Rafting the Pacuare River

For our final Costa Rica adventure, we took a two-day rafting trip down the Pacuare River with a smallish outfit called Ticos River Rafting. The trip started about an hour northeast of Turrialba, and we descended 330 meters over 45 kilometers over two days, with frequent stops for a short hike or swim. One guide rowed the oar boat with all the gear, while the other captained our paddle boat.

Rapids the first day were mostly class I or II, but plenty exciting, as we descended between wild plantation land on one side and an indigenous forest reserve on the other. Once in a while we passed under a cable with a wooden seat hanging from it-a device the indigenous people use to pull themselves hand over hand across the river. At one stopping point we climbed up a side stream to a series of water slides, and then the kids went still farther. Because I kept slipping in my water shoes and slamming against the rocks, the kids uninvited me from the extended climb.

We camped overnight at a "lodge" above the river that consisted of screened in two-person bungalows and a well-appointed kitchen area. We had sheets and blankets, running water and showers, far more luxury than we had expected. Darkness falls abruptly at six o'clock in the tropics, but there was enough light from solar batteries to play Jenga and cards (52 cards somehow patched together from four decks) with the guides and a group from Canada. Even after Leo and I went to bed, outbreaks of raucous laughter continued.

The second day's rafting was more rigorous, with class III and IV rapids. We saw aricari (of the toucan family) and even more vultures than the day before. Waterfalls tumbled down from either side of three canyons. Mario and Fabio, our enthusiastic and funny guides, had us jump out and float in the calmer sections. Through a couple of rapids, the paddlers on one side reversed direction, and then everyone paddled forward so we spun through the jolting waves. Fabio encouraged Leo and then Damian to be bullriders on the front of the raft, holding on by just one rope. Damian flipped overboard in one rapid, but we hauled him back into the raft none the worse for wear. Near the end if the trip, Mario, apparently impressed by Rhianon's spirit, asked her to come over and row the oar boat while he loafed in the bow, grinning.

In mid-afternoon, wet and tired, we approached a highway bridge and beached the rafts. Taxi brought us to the beautiful Rio Perlas Hotel in the Orosi Valley, where we swam in a hot pool to stretch tight muscles. From here, in an hour, we'll be starting home. BUt for anyone thinking of coming to Costa Rica, looking for a family adventure, healthy food, friendly people, and lots of time outdoors, I say, do it!

Night walk in the mangrove forest

Going for a night walk in the mangrove forest at Drake Bay, we saw a different world. Gustavo, the guide, provided rubber boots and flashlights, and he instructed us to shine our lights around looking for the reflections of eyes. Almost immediately we found the first of many bullfrogs. As big as two fists held together, the bullfrog sat absolutely still, convinced we couldn't see it, though Gustav warned us that if we tried to grab it, it would cry loudly with the sound of a baby crocodile, perhaps in one last hope of scaring off a predator that might fear the mother crocodile was on her way.

Next we saw a tree ear fungus that appeared to be steaming in the darkness. Instead, Gustav told us, it was releasing spores.

So many animals appear to use freezing absolutely still as a defense at night that we were able to get very close to many, including the Jesus Christ lizard, or basilisk, which runs upright across water. We also came very close to a pretty yellow and white bird, a flycatcher. We saw a caiman across the water, and we picked up baby shrimp and even flounder hiding in the sand beneath the brackish swamp water.

We saw spiders - wolf spiders, jumping spiders, and very poisonous Bolivian wandering spiders, which cause necrosis where they bite. Then Gustav went in pursuit of the red-eyed tree frog, which more than anything seems to symbolize Costa Rica. He called to one high in the trees, and after sloshing through the mud he found one too high for us to see well. Using a long stick, he coaxed it off its branch and brought it down for us to see. It's a gracile frog with a white belly and bright green back, and its eyes are truly red.

Around that time I slipped and fell flat in the mud, which was only a little humiliating. We sloshed on. Our last new creature of the night was a marine toad, known as a cane toad in Cuba. It exudes poison from glands in back of its head, so predators don't do that well on it, and although it's a national hero in Cuba for eating the cane beetle, in Australia it has become an invasive nuisance.

We wrapped up our night walk looking through Gustav's telescope at Jupiter and five of its moons.We had probably walked only about a quarter of a mile in all, but all at once the jungle around us had come alive with a whole new layer of secretive fauna.

Launching baby turtles

Kathia, the owner's wife at Lookout Lodge, participates in a local turtle conservation project. Guests who choose to rise at 5:30 am may accompany her in checking on the nests of the olive Ridley turtles that nest along the high water mark. In November and early December, she notes where turtles have come up the beach during the night to lay eggs. The mother turtles two distinctive parallel tracks up the beach, and the sand is slightly disturbed where they have dug. Kathia places an iron grill over the spot to protect it from marauding dogs or coatis.

