Archive for July 2008
A full week since my last post, but a combination of frantic activity and lack of electricity made it inevitable. Here’s a summary of activities since we last chatted:
Wednesday:
- Woke early drove into Yellowstone.
- We see Bison and Elk in Lamar Valley
- Went to the backcountry office in Canyon and got permits for an overnight spot at Grebe Lake for Friday night
- Secured a campsite at the coveted Norris campground
- Toured the all the major Geyser basins except Norris – Monument, Midway and Old Faithful as well as Fountain Paint Pot
- My favorite spot, Artist Paint Pot, is closed for a boardwalk rebuilt
- Attend Ranger campfire talk on the lives of Bison
- Attempt to repair leaky air mattress
- Cynthia and I forcefully befriended by Chris, the 10-year old Colorado boy from a nearby campsite
- Buy firewood and build an anemic campfire
Thursday
- Wake up on a flat air mattress. No park stores have a new one (should have bought it in Teton when I had the chance)
- Tour Norris Geyser Basin
- Drive through Mammoth. Cynthia unimpressed after a day and a half of thermal features
- Swim in the Boiling River at the designated spot where a hot spring meets the cold river
- Showers at Roosevelt Lodge – I think we were supposed to pay for this, but no one charged us.
- Buy fishing license, flies, bear spray at Canyon Sport shop. Also buy 6 wt fly line marked down to an irresistible $5
- Do some fishing on the Gibbon River near camp with my back-up rod. Bison bull comes out of nowhere and walks within 25 yards of me when I’m trapped in a bend. I walk away avoiding a sure goring.
- Fish are rising, but not to my stuff.
Friday
- Hike 9.6 miles from Norris to Grebe Lake campsite 4G5 through lots of burned forest.
- Set up camp. Mosquitos are biblically oppressive
- Fish and actually catch fish – 3 Fluvial Arctic Grayling.
- Cynthia builds roaring campfire that barely helps keep mossies away
- Tent not attacked by bear during the night
Saturday
- Wake up, decamp, walk back the way we came, arriving in 4 hours.
- Both of us are seriously blistered
- Lay low rest of the day staying near camp
- Checking out Museum of the National Park Ranger
- Fish the Gibbon some more, but the fish aren’t active
- Go to ranger talk on Grizzly Bears
- Burn rest of wood in campfire
Sunday
- Wake up, decamp. On the road by 8:45am
- Leave through East Entrance, turn on cell phone
Short and to the point since I’m on the BB:
We woke up at 6am for some wildlife watching. This proved a bit tricky
since we don’t have binocs, but we still managed to spot the elk herd
and a few of them crossed the road just a few feet away. Next, a 6
mile hike around Bradley and Taggert lakes. The weather was perfect,
the trail was verdant and there weren’t many people. The Teton
rockscapes and canyons reminded me of Desolation Wilderness.
On the way back, we had a late lakeside picnic lunch at the Chapel of
the Sacred Heart, then headed back to the cabins for a much needed
nap. Cynthia was out like a rock and slept till almost 4:45.
Afterwards, we paid $7 between us for showers.
At 6pm, we drove out to Jackson Lake lodge for a ranger meet and
greet. We didn’t find the rangers but did locate the Blue Heron Lounge
for drinks. Next, fishing license in hand, we drove back to a fishing
spot on the Snake river I’d scouted earlier. The mosquitos we’re
absolutely swarming – the were literally hundreds buzzing in my
personal space – so thick it was hard to see well enough to thread the
flies. Thankfully, Cynthia had picked up a vial of industrial strength
99% DEET. I only picked up a few bites, but might grow a third arm.
I could wade far out in to the river, but struggled with my longer
casts since I’d really never had the chance to use them. I am getting
slowly better and was casting best in at the end. The cutthroat were
rising all around me but I couldn’t get a bite. Even so, I
fundamentally love being in the river striving for tight loops, water
cool through my waders as the sun sets and the heron fly over.
