Canopy Bridge Hike

Today we went to Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges near the Arenal Volcano. It was really cloudy around the volcano, so we couldn't see it. There were 14 bridges in total, and some of them were swinging while others were in place. The whole walk was 2 miles long, and the bridges crossed over rivers, some 48 meters below. The longest bridge was 97 meters long, and it was a swinging bridge. Some of the bridges were so long and high that they were scary to look down from. There was also a short pass off of the trail that led to a waterfall which was really pretty. There was a lookout platform that was perfect for taking pictures from. There were many animals along the path. We saw lots of birds, an eyelash pit viper, spider monkeys(a mother, father, and baby), and a colorful bird, possibly the rare Quetzal. The pit viper was an orangey-red color, and was all curled up on a twig, sleeping. There are supposedly lots of snakes in the rainforest, so we were told to stay on the path and not touch any plants. We only saw the one pit viper though. There were so many different plants that we saw walking on the path. There is this one tree that is everywhere in Costa Rica. It is nicknamed the "Walking Tree" because it has really long roots that slowly grow downward and outward over time, moving the tree. There were a lot of those trees on the hike. There are also lots of vines and moss growing from trees because of the humidity. It rains almost everyday, sometimes more than once. After taking showers, we hang out towels under the porch to dry, and they get wetter than when we hung them out in the first place! After the bridges, William showed us an old sugar cane press that extracts the juice from a sugar cane stalk. First, he gave us a little piece to suck on, and it was so sweet. Then, he had Lincoln hold a can under the shoot for when the juice came out. He took a thick sugar cane stalk and pressed it through the machine a few times. The juice went through the press and into the can. It was really sweet and had a great flavor. He sent a little bit of juice home with us to drink, but it was so sweet that we couldn't finish it. It was really cool to see how people long ago used to make sweetener for their foods.

An eyelash pit viper that we wouldn't have found without the help of a tour group.

William, Lincoln, and Mac pressing the sugar can and turning it into juice.

Waterfall Hike and Mineral Pools

Earlier this morning, the property manager and guide of the eco lodge, William, took us on a long hike to two different small waterfalls in the jungle. He showed us so many different plants, fruits, and trees that I would have never noticed if we were by ourselves. We tried wild fruits and herbs while climbing down steep, muddy steps made with bamboo. The first waterfall that we came to was about 40-50 feet, but it wasn't that wide. I could stand under it without the pressure being to hard. We hiked up the stream to get to the water fall, and it was really strong water. Right before the waterfall we had to almost rock climb because the stream was so steep. We made it to the top, though, and it felt good to stand under the cool water. Next, William took us to a spring-fed swimming pool that didn't have chlorine in it. The pool had lost and broken some of its tiles, so we had to where our shoes. It didn't seem like a swimming pool because we were surrounded by exotic plants and fruits. Many of Costa Rica's native plants are house plants that you find and buy in the U.S. After the swimming pool, William took us to the second waterfall. It wasn't as big as the other one but it was easier to get to. I took a shower under that one too! Later in the day, we went to Baldy Mineral Pools, supposedly the largest hot springs in the world. There were so many different pools of all sorts of shapes and sizes, and we could have stayed there all day. It was raining, but the rain felt good because the water in the pools was so hot. In most pools, there was a cold pool also. You would stay in the cold pool for a short minute, and then dunk in the cold pool for a couple seconds. It relaxes your nerves and muscles, while still feeling really good. At the end of the day, we were all really relaxed but really tired!

Me and William on the nature hike climbing up to the waterfall.

Lincoln, Mac, Mom, and I in the hot spring at Baldy Mineral Pools.