Each nest contains about a hundred round, leathery eggs that are about 3 cm in diameter. Some weeks later, the eggs hatch. First the sand settles a little as the eggs crack open, and then during the night the baby turtles work their way out of the nest and struggle down to the water's edge. Some never hatch, and others get snapped up by hawks on the way to the water; others drown in the surf.

The last two mornings, I went with Kathia. She digs up nests where the eggs have successfully hatched during the night so she can take a census. In the first one we dug up, we found 97 empty egg shells and three that never hatched. Other times the whole nest is ruined. This morning David and Damian came along, and they found one nest where the strongest turtles had almost reached the air. We dug out 120 babies and carried them home along the beach in a hat and Kathia's purse. We kept them in a bucket during breakfast, letting them gain strength. Then the whole lodge traipsed down to the beach to see them off.

We upended the buckets and let the babies begin their long trek. One hundred twenty baby turtles, all the color of the dark volcanic sand, all the same size, managed to orient themselves toward the sea and paddle laboriously across the sand. At first, they paused to rest every three or four steps. Later, they walked longer. The little kids selected favorites and cheered them on. The babies passed the smooth sand and reached pebbles as big as they were. Tottering, sometimes falling upside down, they waved their flippers and struggled on.

Then, just when it seemed as if their journey was done, waves caught them and threw them tumbling back up the beach. Again and again they almost reached their goal only to be slapped back. Exhausted, they righted themselves and tried again.

By the time we left Lookout Inn, most of the turtles had somehow made it and disappeared into the waves. Only about twenty were still plowing onward, trying again, not giving up. What a metaphor for every kind of earthly endeavor!

Christmas on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

The family is spending Christmas vacation in the beautiful Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, where the rainforest comes right down to the shore of the Pacific on one side and the Golfo Dulce on the other. We're staying at Lookout Inn, and right now Leo and I are enjoying sunshine and breeze on the outdoor deck of the lodge, watching scarlet macaws fly by and and white-faced capuchin monkeys come mooching for leftover fruit.

I'll try to write fast, because the solar-powered internet was supposed to be turned off ten minutes ago.

This is our third day here. The first two days began with yoga before breakfast - led once by our older daughter and once by a lady who started yoga centers all over this part of the forest. After breakfast comes a three-hour hike. The first day we climbed the "Stairway to Heaven," which continued so painfully long it could easily have another name. Then we walked along a ridge, slid down a muddy slope, crossed a stream, and followed a steep path up and many times across a river until we came to a series of three waterfalls. Feeling foolhardy, we climbed to the third waterfall and stood in it. Pulsating water pummeled my lower back, better than any massage.

The next day one of the staff led us to see the encampment of a family of gold miners along the edge of the Corcovado National Forest. There we met two little girls, ages eleven and thirteen, who took us to where some friends were panning for gold in the river. Their morning's take so far was about three grams. The girls offered to take us farther, to see their own parents and a waterfall. "How far?" I asked (in Spanish). "One minute," said one. "Half an hour, very slowly," said the older one. So we agreed, and they led us up an extremely steep and slippery trail of wet clay. The younger one led me by the hand half the time. We passed another lodge and came upon a group of four miners digging a deep hole in a pool at the top of a waterfall. They offered another demonstration, but we had to turn back for lunch. Our little girl guides kept promising us they would bring us back to the road very soon, but in fact they led us down, across, and through the river many times to show off all the small falls of the river. Finally we reached the collection of cabins with plastic sheeting for roofs where we had fist met them, and we parted ways with hugs and kisses.

Today, we dispensed with yoga and went straight for the guided hike into Corcovado, 22 km roundtrip, with a packed lunch. The path begins on a dirt road past the local airstrip, then for a mile or so along the beach to the park entrance, then into the rain forest on well-marked paths, crossing streams and small rivers and dipping onto the beach again. We saw scarlet macaws, a family of coatis digging for land crabs, a yellow and black poison dart frog, an iguana, a Jesus lizard, an anteater high in a tree, a pair of Great Crested Curacao, spider monkeys and capuchin monkeys, and the track of a baby puma. On the way home, the high tide had swollen one of the rivers to waist height, so after fording it we all gave in and went for a swim anyway, floating upstream and down as the waves flowed in and out.

Now I'm resting my feet, and the children, unbelievable as it seems to me, are down in a field near the beach, playing soccer with the staff and the new soccer ball that the owner's son got to open early for Christmas.

(I'll add photos to this post when we're in a place with faster internet.)