7 hrs of driving later and we made it to our spacious tent cabin with
a covered porch. A storm rolled through (the first rain in three weeks
apparently), and we were glad to not be in our 2 person tent, unable
to cook and miserable. After dinner we did a short hike out to Jackson
Lake and got some incredible shots of stratified clould over the
Tetons. We also checked out a couple of ranger programs on elk and
how indians lived in the park. The second speaker was an Native
American and had a really relaxing cadence that got us in the mood for
bed (in a good way). Tomorrow we stay in Grand Teton for wildlife
viewing, hiking, and fishing.
Cynthia’s ailment has passed and I seem to have dodged the same
bullet. We’re rolling through McDermott, NV on our way to Nampa for a
visit with the mother-in-law, and then we’ll head for the Tetons and
Yellowstone, hoping for some luck with first come first serve
campsites and/or backcountry permits. Otherwise, it might be a short
trip with a lot of driving.
It’s been a slow few days here – we’ve spent most of the time puttering around the house, watching TV, and catching up with the friends we hadn’t seen for a month. I’ve gotten feedback that you people like lists, so here’s a list of the things I’ve fixed:
- Fixed poorly located water heater strap
- Flushed water heater
- Replaced missing but non-critical roof rake tile (which has been on my list for literally four years)
- Fixed gate latch on fence
- Re-mortared some damaged brickwork
We also began planning next week’s trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons, but this morning Cynthia came down with a nasty stomach bug. Two suspects here – our recent international travel, or the flu that all some friends had last week. Everyone we’ve seen had already gotten over it, but they were all here making themselves at home on Sunday and theoretically contaminating everything with their poor hygiene. She’s miserable and there’s not much I can do about it – I’m making Jello and some chicken soup but as of this moment she can’t keep anything down. Hopefully she’ll be feeling better tomorrow, or we’ll be forced to start cancelling some reservations. The silver lining is the flexibility of sabbatical means moving dates around a bit is no big deal.
We flew back from San Jose Sunday, overnighted at an airport hotel in LAX, and were back home by 1pm yesterday. We’ve spent our time tuning the house and yard back up.
We had entrusted Dave and Sharaun to watch our house, mow our grass, collect our vegetables, etc. There was some risk in this, as we have pranked them a couple times- once, when they were away peeling all the labels from their cans, numbering them, and then subsequently and unintentionally losing the answer key. The other prank involved a styrofoam monolith placed early one morning in their front lawn.
So, it was inevitable that they would return the favor, and they did so with a vengeance. I cannot fully describe the act here. It involved no less than the tight coordination of 14 of our closest friends, each of whom came to our unoccupied house and besmirched it in a way both shocking and utterly, absolutely hilarious. There was professional photo documentation of these acts placed onto a wall that once held innocent pictures of our family members. To those involved, hats off. Your efforts cannot possibly be topped and we’re completely flattered.
I’ve finally finished uploading all of our pictures from Quepos as well as the videos from ziplining. If you check nothing else out, you watch the videos: Tarzan Swing and Zip lining. Click on “Download File”. Note that the files are about 8BM each and you will need a divx player to watch them.
Right now, it’s raining, hard, as we sit in the open air hotel lobby waiting for our private bus back. There’s a big cockroach dying on the floor next to me.
Thursday night we ended up skipping the group dinner and hung out with the Aussies eating food from the supermarket and drinking Imperials and Pilsens. Quepos is a bit more seedy than the other Costa Rican places we’ve been, and Alberto warned us about not walking around at night, but Cheryl and I broke that commandment when we saw fireworks in the distance. Following them, we caught the local football team winning their shootout, and also the local carnival like festival – at which we were the only tourists. They had apparently universal favorites like churros, cotton candy, rides and karayoke, and also a stage with dancing girls in skimpy outfits. Cheryl and I discussed our mutual adoration of “walk-about”, and this one ended up being a classic.
Friday, we caught the sketchy public bus for a 20 minute ride to the beaches and Manuel Antonio National park. We had to walk about a mile into the park on a road to get to the beach, and then extended the trip with a walk on the point through the primary rainf orest. A brood of while faced monkeys came by, and we got some great pics. We spent the rest of the day on the park and public beaches.
Update – now in San Jose, slowly uploading pics. Movie editing and captions will have to wait.
