A Day Tour in Costa Rica

 

A large coffee plantation on our way up the mountain

So finally with my dental work about done and school over, I signed up for a tour to get out of town and do some sight seeing. I had try' d to do one the first weekend I was here but the bus was an hour late and I ended up going home. The following weekend was just rain, and now I had to try to at least get out and see something before I left. I would have done more tours but the weather has just been rain, and more rain. This is the rainy season for the Caribbean and the Central Valley where San Jose is, but the locals say they never get rain like this, and for them, very cold. Sometimes in the 40's (Fahrenheit) at night.

This was our first stop on our way up to see the Volcano. A gift store with this farmer and his oxen who charged $1 a photo (I didn't pay)

One of the reasons I wanted my bike down here was to be able to do day tours. But because of poor weather, being busy anyway with school and the dentist, the heavy traffic and poorly marked roads, not to mention it being dark by 6:00 every night, it seemed easier and safer to sign up for some tours. I think if the weather would have been better I would have got out more then I did, and did some exploring. But still finding your way around down here when there are no street signs and your right in the middle of a big city does tend to make the most routine trip become an adventure.

So I signed up for what is called The Highlights Tour. An 11 hour bus ride originating in San Jose that included a trip up to Poas Volcano, a visit to a Butterfly farm and Botanical Gardens. Also the La Paz waterfalls and then down to the lowlands to take a boat ride thru the Sarapiqui Jungle.

I forgot the name of these common flowers , but they were all over the back yard at our first stop.

The bus picked me up at Intensa (my school) about 6:30  am. After about 3 or 4 more stops at local hotels we were on our way. We had a pretty full bus and our guide spoke both Spanish and English. In fact everything he said, he said twice, once in each language. Our group included five younger kids from the Houston area , though they were really from all over. Argentina, Syria, Japan and the states. With couples from Connecticut , Florida and El Salvador. There was also an 84 year Finland man who immediately after stepping on the bus introduced himself as "Elja from Finland" to the whole bus. That out of the way, he sat down. I noticed he had a Harley Davidson signea on his sweater and I wondered if he maybe was a fellow motorcycle traveler.

As we wound our way out of the Central Valley as its called, the big valley that runs thru the middle of the country and has San Jose, Costa Rica's largest city in it, we immediately began to get really great views of the valley. We made one stop at a tourist shop which was owned by the coffee plantation, got some photo's of a farmer and his oxen, and then continued on our way. Soon we stopped at another shop and had breakfast. Here I would get a chance to talk more with Elja, and also to talk to the couple from Connecticut.

A traditional Costa Rican Breakfast of Rice and Beans, scrambled eggs, bread, fried banana's and coffee

It turns out Elja was planning on buying a Harley Davidson in the states and then driving it down to Argentina. But one of the things about buying a bike in many countries and then trying to take it out is you have to have owned it for 6 months, something he wasn't planning on. So after arriving in the states and finding that out he decided to just travel the whole way on bus, plane and boat. After arriving in Argentina he was planning on trying to get a cabin on a freighter heading back to Europe, or there a bouts, a month and a half trip.

This Tree Sloth was on the side of the road as we rode by. Its was so wet, like everything else up here, it looks like it never gets a chance to dry out.

Elja kind of reminded me in ways of Bob Able, a guy many of us in Alaska met when we first moved up there. Legend had it, or at least Bob did anyway, that along with his wolf dog they both had walked the entire length of the Alaska Highway. This was back in the 70's, and there was even a write up in one of the local papers about it. Bob himself smoked and drank, and there were times he would dance the night away with us youngsters, sometimes clutching at his heart when it became too much. Sometimes we really thought it was going to be "Bob's last dance". His wolfdog "Lucky" would always be waiting for him outside the bar. Bob would often tell us that wolfs don't make good sled dogs because they don't have enough breadth in their chest and lung capacity. One of those things I always remember, probably because of the person who told me... Anyway, Elja wasn't exactly Bob, but I think they're both adventurers who always will be, regardless of their age.

I asked him if he had family and he told me he had two daughters living back in Finland. At 84 to try and take a Harley all the way to Argentina, and not speak Spanish either, I had to kind of wonder. Yet here I am doing close to the same, just a little younger. It left me not knowing what to think. On the one hand isn't it great someone would not let their age stop them and here he was at 84 traveling the world. On the other hand I had to wonder if he really knew what he was getting into and his limits. If nothing else, at least buy a smaller bike and learn Spanish, and always have an emergency plan, which he may or may not have had. I did want to ask him what his daughters thought of him traveling alone like this, but never got the chance.....

Elja from Finland. Traveling alone at 84, I had respect for him, I also feared a little for him.

