Cacophany in the canopy

Woken by howler monkeys at dawn, yelling at each other across the jungle next to our cabin - sound like a cross between lions and dementors, very spooky and very loud. Didn't stop Ralph sleeping through till past ten.

Meanwhile a sqzillion blue & yellow crabs popped up and down from their mud holes around the cabin (successfully foiling any efforts at portrait photography) & geckos cackled at me from the ceiling above the shower. Unusual shower design, some kind of electric heater attached below the shower head emits sparks & dims all the lights whilst operational, operational not implying any kind of heating functionality but who'd want a hot shower in this climate?

Once Ralph rolled out of bed at 11am, showered and put on fresh clean clothes (which are damp within 20 mins), we headed into town for coffee/breakfast/lunch. This consisted of Chris using pigden english to order coffee (and no they dont understand us any better if you say english words slowly and loudy while affecting a bad spanish accent - "kood I pleez ave a black couphie?"), the ordering of which resulted in a lovely smile followed by a shaking of the head and a 'no cophey' reply from our waitress. Things were simplified moments later when a couple of Spanish speaking american ladies also ordered coffee which arrived promptly allowing us to point at the mugs and say in our very very best Spanish, "Dos, por favor" while pointing with no visible sign of underlying homicidality. No negative feelings in a town apparently dedicated to the memory of Bob Barley (spell check did that) .

While enjoyed the local coffee we witnessed our second torrential downpour, followed by our second power outage (cut to last night speaking to our gracious German hosts "Ja, the power, she goes out for 10 mins or maybe 40 often, ja?". We could barely make out his shoulders shrugging while sitting in the dark).(It was around the same time that our hosts mentioned the recent choke-a-chest aerial mosquito sprayings in an attempt to control the local outreak of dengue fever - the spraying has been so successful that they've cancelled the upcoming carnival events.

We then jumped into our trusty stead, the silver Hyundai 4*4 and headed down country. The roads resemble swiss cheese with a watery gravey. The potholes often outnumbering the road. The coast though is beautiful. Exactly what you would imagine the Caribbean to look like. In Chris's mind the only thing that could have improved it was Johnny Depp, bare chested with or without full Pirate gear kidnapping her for a life of muskets and muscles.

There are a bunch of small towns down the coast and tomorrow morning we will leave the Alby Lodge (www.albylodge.com) and go 16Kms south to stay in a tree house for a couple of nights. Its all about eco-iguanas. It would be very easy to stay on this one bit of coast for three weeks and see nothing else of the county.

Getting back to Cahuita about 3, we headed down to the National Park (a walk of almost 150m) and went down through the jungle for a couple of hours. Our disappointment of not seeing monkeys in the first 50m of park was soon put to rest at 51km where we found more knowledgeable park walkers staring up into the trees at monkey families. Maximum zoom & much camera wobble - the sloth was an easier target.

So the animal score card gets a good hit today with about a dozen Howler Monkeys, some very big spiders, leaf cutter ants and a lone sloth making up the tally for a slow stroll through the jungle. Ralph doesn't think blue & yellow mud crabs are worth the mention, nor the geckos which laugh out loud.

Tomorrow we will TRY and get up before 11am as on the agenda is a possible wake-up call from the canopy Howlers, a dash down the coast to the Tree House and a 2 hour tour (no Max, not a 2 hour cruise) through the jungle with a guide. Sorry Ralph, you'll have to be up earlier than that, the iguana tour is at ten.

So stunningly good score for day 3 with:

4 beers : 7 animals of interest : 0 worrying insect bites (but good potential from leaf cutter ants and huge spiders) : and one power outage. We should also be counting thunderstorms, only two so far today.

written by

REB on July 25, 2007 from Cahuita, Costa Rica

from the travel blog: Welcome to the Jungle...

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Hola! Bugbound Bear Drinking sloth lovers,
Well that was pretty much my interpretation of Costa Rica. But having only experienced the thunderstorms--oh,did I mention the thunderstorm thing and airport delays??? It sounds like vicariously living your holiday is the way to go...when you are ready for pink shorts, yellow socks and blue blazers you know where to find me.
Buenos Dias
M

written by Mayra on July 26, 2007

Wow our New Zealanders are giving the Aussies a run for their beer. In the interests of health no doubt - beer should be a whole lot safer than the local water.

As for the ceiling lizardy things, Alex told me that their urine is acidic on the skin. Myra (whos new name didnt fool anyone), maybe can add to this observation.

But where are Crispys comments - as the budding writer I expected to see her byline. Come on Chris - plonk away.

The weather you should be having - 100% sunny skies - has returned to Vancouver. But not a bear in sight. Keep blogging - we love it! M & P

written by Ellie on July 26, 2007

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