Turtle Travel

Tortuguero is located on the Northeastern coast of Costa Rica. The two-soccer-field-width village is bordered on both sides by water. The crashing Caribbean Sea to the east, and tranquil rivers to the west. The Caribbean influence was immediately evident throughout town. Every other Cabina was called "Miss this" or "Miss that," the locals were of African descent, their English had some twang and cadence of Jamaican English, and the laid back friendly atmosphere was contagious. The village had no cars, just black sand paths, or some raised cement catwalks (for heavy rains). Little children ran around barefoot chasing soccer balls, riding their father's-far-two-big-bike, or dipping their barbies in swampy puddles while playing imaginary games.



We were there at VERY low season, since turtles don't start laying their eggs on the shore until March. However, there was still plenty to see and (on account of unfortunate public transport timing) too little time to see it.

To 'maximize' our time we left San Jose on a 6am bus and arrived to Cariari at 8am. But, the bus from Cariari to La Pavona didn't leave until noon (though we had been informed, by the omnipresent, though not omnipotent, travel bible the Lonely Planet that buses left every hour...hm), and boats from La Pavona to Tortuguero (the only way to get to the village) only left after the bus arrived. So tired and hot, we killed 4 slow hours in Cariari. The town was not unpleasant, just... n'est pas amusant. We did however see a SLOTH in the park that climbed from a chain-link fence about a foot in front of us up into a tall tree. That was pretty neat.

The bus ride from there to La Pavona was quite beautiful, through a land of happy grazing cows, and banana plantations (I may have passed that Chiquita Banana you will eat next week!). Then it was an hour boat ride to Tortuguero. The boat ride was straight out of a BBC tropical jungle river documentary. I could almost hear the British narration as we rode along. The river is said to be home to many cocodrilos, and I held my breath at the sight of every floating log, thinking it was a snappy reptile.

By the time we arrived it was 2pm and we had been traveling for 8 hours and had less than 24hrs to discover the secrets of Tortuguero (we had to leave on an 11:30am boat the next day to make it to the bus to San Jose).

That afternoon we explored the town. We at lunch at Budda Cafe (delicious salad and a fresh blended melon drink). We watched monkeys climb/and eat up in the tops of trees. We spotted some Oropendula birds and nests. We looked at the black sand beach that was littered with fallen coconuts. (I wouldn't have been surprised if Jack Sparrow popped out riding two leatherback turtles, holding a bottle of rum). As the sun went down we sat and watched some children playing on the couch on the porch of our room. We hardly lasted until dark and basically 'napped' until I woke up a few hours later to put my pj's on and go to sleep.



We woke up at 5:30 too go on a 6am canoe tour. This was pretty neat, and our guide had a ridiculous knack to spot animals. He would literally pick out small completely camoflaged green lizards from 10 meters away. He could also identify birds/monkeys from their call. On the two and a half hour ride we saw: spider monkeys, howler monkeys, Basilisk lizard also known as the Jesus Christ lizard for its ability to walk on water (don't worry kids, I didn't look directly into his eye), many birds (blue egrets, white egrets, green herons, kingfishers, and a few others), a river otter, toucan, and a Caiman! The caiman was actually pretty cute and not as scary as I expected.



When we got back from out excursion it started to DOWNPOUR. The rain was so loud that under the zinc roof you couldn't hear to the person talking next to you. When it let up for a moment we rented some required rubber boots, entered the national park and waded/walked through the paths for an hour. It was actually quite splendidly fun to wear the rubber boots and just traipse through the ankle deep muddy puddles and stay perfectly dry.



We had to get back to catch the 11:30 bus and started the long route home. (Although, it was better timed in this direction and we got home at 5pm).

Cho-co-la-te

Happy Birthday to my Mom! She turns 55 today. We did nothing extravagant for her birthday, but the day provided many small and special nuances and things she loves.

1. We slept in (until 8am!)
2. Mom and I walked down Calle Principal de Pavas to buy her some new shoes and a snazy green bike shirt to match her green panniers.
2.5 We rolled a couple of errands into that one trip and went to the bank, made an appointment at a dermatologist, and got some groceries. Consolidation, ha!
3. We ate chocolate ice cream bars on the walk home even though we hadn't had lunch.
4. We used various and sundry vegetables that were in the kitchen (including strange Costa Rican veggies that are not found in the states) to invent a delicious soup which we had for lunch.
5. As the soup boiled and mom used the internet, I cleaned the house. I swept the entire house (upstairs and down) and cleaned the kitchen.
6. Abba bought mom a fancy bottle of Chilean wine and lots and lots of bars of chocolate
7. Mom and I planned our overnight to Tortuguero. Wap wap, we leave tomorrow morning at 6am.
8. Mom received many lovely emails from friends and family wishing her a happy birthday.
9. Abba made dinner (spaghetti, of course), and I made the dessert that followed: Brownies with lots and lots of walnuts and vanilla ice cream.
10. Abba and I sang an, albeit out of tune, Happy Birthday as mom conducted with her fingers.

