El Romanso

The drive to El Romanso took far longer than expected. Heavy traffic and severe damage to the road, with road works everywhere. Our driver Ernesto was very patient and stopped in many places to allow us to take photos of the beautiful scenery.

And birds....

Scarlet Macaws.
The camera was having problems again with condensation. No matter how often I wiped the lense, this was the best shot I coulg get!
Eventually we reached Peurto Jemenez, where we were picked up by a driver from El Romanso, in a four wheel drive Landcruiser.
Three wet water river crossings was the reason for the Landcruiser. We saw more animals (not birds) on the road into El Romanso than we had seen anywhere else. Edwin stopped to allow us to take many photos. Squirrel Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, Howler monkeys.

Two Screech Owls, iguanas, other birds.
El Romanso is located on the Osa Peninsular. Nearby is the Cotaverde National Park. This area is reputed to be the best place in Costa Rica to see animals.
We are here for four nights. And have chosen to stay put in the hotel and its grounds to recouperate from all the previous travel and rush.
In just the first two days we saw White-nosed Coatis, White-faced Capuchin Monkeys, Howler Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, Agooti, Scarlet Macaws, Toucans, Puff Bird, Roadside Hawk, Masked Owl, Red-headed Manakin and many other birds.

White-faced Capuchin.
On day two we walked one of the paths through the jungle. There are two suspension bridges on the propert, from which you can see over the canopy and into the stream below.

On this walk, a troupe of Howler Monkeys passed over our heads in the canopy above.
Our room is delightful.

A house really, with verandah, lounge chairs and a hammock outside.

No glass windows, only wire netting and wooden shutters to allow the sea breezes to flow through.

A king-size bed with inside and outside bathroom; separate toilet. Very cool and airy, very comfortable.

El Romanso is situated about 250 meters from the Pacific Ocean, but about 300 meters above sea level. So as you can imagine the path leading to the beach is VERY steep.

Dining room and swimming pool area face the sea and are completely open. The dining room is a bamboo structure built into the forest overlooking the canopy. A beautiful setting.
The lodge prides itself on its ecological sustainability. It has reached the highest possible grading for eco-tourism in Costa Rica. Very strenuous regulations are applied to the ratings. So this is no mean feat! Even the linen is sun-dried! In an area that receives 8 meters of rain a year, and with 98% humidity, I don't know how this is achieved! As we stay, a consultant has come to advise the hotel and staff on the most ecologically sustainable cleaning and washing products to be used in the laundry. Already the soaps provided for guests are 100% biodigradable and fully organic as are the floor cleaners etc.
Yesterday we ventured down to the sea.

As stated before, very steep. From the hotel you cannot see the waves, although it is so close.
The beach is black, volcanic sand, lined with palm trees and native red hibiscus.
On the beach a fresh water stream runs into the sea. Further upstream there is pool below the fresh water cascades. Here we saw cat prints, quite large, but failed to see the ocelot that had made the prints. The prints looked very recent but...... unfortunately not a cat to be seen. We were told that ocelots are very fond of turtle eggs and often dig up the nests. This would indeed explain why the tracks went around in circles.
It took 25 minutes approximately to get down to the beach and very tough going on Peter's knees. A short walk along the beach before we had to return to the hotel for a scheduled telephone call with Nigel and Mum.
We gave ourselves a good hour to get back as we had been advised that the walk back would take at least 40 minutes. Peter almost sprinted up the hill, with me following much more slowly behind. It was hot and humid. We were saturated with sweat by the time we reached the hotel. So much so that, we had to rinse all of the clothes we were wearing, including undies. Peter wished that he had walked up without shirt, because this now meant we had to dry two of his shirts, in 98% humidity. It looks like we will be taking wet clothes to Panama!
For the past two days it has rained and mist has settled in right up to the edge of the dining area. Indeed the mist has drifted in whilst we've been eating.
This has been a great place to relax and gather energy again for our next frantically busy next leg of the journey. We have slept to the sounds of rain in the roof, crickets and frogs in the forest and the crashing of waves on the beach below - wonderful!

Trogan Lodge

The devastation from hurricane Nate was sobering. This is reconstruction occurring to the road down into the valley where Trogon Lodge is located.
The Pan American highway lost a major bridge and the main highway from Cartagena to San Gerada de Dota was reduced to one very narrow pass from which you could see that the land had just fallen away, taking with it guard rails, the asphalt, lighting and cats eyes.
All land communications were destroyed, so no telephone or internet. Hence the large gap in posting these blogs.

The scenery on the drive to Trogan Lodge was stunning.
The lodge is situated high up in the Costa Rican mountains. A beautiful setting, where the ponds are breeding ponds for Rainbow Trout, served in the dining room.

