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| Lake Arenal by the hanging bridges |
Due to the change in our itinerary we had another early
start. I’m quite excited for a leisurely
day tomorrow that includes sleeping in.
At first I thought a day at the resort would be a wasted day but a day
sitting at the pool sounds delightful.
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Me braving the bridge, you can't tell but I'm holding on for
dear life! |
Today we did the belated hanging bridges. I did really well considering the
conditions. I’m not a big fan of
heights. Especially not when I’m up high
on something unstable. I had caught up
to our guide by the time we went on the first bridge and he was questioning me
if I had ever been on a suspension bridge before. Well, it’s too late now, I have 6 to go
across or go back. Going back isn’t an
option. I will conquer the bridges! You could have also done some shorter hikes
that didn’t involve as much uphill and downhill climbing. Most people seem to have picked the middle
option. And 2 ladies did the sloth
walk. They even seemed disappointed in
themselves as basically all they did was walk across the last bridge. Took them 10 minutes.
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| View from bridge |
I did conquer the bridges.
The only catch is that they swayed more and more as the whole group made
it on. And it was only about 8 or 9 of
us who did the longest hike. But there
wasn’t really a lot of standing and admiring, it was just powering across while
taking a few random shots of things around you.
Our guide seemed disappointed that we saw nothing except for
ants. The ants were sort of interesting
to see as there were leaf cutting ants and sure enough, lines of hundreds of
ants coming and going with little pieces of leafs on their backs. They even had a little overpass where they
went under the path so they didn’t get crushed.
We also saw the army ants, which do eat protein, and with enough of them
they can take down and consume some rather large prey.
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| View from above |
And while we saw no animals except the ants, we did see a
lot of stuff along the entrance to the hanging bridges to make up for it a
little bit. We spotted a few groups of
coatis. They are part of the raccoon
family, only they are active during the day.
And aren’t distracted by very much at all.
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| Coatis! |
The oddest encounter was spotting a snake on the side of the
road. It was apparently a bird eating
snake. And while it wasn’t poisonous, if
Paul had gotten bitten he wouldn’t have been finishing the tour with us. I guess the jaw on these snakes is quite
powerful and tends to lead to infection and other nasty stuff. I also got the impression that they don’t
spot snakes very often, as Jose, our driver, got out to take pictures with his
cell phone. That was the only thing I
saw him take pictures of. He would run
back to the bus whenever the snake would get too close. I had confidence that he would keep us away
from the snake. It was really amusing
because Paul got out to herd it so that we could get a better picture. So he’s out there herding it with a stick,
and then another guide got out and it was 2 grown men trying to get this 5 foot
snake to get onto the road. They did
succeed, and it was an amusing show!
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| Paul and the snake |
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| Monkeys! |
The rest of our day consisted of driving across the country
to Guanacaste, home of the uber swanky hotel.
On a positive note, seat rotation had me right behind Jose in the front
seat! So I had great views all day. I did enjoy the extra window to watch from,
and was amused to discover that many of the bridges were one way bridges, that
slowed us down a little bit. But not
much. Along the way we stopped in
Liberia, the other main city with the second major airport. While we were on our pit stop there was a guy
who came up selling coconut drinks. He
gave you a straw and cut the top off. For
a buck a piece he did really well with the bus.
I left myself a random note that Liberia is crunchy. It really is.
We’ve left a lot of the lush greenery behind and are now in what I
believe is what Paul called the dry tropical forest. It’s moderately green, but we’ve left the
palm trees and ferns behind. And it’s a
dry heat now. But we’ve still spotted a
lot of monkeys. Stopped to take pictures
at one quiet spot, have passed at least 2 or 3 other trees filled with monkeys
but we can’t stop in the middle of the main roads to take monkey pictures!
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| Cheap coconut drink, felt very tropical |
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| Playa Grande, home of the leatherback turtle |
Our last stop before the Marriott in Guanacaste was to Playa
Grande. One thing that Costa Rica, and
the tour company Caravan, really pushes is a responsible look at the environment. Over 25% of Costa Rica is protected lands and
they have leatherback turtles come to the shores to lay eggs. The only thing is that with global warming
and encroaching development the turtles are struggling. They would have thousands coming ashore to
lay eggs before, now only 30 came last year.
They are working on making it easier for the remaining turtles to
survive. The eggs go to a nursery now
and they are escorted out to the ocean to protect them from predators, but they
can’t do much once they’re in the water.
If you come during the right season, before Christmas, you can get a
permit to come out with a special guide to watch but it doesn’t sound like
there is much to see anymore.
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| Rodeo, everyone with a horse is on their way |
We had another great day. And while sitting on the bus for hours sounds
boring it really isn’t. There is so much
to see outside. Just going through towns
is a novelty because it’s so incredibly different from home. Also, just before our resort the town we
drove through was hosting the rodeo. We
had to wait for awhile for the horses to cross the road in front of us. And apparently they do some bull fighting
here in Costa Rica. Except these people
are nuts. Paul showed us a quick little
video. My favorite is the circle of
death. All the idiot men who think they
are tough go in the arena. Last man
standing in the middle circle wins, sounds easy but more targets don’t really
seem to slow the bull down at all. He
could get several guys at once. It was
amusing to watch.
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| Lovely view from the bus |
Off for a relaxing night and day on the beach!
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Swanky Marriott resort, front blue is massive pool,
far blue is the ocean! |
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| At the hanging bridges with Arenal volcano behind me |
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