**A few interesting notes about domestic house work in San Jose. First of all, the house gets COVERED by this ultra-fine volcanic ash all the time, so you constantly have to wear shoes (or get black feet) and sweep it away. It accumulates on every surface (a al Women in the Dunes style) and its so fine you cannot feel it, but it is everywhere. Secondly, due to the altitude, water boils below 100 degrees Celsius so you must cook things for longer to compensate.

Just Around the River Bend

This was the soundtrack to my weekend (either as I sang it in my head, or out loud when I knew no one would hear me).

Saturday Mom and I went white-water rafting down the Pacuare River (rated the 5th best river in the world to raft on). It was great! We spent about 4 hours on the river in a pleasant sun or in the shade of a beautiful canyon going down class three and four rapids. It was nice to get out of the fog and bustle of San Jose into nature (which is both tranquil and thrilling). Some of the cool things we saw were the hanging nests of the Oropendula birds, two toucans (one flying and one sitting in a tree), a hummingbird nest and the mom, a flying morpho butterfly whose iridescent indigo wings remind me a fairy leaving a trail of fairy dust behind it, and this 'bridge' made by the Indios of the region--basically a cable stretching across the river with a little box hanging below it and you pull yourself across. 2 hours deeper into the foliage there are still groups of Indios who live like as small plot-farmers. We had a great guide and navigated through the rapids like pros. The tour group we went with even fed us breakfast of 'gallo pinto' (beans mixed into rice) and a lunch of beans WITH rice. (The food though, was good). The only glitch with the whole day was in the morning when mom and I overslept our 5am alarm and had to race around town in panic for over an hour trying to catch our ride.

Sunday the three of us rented a car again. Here is an example of how everything happens for a reason. Last week mom and I tried to go to San Pedro (the neighborhood around the University of Costa Rica), got on a wrong bus and wove around some random areas in San Jose before sheepishly asking the driver if he would pass the university and he condescendingly told us we are on the wrong bus. Anyway, those 'wasted' hours winding around proved to be super useful today in order to navigate our way to Cartago and avoid the congested city center. In Cartago we stopped at the famous Church which was overflowing with people attending service, but we stood inside for a few minutes to take in the gorgeous light that was streaming in from the windows.


Then we drove through the scenic valley of Orosi and I would say that it was the prettiest area I have seen so far in CR. We had lunch at a restaurant in the midst of a coffee farm right on a lake with the greatest vegetation to explore. Later in the afternoon we got out to a nearby national park and hiked through the rain on some great trails. Feeling in touch with nature, I again sang Poccahontas songs as we walked along.

Spanish Frustrations

NEVER in my life have I struggled in Spanish. I cannot remember the last time I felt unable to express myself. Even if my vocabulary faltered, I could dance around the word with speed and ease. Of course, occasionally a conjugation would slip here and there, but I was always confident and comfortable in my ability to express myself.

Until Now.

Twenty years later and it feels like I am trying to teach myself to write left-handed. I can do it, but it is immensely slow, the letters sloppy and childish, each sentence requires an exhausting amount of concentration, and what does come out is unrecognizable as my own. For the past week I have chosen to remain mute because Portuguese has raped and pillaged my Spanish and either taken it as its slave or left it to rot. Even the simplest sentences that I pre-think in my head (which, I usually even think in Portuguese, translate it into Spanish, double check it one last time to let my lips get a little practice forming the word) still come out Portanol. Its embarrassing.

This week I signed up for an intensive Spanish class at the Costa Rican Language Academy across town to force myself to regain my Spanish. After a written and oral exam I was (thankfully) placed into Advanced Spanish. (There is still hope that my Spanish will be reborn from the ashes). In my class of four students, I understand absolutely everything (my comprehension is as great or even better than ever), grammatically I am sharp (preterito/imperfecto, ser/estar, subjuntivo...Bring it ON), but my speaking is AWFUL. I am at a loss for words, and the words I do use are Portuguese (muito instead of muy/mucho being the number one offender, closely followed by e instead of es, and ele instead of el...the list is endless). But worst of all, is that it doesn't even sound right. My tongue can no longer gracefully spin the pirouettes of Spanish, the pronunciation sounds outlandish and awkward and I am pretty sure I have picked up a Portuguese-Spanish accent. GREAT.