San Gerada de Dota is very cold. The drive to the lodge had taken a extra two hours due to the landslides and huge amount of traffic, mainly trucks, on the highway. Our driver, Horatio, had never been to Trogan before. It must have been a fearful drive for him, in the pitch black, torrential rain, dangerous roads that were barely passable in thick cloud. And then the final descent down the one car width, very narrow, windy road with hairpin bends down to our hotel. The visibility was so poor that he oped both front windows to be able to see the edge of the road. Poor man!
We were warmly greeted by the manager, Galvin, who quickly took our luggage and organised dinner for us.
Our small room was very welcoming, with a heater on when we walked in.
Food at this lodge is exquisite. All local produce with 0 kilometers on it! The portions realistic sizes, ie not a large as those served elsewhere.
In the morning we went bird watching and found 26 species all endemic to this area and ones we hadn't seen before. The magical Quetzal unfortunately eluded us.

On arrival back to the lodge, the owner asked if we had seen the Quetzal. When he heard that we hadn't, he organised for Galvin, the manager to take us to find one. So we went straight away, to a wild avocado tree (a Quetzal's favoured food. They only eat wild avocado and blackberries. The owner told us that Galvin was THE bird expert!
And so it proved to be. Despite it now being 11.00 am, not a good time to spot birds, here is what he found......

a female Quetzal.
Quetzals eat wild avocados whole. The avocado is the size of a plum. But they don't sit on a branch to peck it off, they fly to it, like a hmming bird and pluck it off in mid flight. Then they sit on the branch to digest it. After some time they expel the whole seed and collect snother avocado. The seeds will not germinate without this symbiotic relationship. So whilst the Quetzal is reliant upon the avocado, so the avocado is reliant upon the Quetzal for reproduction.

Not far from Trogan Lodge is a cafe called Kahawa (meaning coffee in Swahili). We were very interested to find out the story behind the name.
The owner of Trogan Lodge is also the owner of Kahawa. No, he is not from East Africa, he is Costa Rican. He told us he loved Kenya so much and loved the Maasai people so much that he called his cafe, Kahawa. He lived with the Maasai in their manata for 10 days. We failed to ask him what they fed him!
The photo above and below were taken from Kahawa, further down this beautiful valley.

Pacuare Lodge

Another chaotic transfer from Aninga to Puerto Blanco, where our luggage was unceremoniously plonked once again in the mud, and where we had to retrieve it fom a precarious position just next to the river. A 30 minute wait followed whilst everyone scrambled for cover with suitcases in tow to the meagre shelter of a nearby restaurant.
Incidently the restaurant charged everyone $1USD to go to the toilet. After a 3 hour boat trip back to the port or a rough one and a half bumpy drive to the port, needless to say everyone needed to use the facilities. They made four dollars from us alone. There were signs everywhere around warning people not to go near the vegetation because of dangerous snakes! Make your own conclusions!!
Why were we waiting? Well it was a shuttle service! Bring 120 + people in and ship the other 120+ people out. Very cost effective no doubt, but hardly made the experience feel special.
Lunch was served, at the same restaurant as breakfast two days before, after the hour and a half bus drive back.
It was a tremendous relief to be collected in a 4X4 Toyota Landcruiser by Pacuare Lodge. One of the German tourists Ana, looked on with great envy as they were herded back onto another bus to collect their rent-a-car.
We believe that Ana would have been far less envious when she saw the dirt road that we took to get to the lodge! Our faces broadened with great smiles. Here was a road that really needed a four wheel drive. Very steep, narrow, with large boulders and ruts, much like the roads we drive on in the outback! This place was obviously seriously out of the way!
The car eventually stopped besides a rushing river, the Rio Pacuare.
No bridge!
Our driver spoke no English and spoke not a word to us all the way.
When we reached the river, the luggage was removed from the vehicle and placed in a basket attached to a rope. We were directed to get into the badket with the luggage and told not to touch the rope. With that we were suddenly being wisked across the river by two men pulling the rope with a pulley on the other side.
Here we were met by Willman, the manager of Pecuare Lodge, in an electric golf buggy. "Hello Peter and Sue, welcome to Pecuare."
Driving besides the river were well manicured lawns and beautiful vegetation - all indigenous to the local area.
The reception was in a wooden building with no walls, just open to the elements.
STUNNING!
Our room was a River Suite called Gavalan, named after a bird.

Outside and inside bathroom, with private balcony.

The personal touch in this lodge is exemplary. All the staff knew who we were and called us by name when introducing themselves. Extraordinary.