The hotel recommended “Soda Sanchez” for Friday night dinner – “Soda” means something like “diner” in Costa Rica – the place was the size of our dining room and we ended up being seated literally in the parking lot. Service was also glacially slow – like 30-45 minutes for the first round of food and our drinks to come – and that was for only 3 of the 5 dinners – the last two (including mine) came out serially on 15 minute intervals. Food was great though – I had pasta mariscos with crab, shrimp and fish in a cream sauce. After dinner, we stopped at the supermarket to grab snackfood and beers, and then pre-partied with the Aussies again before heading to the club. Bambu Jam was packed and had a live music – we merangued and drank the night away, and I had college flashbacks on the dance floor when surrounded by five beauties. The joint closed abrubtly at 1am and we called it a night.
Today, we decided to skip excursions and just took a cab back to the beach with the Aussies. It was a pretty standard beach afternoon. I rented another boogie board for $2 an hour, but the surf was a bit smaller than Cancun. This ended up being perfect for Cynthia, who could actually ride and enjoy things instead of being overwhealmed. We left the beach about three, caught the bus back (it arrived at the stop just as we did), and got drenched in the pur rain that had started on the ride as we sprinted 50 yards back to the Hotel.
The ride back to San Jose was an adventure – rain, curvy mountain roads, and a Costa Rican NASCAR bus driver. There is a certain thrill to passing motorcycles on blind curves that you just can’t get stateside.
We made it back to San Jose about 9:30, and took a group picture. I had a couple drinks with Lou at the hotel bar, and smoked the fake Cuban cigar I bought at the beach today. It ended up being complete crap – rolled too tight, messed up draw, uneven burn, bad flavor – not worth $4. Then, Amanda asked to play chess and I obliged (and won), and now it’s bedtime.
Flying to LA tomorrow, then back to Sac on Monday. This adventure may be over, but there are still some to come. Cynthia and I have decided were going to take a spontaneous trip to Yellowstone, so we’ll have to flesh that out (I hope I’ll find a fixed fly rod waiting for me at home) and the Aussies are talking like they might visit us in Folsom late in the month when they swing through Norcal.
Ok, I’m at an internet cafe, trying to catch up on the backlog. We have some amazing pictures and videos, but I’m only getting about 10kB/s and I can’t stay here for 4 hours uploading all of it. I’ll get to that when I can. for now you’ll have to settle for text only.
Luckily we have a plethora of stuff written up on the trip so far. In chronological order:
Also, read Cynthia’s take on Days 1-5
This post by Cynthia obviously.
Day 1 – San Jose
Urban Costa Rica is shabby chic. There is a feeling of historic richness tempered with age and use. The streets are old, some buildings are dilapidated. We arrived early Sunday Morning (12am) to San Jose and rode through darkened, narrow streets wet from a recent rain. Past disco-techs, bars, banks to arrive at our hotel. Our taxi driver announced our arrival through the iron gate barring the entrance, and the clerk let us in. We had a note from our tour leader, Alberto, and the desk clerk handed us a 1.5 liter bottle of water with our room key and told us that the hotel had no water. No showers, only one flush of the toilet until we check out at 8am. Through the doors of the lobby we entered an enclosed courtyard that all the rooms were centered around, 3 stories high. No elevators here. Our room was on the bottom floor. Behind the wood door was a sparse room with cheerful but faded cotton curtains and bedspread. A miss-matched conglomeration of tile, marble, porcelain textures covered the floor & shower walls. The bathroom door cleared the edge of the toilet bowl by ½”. We would have to be awake in just 6 hours to meet Alberto and get our paperwork squared away. We fell on lumpy pillows and slept.
Day 2 – La Fortuna
Alberto is a cheerful, rotund tico with a background in ecology and tourism. Fitting. We give him all our info and then he tells us the plans for the week, and what time we are departing this morning. He explains that the sewers in Costa Rica can’t handle toilet paper, and that all toilet paper has to be placed in the trash cans in the bathrooms. Eww! We begin our demands of him immediately, requesting a place to get a Desayuno Typico de Costa Rica. He sends us up the street to the Clarion Hotel for their breakfast buffet. We eat gallo pinto, huevos fritos, jugo naraja. The café con leche is divine. The buffet master gives me fruit to take with us on the road, he thinks I don’t like tropical fruit, since he gives me grapes, an apple and a nectarine. Back at the hotel our blue Turismo bus has arrived.
