm (pineapples, orchards, grassland) and a well known craft center all while experiencing spectacular scenery.

Here we come, but not til April. Enjoy the trip with us, right here.