Even the water bottle in the bathroom had a welcome message.
Service even better. An eco lodge that prides itself on sustainability, Pecuare Lodge is listed by National Geographic as one of the "unique" lodges of the world.
We were scheduled to take a hike to the cascade the next day. Very steep and very slippery. Peter chose to take the short cut back. Good choice as there were three streams to cross over slippery, unstable rocks. Not helpful with a very painful knee.

Not an elegant photo. It was hot and steamy, so the very cold water was blussful. I was already so wet, getting wetter didn't seem to be such a bad choice. So jumped with clothes and all.
Before reaching the cascade, we passed the display indigenous hut. Local indugenous families still live like this higher up the mountain.

When we arrived back at the lodge, Willman had arranged to upgrade us to another cottage. Peter was diffident as we had to pack everything again. I thought it might be interesting. So we moved......

A private swimming pool with fresh spring water flowing through it. An inside/ outside bathroom with bath. Full verandah with hammock and recliner lounges. Full sitting room with chairs and sofa. Very decadent, luxurious and a deligtful way to enjoy a jungle setting. How lucky were we?

Bar upstairs, dining outside. At night all lit by candles.

It was with great reluctance that we had to leave this paradise.
One more piece of excitement......
We had to raft out on the Pecuare Ricer on class 111 and class 1V rapids. Wonderful experience, with great staff, delucious lunch and wonderous scenery.
No photos unfortunately. Too dangerous to take photos mid-rafting here and the wet/dry bag not good enough to withstand the soaking that we received. We spent 3 hours rafting plus time for lunch and a swim in the river.
At 2.30, we arrived at the Pecuare warehouse to dry off and get into dry clothing. Our driver was waiting to take us to Trogon Lodge near San Gerada de Dota.

Beautiful scenery on the way.

Tortuguero National Park

We were collected from La Quinta very early in the morning to be driven to a restaurant in Squirres. Here we were given breakfast, in a restaurant dedicated to transferring people to Tortuguero.
We were not not to get on the bus, because others already had seats. These people had come from the capital, San Jose. Eventually we were allowed on the bus, that seat more than 40 passengers. The seats had very little legroom and the guides who sat in the front weren't prepared to move, so for the next hour and a half, Peter sat with legs as far apart a possible and his knees squashed into the seat in front. A lovely young Costa Rican realised his dilemma and put his seat into the upright position, which helped somewhat.
Eventually we arrived a Puerto Blanco, where we were met by total chaos. The luggage had to be dragged through stinky wet mud to nearby boats. No one seemed to know what to do and much beckoning and shouting endued. There was so much luggage it had to go in a separate boat. This had to be sorted as well. So the passengers had to re-lug the belongings to another place and make sure that it departed in the right order on the right boat.
Soon the passengers were herded onto other boats and according to which lodge they had been booked. Forty in each boat. We felt like Brown's cows!

Despite the noise and number of people; three boats each with forty people and most if whom were very noisy Spaniards; we did manage to see a crocodile.

Our cabina was lovely once we arrived, as was the lodge, Aninga, named after the water bird. There were only about twelve of us staying at this lodge, so we were very delighted, thinking that we would now be able to do some quiet tours together.
This did not happen, after lunch at two o'clock, we met down at the wharf to go on a boat to see animals. (Stupid time of the day!) However instead of the twelve of us going alone we collected the noisy Spaniards from another lodge. Three boats left to get tickets into the National park, where we were told we would be going down Harold Canal, so that we would all be in different canals. Not the case! All three boats travelled down the one canal! What do you think we saw?
Well as you can imagine, we didn't see much at all. Too noisy, too many people, too many boats, wrong time of the day! And only for two hours! Guide not really interested or observant. The boat driver spotted more than the guide.

Turtle sunning itself....

Baby caimans, one iguana in the distance, some howler monkeys a long way off and a spider monkey dashing for cover!
It poured with rain in the night, but we woke to a cloudless morning! A walk after breakfast with our guide, Noel, yet again saw us join forces with the other hotel guests. This time, however we were divided into language groups. Not many English speakers, so a little better. The walk was a disappointment. It was along the hotels' pathways. Noel was ill- informed and arrogant. Not really interested in finding much at all. Indeed the visitors were the more keen-eyed.

I think this bird is one of the Triganae Family and fortunately sat over the top of the walkway on a branch and could not be missed.

