jodester.com

Happy New Year!

2009 was an absolute unexpected adventure – a roller coaster ride of epic proportions, pulling G’s on me around every turn.  Alaska gave me the motivation, time and reflection for a much needed self assessment.   There is no other place adequate enough to get more honest with yourself.  I wouldn’t trade a single second of 2009.   Who knows what 2010 will bring?  Current mission:  return to school and get a trade.  Marketing, promotions, journalism, PR>>all that I’ve done so far>> are not trades.  Many may beg to differ and then agree with me in the next breath.  I always said, “I will never return to school.”   It wasn’t all that enjoyable the first time.   Well, NEVER say never.   Eat those words, I will, if only they were deep fried.  I’ve been lightning struck with the urge to do something entirely different with my life, something meaningful.  Something to help people.  Something that will allow me to continue leading the flexible, thrill-a-minute, travel-the-world lifestyle I crave.   So,  short term vacations are on hold.  I’m on a new road trip where the destination is becoming a physical therapist.  Hello late night cram sessions, flash cards and pressure-raising test taking.

If I can get out from underneath the  45 lb stack of Anatomy books and come up for air, I swear I’ll try and hammer out some Jodester.com updates.   No guarantees.  If I can’t, I’ll see you in 2015.   “Paging, Dr. Turmell…”

Coati

Yet another wild goose chase of a day in effort to find the ‘wildlife sanctuary.’  We were promised kitties – jags, ocelots and caucels to play with.   Our trek today led us to a sloth farm that wanted a good bit of money to show us sloths in the wild, from a distance.   We’d already seen a crapton of 2 and 3-toed sloths up close and personal in the wild so we opted out.   Whoever ran the gato sanctuary didn’t want to be found by conventional means, we told ourselves.  Not without a booty map and a secret handshake, anyway.  We tossed in the towel and got some boogie boards and play in the ocean at Playa Negra.   A relaxing tapas dinner and some cocktails to wind out our last night in Bungalow 2.  We had to be up and out early for our white water rafting trip. We had a lovely trip on the Rio Pacuare (between Limon and San Jose) thru Exploradores Rafting Co.  We did see toucans flying in the distance, floated Class 3’s and 4’s with Able as our El Capitan (aka, Brad Pitt)  We had a great group of people, a huge burrito lunch, floated and swam in the limestone shale windy waters, tho we were bitten repeatedly by wasps and swollen.  Deeply carved canyons thru the Highland innundated the lush rainforest.  Different Indian tribes live in the hills in these canyons and spoke to Able in their own tongue, which was neat to hear.  They got us back to San Jose to the Costa Rica Backpackers where we rounded out our trip.

Some quick pics of our last days…

Colorful San Jose building

Spider monkey

Root house

Yellow eyelash viper

In 1960, Costa Rica presidente Mario Echandi Jimenez bought the piece tiny 10.7 km land that is known as Paque Nacional Cahuita for 500 colones. This may seem like alot then, but it was in fact, one measley dollar.  It managed to preserve and protect this absolutely fabulous stretch of humid, mangrove and mammal filled rainforest.  Thank goddess for presidents who realize the importance of these lands.

Alonzo came to be our unofficial guide for the first 2 miles of the trek and was instrumental in pointing out things we wouldn’t have otherwise identified due to lack of identification books and sheer laziness.   Things like the Nonee plant which is a natural digestive and ylang ylang tree, the key ingredient in Coco Chanel No. 5.   Crazy spiders, bats and capuchin monkeys.  Or cappuchino monkeys, as Alonzo says.  Our exploratory hike today was 8.4 km out to Punta Chiquita via Playa Chiquita and Playa Vargas.  It started out with a bang.  A boa constrictor right at the entrance.  Which leads me to a note for that I have no logical explanation.  Although the snakes here are venomous, toxinous and in some cases deadly, my powerful – if not biblical – fear of them is less here.   By the end of the day today, dare I say I was actually looking for them?!  The only thing I can deduce is that they are little, pretty and contain themselves in a a small ball up in the trees, rarely moving or coming down.   So, it all comes down the the ground slithering thing, I think.  They’re snake-i-ness.  Entounces.   The boa was teeny like my fist.   I got to watch it not move from a safe 9 meter distance.  I did get rudely interrupted by a leaf cutter soldier ant biting my ankle and I was positively certain that it was a venomous spider and I caused a bit of a scene trying to get it off.   We moved onto other things.   Bats, spiders sloths, monos… then we left Alonzo and continued on our self guided walk.  Did some shell seeking at Playa Vargas.  After our leftover casado lunch at the volunteer house, I proudly spotted a bright yellow eyelash viper.  Score!   So cool, I stood back while 22 snapped away.   A wonderful hike overall. Still no toucans, tho.