The couple we had breakfast with were from Connecticut and were just down for the Thanksgiving weekend. They both seemed to do a lot of traveling having been all over the world. She was from the Philippines and was going to law school and writing a book (as she traveled) about accounting for lawyers. I'm not sure what he did. It seemed they just traveled whenever they had time for it, just sort of fitting it in with their days off, study, or whatever. It was like it was a priority in their lives as much as school, work or any other activity was.

Our first goal was to reach the top of Poas Volcano, while not active with lava, it never the less sends out a lot of steam and sulfur dioxide creating acid rains that affect a lot of the surrounding area. It also has one of the largest craters of any volcano on earth, nearly a mile across while lying deep in a cloud forest, something it probably creates for itself by holding in the clouds. Its kind of like trying to see Mt. McKinley (Denali) in Alaska, there are no guarantees of seeing it when you visit it, or any of the volcano's in this country when you go on the tours. 

The Poas National Park Visitor Center, and the trail leading to the crater.

Our guide leading our group (he's ahead of the group on the right)

The farther up the mountain we got, the cloudier it became. The road was very winding and it had steep drop offs to the sides. To not be able to see anything up here was a little unnerving. Our guide talked about the "acid rains" that come from the volcano itself and effects so much life, vegetable and animal, around the summit. Some of the huge leaves of plants up here had built such a resistance to the rain that they were a quarter inch thick, and like rubber. As we continued on the walkway to the crater it continued to mist and rain. It reminded me of the Pacific Northwest Rainforests, except here was warmer. It also like there, at times looked like the place doesn't actually ever dry out. Everything just looks like its continually wet. In fact the rainy season is about 9 months long here, kind of like the winter in Alaska, just a different type of extreme.

 

Here I am at the crater, I don't know what I"m grinning about, its raining and you can't see a thing.

Here's the view of the crater, completely clouded in, its down there somewhere!

The jungle was so fertile, humans seemed to be sprouting out from underneath the foliage.

 So as we made our way down from the Volcano and got on the bus, we headed for out next stop, the La Paz Butterfly farm and Botanical Gardens. The rain and mist wasn't letting up, and we could barely see as we drove thru the clouds again.

The path thru the La Paz gardens

The screened in bird area in the gardens

Arriving at the gardens we did a walk thru the bird area (a big fenced in area that houses several species of birds, which is also next to the fenced in monkey area) and I got some photos of the Macaw's and Parrot's that are housed there. After that the path led us into the Butterfly farm and housing area. This is a big glassed in area, filled with many species of butterflies, everything from Monarchs to the famous Blue Maroth's (don't know if I got that spelling right). Also there were rows and rows of cocoons in various stages of their molting cycle. The guide said it was too cold for them to come out of their cocoons, but on a sunny day they would hatch, or come out into the warmth as butterflies.

Part of the Butterfly farms enclosure

The butterfly nursery

The infamous, Blue Maroth

Another one of our "butterfly hosts". Their were hundreds flying everywhere.

After we left the butterfly farm it was time for lunch. This time I sat down with Elja, the couple from Connecticut and the 5 kids from Houston. While most of them seemed to be just living in Houston, not going to school as I thought, they were still from all over. Mo Mo was from Syria and was very interested in my trip. He himself wanted to take the overland route to India thru the middle east, and wanted to know where he could find information about the trip. He apparently had refused to go into the army in Syria (a requirement for all male citizens I guess) almost 10 years ago and was considered a deserter. He had not been back since though apparently after 10 years he could return now if he wanted to. I told him that was pretty rough, but he said he didn't hardly know anyone there anymore anyway.

There were the two Asian ladies, and the guy from Argentina and the other one that I really didn't get a chance to talk to. They were all traveling together and had to leave to go back to Texas on Sunday.

The lunch was all you could eat and had a variety ranging from hot dogs and pizza, to salad, roasted chicken, of course rice and beans, and a really good rice pudding for desert. Elja had a couple of beers while he was there, he wasn't doing all the hiking we were, he was getting rides ahead of us and meeting us at different spots. He told us he had been trying to talk to the table full of nuns sitting next to our table but they all spoke Italian and he wasn't getting anywhere! He said he wasn't sure if they were from Italy, but they sure spoke like it!

These Rhinoceros Beetles are native to Costa Rica as well, they are about the size of your hand.

This whatever it was, was over a foot long. Costa Rica has more of a variety of animal life then any other place on the planet, over 600 different species live here.

So after a really good lunch, and a walk thru the reptile and insect house, we began the long hike down to check out the La Paz water falls. The day was only half over and we had already seen quite a bit, or like up at the volcano in the clouds, saw a lot of nothing!

See you Monday (Lunes) for more jungle adventures...