Cahuita

For a few days of total change of pace, we took a side trip to Cahuita on the southern Pacific coast. Our impression was that the farther east you go, the hotter, stickier, poorer and more run down is the country. Limon I'm afraid to say looked simply like a uninviting slum. A rattling bus ride to Cahuita brought us to a small coastal village with a sleepy, trashy, overgrown feel. People don't meet your eye; shopkeepers look right through you.

A great small hotel at Kelly Creek - all dark hardwood, louvres, ceiling fans and swampy jungle noises. Hoteliers Andreas (from Madrid) and Marie-Claude (from France) served a stunning paella with homemade sangria that, like this hotel, was a oasis of exotic culture amidst this exotic Caribbean tropical rainforest.

Cahuita: great animals, good snorkling, hot sticky weather, torturous non-stop reggae music (so mind-numbingly everpresent as to warrant including in a CIA psychological warfare manual) and two legged snakes (bare-footed Rasta-men with no shirts, dreadlocks in green, yellow and red knit hair bags, wrap-around sunglasses and a look like they would steal their mother's wedding ring).

Cahuita village sign - the "In One Other Tours", "Hot Water Fans" and "Bid Watching" sound interesting

Abandoned truck - left for 9 years. The jungle reclaims all.

Janet and new friend Verde at the Kelly Creek Lodge. This "Mealy Parrot" talked a lot - "hola" "hello" "I'm a parrot" and laughed just like Janet (and Eloise, Janet's mother...). Verde is jealously wary and agressive to any man, but eventually took some scrambled egg from my fingertips. That was close enough to that beak...

Janet and Verde look from our room porch to the main building and restaurant at Kelly Creek Lodge

Night time means mosquito nets in the coastal tropics. This hotel was right out of Casablanca.

Iguana at Kelly Creek. Coming for fruit left in trees.

Roberto (L) and girlfriend (R) caimans in stagnant water lagoon (Kelly Creek) right next to our hotel. Roberto came to shore when called by Andreas, for a meal of raw chicken. Swimming not recommended.

Tangle of mangrove swamp on trail in Cahuita National Park.

Howler monkey in Cahuita NP

White faced monkey, Cahuita NP. These guys can be agressive and jump on your back to get food in your backpack.

Young white-faced monkeys clearly saying, "Hey wadda ya wanna do now?", just like human kids.

Crossing the trail right at our feet!

Gallo Pinto

Gallo Pinto (spotted rooster) is the national rice and beans breakfast dish found all over CR. At the Turrialba B&B, I cornered the cordial cook Marie and found out how to make it. Here is the recipe to serve 6. T. = tablespoon, t. = teaspoon, c. = cup - all give or take - pura vida!

Ingredients
Cooked rice - 3 c.
Cooked beans - 2 c.
Onion - 1/2 c.
Red pepper - 1/2
Olive oil - 2 T.
White pepper - 1/2 t.
Dried basil - 1/2 t.
Cayenne - 1/4 t. (or more to taste)
Paprika - 1/4 t.
Lizano Salsa (or equivalent spicy mixed vegetable sauce) - 2 T.
Salt - 1/2 t.
Fresh cilantro - 1/4 c. finely chopped (2 t. dried if fresh not available)

The night before
- Cook rice (white rice universally used here, but healthier to substitute brown).
- Cook black beans (black beans only for true gallo pinto; red beans OK for other rice and beans dishes)
(note: Ticos often cook larger amounts of rice and beans and keep separately in plastic tubs in fridge for all sorts of dishes)

On cooking day
- Finely chop onion and red pepper
- Saute in oil in large frying pan (to hold all ingredients) over low-med heat
- Add beans and stir to heat through
- Increase heat to med-high and gently fold in rice (so not to smash rice grains)
- Add white pepper, basil, cayenne, paprika and Lizano Salsa; fold to mix
- Reduce heat to low and gently fold in cilatro.

To Serve
- Scoop into small bowl (individual serving size), invert on plate, and lift off bowl for nicely-shaped mound! Bueno! Enjoy with fried eggs, sausages, or whatever else you like.

Marie chopping onion and red pepper with machete-like all-purpose kitchen knife. She does everything with it, and I wouldn't cross her...

Rice in white bowl; beans in tupperware to right, waiting their turn.



Saute onions and pepper in oil. Marie used wooden spatula.

Add cooked black beans.

Add cooked rice and fold over to gently mix.

Add spices and secret ingredient - Lizano Salsa.

At end at cilantro, and it's done!

It all looks so easy in Marie's practiced hands...

