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Today we went on a combined trip that includes a rain forest walk, a possible view of Arenal Volcano and ends with dinner and bathing at a hot spring fed by the volcano.

The first stop was at Eco-Lodge for the rain forest walk. Having spent the week in Guanacaste, which is a dry savanna ecosystem, we couldn’t wait to see some lush jungle forest. We actually stopped at a vista overlooking Arenal Lake, but the wind and the rain made the stop uncomfortable. The low hanging cloud cover obscured any real view, anyway. When we got to Eco-Lodge, the bus split up into groups. Our group stayed together because there we so many of us. Our guide, Max, gave us a little speech about the environment and the history of the Eco-Lodge and took down a path for our hour long walk.

Max was very knowledgeable and was willing to share lots of information about the plants and animals. But, one thing that most people would probably fail to realize, you can’t see animals in the jungle. The foliage is just too lush. There could be an iguana 10 feet from you, but you can only see clearly for about 3-5 feet, maybe, off the trail. Max was able to find a little frog and a dead centipede, though. And, we were able to spot some very loud birds, about the size of a large hawk. I can’t remember the name, and we didn’t write it down.

One odd part of the nature hike was the stop at the Maleku hut. Max had a focus on the types of plants that the Maleku people used to build their huts and crafts. About twenty minutes into the hike, there was a big old meeting hut, presumably built by the Maleku Indians.

Max acted like this was where the Maleku people could be found, although he did mention that it was a “representation” of their lifestyle. The Maleku actually live on a reservation and while these guys spoke the language, they also spoke Costa Rican Spanish and Max played along as part of the act. Some people in our group bought brightly colored rain sticks and spirit masks. If I wasn’t so skeptical, I might have thought it was cute.

When the Maleku people greet people, apparently they knock on each others shoulders and say “copi-copi”. We all obligingly knocked on the chiefs shoulder and spoke the greeting. When our group was leaving, the other two groups were arriving at the hut at the same time from different directions. All groups make a stop at the Maleku hut, apparently. Some people from our trip were on the same tour but hadn’t signed up with us, so they were in a different group. As we passed them on the way out, I knocked on their shoulders and greeted them with a hearty “copi-copi”. I walked away chuckling, pleased with myself, at the bewildered looks on their faces knowing they would get the joke in about 10 minutes.

After that, we ate lunch at a local restaurant. I’m digging the Costa Rican food. I love rice and beans, but the spices they use are good too. Everyone got rice and beans with a little salad, but the main choices were Tilapia, Chicken or Steak. And for Tilapia and Chicken, you had some choices about how it was prepared. Then we got to browse around for some touristy swag. The folks at the restaurant and gift shop were great. The guy in the gift shop asked me questions and told me people from the United States were very nice. I told him I thought Costa Rica was great and found everyone to be very friendly. He told me that they were friendly because we are friendly first. I didn’t want to get into an argument or anything so I smiled and thanked him.

We drove further up the volcano and passed the spot where you would see the pyroclastics if there wasn’t so much cloud cover. We went directly to Tabacon Hot Springs and Spa Resort. We had about 2 hours at the hot springs to soak and hang out before dinner and the ride back to the resort.

The hot springs are a river of water heated by the Arenal Volcano. There are pools for soaking and little water falls for getting a nice hot water pounding. All around the pools is a lush garden of native plants and natural looking landscaping. There were plenty of little pools for privacy, as well as a swim-up bar and slide. The water was fantastic and the atmosphere of cool, low clouds was very relaxing.

The buffet dinner was amazing. There was a 5 foot pan filled with a seafood paella that was to die for. And they had some sort of green salsa that one of the servers jokingly called “salsa, ay-ay-ay!”. It was pretty spicy.

The ride back on the bus was long and most people slept. I think we got back to our resort around 11pm. But, what a day!

Continue reading the next entry, Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water….

Did you miss the previous entry? Go back and read Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo.

More in this series:

• Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing
• Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental
• Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife
• Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!
• Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo
• Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs
• Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water…
• Costa Rica, Day 7: The Congo Trail Canopy Tour

Today I went fishing with some of the people on our trip. My wife co-sponsored the fishing trip with her customer and I got a seat on one of the boats. We had to drive an hour and a half South to Tamarindo to get on the boat.

The road to Tamarindo is ridiculous. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. The road alternates between paved sections and dirt sections. That alone isn’t really that big of a deal. The ridiculous part is that the paved section are less than a 1/4 mile long and the dirt sections are about 1/2 mile long. What the heck kind of road is that?