Princesa de la Luna(Princess of the Moon)

We left Sámara and the Playa Corrillo today for the Arenal Volcano National Park. It was about a 4 hour drive north to the volcano, which is inland from the coast of the Pacific. The roads were really bumpy and windy, but I fortunately didn't get sick. The more inland we drove, the greener and cooler it got. The temperature went from 36°C to about 22°C in about 2 hours, while the humidity went way up. I had no idea what to expect when we drove up the steep, bumpy road to Princesa de la Luna Eco Lodge in the middle of the jungle. We drove by all these run down cement houses with tin roofs, and I was a little wary about the place we might be staying, but as we turned the corner to the lodge, I knew that our place would be awesome. There were so many plants, more than you could imagine, and all the cabins were made out of dark wood, which blended with the pretty greens. The bedspreads in the rooms were beautiful colors, and there were lots of interesting decorations. There were wood carvings, hammocks, and fun paintings around the lodge. My room is right on the balcony, overlooking the jungle. Our neighbor told us that toucans come every morning and eat the plantains out front, and that there are so many of them. For dinner, the owners made us a traditional Costa Rican meal of rice, beans, guacamole and plantain chips, spicy roasted chicken on the open air BBQ pit, and fresh jalepeño salsa. There was so much food, but it was all delicious. After dinner it rained hard, and that was the first rain I had seen since November!

Wind turbans line the road to La Fortuna, the town where we are staying.

Many houses are built with tin roofs, such as this one overlooking Arenal Lake.

This is the end road of our trip, which was so windy, bumpy and steep it was hard to drive on.

Turtle Hatching

Last night, Mom and I went with two people from the hotel to a turtle reserve to watch the mother turtles lay their eggs. When we first got there, it was starting to get dark, and the guides gave us red plastic sheets to cover our flashlights. Turtles can't see the red light, so it won't distract them when you shine it at them. We went down the short path to the beach, where it was pitch black. There, they had a hatchery with baby sea turtle eggs. In each nest, there were about 80 eggs. There was one little turtle that was already hatched, and we watched it walk around. They were going to let him go to the water by himself tonight. After we were done with the baby sea turtles, one guide went down one side of the beach while the other guide to the four of us the opposite way. The total length of the beach is about 3 Kilometers, so we probably walked about half of that, about a mile. It was so dark that we couldn't see anything. It was impossible to believe that we could spot a sea turtle. When we got to the end of the beach, there was a muddy river. The guide on the other end of the beach called and said that he had seen two turtles floating down his river, but they were already gone. We waited a while at our river, but there weren't any turtles. We decided to head back. The only problem with the whole trip so far was that our guide didn't speak any English, and we couldn't understand her Spanish because she talked so fast. She had actually seen turtle tracks on the way to the river we later learned, but we couldn't understand her. She took us to the tracks, and at the top of them was a mother Olive Ridley turtle! She weight about 50K, and was beautiful. She had already started digging her hole, but it wasn't that big. When the English speaking guide came to us, he said that it took about one hour for the female to dig her hole, lay the eggs, fill in the whole, and crawl back to the ocean. As the mother got more and more tired digging her hole, the guides let us help her. She had a special routine to digging, and we had to be careful or she would either hit us with her flipper or spray us with sand. It was incredible how smart she was. Finally, after she was done digging, she laid her eggs. There were 120 in total, each coming out one, two, or three at a time. It smelled really, really bad. She was breathing really hard by then, and I felt bad for her. She then dug her hole back in, with a little help from us, and it was back to the ocean. The walk to the ocean was probably the quickest part of the whole process. After that, she was gone. We walked back to the reserve center on the beach, and helped the little baby sea turtle go back to the ocean. He used the light of the moon to guide his way, and sometimes he got a little bit mixed up. Finally, the waves took him out to sea also.

1.  The mother Olive Ridley turtle laying her eggs.
2.  A baby Olive Ridley turtle ready for the ocean.
3.  After a turtle lays her eggs and returns to the ocean, the volunteers at the reserve collect the eggs and bring them to the nursery to hatch; then they release them into the wild.

