Que Aventura!

How is it possible that a country 5 times smaller than Colorado can have so much diversity and so many things to do?!  I’m glad I’m teaching in a country that has so much to explore!  It’s great!!

Let’s see, another month has passed.  September flew, I think the consistent weather is messing with my ability to see that time is passing.  It still rains every afternoon, so with the consistent weather, it seems as if time is just standing still.  It’s strange to think that back home, the seasons are changing.  I’m in an alternate world or something.  School was busy, but it’s amazing how much more efficient I am now than last semester.  Writing lesson plans, grading, teaching.  It’s becoming easier.  The third quarter went really well.  The little Brazilian is speaking lots of English; Miss K, Kyle, and I are speaking only Spanish at recess/lunch; and well, I have of course more stories to report!  After parent-teacher conferences, we were lucky enough to have another week off of school.  I’m really taking advantage of our time off of school.  The end of the quarter is always busy, but we finished…and with lack of planning but an adventure in mind, Kyle and I were off to the Caribbean coast (unfortunately Miss K went stateside instead).

Puerto Viejo:)

First stop, Puerto Viejo.  One word that perfectly describes Puerto Viejo: tranquilo (calm, laid back, no worries).  It served as a nice midway point instead of going all the way to Panama in a day.   I did like Puerto Viejo!  It had that Caribbean vibe.  Dirt roads, reggae, dreadlocks, Bob Marley music/posters, fishing boats, clear water, bikes everywhere (we rented some for a couple bucks), several different languages, people grilling on the street, and tasty food!  Don’t worry, we’re still in Costa Rica so we didn’t stray too far away from rice and beans.  The Caribbean of course found another way to prepare rice and beans, Caribbean style.  Mix the rice and beans together and add coconut milk.  It was quite tasty.  I also enjoyed a delicious salad with chicken, fruits, veggies, and a platter of spicy dressings and peppers…needless to say that made me so happy!

In a few words, the Caribbean is hot, humid, and sticky.  I think I was in a continuous state of sweating.  I found it funny that so many hotels were advertising ‘hot water’ because everywhere we went I was gladly choosing to take cold showers!  Now that I’m back in San Jose, it almost feels cool.  The Caribbean has opposite weather of the rest of the country.  Right now is the Caribbean’s dry season, which worked out perfectly because we were able to get away from all the rain!  We actually were able to enjoy nice, sunny evenings for once!  It was pleasantly shocking to see the sun past 1pm!

One teacher at school told me to go to Puerto Viejo with the intention of returning.  So even though we stayed less than a day, we decided to stop there again after Panama.  See you soon Puerto Viejo…onward to Bocas del Toro, Panama.

The walk to Panama:) 

We got an early start and took a local bus to Sixaola, the rather interesting border crossing to Panama.  Unlike the Nicaragua border, there are several border crossings to Panama, which made the trip much easier.  In fact, it was quite entertaining.  To cross into Panama, you have to walk across a rather narrow, wooden bridge.  Some boards were unstable, there was a ‘lookout point’ with no railings at all, and watching a semi or bus go over the bridge was quite impressive!

Just imagine this bus crossing the bridge!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  On the bus to Sixaola, we met some travel amigos who we ended up getting to be good friends with over the next 3 days.  Ogi and Shant are 2 interesting fellows, who live in Canada; Ogi is from Bosnia and Shant is Armenian.   They had just come from working on a farm for the past few days.  They were nice enough to share some starfruit and 100% dark chocolate from the farm.  Que rico!  They were headed to the island of Bocas del Toro also.  This is the first of eight months of their travel.  (I’ll admit, I’m a bit jealous of their travel plans).  Friendly, fun, adventurous guys!

So, we made it across the border crossing pretty easily.  It helps traveling with a bigger group…especially when it comes to bargaining.  We all shared a taxi to Almirante on the coast, and from there, were able to catch a water taxi to Bocas del Toro.

The water was so clear and even turquoise!   So pretty! 

Bocas del Toro, Panama!

We walked around scoping out where we would stay that evening.  This was all reminding me of backpacking through Europe.  Not knowing where we’ll sleep that night, walking around with our packs, exploring new territory.  It was good:)  I don’t know how Hotel Zapatilla was the big winner…but somehow we ended up there.  A new amigo, Santiago talked us into it somehow…or maybe it was because it was $7/night.  Either way, we stayed there.  It worked fine, just…hot.

That afternoon we ended up watching a track meet in town, that was bringing me back to my track running days!  It was interesting because they painted lanes right on the street on the main road in town.  It was so hot..how were they running?  Some were even wearing a warm-up sweat suit.  I’m positive their muscles were staying warm… I’m pretty sure I was sweating just as much as the runners and I wasn’t even running. 