We had to leave early from the Grand Papagayo resort to get to Tamarindo in time. The coffee bar in the lobby wasn’t set up, yet, so we kept looking for a little bodega or something that might sell coffee. This is the first time I’ve actually been off the resort outside of the tour we took to Palo Verde where everything was organized and food was included. This is the first time I began to regret not getting smaller bills before we left the US.

My experience in Jamaica taught me that it’s not a good thing to make deals with local merchants with large denomination bills. I basically got robbed in Jamaica when I gave a guy a $20 bill and waited for him to “make change.” He wouldn’t give me my money back and he wouldn’t make change. He actually walked off while the woman with him tried to talk me into some other crap they were selling.

So, I didn’t want to get into buying $20 worth of convenience store quality food snacks just so I could by a cup of coffee. I milled around but didn’t buy anything. I asked a couple of the other folks how they were handling the transactions, and were they using US dollars of Costa Rican Colons? Everyone was using US bills. Some were packing thousands of dollars, but they didn’t mind getting the Colons back for $20. They figured they would use them elsewhere. The exchange they were figuring was about 500-600 colons to a dollar. No one had a bad experience, but I was still pretty wary.

We got to Tamarindo, which is a kind of surfer/fishing/resort town. There were lots of shops and restaurants in the little main square area. We parked our rental van and walked down the beach looking for our fishing crews.

Apparently Costa Rica is not big on slips for boats. Here, they have skiffs that take you out to the boats moored just beyond the waves. We meet the mates from the two boats we had chartered and pushed off into the surf.

I was on Hat Trick with Captain Allen, or Allie. He’s a British expatriate who has been living in Costa Rica for 6 years. He gave us an introduction and asked for his money. The only problem was the guy with the remainder of the balance was on the other boat. I offered him my credit card figuring we could get it sorted out later, but he waved it off and said we would settle it later.

We motored out (google video) into the Pacific heading South and a little West. Fishing had not been good lately, but had been picking up. As we motored along for about an hour, I watched the Costa Rican landscape and caught a glimse of the occassional flying fish. When we got the area that the Captain wanted to fish, the mates rigged the rods and we began trolling around.

The sun on a boat in the ocean off Costa Rica is damn hot. In the morning it’s pretty tolerable, but after noon you only want to get away from it and find some shade. There’s no place to go.

We got two stikes with no hooks. One was a dorado and the other was a little marlin, the captain said. We kept trolling around, doing nothing.

Then, all of a sudden the mates were yelling for someone to get into the fighting chair. A dorado was hooked and Ken, of of the guys on the trip, was reeling it in. It was an exciting fight and as the fish got near the boat, it was a giant pool of silvery green reflecting back from under the water. When the fish was done, the mates gaffed it and hauled it onto the boat.

In order to protect everyone from the flapping tail, they lasso the tail and curl the fish in half by hooking the other end with a hook in it’s mouth. They bled the fish and Ken took some photos with it. Then the mates filleted it and put it on ice.

For the next few hours, absolutely nothing happened. We saw a dead turtle floating around, smelling up the ocean. Other than that, the day just kept getting hotter and hotter. The boat had soft drinks, water, Imperial beer, and snacks. I had a couple of beers, but with it being so hot, all I wanted was water. I had brought a pair of long, light pants and a shirt from LL Bean that is spf 50 or something. Everyone was pretty bored and tired, and I eventually put my shirt over my head and went to sleep.

I woke up 20 minutes later to the mates shouting “Sit! Sit!” and everyone else yelling “Eric, it’s your fish!” and “Get in the seat!”

I struggled out from under the shirt over my head and sleep-stumbled to the fighting chair. I sat down and started reeling with no sense, no efficiency, and just plain no idea what was going on. I was in the chair for probably 2 minutes before I fully realized that I was fighting a big fish.

One of the mates was yelling “Real more good! No slack! No Slack!” and they were both bringing in the other rods. The captain was guiding the boat to help me fight the fish. I still had no idea what I was fighting. Then he came up and jumped. I remember him coming sideways out of the water, thrashing on his side across the surface. But he was to my left and I was reeling straight back off the back of boat. That meant there was a lot of slack out there. “Reel! Reel! No slack!”