One of the women in my class is a Brazilian born, now long-time US resident high school Spanish teacher. Yesterday at one of our breaks she asked me (in Spanish) about my trip to Brazil, and just for my own sake, I answered in Portuguese. Boy did it feel good. I could talk a mile a minute and not once did I have to think about what I was saying. It just flew out. In mindless bliss, I could have talked for hours. Except she had a few follow up questions which she posed in Spanish. So I went back to the stumbling cadence of espanol. Wings were clipped and I was back to climbing a rocky mountain with a broken leg.

Okay, perhaps I am being a little dramatic. My Spanish will come back, its just going to take more effort than I hoped and a LOT more practice. Its just frustrating that's all. And I just hope its not at the cost of my Portuguese...

Adventuring in Costa Rica

This weekend, since Abba was not working, we rented a car and went for an adventure outside of the city of San Jose. The car was a little SUV shaped toy car, and sitting in it I felt like Mr. Incredible and his car. From the car rental place we had to drive through downtown which is absolutely uncivil. Buses have no qualms about practically kissing your bumper, street lights are hung so high you cannot see them from the driver's seat, pedestrians spill off the side walks and weave between cars, there are rumors that ladrones break into your car while you are at a light and steal your purse, and of course, the streets don't have names so navigating the new area was difficult. But with relatively few glitches we got out of the city and onto a road toward the JUNGLE.

In less than a half hour we were winding our way up volcanos covered by lush greenery. Following two other Tico's before him, Abba, passed a put-putting truck pushing his way up the hill. And then quite promptly, we got pulled over by a cop who tells my non-Spanish-speaking father that he is being fined 20,000 colones and a 6-month license suspension. It was almost funny, except he wasn't joking. Evidently we had passed the truck across a double yellow line. As he wrote up a ticket, got our license plate number, and Abba's passport; Mom worked her sweet talking magic. How we have only been in Costa Rica less than a week, we had only had the car for one hour, how we really didn't know we broke a law... which were all, true, true and true. We even whispered amongst ourselves about bribing the police (though I don't think I could ethically do that, and he didn't seem like a bribing-kinda-guy). But by some trick of fate, after all that good scare he let us go free! And after that we drove not a hair over the speed limit and did not attempt to pass any other vehicles.

Finally we arrived at our destination--The Rain Forest Aerial Tram. This was pretty cool. The three of us got our own private tour with an extremely knowledgeable English-speaking guide. The trip included an hour hanging canopy tour, which among all the diverse jungle plants we saw a Kuwati and two white-faced Cappuchin monkeys! We also did a walking tour and got to see some extremely poisonous pit vipers (about the width of your finger), a bullet ant (over an inch long) whose claim-to-fame is his sting is more painful than that of a scorpion, a bunch of birds and butterflies, some really cool plants, and a whole battalion of army ants. My favorite sighting, however, were he leaf cutter ants. The colony had lasted for over ten years and these ants were the most organized and efficient workers I had ever seen. They even cleared trails to the forest, like little ant high ways so that they could carry leaves 3-times their size back to the hive. These leaves, by the way are not ant food. They are taken into the colony chewed and mixed with some ant digestive fluids in order farm a fungus for them to eat.

Here are some pictures from today:
Mom and Abba on the Aerial Tram


Some cool rain forest tendrill:


This was the best I could get, to capture the ants


A great sunset:

Where Am I?

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009-- San Jose, Costa Rica, Central America, Northern Hemisphere, Planet Earth. This may sound like a specific location to you, but in fact, my exact location has been difficult to pin point. According to Wirlan Delgado (our land lord) we live “Del Final del Boulevard de Rohrmoser, 200 meters Oeste.” The address is elusive and for those of us who don't carry around yard sticks and compasses in our pockets proves to be difficult to locate. At least my street Rohrmoser has a name (although, it is clearly not of Spanish origin). The name, however, is a huge start. Most streets outside the heart of downtown have no identification. While I have yet to see a sign where the name is written out, at least every Tico (Costa-Rican) innately knows where this unsigned street lays and is happy to point you in the right direction. I am not even sure what neighborhood we are in. While neighborhood Rohrmoser, would be a logical conclusion, many other indications show that we are in Pavas, a neighborhood specifically identified by Lonely Planet as one to avoid. While the neighborhood is nothing to boast about, I have few complaints and do not feel unsafe, so perhaps we are not in Pavas either. And after the three of us have spent many hours, heads bent, pouring over our map of San Jose we have concluded that we are, in fact, not even depicted on the map. Even for passionate map readers, like my mother, a city without street names and a mediocre map with few noted land marks makes finding our house challenging. After cross checking with a google earth picture, we decided that we are, like the Order of the Phoenix, unplottable.

