All roads lead to Rome (aka Canberra)

Today our adventure comes to an end, as we head home...just not together. Not wanting things to get boring, Tracey heads north to Dallas to eat ribs and stand on the Grassy Knoll (where JFK was shot) while Deb heads south, with Emergency Passport in hand but no US Visa, having to travel through Peru and Chile. This left Deb with a few extra hours in Costa Rica to squeeze a little more out of the trip. Having spent several days right at the base of the Arenal Volcano (see earlier post), but not once actually seeing it due to clouds and rain, Deb took the opportunity to attempt another volcano siting, Poas. Hiking up to above the Poas crater, you never know if you'll actually see it, as the sulphuric acid gas spewing out of this volcano can fill the whole crater.

See the cloud behind Deb, that's acid gas which can become acid rain if it rains here (which is often) and we'd have to leave. Also, if the wind changes, we'd have to leave. The lake is boiling hot sulphuric acid. There is a time limit on the time you can spend here as the gas can make you pretty sick, not to mention the strong rotten egg stench that make you not want to stay too long (unless you have teenage boys in which case you're probably desensitised to that odour). Poas is Costa Rica's most active volcano, with minor eruptions happening regularly. It is one of the largest acid lakes in the world, and just a few months ago it spurt hot acid mud hundreds of metres into the air.

No Costa Rican experience would be complete without a visit to a coffee plantation. Given the long flights ahead, Deb filled up on as much coffee as she could drink while she heard tales of the life of coffee beans. They have an archaic machine that separates out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The bag on the left is the good stuff, the crap on the right I'm pretty sure they turn into airline coffee. 

Meanwhile in Texas, Tracey heads out on her 10 hour transit in the less wild jungles of Dallas. It was suggested in the airline magazine that a good place to visit on transit was the Mustangs of Las Colinas. The article said to take the DART light rail to this particular stop, so far so good...except when you get to that stop there is no one in sight and it is in the middle of nowhere. Tracey eventually found a bus driver to ask, unfortunately they knew nothing about these mustangs. Eventually an hour of walking and asking later, these were found:

Then it was back on the light rail to the Dallas West End district which was also listed in the airline magazine. By coincidence the 6th Floor Museum was seen just near the West End stop, this is the building from which JFK was shot while passing the Grassy Knoll. The museum was interesting and you get to see the exact spot the gun was fired. You weren't allows to take photos inside but below is the window taken from the spot the motorcade passed exactly were JFK was assassinated. Tracey had to run onto the road while the traffic was stopped...more chance of being run over than shot. It is the window you can see the box sitting just inside. The second image is looking over the Grassy Knoll, the car would have been near the middle lamp post.

That's the end of our adventures, we hope. Surely we can't get into any more trouble with Tracey on her 16 hour flight out of Dallas, and Deb spending 10 hours wandering the Santiago airport before her long flight home. Surely.

Road trip

Clearly were hadn't already put ourselves through enough danger this trip so far, we thought we'd hire a car and drive back to San Jose. If you'd seen the roads and drivers, you'd realise what we mean.

We head across the bay to Puerto Jiminez to picked up our car (a four-wheel drive which is essential for the roads there). It is a tiny village with a car rental place in a small demantable, they don't even know how to park a boat - doing it wrong.

Thankfully the cars were more modern than the agency or village and we were relieved to have air-conditioning. We quickly got used to driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car. The first thing we observe is the speed limits. Maximum is 80km/hr but you rarely have that opportunity. Towns are 40km/hr and school zones 25km/hr. This may not sound too bad until you realise there is a village every couple of kms and every one of them has a school. No one seemed to stick to the speed limits but we'd heard the fines were in excess of $500. We occasionally got into the slipstream of another lawbreaking faster car but tried (very hard...sometimes unsuccessfully) to stick to the limits.

Our first stop was another wildlife rescue centre. We like supporting these, they are doing some great things for critters that wouldn't otherwise have a chance. The stories told about some of these were disturbing and distressing. They do try to release any animal they can back into the wild and those that can't be are well cared for. Some have it so good they keep coming back after release. One example is the creature below. We're not allowed to say what it is or where we are, as the authorities don't want them being held by visitors but she wanted to climb onto us without encouragement and liked to nuzzle.

Let's just say she had very long quills hidden under the fur and Deb was a little nervous when she clambered over her shoulder then started to back up next to her neck. All was forgiven when she licked Deb's cheek and than checked her for fleas.

