Affordable Costa Rica Day 4
Affordable Costa Rica
DAY 4 - March 17, 2005
La Tirimbina Reserve - To Chachagua
Hearing the multitude of birds chirping right outside our room helped us to wake up at 6 AM to be at breakfast at 6:45. Gennie and I chose to eat just fruit this morning as we are having three meals a day. At 7:30 we met our biologist from the La Tirimbina Biological Reserve, in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin, an innovative education and research center devoted to the preservation of this endangered tropical forest ecosystem. The center offers research opportunities and is a resource for fostering an understanding of the interrelatedness of life on our planet. While we waiting for our nature walk, we took the time to look at the birds, insects, flowers and birds around the center. As we began our walk with Eddie, the other 8 members got the biologist; we were shown a poison dart frog (blue jeans). One of the attractive features of La Tirimbina is the nearly 860-foot suspension bridge over the Sarapiquí River, the longest suspension bridge in the country. Midway across the bridge, the river flows around a natural island, where we took stairs down to the island floor to see the natural vegetation and Eddie showed us the White Honduras bats that were like little cotton balls sleeping, huddle together, on the underside of a palm leaf. We climbed back up to the suspension bridge and continued our walk. We had a great discussion on the miracles of Mother Nature and the adaptations of plants for pollination, and the animals that live in this environment. Our next discovery was a cicada skeleton and then Gennie also found a living one that we were able to photograph. We also saw huge bullet ants, a very poisonous variety that is eaten by the poison dart frog, giving the frog its poison skin. Further on I saw a hog nosed viper, a very poisonous but small snake, on the trail. It was so well camouflaged and if it had not slithered, I would not have seen it with my peripheral vision.
At 10:30 we got back to our room to take our second shower of the day and pack our luggage. Luggage was picked up at 11:30 and at 12:30, after lunch, we traveled northwest through the winding hills. We stopped at San Carlos, a very prosperous city, where we took a short tour of the town and then stopped at the central market. We were divided into three groups and each given a list of items to buy for our dinner. Eddie also gave us 7,000 Colones to spend. Our list included three kilos of beef, two kilos of potatoes, two kilos of orange squash, and two kilos each of yucca and a type of yam, two vegetables that we had never seen. I abandoned the group and took pictures of the people of Quesada (San Carlos), who were so friendly, accepting and smiling. They actually shook hands with me after I took their pictures.
After leaving the market we continued on into the tranquility of the nearby Chachagua rain forest. We stopped for photographs of the Arenal Volcano that was only 20 miles away but clear, seeing the whole triangle of the volcano with steam escaping from the top. We had to climb a very rough and rocky road back into the rain forest to find our Chachagua Lodge which was a former cattle ranch along the migratory path of many birds.
We arrived at our hotel and had about an hour to settle in, do some laundry and begin the process of going through today's pictures. At 5:30 we joined some of our group cleaning and chopping the vegetables we bought and Eddie gave us a cooking lesson with the foods we gathered at the market today. At 6:30 we were finally able to enjoy the meal with all of our group, the driver, Mario, and Eddie.
Eddie gave us a summary of the tomorrow's activities and typical of the rain forest, we walked back to our room in the light drizzle to take another shower and finish up for the day.
Accommodations: Bosques de Chachagua Rain Forest Hotel
Meals: B, L, D
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