We meet our tour mates on the bus. We are quite a mixed group. There are 3 pharmacists from Toronto, Anita, Jenny and Jennifer. Also from Toronto are a father and daughter, Lou and Nicole. There are 4 sisters from Virginia: Lara, Sarah, Lindsey and Amanda. Finally, the four Aussies: Melanie, Sarah, Cheryl and Amy. Pat and Lou are the only men. They are also the 2 oldest of the group.
Our bus travels through San Jose towards the countryside. We pass a place that looks like a castle, but Alberto tells us that it used to be a prison, now it’s a children’s school. Out side of town the vegetation gets thicker, the roads get windy, and the hills rise into great, green, rolling crests and valleys. Rural Costa Rica is the very definition of the word verdant. Our destination today is the town of La Fortuna, and the volcano Arenal.
Our first stop in La Fortuna is at a tour company run by a former GAP employee. We are greeted with free cerveza and a presentation of the various activities offered. We consult with Alberto and choose to go on a nature hike with lava-viewing opportunities, and finish with an evening visit to the hot springs, pizza dinner is included. For tomorrow, class 3&4 river rafting on the Rio Toro. Then we go check into our hotel. The Paraiso Tropical is more shabby than chic, but at least the water runs. Lunch at a local soda (soda means a family owned local food joint) is Casado con salsa carne. Casado means marriage or togetherness or something, so the platter has beef in sauce, rice, beans, plantain, chayote, corn tortillas. I pour a generous amount of the salsa Linzano and some other tobasco like sauce and dig in. I love the food here!
The rain forest hike is kinda lame, the guide is almost surly and hard to understand, shockingly, it rains. Hard. We also did it backwards, you are supposed to get dropped off at the top and walk down, but instead we started at the bottom and hiked up to the top. Dripping, we piled into the bus, and on the way down the road to the Lava observation point our bus is stopped by the pizza delivery boy. We’re on narrow, muddy dirt road outside of town, it’s dark and we’re driving in the rain. That’s service!
At the lava-lookout it’s still pouring rain, and the rain clouds the air so we can’t see the hot molten magma that Arenal is spitting out. We wait it out in the bus and eat pizza. The company also sent a cooler filled with beer, coca cola, juice and a fresh 500ml bottle of liquor. It’s made from sugar cane and tastes like vodka. The 15 of us kill it in 20 minutes. Then we decide to abandon the lava for the hot springs.
We arrive at Baldi hot springs at 7:30. Our guide Alberto saves us each 10 bucks by watching our bags so we don’t have to get a locker. Baldi has nearly 2 dozen pools of various temperatures, ranging from 55 celsius to cold. It also has 2 swim up bars, music, and water slides. It’s dark and there are very few children, mostly young people like ourselves. We wander around, dip in a few pools, we find that the 45 degree pool is too hot to get in, and wonder at how anyone gets in the hotter pools. Then we find the water slides. While climbing the wet slippery (painful) metal stairs to the slide we run into others who warn of the treacherous widow-maker slide we are headed for. Pat, resplendent in his arrogance, assumes they are joking. He hops on, pushes off as hard as he can, and we all hear a resounding crack of cabeza before the splash at the end. I’m sure he’s unconscious or bleeding, deservedly so. I go last, and find out what the fuss is about. I cross my legs at the ankles, brace my hands behind my head, and keep my core tense for the ride, making sure to keep my head up, but my body flat. It starts out in a nice loop de loop, suddenly I’m freefalling and flying over the side of the slide, rather than to the pool below. I’m told by the gaping, laughing bystanders that I skipped and spun across the water for quite a distance. When I came up, I was facing the slide. It seems obvious at this point that the slide is not built to the exacting safety standards we are accustomed to in the US. I wonder if maybe they left a section or two out when constructing it. The best part is sitting in the warm pool below the slide and watching the unsuspecting victims as they come careening off the impossibly sharp turn, slamming against the side, pummeling their bodies as they fly over the sheer cliff-like drop at the end.