There was also a loving baby anteater who just wanted to be with people. 

And some personality filled raccoons and squirrels. Sadly one of the white faced capuchin monkeys had a habit of feeling up the women visitors so they had to stop the encounters...even at our insistence that we were happy to be felt up by that and any other monkey or non-human creature.

A little further down the road we visited another reserve. This is just a protected area of forest/jungle, there are no fences, the animals come and go. We saw a few more capuchins playing in the trees and a couple more sloths and a coati.

Definitely worth the stop, our final wildlife opportunity. On to San Jose. Unfortunately we arrived in the dark in the crazy that is San Jose in peak hour and were relieved to drop the car back, safe and sound. For our final night we stayed at the airport Marriott. It was clean, dry and air-conditioned, it felt like extreme comfort compared to the previous three weeks. 

We've loved our Costa Rican adventure but are missing being clean, non-sweaty, not covered constantly in bug spray and sunscreen, soft dry beds, non-lumpy pillows, toilets you can flush toilet paper in or flush at all, hair that isn't constant curly and frizzy from the heat and not being covered in itchy bites.

Debbie finally got her passport on our final night before departure but she and Tracey will be traveling home separately, that story will need a whole other blog page.

Going it alone - Osa Peninsula

Having farewelled our tour buddies, we head off by ourselves to the Osa Peninsula. It was comforting to have everything arranged for us with the tour and someone who would fix things if anything went wrong, who speaks the language. Left to our own devices makes us a little nervous, particularly given our track record. We miss our guide Leslie already.

We were both relieved to be allowed on the flight to Golfito. They required a passport of which Deb still had none. We were almost foiled on two occasions but thankfully police docs, Aust Consul docs and a look of desperation got us through.

We boarded our tiny plane of around 8 passengers, certainly no drinks trolley on this one. We landed at Golfito airport, little more than small shed nestled between the jungle and sea. From here we traveled by boat to our lodge, to be our home for the next four nights. There is no road access to the lodge, only by boat. It was not just a step up from our accommodation so far, the step was so far you'd need a ladder.

This is our own private cabana in the middle of the jungle. So private you don't need to close doors and windows, day or night. In fact the bathroom and shower windows couldn't even be closed. We had a resident lizard (large gecko) we called Larry. For those old enough to remember Leisuresuit Larry the Lounge Lizard, this was his Costa Rican cousin who preferred bathrooms.

We also had 2 resident bats that lived in our cabana. In the afternoon they'd circle around the cabana almost like they were guarding it. Some people have baseball bats for protection, we had real bats (we called them Borris and Morris).

The accommodation was a step up but so was the heat and humidity. Nothing was ever dry, even sitting with a cocktail left sweat pouring down your back, hard work. The only time you were not sweating was in the bay...still wet but at least cooler.  It didn't take us long after arriving to go for a cooling quick dip in the bay. This is where we realised that no where is safe from small things that want to bite you. We'd only been in the water for a few minutes when we starting to feel stinging bites all over, particularly in the sensitive bits inside of swimwear, one got particularly intimate with Deb. We later discovered these are called sea fleas, not dangerous but hurts like hell for a short while. Mostly they go for fish...must be because we're Piscean.

The lodge has a few trails through the jungle that you can trek through anytime by yourself...if you can handle the heat, humidity and more tiny things that want to bite you- mosquitoes, biting flies, stinging ants, tiny lash vipers and a range of other bizarre creatures that you'd need to see to understand.

We did a few of the trails but realised that the animals we'd been used to finding in all the other jungles we'd trekked, were less prolific here. We did see a lot of red macaws. There was a macaw sanctuary nearby and many were being released back into the wild.

We also saw a few toucans and acari (a small toucan), plus a lot of various types of lizards. This camouflaged one was awesome. You can see why it can be hard to find things in the jungle.

The snake below was only metres from one of the cabanas:

It wasn't deadly but did leave us thinking about all the snakes that we didn't see, we'd heard there were many around.