I kept trying to reel, but because I was so groggy when I sat down, I think I burned out a lot of energy by not using the rod efficiently. I my left bicep was screaming. The reel was slippery in my sweaty puffy right fist and the sun was abusing me. I kept trying to force the reel to rotate one more time, but it wouldn’t budge. The fish wasn’t taking line, but I wasn’t gaining any either.

Then I started using the rod: slowly up; reel fast down. It’s way more efficient. I started gaining line, but one of the mates was yelling at me to “Reel more good!” I wasn’t guiding the line with my thumb like I was supposed to and the spool was bulging in the middle. If the line accumulates in one place, it will get caught on the reel guards. He started helping me mend the line as I reeled in. I was totally exhausted and wondered if I was going to be able to make the whole fight. I asked if anyone else wanted a turn. Ken shouted encouragement, “This is your fish, man!”

I kept reeling and raising the rod; reeling and raising the rod. Then he jumped again, and I was so disappointed to see that he was still way out there. I kept reeling and raising. Reeling and raising.

Then he went on a run. The line whizzed out faster and faster. Whzzzzzzzzzzzzz! More and more line whizzed off the reel. What a terrible sound! The line started to get caught in one of it’s own loops and the guys were trying to fix it as the line was tearing off the reel. When it looked like the line was going to catch and snap, they both covered their heads and ducked to the side. I looked down at the reel and saw the loop tight around the line and just stared, thinking about how these guys, with all their experience were trying to protect themselves from the impending lashing of the line as it snaps.

But it stopped. I started cranking and raising the rod. The captain maneuvered the boat and started gaining line again. One mate helped me guide the line and Ken swung the fighting chair to keep me facing the fish. I gained more and more line until the two mates put their gloves on and started looking for the fish. I reeled and reeled. I couldn’t reel any more. The mates were wrestling and grabbing at the side of the boat. I tried to reel and noticed that the clip was at the end of the rod. I couldn’t reel anymore. It was here. The fish was at the boat. A what? A marlin?

A hint of his head and he was gone. He threw the hook at the boat. The first mate put his hand to his head, grimaced and turned quietly back around.

“That counts, he was at the boat,” the captain shouted. Everyone was talking, excited. I was stunned. I shook both mates hands, “Gracias.”

It was the hardest fish I had ever fought.

The captain said it was a 8.5 foot marlin. About 230 pounds.

It may have counted, but I don’t feel like I caught him. I never saw him up close. I didn’t see his eye. I didn’t touch him. I went home sweaty and tired, but my hands didn’t smell of fish.

Nothing else happened for the rest of the day, except we got to see a pod of feeding dolphins (google video).

Continue reading the next entry, Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs.

Did you miss the previous entry? Go back and read Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!.

More in this series:

• Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing
• Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental
• Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife
• Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!
• Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo
• Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs
• Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water…
• Costa Rica, Day 7: The Congo Trail Canopy Tour

Today we took a tour to Palo Verde National Park in Costa Rica. I’m not sure what I expected, but when we talked to the agent from Swiss Travel, she did tell us the trip would be a bus ride to a river ride, with a Costa Rican lunch. I think we were expecting the National Park to be more green. But as we are discovering, the Pacific side of Costa Rica has two seasons: rainy or dry. We are visiting during the dry season.

We took a bus down the Pan-American Highway, or Costa Rica’s Highway 1, to an entrance to the National Park where we could get on the river boats. The entrance was tucked in behind a little village on some back streets. Someone from the tour commented that you never know where you’ll find the entrance to a National Park.

Our guide, Ronald, was very entertaining on the ride down. He gave us a very PR-like history of Costa Rica, when they disbanded their army, how they spend their money, why corruption lead to the Pan-American Highway being in such poor condition, etc. It was very interesting even though it seemed designed to explain away the apparently low housing quality around us. It’s not as bad as the housing we saw in Jamaica, but many people on the tour were commenting about how the people were living in … squalid … conditions. I didn’t think it looked as bad as they were making it sound, but the homes are small and the yards are little more than dirt. Of course the entire countryside is little more than scrub and dirt and parts of the Southwestern United States look very much like this landscape. But the homes are larger and everyone has at least one car in the US. Here in Costa Rica, many people seem to rely on the bus system.