Day 3 – La Fortuna
Our pickup for rafting is at 8:30 so we were envied by our tour mates who had earlier morning departures. We have a leisurely desayuno at the soda. Fried eggs over beans and rice is still soooooo good! The Aussies are coming with us on the river, so we all pile into the tour van when it arrives. Our 2 guides, Carlos and Carlos inform us tha twe’ll be rafting 4 each to a boat, so Pat and I start to chat up the other couple that was in the bus when we climbed in, knowing that the Aussies would be their own group. Farrah and Abiolo are from New York, but she recently had a job offer in Sacramento, so we tried to sell her on the sweetness of California Living. They lamented the expensive futility of the urban NY lifestyle. At the river we were given helmets, life jackets, oars and safety instructions. Even the guides wore safety gear. Pat and Abi rode up front, Farrah and I in the center and our guide, Carlos steered from the rear. Abi and I were on the left, Pat and Farrah on the right. Carlos called out instructions for us to paddle, left back, right forward…forward everyone…back everyone…left forward, right back. The rapids were abundant and continuous, some technical, others just fun. The safety instructions included high-side drills and ducking inside the raft, but we rarely had to use them, everyone secured their feet well, I only got knocked back once, but just hung over the side of the boat, since my feet were still tucked in the proper position. The water was cool and the river was exhilarating. We surfed at a section of the river, Our boat was better at it than the Aussies because we had 2 men to paddle. Carlos would warn us of possible safety precautions on each rapid. He informed us that we might have to high-side left on one run so we all prepared. As we came down rapid, heading directly for a wall, and a left turn, he called high side left, since I was seated on the left anyway I didn’t have to move, and I didn’t have time to be suspicious, as everyone piled to my side of the boat, it capsized directly on top of me. I was under the flipped raft. I opened my eyes and could see in the dim light that there was an air pocket under the overturned raft. I came up and took a few breaths, and looked for my escape route. I knew the wall was to the right, so I decided to go left. When I tried to duck under and swim, the current was pushing against me and trying to force me back under. I kicked harder, and pulled harder, the current was still pushing, but I overcame it and popped out to see our guide already standing atop the raft, laughing as all our gear floated down the river. Everyone was clear of the raft safely. He had flipped us on purpose.
Our guides loaded us back up at the end of the river and we headed back to town, to have lunch at the company house on the Arenal River. We stopped at a small mercado on the way to buy bebidas. Pat and I split a 40 of Imperial (the local cerveza) while the Aussies bought a handle of the sugar cane liquor and some more juga. Even the guides picked up a cerveza to enjoy with us. On the way we asked what bar they liked to hang out at in La Fortuna, and they invited us to crash the 20th birthday party of another guide later that evening. The bar was called Vagabondo. At the company house we were served pollo, arroz, frijoles, ensalada, pico de gallo y tortillas fritos. Deliciosa!
Back at the hotel after our tour we convinced Abiolo and Farrah to meet us at the bar later, then we rallied all the young folk in our group to come as well. Our tour guide managed to snag us the hotel bus to taxi us there and back for about a buck each, total.
The Vagabondo was an Italian style pizza & pasta place We enjoyed more cerveza and more pizza, then met up with our guides who were hangingout playing pool and drinking in the back room of the bar. Soon the restaurant closed, but the bar remained open. Loud music in espaniol and lots of hooking up and making out going on amongst the guides. Upon my visit to the ladies room I found that the birthday boy was getting a special birthday treat in the stall next to mine. I felt dirty, and not just because I didn’t bother to wash my hands as I rushed out of there!