Later we ended up renting $1 bikes and road around the island.  The island didn’t really having beaches like I expected.   But it was still very nice; a lot of diversity.  All different types of houses, cute streets, even ocean breezes at times.

Now to introduce the upcoming characters:  Jay, Finnish, born in Sweden, but lives in Norway.  He’s just one of those people who loves life, and hilarious!  How did he know so many funny English expressions?  He was like a Kramer…and yes, he speaks Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, English..and he wants to pick up Spanish now, traveling for 6 weeks.   Next, Elena from Germany is on her 14 month of travel and still 8 more to go!  World traveler that’s for sure!  So nice:)  Brett, a firefighter from Australia was also a character.  He’s traveling South America for the next 4 months.  He lives up in Darwin, a city up in northern Australia.  Another German girl, Jenny came the following day to join her friend for the next 8 months.  It was such an interesting dynamic we had going:)  Everyone was speaking in English as their second language, but then Kyle and I were able to translate and speak Spanish for everyone.  It was such a great time sharing our travels with such interesting people from around the world!

Santiago was telling us about better beaches on other islands, so we decided to take a water taxi somewhere nearby.  Our bargaining was getting quite easy now that our group was growing.  8 of us!  We talked Santiago down from $5/person to $2/person.

Such a pretty beach!!  Shant and Jay were determined to get a coconut from a tree.  Both had different methods and both succeeded.  We drank sweet water from the coconuts on this beautiful beach, swam in warm, Caribbean water, played cards on the white sandy beach.  Wow, what a life:)

The next morning, we all had a bargained $12 tour lined up with Santiago.  It was a GREAT day!  First, we all took a boat to Dolphin Bay, and yes we did see some dolphins!  Then, we went snorkeling and saw lots of creatures!  All kinds of fish, schools of fish, coral, jellyfish, lobster.  It was lovely!  We then went to a National Park/Beach called Red Frog.  And the last stop was another snorkel spot!  What a great day!

El grupo:)  What fun!

That night we had a tasty, cheap dinner.  Some nice guys from Jamaica owned it.  There were 3 things on the menu: ¼ of a chicken, ½ of a chicken, or 1 chicken; all come with platanos.  The boys loved that place, and went there every night.  It was good!  I was also enjoying how cheap everything in Panama was.  We had a great last night with our new friends just hangin’ and visiting.  It was a great trip..but it was time to part ways en la manana.

Now the travel was easy since we had just done it 3 days prior.  We took a water taxi, bus, Panama bridge, bus, back to Puerto Viejo. 

Another lovely afternoon in Puerto Viejo allowed us to rent bikes (which came with snorkel gear) to ride south to another nice beach called Playa Manzanillo.  I understand how ‘beach cruiser’ gets its name.  It’s perfect, riding a bike near the beach doesn’t require gears, and the basket is perfect to put towels and snorkel gear in:)  We road to the calm beach, which was so pretty!  Went swimming, and snorkeled right off the beach.  It was great!  I did scrape my leg on some coral..oops!  My legs went through a lot between the scrapes and thousands of mosquito bites!  My blood is definitely sangre dulce (sweet)!  Awhile later, a guy came and offered us to use his kayaks for free!  It was fun!  When we realized we were going to lose our sun fast, so we decided to ride the 8 miles back to Puerto Viejo.

Another travel day ahead.  People said all that we accomplished couldn’t be done.  But it was facil (easy) and fun!   A couple buses brought us to a tour/boat/taxi take-off point, that was going to take us to Tortuguero Village.  It was a pretty wild place.  It is a town without cars..and there is no way to get there by car; only by plane or boat.  We ended up joining a tour group on a boat to travel from Limon up the Caribbean coast to Tortuguero.  The trip took some time even though it was only 35 miles.  Granted we were stopping to see wildlife and such.. but it still took us 6 hours including a stop for lunch.  Oh, the wildlife…there was so much!   Crocodiles, Caimans (mini crocs), Howler Monkeys (you could hear them howling all over the place), White-Faced Monkeys, sloths, all kinds of birds, a sea otter, deer, iguanas, Jesus Christ Lizards (it’s called that because it can actually walk on water:) ).

Caimon (mini croc) babies on the left, with the mom nearby in the water.

Oh, the Howlers:)

They call it the Jesus Christ Lizard..they walk on water!

Yet again...big bugs!

So, we get to the cute town of Tortuguero.  Found a cute, friendly, relaxing, cheap place to stay right on the ocean, then signed up for our turtle-watching tour…it is prime season after all!  Since the ocean, beach, jungle, and canals are all part of the national park, there are regulations and restrictions in the area.  For example, the beach closes at 6pm-4am…for the tortugas!  For those who want to see the female turtles come up to lay eggs there are tour groups with limited numbers, sections, and times.  Our assigned time 8pm-10pm. 