No breakfast is complete without fresh Costa Rican coffee. Here is the simple coffee maker - just a wooden stand, a cloth back and wire rim. One heaping teaspoon of ground coffee per two demi-tasse cups (so 6 heaping T. per "12 cup"coffee pot). Pour boiling water through.

Can store in thermos, or insulated metal coffee carafe.
Dump grounds, rinse bag, then dry. Es muy facil!

On to Turrialba

We have moved on to the eastern slope city of Turrialba (thought to originate from the Spanish Torre Alba, or white mountain, for the white smoking summit of Vulcan Turrialba directly to the north).

We are staying in a comfortable and hospitable Turrialba B&B, just off the parque central. This is a compound with inner courtyards and covered pool table and darts and hot tub (!?) area, that used to be three different properties. There is an amazing cascading and recirculating multilevel fish tank that has a mysterious black crawling fish with armoured scales that wriggles between tanks over a two foot land bridge. Eerie at night when the light is low..

Turrialba is a well kept city at 600 m elevation, with a mysteriously variable population. From various local sources, we have heard that the population is 4,500, 16,000 and 70,000. It's in there somewhere - pura vida! The beautiful shady central park is constantly busy with families, kissing couples, shoppers, cab drivers, tourists and locals just hanging out looking at everyone else. Reasonably good shopping (including a "Maxi Bodega"store, which is a mini-version of WalMart that is all over CR), and a direct bus to San Jose. Just up slope are refreshingly cool villages which look out over the Reventazon River to the Talamanca mountain range. Buena vista.

Tomorrow we head to the Carribean village of Cahuita for steamy tropical jungle and reportedly the best snorkling in CR.


Multi-level fish tank and cascades, with tropical plants everywhere.








Breakfast table with speckled orchid in middle of lazy susan.









Tiny gecko on edge of 3/4 inch thick plank.

Parque Nacional Tapanti-Macizo Cerro de la Muerte

The entrance to this national park, referred to simply as Tapanti, is about 30 min drive southeast of Orosi. We shared a 4WD taxi ride with a German couple, Jens and Karin Dietzsch, who were also staying at Orosi Lodge. We left at 8 am and were there, signed in, geared up and ready to walk at 9 am.

This park protects the northern rain forest slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca - a volcanic ridge sweeping southeast at high elevations into Panama. Higher elevations of this park are the wettest parts of Costa Rica, with panamo vegetation (low, tough heathery shrubs). Tapanti also includes the infamous Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death), with the twisting Interamericana highway shrouded in fog and prone to landslides.

Our walk totalled 13 km (much of which was steep to very steep) in increasing warmth and humidity (read:muddy). All the Bs were there: beauty, birds, butterflies and bugs. By the end, we were drenched in tropical glow (read: sweat). I was so saturated that the cab driver put a blanket over his seat to protect it... We avoided a downpour, and had an energetic day from which we are still recovering.




Coffee bush seedlings, on way to Tapanti










Bridge on way to park; 12 ton limit








Looking upstream of Rio Orosi, near park entrance









On road side in park







Epiphyte plants growing on nearly anything and everything.








Waterfall in park from mirador (lookout)











Giant fiddlehead for huge rainforest fern. Each fiddle head 6-8 inches across








Ever on the lookout for neat geologic hazards - this landslide in park was likely triggered by an earthquake. Many landslides cut off secondary roads and, if the road is deemed not essential, the slide debris is just left.









Trail to Orosi River cataracts







The cataracts at low flow. High flow can occur within minutes to hours of large rainfalls.









Ingenious BBQ made from car wheel, electrical conduit (legs) and 1/4 inch rebar (grill). Basically no cost, self-ventilating, and self-cleaning.









Stick Insect. This is the second one that Janet has spotted. They blend in so well with the forest floor.






Closeup of small land crab (about 1.5 inches wide) on side of trail. (He's sideways on a vertical wall of soil)










This just fell from trees overhead onto our path.








Two tropical beauties.

Janet's new work station. Ergonomics look fine to me....

At the end of our day. Happy and wet.

On to Orosi Valley

Hola,
We travelled to the beautiful Orosi Valley to check it out. This splendid valley is bounded to the north by two volcanoes - Irazu to west and Turrialba to east, and to the south by the Cordillera de Talamanca, extending south to the Panama border. Both volcanoes are visible from our second storey hotel room. They are clear and profiled in the early morning, clouding over during most of the day.

Orosi is a village of 5,000 with coffee as the main agricultural mainstay. Shade-grown organic coffee is of the highest quality and this place is famous for it. Orderly rows of man-sized coffee plants sweep up and down the slopes, shaded by intermittent slender-trunked, high-canopied shade trees.