Blue Land Crabs live in the mud on the jungle floor.
In the afternoon we went to Tortuguero Village, really just a packpackers type village with not a lot going for it. Saw holes dug by the turtles and souvenir shops with shoddy artifacts.
At 11.00am, I went zip-lining whilst Peter spent the time in and by the pool. What is zip-lining? Long cables are strung high up in the canopy. You wear a harness and gloves. A strong rope is attached to your harness with a carabena (?) and mechanism with rollars in it. You climb up very high for the first line, get attached to the line by placing the roller mechanism onto the steel line and safety harness is clipped to the roller. You hang onto the rope hanging below the roller and zip down the line. One hand is held behind your head on the steel rope whilst with the other hand you hang on for dear life to your safety harness. In this way you can skim across the tree canopy. I thought this would be an excellent way of viewing the rainforest and maybe sighting some animals and birds. Wrong! You are too intent on hanging on and wondering if you will stop in time. It was fun,mbut I don't need to do it again!
We saw this mother Sloth right outside the dining room. She had a young baby that she kept in another tree for camouflage while she forraged for leaves.

The great part about Tirtuguero was that we met two really lovely other younger couples, a pair from San Jose, Costa Rica and a pair from Stuttgart, Germany. Cleo and Juan were Costa Rican. Cleo, a dancer, was a real live wire and happily prattled to us in slow Spanish with much hand gesturing and animation. She spoke no English. Juan, her husband is an artist of some repute having been accepted into the Bienale twice and winning it once. His work is exceptional and we were treated to a viewing of his portfolio as well as an electronic viewing of his most recent works. The hotel used his paintings exclusively. He worked in many mediums, charcoal, oils, watercolour and also sculptured.
Eric, a periodontist acted as a translator, when our Spanish was impossible for Cleo and Juan to understand. His wife/girlfriend Laura an interior designer, spoke no Spanish and was not as fluent in English. So our conversations to an outsider would have sound quite comical. English, Spanish and German being translated all the time.

La Quinta Serapiqui Country Inn

The last things to remember about Lost Iguana are these:

The Turkey Vulture that insisted on being photographed.... Kept making noises and posing until we took notice of him/her!

Arenal Volcano that revealed herself to us once more in the early moring light to then disappear behind the clouds.

......And the White-nosed Coatis that arrogantly strolled through the resort on the final night of our stay. What a wonderful setting!
La Quinta Country Inn Sarapiqui hotel was descrbed in our itinerary as basic. Certainly not at the same standard as Lost Iguans but........
We certainly enjoyed our stay here. The staff were happy and very friendly; rooms clean and comfortable with a beautiful shared balcony overlooking the river.

The best thing of all about this stay were the excusions to La Selva Biological Research Centre. This extraordinary place was purchased through public fundraising to create a research station that could be directly attached to the nearby national National Park, Braulio Carrillo. La Selva is in the Caribbean foothills of Costa Rica and comprises 1614 hectares of old growth and disturbed tropical wet forest. La Selva and the attached park account for 4% of the total world's biodiversity in such a small area. The biodiversity is spectacular , including mire than 1850 species of plants, 359 species of tree; 448 species of birds and approximately 500 species of ants.
Needless to say our trips to this magical place gave us the greatest insights into a tropical jungle and all the life forms it contains. We were assisted by two of the most gifted guides imaginable. Octavio on the first day was an avid birder and we were priviledged to observe many birds in their natural habitat.

Blue Jeans Poison Dart Frog calling for a mate!

Mot Mot.

Annual migration of Smithonian Hawks and Turkey Vultures on their way from North America to South America and some to Oatagonia. We happened to be in La Selva to observe this Hurculean effort on the day they flew passed. The birds find the thermals and take them to help conserve energy.
Jacintha on the second day was exceptional. She is the only female guide we have met and is a permanent employee of La Selva. In a very macho Latin American world, this speaks for itself! We spent a total of five hours with her walking through the jungle.
It poured with rain for the first two hours, and as we had lost out ponchos, became saturated. Not cold, just wet! The rain eased for the afternoon session. Peter felt that he would hold us up in the afternoon, so kindly decided to stay in the canteen area of the research centre.
So I was so lucky to spend three hours with Jacintha learning all she could teach me about the things we saw. Jacintha could see things that I had not the faintest way of seeing, even to the point where she pointed out a rare Eyelash Palm Pit-viper to some snake experts that had just walked passed it!

The camera at this point decided not to focus properly - affected by the very high humidity 85 -95%! So the following photos are of poor quality. But give you a basic idea.
The camera now gets packed inside a wet/dry bag at night with an opened packet of rice.
We saw many varieties of ants, Bullet Ants; Leaf Cutter ants, Army ants etc. Bullet Ants collect fruit and stow it into a bromelaid pond in the sunshine for several days to make the fruit ferment and then they take the fermented fruit and liquor down into their nest for consumption.
A troup (?) of pecuaries sauntered across the path, one with baby in tow.
A couple of sloths two-toed and three-toed
Two males Mot Mots were dancing and displaying in the hope of attracting a female mate.
The birds at La Quinta were spectacular.