We rode this boat downriver with Moises, aka “eagle eyes”, piloting the boat and Ronald helping to describe the wildlife and the ecosystem. It wasn’t too difficult to spot most of the wildlife. I have been birdwatching for many years, and I can easily spot a heron or anhinga. Once you see an iguana or two in a tree or along the river, you can find them quickly, too. And the crocodiles make themselves known, even if you don’t see them basking, you’re bound to notice them sliding into the water if you are at least looking around – which not everyone was doing. But that doesn’t mean Moises was called “eagle eyes” for nothing.

Moises was able to spot Yellow Crowned Night Herons and Black Crowned Night Herons roosting in branches, partially obscured by the thick foliage. He spotted the lazy Howler Monkeys and he shouted for us to look at the quick moving White Faced Capucin Monkeys. He saw the line of Long Nosed Bats roosting in a pattern like snake on the trunk of an overhanging tree. He spotted a Collared Forest Falcon in the brush behind a troop of Howler Monkeys, and a Black Hawk stalking the grass along the bank.

The most remarkable thing he noticed, though, was a sound. He recognized a seemingly random noise as a frog croaking in distress. He turned the boat around and drifted toward some overhanging trees. As we got closer, a green heron flew up out of the brush with a frog hanging out of both sides of it’s beak. We never would have seen that without his experience.

We asked Ronald to translate a question about how many times Moises had been down the river. He said he has been doing it for 16 years, every day of the week. Now that is experience!

We had a little incident where my wife’s hat blew off into the river. A 3 meter crocodile had just submerged in the area and we had written off the hat. But, the hat floated, bill side up. So, Moises turned the boat around and Ronald leaned out of the boat to retrieve her hat. She said she is never going to wash it because it has a little bit of Costa Rica in it.

Our list of animals seen is: Howler Monkeys, White Faced Capucin Monkeys, Green Iguanas, Black Iguanas, Crocodiles, Jesus Christ Lizard (Basilisk Lizard), Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, Tiger Heron, Mangrove Swallows, Yellow Crowned Night Herons, Black Crowned Night Herons, Boat billed Herons, Social Flycatcher, Cattle Egrets, Ringed Kingfisher, Blue winged Teals, Black Vultures, Wood Storks, Collard Forest Falcon, Black Hawk and Long Nosed Bats.

Lunch was served back on shore at the park entrance. We had grilled chicken with a local sauce, rice and beans, and some cabbage salad with watermelon as a desert. It was really good.

We also learned about Pura Vida, today. Apparently the phrase Pura Vida is used as a kind of greeting/positive saying to mean “life is good”. My understanding is that you would greet someone with Pura Vida and then ask how they are doing, instead of Buenos Dias or something else. And you can respond with Pura Vida, too. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it, but it’s spelled out on all of the touristy stuff.

Continue reading the next entry, Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo.

Did you miss the previous entry? Go back and read Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife.

More in this series:

• Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing
• Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental
• Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife
• Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!
• Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo
• Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs
• Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water…
• Costa Rica, Day 7: The Congo Trail Canopy Tour

We woke up early this morning to the sounds of birds in the trees outside our room. Being good bird watchers, we scrambled outside and were greeted by a cacophony of bird calls. We didn’t recognize any at the time, but we made some mental notes and decided to get a Costa Rica Bird Guide as soon as the resort gift shop opened. Later on, we figured out that we saw Magpie Jays, Groove Billed Anis, White Winged Doves, Orange Chinned Parakeets, Great Tailed Grackles, and a Streaked Back Oriole.

A few weeks ago, I sold my telephoto lenses to buy a new short telephoto lens, and I am missing them. The new lens is great, but I have no range to get a close photo of the birds, so the Magpie Jay above is a cropped image.

We strolled around the grounds and found more birds before working our way down to the beach. At the beach, some of the resort staff showed us our first Howler Monkey. He was just slowly eating his way across a tree limb. I had been warned that they like to pee on you if you get too close. It didn’t happen, but I tried to stay clear of the pee-zone.

While I was taking photographs of him, there was a distant sound like what I remember a howler monkey sounding like. The monkey in front of me stopped eating for a moment while the other monkeys howled. Then he went right back to business.

We made our way to the breakfast buffet and ran into some people from our group who said they were going to take one of the rental cars to Coco Beach (Playa del Coco). We weren’t sure about whether we wanted to do that today, but we agreed to go. We heard from some of the staff that nothing would be open on Sunday, but it was only an 8 minute drive to the beach. In the end we decided that we wouldn’t go today, but maybe a different day when things were open. When everyone got back, they had gotten lost for a while and found the shops were open anyway. Oh well, live and learn.