Best sign ever

Boa Constrictor

Cabina pool

Took our breakfast poolside.  Blue tile like fine polish pottery.  Blue that relaxes, invites, makes you happy.  A neat day.  A day of nothing.  And everything.  22 didn’t leave home and I barely did.  It seems like the best, and most, nature is found when you just sit for awhile.  Patience and quiet.  NOT while you’re running around, paying guides good money to help you look for it.  Just sit.  Do your thing.  It practically comes to you.  Now here.  I will tell you that 22 is an animal whisperer.   As long as I’ve known him, he has the sense.  An appreciation.  A skill.  And therefore, the knack.  Some people never do.  Never will.  Some people try and learn it.   Then, there’s the birders.  Like in Alaska.  I won’t even go there.  I write by the pool.  He swims.  We listen to the soundscape.  Before you know it, critters are coming out of the greenwork.  Finally, a miniscule frog like you see on the postcards.   There they are magnified, blown up and photoshopped.  Really tho, these brilliantly colored amphibs are no bigger than the size of your thumbnail, at best.  This one is neon Green and Black Dart Frog.  Highly poisonous.  If you touch it and then touch your mouth specifically, chances are, you’ll die.  As we sat, I began to realize that Cabinas Iguanas is called this for a reason.  Imagine that!

Black and green dart frog

Verde Iguana

Bright green iguanas hoisted their way across and over palm trees and branches and though limbs.  Though rather ungraceful while crossing high and horizontal, they moved steadily down the trunk or front of whatever they exited to reach ground.  Skimming over rock mosaic sidewalks, slowly make a brief and curious stop then moving along up the net foliage.   So cool they are.  Some with a good meter or so tail.  Then squirrels and cools birds.  A flash of a toucan was gone before we got a good eye on him.  A brown and yellow-headed woodpecker that I can’t seem to identify. Morphos fluttering by.  A Basilisk lizard and several Whiptails.  Rustlings and sitings every 5 minutes.  More frogs.  Hummingbirds, raccoons, orioles.  These tropical rainforest areas produce crazy critters.  22 stood in the pool watching the trees for activity and then “J, bring the binocs.  Stat.”  He has managed to spot the kimodo dragon of iguanas.   The Head Honch.   The Grand Daddy mother of them all.

Iguana Daddy Mac

He was up in a tree, a peculiar shade of rusty orange, arms the size of mine, with a 1.5 meter orange and black striped tail. He must’ve been 2-3 meters total.  Hard to tell from ground level.   He laid, catching sunlight, moving slow and infrequent.   Large white underbelly.   A force to be reckoned with.   His “spikes” all along his head and back, fearsome enough to shut down predators.  He moved a little, leaving us speechless.   We could only watch.   Before we knew it, he was gone.   Maybe infiltrating our cabin.   Who knows?

It’s ironic.  I was making fun earlier of the oceanic pictures in our cabina.  The kind that show all the critters you could possible want and hope to see all together in a nicely laminated 11×13 photo.  “You’d NEVER see that.”  I heckled.   But now I get it.  In the scenescape I saw today, I came damn close to seeing just that.

We got in the ocean by our cabinas for the first time. It was less intimidating than we thought.  In fact, it had the nicest, cleanest, sandiest bottom yet.   We walked down Playa Negra to where the reefs began like gigantic limestone platforms in layers down the coast.   22 slaved over our own homemade casados.  Plates of cabbage salad with fresh mango dressing, black bean, rice and seasoned pollo.   Spoiled!