We left with our tour guide, Ernesto around 8pm, and I must say, he was quite funny...flashlight and cigarette in hand.  We hiked through the pitch-black jungle a bit to some covered benches.  This is where we had to wait for the 'okay' from a park ranger who was out looking for turtles in our assigned section.  Ernesto was shining his flashlight all around obviously looking for something.  Finally, we found what he was looking for..a HUGE tarantula who lives nearby!  He told us lots of tarantulas like this area and he just wanted to know if/where they were.  Then he proceeds to tell us to take a seat.  Wearily I sit down just praying that no creature is going to come near me.  That was when Ernesto turned his flashlight off completely.  Kyle, Ernesto, the tarantula, and I are just sitting in the DARK jungle, talking..mostly in Spanish and waiting.  Ernesto was telling us turtle facts, the last time he saw a jaguar, and how much rain there normally is in Tortuguero.  Periodically Ernesto would shine the light up on the ceiling to make sure the tarantula amigo was still there.   Well, after 2 hours of waiting, our time was up.  No turtles.  Sad.  I was so hopeful to see a Tortuga…Ernesto was bummed for us.  He was hoping we’d see one.  So he told us to wake up really early to look for them on the beach.  That lifted our spirits a bit.

Canoe Tour...Jungle Book?!  It felt like it.

The next morning I didn’t wake up early enough to look for turtles, but we did take a 6am canoe tour, which was awesome!  It seriously felt like we came straight out of The Jungle Book.  We saw so much wildlife!  The jungle is very alive in the morning before the heat comes.  It was such a unique experience, silently gliding through canals under tree branches, vines, hearing howler monkeys in the background, seeing white-faced monkeys jumping from one tree branch to another over us, butterflies, iguanas with multicolored legs that looked like it belonged in Jurassic Park.  It was quite an experience!

Lookin' stylish, I know..

Since we saw the national park by boat, we later saw the national park by foot.  They require boots only in the park..sure enough a family who lived outside the park rented boots for $1.  The black rubber boots felt like heat warmers.  Lonely Planet says the driest word to describe Tortuguero is 'humid'.  It’s true!  It felt like the humidity was just surrounding us.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but San Jose doesn’t feel humid to me now!  I think my skin has even been a bit dry this week.  Weird. 

After our hike through the sauna, we had a lovely afternoon playing with some local kids.  I loved Tortuguero because everyone was so nice!  It almost felt like we were locals because it was such a small town I felt like we knew so many people between the tour guides, people from our hotel, tours, the kids we kept seeing.  It was fun and such charm Tortuguero has!  Anyway, some kids we met the previous day really wanted to play with us..so we did!  It was so much fun!  Kyle played with the older ones (around age 10-12) and I was playing with a group of younger kiddos (4-5).  They were adorable!  We were playing tag, cops and robbers, ‘cooking’.  I was so entertained by them.  One drew a face on a seed or piece of fruit and put it on a stick as a gift for Kyle, another was bouncing a coconut with a stick, we were pretending to cook using dirt and leaves.  I had a great time.  They were sad when it was time for us to go. 

Who knew playing with local kids could be so fun:)

Tortuga!

Alright, our final day came, and our water taxi was leaving at 6am.  Our last chance to see a Sea Turtle.  We woke up at 4am to look..but it was pitch black and we didn’t have flashlights so even if there was a turtle on the beach, I wouldn’t have seen it.  There were the prettiest stars on the beach in this village at 4am though!  I went back to bed until 5am…then I went.  I walked for awhile, and an Austrian friend I had met at the hotel was motioning me to come!  She pointed it out…and I couldn’t see it.  Well, I was looking at a sea turtle, but I thought it was a huge boulder!  She was in a hole laying eggs.  I couldn’t see the eggs, or even her face..but it was amazing to a Sea Turtle that big!  I don’t know how she was going to get out of that hole because of her immense size; and I had to catch a boat so I couldn’t stay for longer than 10 minutes.  It was amazing though!  Walking back along the beach, watching the sunrise, reflecting on the trip; I was happy.

We caught the water taxi.  It was slow…it took us 2 hours to go 13km…the canals were so low, at one point el capitan had to get out and actually push us.  But we made it off the canal to proceed to the next series of buses back to San Jose.  A great trip indeed!

A familia pushing their boat of bananas, pigs, and bikes.

Here's a little map to show our viaje...San Jose, Puerto Viejo, Panama, Puerto Viejo, Tortuguero.

Well, that's all for the momentito.  I'll keep ya posted!  More to come.  Miss you all!