February 20th - I'm back in San Jose for a night before heading South to Costa Ricaś main tourist destination - Manuel Antonio for my last few days.Since my first post - I have hired a Suzuki Jimmy!! - 4wd - so have been gadding about a bit.
I had taken the bus for another marathon 4hr journey to La Fortuna - which is a touristy town adjacent to Volcano Arenal - a still active volcano - which sometimes gives great lava displays - best viewed at night of course. The only problem is - that for about 80% of the time - the damn thing is obscured by clouds and more often than not, it is raining cats and frogs! The first day there - I trekked to a waterfall - and along the way met a little Frenchmen called Xavi from Toulouse. He was heading for the same place - so we joined up and both got soaking wet! - when it rains here - it really rains - but I was slightly prepared with my travelling brolly suitably coloured in foliage green!
Later on - I got my wheels - and the next day headed out to the Volcano again - well I think I did - couldn't see it - and got piddled on again - was going to do a trek through the rainforest but the rain put me off - so I decided to head North towards Nicaragua - where there was a remote National Park called Cano Negro which was in a lowland area - so hopefully less wet!
The roads are a bit dodgy - with some incredibly large axle breaking potholes and once you get off the main roads - it's very bumpy tracks - to get to this park - I had to negotiate about 45km of rough track - so was hoping that it was going to be worth it.
Firstly - had to suss out the accommodation - alot of the places offer what they call Cabinas - yes you've guessed it - wooden cabins - fairly basic affairs - cheap and cheerful. I had phoned the owners of some Cabinas the night before and had a pointless conversation where the only thing we both understood was "Manana" ie something was going to happen tomorrow - that being me turning up to see if they had a Cabin!! I drove into their large grounds - and they were sat in a little cabin watching the TV and looked at me as if I had just dropped in by parachute! I was their sole resident - after a bit of Hola here and Hola there - he suddenly remembered the odd conversation that he had had with a linguistically challenged man from Ingleterre. We laughed and slapped each others backs like long lost brothers - and his dumpy little wife showed me the wooden shack which was to be my home for the night.
It was actually a lovely location - right by the river whcih on closer inspection contained several Caimans - like crocodiles but smaller.
The Park was just down the road - and I went to the Rangers Tourist office and a nice young lady called Norma! - who spoke good English helped me secure the services of a wildlife guide - for a 3hr canoe trip at 7.00am the following morning. This park was a wetland area - series of lagoons - and the best way to get close up to the wildlife is to paddle as silently as possible - and have someone who can spot things!
There were quite a few boats moored up - but I seemed to be the only tourist about. This was confirmed when I later went out for a night on the town. Smelling nicely of Eau de Insect Repellent and with torch in hand I hit the local bar - a massive place with 3 old soaks and a mangy dog propping up the bar. They eventually wandered off leaving me with the barman whose English was as advanced as my Spanish and a large widescreen telly showing a sub titled film, which if my memory serves me right - was called Fried Green Tomatoes!!? I ordered fresh Pesco and Papas Fritos - yes that's right - Fish and Chips and very nice it was too! A few bottles of beer later - I left him to it and got the torch out to find my way back to the shack.
The canoe trip was a great success. Firstly - it didn't rain and my guide - Napoleon! did a good job and we saw quite alot including lots of Caimans as pictured! Mind you - it was hard work as we had to battle upstream against a strong current - and 3hrs in a canoe is not good for the backside, I can tell you. I pondered whether to stay another night and make the barmans week - but in the end decided to head South to an area known as the Sarapiqui Valley. It was a scenic drive - lots of one horse towns along the way and various plantations.
I was hoping to stay in a place recommended by Lonely Planet which was run by a local environmentalist and wildlife specialist - and fortunately he had a spare Cabinas - which was rather better than the previous nights. I had only just arrived - when a man brought in a large bird in a box which turned out to be a lovely Laughing Falcon. Unfortunately it wasn't laughing all that much as it had had it's wing badly damaged - which was starting to be infected. Alex, the owner - was obviously known locally for taking in injured animals - and set forth washing the wound with a toothbrush and special ointment. The bird escaped their clutches twice - it's claws and beak were fiercesome - but it couldn't get far because of the damaged wing - anyway - I pitched in and helped hold the claws tight while the other guy held it's head down leaving Alex to attend to the wound. He gave the bird two quite large injections in a bit of a gungho manner - and then we put it in a cage to recover. The next day - it did seem a bit better - but Alex muttered something about having given it twice as much anti biotic as he should have done - due to a mis-understanding - anyway to cut a long story short - it snuffed it! I did suggest that we could nail it to a branch - but that didn't seem to go down well.
Went for a longish walk to see the sun setting and then found a nice bar with some rather attractive bar staff . Turned out the owners were all Chinese - so ended up having a House Special Chop Suey which went down a treat - but not very Costa Rican!
Breakfast was a communal affair so was able to meet up with the other guests. The breakfasts here have been tremendous - masses of delicious fresh fruit - and then usual eggs or pancakes etc - does me for the whole day! There were 4 guests from Canada who seemed pleasant enough - obviously avid birders - I spent the morning with them on a walk to the River. Now I like to look out for a bird or two - but these guys were obsessive. I thought I was going to have to administer Oxygen on a couple of occasions. They were disappointed for me - as 3 of them saw Green Macaws - but I had offered to wait for Bruce and close a gate after him - Bruce was ages - frothing at the mouth over a humming bird nest - and I missed the Macaws. There will be more for sure along the way.
The next day over breakfast - ha asked me what I did back home - and out of politeness - I asked him the same - turned out that they were Jehovah Witnesses and working in some capacity for the society - I didn't entirely understand exactly what he did - but I did suggest that what with being an obsessive Twitcher and his strange religious beliefs - that he might want to consider some specialist counselling. I am not sure that he entirely understood the English sense of humour - he just started twitching alot - which was quite appropriate in the circumstances.
Later that day - we all went off to the owners place in the hills where more hitherto unsighted birds were spotted - their list of birds seen was up to 105 and counting. Costa Rica in all seriousness - is prime bird watching territory - so they were in the right place. I got told off at breakfast one morning because I had left my binoculars in the bedroom!
Anyway - after that birdwatching extravaganza - I decided to head off to the Caribbean coast - to a laid back place called Cahuita - should be good beaches, a small National park which you can walk round - and some funky reggae rhythms man.
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