Homeade casada

Caught the early bus to Manzanillo to visit Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Gandoca-Manzanillo, much anticipated and eventually to our chagrin.  We thought we were headed somewhere else today – an animal sanctuary we’d heard of from friends and locals where they take in injured animals and you can interact with them.  Baby jaguars and other kitties.  Since we’ve heard about it, we were fired up to get there.  Soloueno (s’all good.) tho.   Not much in Manzanillo village itself.  22 was almost rendered unconscious by a freefalling coconut, much to the locals humor.

Manzanillo point

We walked 1 km down the beach and fjorded a river to begin a self guided hike down a 5 km trail.  We didn’t get to far as the deep mud slowed us down and we hit one spot on the coast edge where we realized that the incoming tide would not let us back thru for a bit if we were to cross.  Waves were sharp and hard on the reef.  One is supposed to see frogs and birds here.  We have yet to see a toucan.  We beachcombed our way back, bussed from Viejo to Cahuita and cruiser biked back to our cabina.   Only now typing it do I fully realize what an adventure and escapade it was.   Never a dull moment.  What fun to be so fully engaged in life.  22 and I had a hot date at Miss Ediths, a well known and loved Caribe resti.  I sucked on spiny lobster tail and 22 on jerk shrimp.  Buttery , coconutty, spicy awesome-ness all the way around.

Miss Ediths dinner

Spiny coconut lobster

Breakfast at the Cabina

Homemade breakfast with bacon and lush fruits, washed down by 1820 java.  To paint a picture:  There are bananas hanging right outside our door, ready for consumption at any given moment.  Sweet like candy, devourable bananas, far tastier than any banana I’ve ever, and I do mean ever, eaten. Wandering the grounds we find avacados, starfruit and grapefruits growing wildly all around our cabina. Fan palms, spray palms, tropical flowers of purple, white, hot pink and coral.  Trees are alives and branches chattering with resident geckos, inside and out.  They click for you when you can’t see them.  Geck-Geck-Geck.  So lucky we are.  We got cruiser bikes and set out in the drizzle to see where  our quiet road leads.  The potholed-filled, puddled trek winds along Playa Negra where there is not much more than isolated heaves of tropical green, only a few cabinas spurratically placed and deep off the gravel road.  I feel as tho we’ve meshed with our travel karma and I am overcome to be situated in this secluded sanctuary for a week.

Cruisin' in Cahuita

After the groceries are got, we fix fresh pico de gallo and guacamole with tostaditos, plus tequila starfruit cocktails.  We just our rusty cruisers into town and catch the nightly movie at this Italian joint, taking a front row seat with our pinas.  A jaunty ride back in the dark, and pulling the mosquito mesh net around our bed, the oh-so-dark wood of the cabina covers us in sleep.  The darkest, and the quietest, it’s been for a long time.

Hammock ponderings

When the sun hits the Caribe waters, you see crazy cross sections of sallow aqua waters.  Beaches are more rugged here, harsher waves crash, strong rips.  More intimidating and wilder than the Pacific side.  Colder too, at least now while we’re just coming off the low season.  In full swing in the high season, this will look much different.  A portion of the afternoon was spent swaying in the hammock out front of our cabina, revelling in the soundscape.  I wanted 22 to take a recording that we could loop and repeat and play all night long because it was far better than any store bought naturalist sound CD I’ve heard.  The sound of frogs was all over the distance.  You couldn’t see them but boy could you hear them.   At least 6-10 different birds talking.  Squirrels gossiping, monkeys howling, geckos clicking.   I don’t know if there would be a way to wholly identify everything.  Looking at the dangling bunch of bananas twirling before me, I wondered just when our illusive monkey came by.  Like clockwork, every morning there were 3 freshly eaten banana peels left on our cabinas doorstep.  That little thief!