Sámara and the Playa Corrillo

Today we left our hotel on the Papagayo Peninsula and drove south on the Nicoya Peninsula to the small beach towns of Sámara and Playa Corrillo. It is much greener here, and much more relaxed. You have to stop your car and move a herd of horses or dogs out of the road. Some parts can be dangerous, but downtown Sámara has lots of small shops and family run restaurants. Playa Corrillo is a beach with a town more than a town with a beach. It is very small, except for the huge beach cover shaped like a horseshoe. The water is warm and has nice waves for boogie boarding, and the sand is a beautiful white color. There are street vendors selling their goods along the road with things like fresh fruit and wooden bowls and masks. We are staying in a small hotel called the tropical dream. It is very colorful and the walls are pinks and oranges. It is located about a mile or two away from the Playa Corrillo Beach, and after we were all unpacked, we went swimming at the beach to watch the sunset. It was so beautiful and warm when the sun set over the hill, and we stayed at the beach until it was dark. After that, we went to Sámara to find a Soda, which is a small, family owned restaurant. We ate at a great one right on the beach with the best fresh tacos I probably have ever had. It was very low-key there, much like the rest of Costa Rica. At the end of the night, it can get kind of dangerous if you are out alone after dark, so we had to be careful. We were fine though, and ended the night with some homemade ice cream.

An assortment of fresh strawberry lemonade and a fresh mango smoothie.

This was a cow that we had to move out of the road. She reminded us of our dog, Fern.

The sunset at Playa Corrillo Beach. We were pretty much the only people in the water.

Costa Rica Information

Costa Rica has more fruits, sugar, nuts, and coffee than I can name. The top three products here are, (in order), bananas, pineapples, and then coffee. Besides those, beef, sugar, and nuts are also very important to the economy. Wherever you go, there is always something growing or grazing. Top American fruit companies such as Chiquita Banana and Ananas Pineapples grow their fruits in Costa Rica. Coffee is sold all around the world, and Costa Ricans claim that their coffee is the best out of every top coffee producer. They are very proud of their home, and should be. Costa Rica is officially the safest country in Central America, and don't even have a military. In the city of San José, there is only one police station because Costa Rica is so safe, but things are starting to change. Columbia, which produces 86% of the world's cocain, traffics most of the drug to Mexico, therefor having to travel through the rest of Central America, including Costa Rica. Because there is only one police station for a couple hundred miles, in is near to impossible to stop millions of dollars and pounds of cocain being sent from Columbia to Mexico. Another problem with little police in Costa Rica is fire. Because it is dry for about half the year, Costa Rica experiences many uncontrolled fires. Cattle Farmers need the best grass for their cows, and to do that they burn the grass without a permit, which is illegal. Because it is so dry, those fires catch easy and spread for hundreds of miles. Though it seems pretty dangerous, farmers have been doing it for centuries, so it is normal for the people living here. When mom and I were out kayaking today, we saw a huge fire across the bay. Our guide said that it was probably farmers burning their sugar cane crops. Because sugar cane is so thick and wet, it doesn't burn when it's wet. Farmers use controller fires to burn away harmful animals in the crops and also prepare the ground for the next year's crops. The next day they have to quickly harvest all of the sugar cane before pests come back. Tonight is our last night at this hotel. Tomorrow at 7:30, we are leaving for the small beach town of Samara. It is a small beach town farther down the coast of the Nicoya peninsula. A big swell of waves is expected, so we can't wait to surf and see all the new fish located on a new beach.

Canopy Tour

Today, I went zip-lining near the Tempisque River. There were 11 lines, each showing different parts of the "rainforest." It is so dry here because there hasn't been much rain in the last couple of months. Costa Rica has pretty much two seasons, the rainy and the dry seasons. We arrived during the last few weeks of the dry season, so all the plants and rivers are so dry. I'm sure the zip-lines are beautiful during the rainy seasons, but they were mostly brown today. Still, it was an amazing experience flying through the trees while monkeys and iguanas are watching you. There was one family of howler monkeys in particular that caught my eye. There were a couple cousins, a mother, a father, and a newborn baby riding on its mother's back. It was tiny and grey, and I was surprised that it didn't fall off! The monkeys were literally hanging out in the trees, some just by their tails. Later in the afternoon, we saw an iguana on the ground. It was green like the plants, and when it crawled up a tree, it started turning brown. It was spectacular to see it change color in broad daylight. We also saw two more walking around in the road! The animals here are very tame towards people and aren't scared when people walk by them.