Day 4 – Monte Verde
We departed for the Monte Verde cloud forest this morning around 8. Our small passenger van was packed. It was a quick ride to our first stop.We arrived at lake Arenal and were hustled onto a waiting ferry. Our guide Alberto wished us farewell and took our baggage, since the next leg of our journey would involve animals of the equine persuasion. We zoomed across the lake, stopped to take pictures of the Arenal volcano looming above the lake, and headed up a short path to the horses. My horse was named Gasparino, He was grey with spots, and his mane was buzz-cut. We didn’t like me and had bad ankles or knees, I soon found out. The stirrup rubbed my ankle the wrong way after the first hour and a half of riding. Pat’s horse tried to bite mine 3 times on the trail. Horseback Riding is hard work! We stopped at a small glen of guava trees to have a snack of pineapple and trail mix. The horses liked to eat the fallen guavas so I fed a few to various horses, although Gasparino refused to eat the one I offered him. Brat. Back on the horses we continued around the lake towards the end of the trail. The horses eagerly anticipated the end of their long haul and began to trot toward the finish line with enthusiasm, jostling and crowding for position. Once we unsaddled at the end the horse just turned around and walked themselves back to the trail to return to the start. It was almost creepy, all these riderless animals just trodding back the way we came. We used the bathroom at a small soda and then climbed into another van. The road was so bumpy the luggage was falling off the pile onto the Wilson sisters sitting in the back row. We drove past strange cattle and quaint pastoral farmlands. Laundry hung on the clotheslines to dry, houses were cobbled together from stucco, wood, tin and masonry, all painted with mismatched tropical colors.The unpaved road was rustic, kidneys massaged roughly by the ruts and gullies. The rolling green countryside looked ripe with fertility. We stopped again around 2 for lunch and I had ceviche. The restaurant was good, and the food was cheap! We finally arrived at our destination in Monte Verde around 5. Claro de Luna is a fantastic little bed & breakfast with lush flowering gardens planted around it. We had time to settle in and then left for the Frog Pond. It was pouring rain on us again as we walked. Thankfully the frog ponds were a man-made covered exhibit, so we stayed dry. Unfortunately, they were a man-ade covered exhibit with a guide and it was a bit lame. We saw a lot of froggy-style action. Apparently the rainy season is also mating season. We walked back to the hotel, and everyone tried to take a shower at the same time. Except Pat & I. We were just dirty when we all left to walk to dinner. We had reservations at a place called Tree House. It was a restaurant built around and under a giant fig tree. The atmosphere was cool, there was live jazz music. The waiters had palm pilots. The service was terrible, the food was expensive. We came home and crawled into bed.
Day 5 – Monte Verde
We had a 7:30 bus to the Monte Verde Reserve, where we were met by guides for a nature hike through the cloud forest. This hike was not lame. First we checked out the humming bird “tent” which was a patio populated with tiny iridescent birds darting and hovering about. Then they showed us a strange raccoon like creature in a tree. Then they showed us through a telescope some tiny yellow orchids growing high above us on a branch. The hike hadn’t even begun yet! Our guide was a crazy bird-obsessed naturopath. He called to all the birds in the forest. I took pictures of bright flowers. He told us about wasps that lay their eggs in figs. We saw a puma track. He found the elusive, exquisite Quetzle, which means resplendent. It’s endangered. The guide’s girlfriend showed up, and she looked less than half his age, and barely (if at all) of the age of majority. We gave him a tip, because his knowledge was aweso. On the way back to Claro de Luna we stopped for helados at the cheese factory. I tried a smoky gouda-like sample. It was gouda. Then I ate coffee ice cream. Then I ate cookies and cream ice cream. Then the van dumped us in town for a quick lunch before our next excursion. I had a taco con cerdo at the Taco Taco Taqueria, basically a taco truck without wheel. It was juicy and tasty.
We were picked up by the tour company for our canopy tour. When we arrived at the headquarters one of our crew decided that X-treme Canopy was too extreme for her so she declined to go. We all signed waivers and geared up. We got a quick lesson and were off on the lines. The first two were short and easy, for practice. The next one was 450 meters long, and spanned a green gorge. It was so awesome. So was the next one, and the next. We zig-zagged back and forth across the same valley a few times, stopping to rappel and swing on the tarzan swing (omg, like super cool!) and then did the grand finale, the longest, highest zip line in tandem. They hooked pat and I together, I got the camera video rolling and we were off. The views are spectacular, the mist was rolling over the hills, the trees and houses were tiny below us. We finished just as the clouds burst open with another torrential rain. We waited out the worst of it with our comrades back at headquarters before getting a ride back to our hotel. We rested about an hour and then headed out to dinner again, the restaurant we made reservations at sent a car for us, free. It was a very nice place, Italian food and pizza, a great menu. Pat and I had a bottle of the house cabernet. We had good conversation with our tour friends, and headed back the the hotel bleary eyed and satiated after a very long day.