Bread and Chocolate Restaurant

An extraordinarily yummy breakfast at Bread N Chocolate, complete with chocolate gnosh cake striped with sliced almonds.  It’s always a nice surprise to see town in the daylight when arriving somewhere at night.  We shopped every single artisan craft booth and did some decent negotiating with the locals.  Then we hit LuluBerlu where 22 bought me the ubiquitous morpho dress that we reluctantly left behind in Mal Pais.  “If you love something, set it free…”  The owner displays incredible works by French mosaic artist Natacha Nokin aka Lu Lu Berlu in this colorful store front.   I would have walked out with all things broken tile transformed into just fantastical pieces if I could.  And I’m bummed that I can’t seem to find anything on the nets that showcase her works.

Another mosaic entryway

We got on the bus 3 km north to our new home of Cahuita and got settled in at Cabinas Iguanas Bungalow #2.  How nice it is to unpack and organize our things into the cabin.  Home Sweet Home.

After an early and quasi frantic market session for fresh fruits and veggies to tote to the Carib side (with Dulce Cake in hand of course), we collected our belongings and prepared for our BeGo farewell.  From now on, it’s buses and bikes again.   We dropped the rig at Budget, it somehow cleared inspection despite multiple broken parts and so much mud that the blue exterior was now entirely brown.  I think they EXPECT cars to be returned this way.  Once more thru San Jose, where the holiday parade set up was in full effect.  Like deja vu, we tried to find our bus station.  The amount and types of busses that run this this country is complex to say the very least and takes some savage savvy to navigate.  Another day, another adventure as we begin the last leg of our trip.  And, as the locals declare, we saved the best for last.   The ride was mostly in the dark so we missed much of the scenery thru Limon and down the east coast.  However, it wasn’t far outside the city that the humidity crept and then dripped in.  Thicker, heavier and wetter than ever.  On top of the heat.

Puerto Viejo del Talamanca

Getting off the bus, we were completely drenched and had to unpeel ourselves from one another thru the stickiness.  At the Puerto Viejo stop, it was driving rain.   We walked the strip.   The new swanky, hipster hostel Pagalu was full and we went to the only other one, the Sunrise Backpackers.   Clearly a bottom feeder.  Homeboy at Pagalu saw a window of opportunity to create a nice hostel environment that would attract everyone and took it.   One of those things I wish I would have discovered.  We tossed our sopping stuff down and walked a few blocks to Chili Rojo for dinner.

A couple of distinctions between this side and that, meaning the Carib vs the Pacific right off the bat.  Food on the east side is all fusion.   Whatever that means.  Not “fusion” by American definition.   There is more Japanese, Thai, and Euro influence here, making it not as exotic or authentic for that matter.  Goodbye casados and tipico food.  Hello Caribbean Jerk and coconut milk infused everything.  Not that it’s bad.  Just more fattening.  And more expensive by at least 2 mil colones per dish.  Lame.

The other.   The people.  On the west side, the Highland and thru the Peninsula, there are way more natives and people that only speak espanol, forcing you to use and recall any little bit you may have learned X years ago in high school.  It’s more important to be fluent on that side, or come armed with a few key phrases.  Even those who may speak ESL coax you to speak espanol so you can learn.  On the Carib side, do not bother to speak to the local of of Afro Carib descent unless you are fully fluent and know the appropriate slang.  If you try and fail, they’ll answer you in pure English or Spanglish with a “nice try” look.  Bonus points for knowing and understanding rasta.

Apres dinner we scoured the street of town and down along the beaches.  Playa Cocles, Playa Chiquita and Punta Uva and the route to Manzanillo.  There are an abundance of restaurants and cabinas evenly spaced, all to suit the intrigue of any sort.  On the north end of town, Playa Negra is where the surfers retreat so as to not get tore up among the coral reefs along the other three.

Grabbed the Train Wreck brekkie at a local dive, complete with Bloody’s, strong-as-heck coffee, fried papas and huevos.  More coffee (mental note to detox at home) and a bee line to San Jose, our only stop a gas up in San Izadro, rolling thru Cartago and up the Highlands to Volcan Irazu to find lodging.