The house, however is adorable. It takes 5 different keys to unlock the series of gates/ padlocks to get through the front door but once inside everything is beautiful. We have a glass dining room table, a wooden couch and two wooden armchairs, a kitchen with beautiful blue and tan tiles on the wall. Upstairs the master bedroom has a little balcony and a walk in closet about the size of my side of my dorm room. My room has two twin beds and a big window, There is also a good sized bathroom and laundry room with a skylight. Under the stairs there is another half bathroom.

Português

So after 24 hours of flying/waiting/sitting I arrived home at around 2:30pm yesterday. The biggest reverse culture shock...is that America is FREEEEZING. (I know people like Lex, or Abby, or East coast/mid west would scoff at the temperate bay area, but I have not felt that sneaky little cold wind that finds every exposed surface and nips at your skin for over 6 months and it is COLD!).

Anyways, I am home until January 12th where again I am off to Costa Rica for 3 months mais o menos. But what I really wanted to write about was a few comments on the kwirks of Português. (Before I forget it all to Spanish)

Unlike German, Portuguese steals American words shamelessly but pronounces them in the cutest fashion. "Internet," for example is spelled "internet" but pronounced "in-ter-ne-chee." "Hip-hop" becomes "hippy-hoppy", "rock" music becomes "hockee" (the 'r' at the begining of the word is pronounced like a spanish 'j'). "Hot Dog" is some times translated literally to "cachorro quente" (pronounced ca-sho-ho ken-chee)or is called a "hot-chee dog." In fact, most of the time when a Português speaker would try to be helpful by throwing in an English word they knew with the Português pronunciation, I had NO CLUE that they were attempting to speak English. Even after you grow accustomed to the pronunciation patterns I was still utterly thrown off when some one was trying to talk to me about "Bra-gee Pi-chee." As you probably could (not) guess, they were talking about none other than American celebrity Brad Pitt.

One of the things I love most about Portuguese is the sign language that they use. The two most important hand gestures one must learn before going to Brazil is the "Thumbs Up" and what I call the "Finger Waggle."

The Finger Waggle consists of raising the index finger and and shaking it back and forth. It can be accompanied by an oscillation of the wrist for emphasis (or if the dexterity in your index finger is not up to par) but is not necessary. This motion means a very serious "No." When vendors come up to you to try to sell you something, just the slightest waggle from that finger and they will go away immediately without even saying a word. Brazilians are so responsive to this finger waggle that if, for example, your hand is occupied by, lets say, the book you are holding, just lifting the finger, still holding the book will produce the desired result. The waggle is also useful at bus stops to let the bus driver know that that is not the bus you want. Buses (and all cars) drive at break neck speeds and even at a bus stop you must flag the bus down so it can slam on its breaks to let you on. However, if a bus passes that you don't want to take, the bus driver (at lightening speed) looks for the small and insignificant finger waggle from all the people waiting at the bus stop to know that he can bullet on without stopping.

My favorite hand signal of all is the thumbs up, which is used liberally. I have adopted its use like a bad habit. The thumbs up, like English, means good, in every sense. If you like something, are content, comfortable, satisfied, or happy, you use the thumbs up. Brazilians (who are extremely generous and hospitable) will not take your word if you say you are full at dinner, or comfortable in this chair, but will keep on insisting you eat more or use this or that pillow unless you show them the thumbs up. That has the final say. The thumbs up can also be used instead of a conversation all together. When walking down the street and you pass someone you know, instead of stopping for quick and meaningless small talk you can give them the thumbs up to mean "Hi, how are you" and they will flash the thumbs up back to mean "I am fine, thank you" and then you will pass each other without a word, but having exchanged the most pleasant little conversation. This is especially useful if you are in a group talking and you see from a far a friend, who it would be rude to not say hi to but also rude to leave your present conversation. An across-the-way thumbs up works perfectly in this situation. Thumbs up is also the way to thank a driver when they stop for you at a cross walk (though this, is not that common because pedestrians have little right-of-way). I often use the thumbs up after a finger waggle at a vendor to be more kind, in a "Your hand crafted jewelery is beautiful, but I am not interested in buy any right now, thank you very much" sort of way. The thumbs up is such a universal sign of a good feeling in Brazil; I love it.

Well folks, my (Brazilian) journey is over but my globetrotting will continue logo, or should I say pronto (as in Spanish). I'll be keeping this blog for Costa Rica too, so continue to check it, and I will also add some more Brazilian pictures.

Feliz Ano Novo,
Beijos!