Costa Rica

We have returned from our family adventure to Costa Rica and we are all in one piece, somewhat surprisingly, given what we achieved. Although this blog is about Arwen and my voyage in her, I do occasionally post other things not nautical. ‘Stacey’ our motovespa 125 super scooter gets an occasional look in.

Over the next few days I am going to take the liberty of posting about Costa Rica. If you are just interested in boats then tune out for a few days and normal service will be resumed at the start of next week. If you have a sense of adventure, like travelling or are into nature, then I hope that the next postings over the remainder of this week meet with your approval.

Getting to Costa Rica

A lesson learned the hard way!

 

Never shop around for the cheapest flights because then you get the itinerary from hell outward and return. London Heathrow to Toronto; Toronto to Houston; Houston to San Jose……24 hours outward flight. Return -  Liberia to Houston; Houston to Newark; Newark to London…return flight and journey home 28 hours!  Lesson learned? Pay the bit extra!

 

Tortuguero National Park

 

The incessant rain hammers down on the tin roof. Not a trickle but a noisy perpetual drumming. Outside, accompanying this pitter-pattering rhythm is the night time orchestra, a full symphony orchestra,  a cacophony of insect sounds. The original ugly bug ball!

 

Only these bugs are not ugly. They are wonderful. Frogs lead the way creating the loudest sounds, singing their hearts out with high pitched chirps and warbles. Crickets create that grating whirring sound. Birds sing in high pitched notes and whistles. The volume of this orchestra cannot be adequately conveyed or described in words. It has to be heard to be appreciated. And those who have difficulty in sleeping......bring ear plugs!

Welcome to the Tortuguero national park and the 'Evergreen Lodge' in wonderful Costa Rica.    It's 0240. It fell dark at 1800. I slept from 2000 and now I'm wide awake staring out of the mosquito net over our bed into a tropical wetlands. It is the wet season and don't we know it. Yet this is no bad thing. The rain brings a continual refreshment. The thick, vibrantly green foliage glistens and drips. At ground level everything is water; swamp like with masses of tangled roots and fallen branches. Huge trees rise up like natural skyscrapers, covered in epiphytes; natural motorways from floor to canopy and alive with insects and frogs. Their buttress roots dwarf anything nearby. Ground foliage is a mass of vines, ferns, large leaved plants which alas I've yet to learn the name of.

And the frogs......colours of the rainbow. Bright scarlet reds; brilliant deep blues; fluorescent greens. As dusk descends they crawl from the shaded nooks and crannies onto the leaves to start their night time songs. The forest floor maybe wet and gloomy but it is alive. Every so often a ripple appears in a floor pool; a fish? A frog? A snake? Night time exaggerates sounds.....some of these ripples and their accompanying splashes sound loud and look BIG! Too loud and too BIG!

When it rains here, the sheer weight of the water on the upper canopy brings weak twigs and branches falling to the ground. You are under a constant assault from above. The heavier the shower, the more debris covers the trails and paths afterwards. A small constant stream of water on the pathways acts as a natural sluice, washing the debris into the swamp. Twigs covered in their own individual micro world of insects and small plant life; fascinating seed pods both small and large.....all move slowly like some invisible conveyor belt.

The lodge is located right on the water's edge of one of the "canals" that flows through this wetland reserve. As we speak, water levels are rising and the hotel is in danger of being flooded. But it is no problem. Every building here is on stilts. Pathways are raised; wellie boots provided free of charge; umbrellas at every hut should you wish to use them (they are useful for preventing stray twigs and branches hitting you on the head).

Entry to the park was by long boats. Fast outboard propelled they weave their way through the narrow canals from the drop off point, delivering you to your ‘eco-lodges’. The sheer variety, size and shape of the riverside vegetation is breath-taking. Huge palms the size of small houses; large leaved shrubs with leaves the size of beds. Flowers......pinks, reds, oranges and yellows hang down from branches. And beyond, that impenetrable tangled web of plants and the perpetual ground gloom. It is so humid and damp.

 

There are no roads into Tortuguero. It is a water transport environment although there are scattered small airstrips. Locals tell me their greatest fear is that roads would be built into the national park. Here, in my tin roofed hut on stilts right in the middle of the wetland swamp, I hope and pray that Costa Rica's government has the sense to leave this wilderness park as it is.

 

And now it is time to lie back down under my white mosquito net and to listen and appreciate God's wonderful night time ‘ugly bug ball’.  And talking of ugly bugs........before the wife wakes I have to contend with two......one is a very nasty looking but exquisite spider..........about 8cm in leg span circumference......the legs a pattern of alternate brown and white sections leading to a large black body. The other? It just has to be the biggest cricket I have ever seen in my life. This little imp would terrify African locusts! Both have taken up residency on the slope of our mosquito net..............and I am desperate for the loo!  Ho-hum, time to plan a conservationist led battle plan! Me vs. spider and cricket......this should be interesting because right now I'm not sure which terrifies me more!

 

Steve