We did at Grandpa’s BnB, and old plantation with plenty of land, grass, a tropical garden and amenified log cabins tucked in neatly. We’re stoked.  It’s like Alaska, but tropical.  The weather had done a complete 180 in a 4 hour drive.  From coast to mountain and a couple thousand feet up into the highlands, we step out of the car, clad in suits and sarongs still, it was COLD!  Had to completely undo the backpack to find something with sleeves.  Thank god I didn’t donate that shirt days ago.   The great thing about carrying only a 20 lb pack for a month is that whatever you need is not so far away

City of Cot

We drove up the volcan and the little village of Cot caught our eyes.   A washed out, condensed, pastel-paint commercial tucked compulsively into the hillside.  A wonderful stop for those craving non mainstream attractions, or perhaps a painter/photograher’s muse.  Very romantic in sunset light.   Back at the cabin, we cozied up to some show in Spanish, taking note that this is the first place we’ve stayed at so far that has any kind of comforter on the bed.  It’s just too hot everywhere else.

Cot Church

We dined on the traditional Gallos Pinto in the am and drove 17 km above the cloudline, gaining glances at Cartago and the valley below.   It was sunny when we arrived at Irazu Volcano.   We were told to get there early for a decent view.  Afternoon tends to bring clouds and rain.   We hiked along the edge of the crater rim.  In hindsight and sans snobbiness, we could have skipped this stop.  It was cool indeed, but having Helens and other more impressive volcanic features right in our backyard, we didn’t need to spend money on this.  May have been worth it if the hike extend further/deeper in and around the blow pit.  We quickly realized that all the super impressive photos we’d seen of this place were captured aerially or from a place we were not allowed to go.  By the time we walked to the upper observation point, the crater was covered in clouds. Que lastima!

Volcan Irazu

Zipping over to San Jose, we got our MEPE bus tix to Puerto Viejo and the Caribbean side.  Casados at a market soda and a looong drive to the outlying suburb of Alajuela for a supposedly quiet night out of the city.  We found Mango Verde Backpackers and found out that Alajuela is not so little, or quiet.   It’s like Beaverton to Portland or St. Paul to Minneapolis.  Bustling with folks racing around the market and shops lining the streets, it’s the countdown to xmas in full effect.  Dinner at Roastie’s, where we guzzled two glasses of vino that have far surpassed anything we’ve had so far.  Sometimes, especially after a hard day driving in the city, it IS about quantity and not quality.  Pescado fajitas that satisfied.   Walked to the junk market around Parque Central and discovered my new food fetish.  Churros.  Not just any.  Dulce de Leche filled churros.  Pumped fill of creamy caramel, deep fried, sugar and cinnamon doused perfection.   22 and I said not a word during those first bites, but shot each other the knowing glance of an instant addict.  Another note to self:  a deep fryer  with a Play-Doh star shaped dough pump cutter is in order immediately upon return to PDX.

White Faced Caphuchin

Cafe Milagro roaster for java and bagels before heading to the park.   Beware of the “unofficial” tours people scream at you streetside along the way.   Hold out for the official tours offered at the end of the road and entrance to the park.  Roughly $20 for a tour, although it is definitely NOT needed.  You can cherry pick on any one of the many tours walking thru the park in the event they see something interesting.  With a little diligence and a guide book, you will see animals on your own and be able to identify them.   One could make BANK being a naturalist here.   Scenery is absolutely postcard perfect.  White sand beaches, aqua waters encaved by lusciously thick green forested hills.

Punta Catedral Lookout

The Punta Catedral Tombolo formation (like a peninsula) is a rare geographic phenomenon when an island becomes joined to the mainland thru accumulated sand deposits.  Monkeys galore!!!!  Squirrel monkeys and white faced capuchin monkeys, smaller than their cousin the howler monkey.  They are wickedly sneaky and everywhere.   Watch your backpack.   They come right up to you, especially if you’re toting food.   One jumped right up on a picnic table where we stood and grabbed a plastic container of fruit and ran up the tree to eat it.   Smartie pants knew exactly how to open the container partially so he could extract what he wanted without spilling all the rest of the fruit out.   We also spotted three-toed sloths, pelicans and other unique birds.   On our way out, a stop by the artisans market and a heaping pile of nachos at El Avion parallel with a golden sunset.

Manual Antonio Beach

Manual Antonio Parque Nacional