Today was another day for adventure. We decided to take another forest walk, but this time we hired a guide. We headed off to the "Santuario Ecologico", one of the many wild life reserves here. Our guide was fantastic, took his time and explained many of the plants, tree's and more that we passed. If I had a pen and paper on our walk I would be able to tell you about them all, but alas my memory is not so good. I do remember the leaf cutter ants. We saw them all in a line, marching with their huge leafs. They actually make there own trails in the forests! The queen lives between 15 and 20 years, and continuously makes more workers and soldiers. The soldiers ants watch out for predators, and the indigenous people use the soldiers to stitch up cuts (kind of like going to the doctor and getting stitches, but they use the soldier ants. There bite is so strong and powerful, once they latch on, they cut off the bodies, and they will stay latched on!) Also we saw their home (ant hill), it's HUGE, and they have little tunnels going from their trails, into the ant hill.... very tricky! The walk totaled around 2 hours, and it was great. But I think the best part was finding a two toed sloth and it's baby. These animals are nocturnal, so it was really cool to see it during the day. We stopped and stared at it for more than 20 minutes, just crawling up the tree with it's little baby, having a snack. Sloths eat leafs, about 50 different types of leaf - so they aren't too picky. It was crazy incredible. There were times when it would just stop, and they would both turn around and look at us. Very cool. Our guide told us that the mother is pregnant for around 11 months, and stay's with it's baby for about 2 years, after that the mother gives up her territory to her child and finds a new one for herself. Self-less mothers all around the world!!!
Friday, November 23, 2007
Hello Santa Elena and Monteverde!
We woke up this beautiful morning to the fresh air of the mountains and the view to the Ocean was stunning. After a nice breakfast Chris thought it would be a great idea to go to the cloud forest and look around. Instead of waiting 45 minutes for the free shuttle we took a taxi the 25 minute drive further up the mountain.
The cloud forest here is approximately 1600 feet in elevation and is shrouded in mist for 9 months out of the year. This mountainous forest straddles the continental divide. Stevlatura offers canopy zip lines, sky walks, butterfly museum, hummingbird gardens, and an insect and reptile home. Today wasn't too sunny so the reception advised us not to bother with the butterflies, and the kids being so young and small we didn't attempt the zip-lines. But we did do all the rest. We started with the suspension bridges. There were 8 suspension bridges (totaling just over 770 meters) all along the 2.5 kilometer hike through the cloud forest. It was so interesting, the leaves of the trees arrange themselves to capture the sunlight without shading the others so that you can't see the forest floor from the bridges. I'm not sure how high we walked up, but we did quite a hike. I felt a little cheated not having a guide for the sky walk - I'm sure that we walked by many incredible things that were naked to the tourist eye, but it was fantastic none the less. We saw amazing, one of a kind breathtaking views, birds all over the place, and flowers through out the walk. We didn't see any monkey's, spiders, snakes, frogs or birds that we could recognize - but that doesn't mean they weren't there! I think the walk took us around 2 hours. We took our time, and had a lot of fun. Callym actually walked the entire way and said it was his favorite part of the day. The fresh air was so invigorating and made you just feel like you were a part of something special. It was hard once we came to the last bridge and knew it was almost over, I wanted to keep walking.... but there was more to see, and we were getting hungry.
We stopped into the restaurant there and ordered some delicious pizza a few fanta's and a coke. After lunch we headed off to the the humming bird gardens. It was very similar to the one we went to at Laz Paz Waterfalls, but it was smaller, and somehow had many more birds. We actually got very very close to the hummingbirds without scaring them off. The only drawback here was the enormous amount of wasps, they like the sugar water too. After that we waited for our guide to take us to the insect and reptile museums. The reptiles were both interesting, educational and disgusting! They had many different species both venomous and non. We learned how to tell the difference between the two as well, Quick Lesson: If you see a snake with small scales on it's head, and eyes like a cat (meaning that they have the vertical black colored slit in the center of it's eye, walk back slowly and once you are more than 2 meters away..... RUN). If the snake you come across has large scales on the top of it's head and it's eye's are more like a humans (meaning for one, there is no similarity to a cat's eye, and it has more of a round dark color in the center of it's eye), you should be ok, it is not venomous. One snake they have in a large cage is the 'bushmaster'. This is a snake that even the most experienced snake-man (or woman) will fear. This snake is not only extremely venomous (it can kill you with one bite, and if you do not die quickly, you will most likely need that limb to be amputated), but it is also very aggressive, and will seek you out to attack! Wonderful, but on a happier note, most of the venomous snakes are also nocturnal, so if you go out at night just make a lot of noise, or stay in well lit areas. BUSHMASTER..........
On to less scary reptiles. We finished that tour off with some toads, frogs, and lizards. We saw the Jesus Christ Lizard (it's actual name), named because it can run on water. The famous Iguana (the largest lizard in C.R., and apparently eaten by many people here - they taste like chicken!), The poisonous dart frogs (Callym's favorite is the blue jeans frog) - These are called Poisonous dart frogs because the indigenous people use to catch these frogs and lay there darts on the backs of the frogs to coat it with it's poison, this in turn would kill any animal that they shot with there darts. There are very poisonous to the touch (you need to wear gloves if you want to touch them), and they get there poison by eating ants. We also saw a toad, the same one that Callym saw hopping across the roadway in the dark in Brasilito. This toad secretes a white poison out his neck glands, when you come in contact with this it is more like a hallucinatory drug, some people, we are told, lick these frogs to 'see things'. (remember the lady kissing the toad and seeing a prince, this is the toad!).