Early Awakening

This morning, at about five o'clock, I was woken up by this really strange noise. It was an incredibly loud grumble coming from right outside the house. As it turns out, that loud noise was a male howler monkey, declaring and protecting his territory. At first I was a little bit scared about what the noise was, but later it was pretty funny. I went back to sleep after that, and woke up to go have an amazing breakfast with fresh fruit, juice, and smoothies. We had dinner on the moonlit beach that night, and when it became dark, my brothers and I and a couple of friends watched as new hatchling sea turtles crawled to the ocean. The turtles were tiny, only about three inches long, but they moved faster than I expected them to. But because it was so light where we were eating, they were crawling the wrong way! Turtles find the ocean by the light of the moon, and they thought the fired torches on the beach were the moon! A couple of people had flashlights, and they were able to guide the turtles back into the ocean. It was an incredible experience. We saw so much wildlife today, and I'm sure there is so much more to see. One of my favorite parts of Costa Rica so far are the people. They are so kind and generous, and are willing to help whenever. I was surprised by the amount of people that speak English. They all understand what I'm saying very well. It is so much easier to communicate when two people speak the same language. I have even picked up a couple worlds in Spanish myself, although a man told me that Costa Ricans speak a different version of Spanish than people from Spain and Mexico. It is a lot more of a relaxed language in Costa Rica, just like the people. At noon, you will drive by a village and all the people will be out sitting on their porches drinking cold drinks and relaxing in the heat.    Buenas Noches Everyone!

There are howler monkeys right on the beach of the hotel.

We're Here!

Our trip did not start out well. The shuttle to take us to the airport was late, and we were the last stop. Although we arrived at the airport two hours early, the lines were so long. we stood in a line for over half an hour just to ship our bags. When we finally go to security, the lines were twice as long, and we had five minutes to board the plane. One of the airport guards led us to the front of the line, and then we had to run to our gate, which was the last one in the section. Finally, after a close call, we boarded the plane. The thing was, though, only a third of the people were on the plane when we got there, and it was supposed to be a completely full flight. Dad asked a flight attendant where everyone was, and she said they had delayed the flight because the lines were so long and people wouldn't have been able to make it. We had ran, cut lines, and gotten all worked up about nothing! After a smooth flight, we finally arrived in Costa Rica! It is the dry season here, so everything was not as green as I had pictured. The best part is the warmth, though. It was 92°F when we got off the plane! Our hotel was on the Papagayo Peninsula, a small spit of land off of the Nicoya Peninsula, located on the Pacific Ocean. The water here is bathtub warm. The peninsula is so skinny that it is an easy walk from one side to the other. The more enclosed side is the best for swimming, and is really sandy. The other side is kind of rocky, but there are cool shells and it is the best for snorkeling. We only went swimming on the enclosed side. After dinner we went for a walk on the beach. It was beautiful! There were howler monkeys in the trees eating berries, and they were throwing sticks down so we almost got hit! There were also small green parrots flying around in the trees. They aren't afraid to fly around people, and are always found in groups at the tippy top of a tree. Finally, it felt so good to fall asleep after a long, long day.

This is a picture from the hotel in Boston                  This is the first view of Costa Rica from our         In the early morning:                                                  plane of the rotated crops and farmland:

Getting Excited

12 more days until we leave, and we're getting excited. It is so snowy and cold here; I can't remember the number of snow storms we've had in the last month. Warm water and hot sun won't come soon enough! Hopefully you guys will follow me on this new blog I made today. Thanks!

   Snowy day at home! Can't wait to leave!