We picked up a slim book called Photographic Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica. There was a larger book, A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, that seemed more thorough, but we decided against it because we weren’t sure how much we would need it (we didn’t even bring binoculars on this trip) and we didn’t want to lug around such a large book.

Later on, when we got back to our room, we found three more howler monkeys lounging in the trees. One was a little baby clinging to his mothers back. The photos didn’t come out very well though.

Continue reading the next entry, Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!.

Did you miss the previous entry? Go back and read Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental.

More in this series:

• Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing
• Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental
• Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife
• Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!
• Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo
• Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs
• Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water…
• Costa Rica, Day 7: The Congo Trail Canopy Tour

We are staying at Grand Papagayo by Occidental in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Guanacaste is the Northern Pacific side of Costa Rica; just South of Nicaragua.

The flight from Atlanta to Liberia was excellent. We saw some movie about the Royals in England that I didn’t find very interesting. The flight was comfortable and easy though. We had a great view of the Florida Keys, Cuba and when we were landing we saw Lake Nicaragua, in Nicaragua. The lake is enormous (we heard the lake was anything between 2nd and 7th largest lake in the world. It may be, but Wikipedia has Lake Nicaragua as the 13th largest lake by surface area).

Two remarkable things I noticed while landing: there is a large mountain range buried in clouds and the land looks very much like parts of West Texas or Arizona’s hill country. There is a lot of brown landscape, but it’s obviously heavily agricultural. You can see the classic patchwork overhead while landing in Liberia.

Oh, another thing I noticed, the airport is small and the field around it is on fire. Also, the waiting area is open to the runway. There is no wall. Security is around, but it’s open air with a giant, giant fan that is not rotating.

Inside, or outside actually, we went through immigration and got our passport visas and luggage. You have to fill out some forms on the plane and show them as part of the process of entering the country.

Outside was a mob of people holding placards for rental cars and travel agencies. We were only asked once where we were going, no one really bothered us, but the sheer number of people pressing around the exit area was really overwhelming at first. Once we stepped through the crowd we noticed everyone was pretty much just holding up a sign, not shouting, not bothering anyone. It was so laid back, it was actually hard to get people to help you out. We had some trouble finding an Adobe Rental Car (Latin America’s version of Alamo Rental Car) agent to straighten out the confusion over the vehicles that were supposed to be waiting for our group. A brief stop at the local Adobe office, a six pack of Imperial and we were off on our own.

If you have visited Latin America or the Caribbean, you’ve seen the houses. They aren’t made of wood. They are made of a much more practical cinder-block construction. No termites are known to eat concrete. Also, it’s not legal to just chop down wood, even on your property. You need a permit and have to replace what you take, apparently. At least that is what I hear.

Our hotel was very easy to find and we only stopped once for directions. Everyone is very kind and relaxed. Very helpful. This experience is already much nicer than the constant drug offers in Jamaica.

On the way, we saw a Caracara hovering over the road between some cane fields. I recognized it but was unable to confirm my identification without a bird book or another birder. My wife wasn’t sure. We also saw three unmistakable horses just hanging out in the middle of the road.

The hotel seems nice and everyone is friendly. The resort overlooks Playa Buena and the Papagayo Gulf. It’s kind of windy and warm. Not too warm.

Our room is nice. It has a king size bed and a nice view over the Papagayo Gulf and a bit of the Pacific Ocean. In the fridge are only two water bottles, an Ice Tea and a Mango Juice. In the bathroom is one cake of soap, one washcloth and one coffee mug. There is cable TV with Spanish and English channels, but the room is lacking Wi-Fi, or an ethernet connection.

The buffet was really good and we plan to make reservations for the two restaurants and plan some trips through the travel companies on the resort.

Continue reading the next entry, Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife.

Did you miss the previous entry? Go back and read Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing.

More in this series:

• Costa Rica, Day 1:The Value of Travel Clothing
• Costa Rica, Day 1: First Impressions of Guanacaste and Grand Papagayo Resort by Occidental
• Costa Rica, Day 2: An introduction to Costa Rican wildlife
• Costa Rica, Day 3: Palo Verde National Park, Pura Vida!
• Costa Rica, Day 4: Sportfishing trip out of Tamarindo
• Costa Rica, Day 5: Arenal Volcano, the Cloud Forest and Tabacon Hot Springs
• Costa Rica, Day 6: We don’t need no water…
• Costa Rica, Day 7: The Congo Trail Canopy Tour