Costa Rica, Day Four: August 18, 2014
Palo Verde National Park.
Awake at 1:00 am to use newly restored iPad hotspot to do church work.
Up with the sun and hiked up the 4 flights of stairs to wait for the bus to pick up up at 7:00 am. We saw lots more damage from rocks falling in the night.
We rode for a couple hours until we reached the small town of Filadelfia. We waited outside the park for quite a while for 2 women and a young baby. They would accompany us for the rest of the trip.
On the way to our main event, we passed several soccer games and a LOT of sugar fields. We passed El Viejo Mill (Azucarera El Viejo, S.A), a Costa Rican company dedicated to growing sugar cane and sugar production. The company annually produces 50 thousand tons of sugar in the forms of raw, white, and special; by the industrial processing of half a million tonnes of cane grown by over 500 farmers in the Tempisque Basin. The sugar here in Costa Rica goes mainly to the Coca-Cola Company and for producing energy. I was very surprised that there was no rum production like in Barbados and other sugar-growing countries.
After many dirt roads, we stopped at the Palo Verde Restaurant and had juices and coffee while we waited for others to arrive. Since we were going to Palo Verde, I assumed (you know what they say about assuming!) we were close to beginning our trip. Well, no. Back on the busses. More narrow dirt roads.
Finally, we got to the Temique River and into our small boat. One of the women getting in commented to Michael that she had sat behind him in the plane from New York. Small world.
Right off the bat (no pun intended!) we saw these weird little bats. They line up on a tree and pretend to be a snake, even moving slightly to simulate a snake writhing.
We saw lots of white-faced capuchin monkeys – several came right inside the boat. The Capuchin monkey is named after the order of Capuchin friars – the cowls of these friars closely resemble the monkey’s head coloration. I’ll bet those friars are happy to hear this!
Also, we saw Jesus Christ lizards, so nicknamed for their ability to run on water at an average speed of 8.4 km/h (or 5.2 mph), for about 10 to 20 meters.
We saw lots and lots of iguanas of various colors, in the trees, on the ground.
We also saw something that looked like a hawk but were told it was a black vulture. We also saw blue heron, egrets, and of course, crocodiles. The crocks saw we were there and slowly circled our boat.
In the photos below, the guide is showing us a huge grasshopper with red underwings.
After our boat tour, we went back to the Palo Verde Restaurant for what is called a “tipical meal”. We had Casados (black beans and rice) with chicken, beef, salad, fried plantains, white cheese and corn tortilla. Casado, the name referring to the eternal “marriage” of the beans and rice.
A l-o-n-g bus ride and we were home again, ready to rest up for the next day!
My pictures:
Costa Rica, Day Three: August 17, 2014
We all woke up early since the sun rises early. Still no Internet. It was Sunday so we figured it might come back sometime on Monday…maybe. We went down to the tour desk to see if there were any partial day tours for today and full-day ones for tomorrow. The ATV won for today, leaving at 1:00. But first, breakfast in the little restaurant here.
I remembered that we had that other Internet outside Brian’s office and went outside there to log my iPad on with WiFi so I could give AT&T a pile more money and I could get more Global Data, just in case. Sneaky, huh? Turned out, it wouldn’t start until midnight on the 18th, but better than nothing!
Our driver came about 1:00 and we headed off for the ATV trip. This turned out to be a place that also has ziplines and such. We met up with another couple, Tony and Donna, before we headed off up and down unpaved, rut-filled “roads” When we left the Congo Trail Canopy place we visited two beaches: Penca Beach with white sand and Potreros Bay with dark sand), and had snacks at a beach bar. Michael later commented that we learned a lot about operating an ATV but nothing about Costa Rica. True!
Back “home” and found the elevators had signs on them that they weren’t working. Surprise! Tom and Michael went out for Subway subs. When they got back, there was a huge rainstorm and loud booms. We looked out and some of the rocks were coming off our mountain. Great – landslide!
We played some of the games I’d downloaded last night, then early bed. Tomorrow is an early day.