Ok, so enough of that, we headed off to the insects. If you ask me, we should have stopped there, but we went on. Richard Witter is the collector of over a million insects from all around the world. He has many museums filled with creepy crawlers (we saw none that we still alive, so that made it a little better). None the less, all the spiders, scorpions, killer bees, cockroaches, beetles and other flying things made you feel at times that they were crawling all over you. I won't get into the details too much, but basically the bigger the insect, the less likely it is to be dangerous. Most tarantulas do not have poison, there hair will irritate you and their bite will hurt, but that's about the extent. Same for the scorpions, the large ones hurt when they bite you, but the one the size of an adult index finger (small eh?) can kill a human with their poison. We saw many extinct and near to extinct butterflies, bed bugs that can make you very sick, shiny beetles that looked like solid gold, walking sticks, and more. Needless to say, I was glad once we got out.
We made the 3 pm shuttle back into town and stayed for a nice snack. We walked around a little, and decided to check out the night tour for the frogs. Many of the really cool frogs are nocturnal, so this was a great chance to see them. We've seen many frogs before, actually we've seen them all, but being nocturnal we never got to really see them. Example, the red eyed tree frog just looks like a green blog on a leaf when it's sleeping, but when awake you see all of it's bright blue, orange and green colors, not to mention it's red eyes! This tour was really cool, and the boys loved it, and once we were leaving one of my demented dreams came true...... Right there, by the entrance doors and somewhat hiding beside the huge bag of coffee was a tarantula. A real one in the 'wild'!!! Granted, this one was only about the size of 2 loonies put together, but there it was. And I felt happy that I finally had the chance to see one up close. After all of this we headed back to the hotel to change and do a bit of relaxing. Santa Elena is an extremely beautiful place. It makes you feel alive with it's views and it's air. I wish we had more time here.
Good-Bye Brasilito....
Our last night in Brasilito was great. We actually met a Swedish family of 4 (their kids were young like ours), doing a 6 month stint of traveling. They arrived in Costa Rica, and were going to go to Nicaragua, Panama, and Fiji. A great thing to do! During our talks they mentioned loving Thailand and it made me think again how much I would love to go there for a while (long while) and explore that part of the world. Maybe that will be next? Who knows. They have a blog going as-well, but it's in Swedish, I think we will keep in touch with them. We had a nice dinner, and headed off to bed. Our driver was to pick us up around 10 am the next morning and we weren't yet packed. No problem tho, we were getting to be pro's at packing. Monteverde and Santa Elena here we come!!
It felt like a treat to be heading off to the mountains again. Being Canadian, it feels more like home than the sea. Ah, the fresh air, jungle and more. We couldn't wait. Actually, Oscar and I were almost craving it. I think the heat was getting to both of us, me going 'crazy', and poor Oscar would sweat just sitting under a fan! So 10 am rolls around and we're ready and waiting. 10:30 comes and goes. 11 am. During this time the fumigators have come around and are spraying for Dengue mosquitos. Chris yells to the boys to get into the hotel room and close all the windows. It's not really poison that they use, but exhaust fumes. Same difference eh? So as we're hiding from the fumes, Chris is calling to see what's up with our driver. It seems our driver didn't get in until midnight the night before and didn't check his messages, so he didn't know he had to drive us. Not a problem, he would be there in 20 minutes. As we were waiting again, Kwan (the chef at the restaurant), came by to talk with the boys, he really liked the kids, and wanted to buy them some ice-cream before we left. Everyone was so nice to our kids, and took a great liking to them on the first day.
Anyways, our driver came, and we were off. We wanted the boys to sleep during the trip, for one because it's quieter and easier to travel that way, and two so they wouldn't be car sick (once was enough). So they slept. The drive was great. Scenic and calming. At one point we even had a paved road with a center line (the first time I remember!). But then, just as the boys woke up the road took a turn. Bumps, potholes twice the size of our van, and mud everywhere. Up to this point we were making great time, but now I was worried, we only had 34 km to go, how long would this take? Well, the answer is 65 minutes!!! Once we got even closer to the hotel there was one hill we started sliding down, and so we had to turn around and go another way. But we made it and it was better than beautiful. It was heaven.
Now I hate sounding like a broken record, but....... I love this place. I've said it before I know, but I do. It's so different. It's the mountains, and the jungle all put together. We even have a view of the Ocean from our hotel room. (be wary of buying ocean view properties, this could be it, 4 hours away from the sea ha ha !!) I really can't wait to explore this place, and we're all a little sad already that we only have 3 nights here, a week would have been much nicer. But then again we are at Arenal Volcano after this, so it should be great too. The one thing I am regretting now is that I got rid of all but one long sleeve shirt and all of my sweaters in Nosara. Long sleeve shirts I though, who needs them here? Opps, I may be doing a little shopping. At least I saved 2 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of long pants (and the kids are alright, we have sweaters, pants, socks and raincoats for them, don't worry mom's!)
Alright, enough for now, The hotel is amazing, the restaurant for once since Heredia has fair priced food, and it looks like we're going to have a great time doing some exploring. Talk with you all soon. All our love, The Lukies!
Just a quick note....
our blog is still the same, I have just changed it from " Our Dream " to "This train is bound for glory" . Very significant. If you were at our wedding, or have heard of Sublime, this was our wedding song, and both Chris and I love the words. It has come to mean a lot to the two of us. When we are going through trying times, one or the other of us will always say ..... This train is bound for glory...... and it somehow makes us feel so much better.
Anyways, rambling here..... I hope you all keep enjoying the blogs, and keep emailing us too! We love to hear how it's going there! Love you all,
The Lukies!
p.s I'm catching up right now due to the lack of internet, so there will be a few new blogs up today.