In 1502, Christopher Columbus (check out some interesting mind-altering facts at http://www.weeklyuniverse.com/columbus.htm ; they don't teach this stuff in elementary school in Ohio...) landed at what was to become the Caribbean port city of Limon in Costa Rica. Later, in 1563, the Spanish conquistador Coronado, (using diplomacy rather than black powder and cutlasses) established the city of Cartago, just north of Orosi, and proclaimed that the Orosi valley was the most beautiful he had ever seen.

Nearby are working coffee farms, butterfly farms, orchid gardens, mountain bike trails, Taranti national park, hot springs, a reservoir lake, and the ubiquitous birds, butterflies and bugs (BBB). This area is somewhat of a backwater in Costa Rica - it is not a hot, beachy tourist destination, and many Ticos mistakenly brand it as cold (since nearby Cartago IS colder) and rainy (since the nearby Tarnati NP has the highest rainfall in CR at around 8,000 mm (yes, 315 inches or 26 1/4 feet a year!). However, the magic of microclimates means that these abberations are localized; Orosi enjoys an annual rainfall of only 1800 mm (71 inches) and temperatures range typically between 60F at night to 80F during day. That's the tell-tale for Costa Rica climate - a few kilometers and a few hundred meters elevation change makes a world of difference. Our hotel hosts tell us that Orosi has not materially changed in the last 16 years, with few North Americans. So far, so good. It's on our A-list.


Overlook of Orosi village with volcanoes Irazu (left peak) and Turrialba (right peak).










Typical street in Orosi








Our room at the Orosi Lodge. All hand-made bamboo furniture with no nails or screws.











Shade-grown coffee plantation near Orosi









Smoking active crater (center, skyline); one of three craters of Vulcan Turrialba. This volcano is currently closed to public due to safety concerns of heightened volcanic activity. We're at a safe distance (30 km) with camera ready in case it blows!

Scott's Misplaced Breakfast

As we move around this country, we are more boldly trying our rudimentary Spanish, and mostly it works. Always the Ticos are gracious and friendly in coaching us along. However, sometimes one makes a verbal blunder that seems impossible to fix. Here is one of mine.

As we were walking down the street in San Isidro to buy our bus ticket for tomorrow, we noticed that a slip of paper fluttered down from the papers a woman was carrying in front of us. I stooped, pick it up and gave it to her. "Gracias" she said. "De nada" I replied. All well and good.

We walked on and she got some feet in front of us. Then a second piece of paper fluttered down. Again, I stooped, picked it up, but since she was about 15 feet in front of us now, I needed to get her attention. I had recently learned a way to say excuse me - "disculpeme". In the heat of the moment, I heaved out a longish D word that had four syllables and sounded right.

"Desayuno! Desayuno!" I cried up the street, raising my hand. She didn't turn. I hurried on and called again "Desayuno", catching up with her and handing her the slip.

She turned with a puzzled look and took the paper with another gracious "Gracias".

Only then did it hit me - I should have said disculpeme. Desayuno, which I was calling up the street to politely attract her attention and do a good deed, means "breakfast".

Alexander Skutch Biological Reserve

Near to our B&B in Rivas, just north of San Isidro, is a biological reserve and museum home of Dr. Alexander Skutch. He was a world-famous birder and naturalist, and philosopher. He lived to 99 years and is buried with his wife of 51 years on their tropical reserve next to a cacao tree and in the shade of a huge stand of bamboo.



Our B&B host drove us there and we wandered the grounds, seeing Pre-Columbian petroglyphs, wild tropical vegetation, and saw his house and grounds, now preserved for the public to view just as it was left when he died (2004). The grandson of his Tica (Costa Rican) cook showed us around. Tranquility, butterflies, primordial nature. Glass-less windows protected only by simple shutters of broad hardwood planks brings the outside right through the simple house. Everywhere a deep sense of a thoughtful, peaceful and meaningful life.

A spectacular moth

Pre-Columbian petroglyphs on smooth rock slab along forest trail

Janet beside a Walking Palm. It has no trunk, just root shoots that seek better water and sun, and progressively move the entire tree through the forest.

Cacao tree - this yellow-red bulbous growth (note on side of trunk behind), contains brown pods encased in white slippery, sour-tasting pith. When dried and ground up, the brown seed becomes cocoa powder (yes, just like you buy in the Hersheys can).










A butterfly along our path; waited patiently for this photo.


Spectacular Torch Lily in garden of Skutch reserve museum. Grapefruit tree behind (see yellow grapefruit on ground).