We also saw a peccary (basically a wild boar). A wildlife sanctuary we'd visited early had said these were some of the most deadly vicious animals in the jungle. If you see them in a large group, climb the nearest tree...and if you can, burn your arm hair as they hate the smell. Otherwise you could be stuck up that tree for days while they grunt and click at you. They have massive teeth and tusks. First issue is the trees are either 10m in diameter with no footholds, very hard to climb, or they are 10mm in diameter - string or robe like vines - hard to climb also but quite strong; Tracey did manage to use a jungle vine as a makeshift belt for shorts that were too big. Putting aside there was a tree we could climb, then we'd need to be concerned about all those other jungle creatures up trees that bite, snakes, spiders (including tarantulas), general creepy crawlies. Further, we'd heard many of the plants were poisonous to touch. However, if all those thing were averted, then you'd need to have some matches on you to burn hair - keeping in mind that everything in the jungle is wet, chances are if you had any they wouldn't light anyway. Thankfully it was one peccary who snorted in our general direction then disappeared into the shrubbery. Phew.

The lodge also had a few resident squirrels, much less dangerous.

The lodge had available kayaks and snorkelling gear we could use for free anytime. We'd heard there was a particular spot where turtles like to feed. With our new found friend Kelly we head out one morning in hope of snorkelling with turtles, we found none but did find a huge range of colourful fish...plus more sea fleas. The currents were extremely strong, Deb was in danger of drifting with the currents back to Australia, given she still had no passport...this might be an option (just like the turtle in Nemo😊). The kayaking itself was also a highlight, we could stop anywhere along the way. 

As we made our way back to the lodge, we intercepted 2 dolphins who swam just metres from our kayaks. Our attempts to keep up with them was futile. 

Having seen how many fish there were while we were snorkelling, we decided on a fishing tour in the bay. It was only minutes before Tracey caught her first fish, a snapper. 

Deb's first catch was a beautiful rooster fish, sadly protected so it lived to see another day but there we more to follow

We caught 9 fish we didn't have to throw back, snapper, snook and many mackerel. A fun day.

Having enjoyed the kayaking, we did a mangrove kayaking tour. Unfortunately the tide was a bit low so we couldn't get into most of the smaller channels. We got stuck in the mud a few times, which had absolutely "nothing" to do with Deb's steering of the kayak :-/ Deb's "skillful" maneuvering enabled Tracey to get up close and personal with nature. Tracey fended off tree climbing crabs and slimey branches on many occasions. We did see some crocs but not too much else. Yes, kayaking in a croc infested river.

We enjoyed our time at the lodge, good people, good food and good cocktails.

An awesome day

We started the day with breakfast with Daffodil, a 26 year old sloth at the Sloth Sanctuary. She was the first sloth to arrive at the sanctuary and the reason it was established.

We'd booked for the insider tour which meant we got to see more behind the scenes. They have over 170 sloths there that need caring for, many will never be able to be returned to the wild for various reasons. Some were too young when they came and don't know how to be a sloth...we have some friends that might be able to teach them a thing or two (5 toed sloths). Others have been too injured, there was a paraplegic sloth :-( who had fallen onto a sharp rock, another who had lost one of its arms due to straddling an electrical wire.

By far the best thing about the sanctuary is the nursery, this is where all the baby sloths a cared for 24 hours a day. We walked into this room and there on the floor were 4 tubs of baby sloths all wanting to get out and play. They all start reaching out for you but sadly we can't touch them, as much as they wanted us to...not as much as we wanted to touch them.

There were also some in the incubators, all trying to reach out to you. It took every ounce of self control not to touch them.

We didn't think buckets of baby sloths could be topped but our afternoon activity came close, the Jaguar Rescue Centre. They don't actually have Jaguars, that's just the name of the rescue centre. Here we were lucky enough to have the resident vet, Fernando, take us on a private tour of the centre.

Some of the resident animals we got close to included: An anteater, more sloths, agouti...

A very licky deer, who wouldn't stop licking us...tongue poised ready below:

We were able to pat a kitten (margay)

A playful ocelot that liked to chew on Fernando's arm.

But the best experience was hanging out and feeding the baby monkeys. They loved to play on you and we were happy to oblige. One monkey "Mitchy" claimed Debbie as his own and they had to bring in another employee to help extract us from the monkey play area, he didn't want to let her go.

Where Debbie was claimed by a monkey, for Tracey it was a squirrel:

It was an amazing centre and Fernando was a great guide. We watched him in action doing his vet thing with a few of the critters.

Tortuguero

On the road again, this time to Tortuguero which means place of turtles... We didn't see any for those who were going to skim the rest of this page to find out about the turtles. We started with another bumpy bus trip on what you could barely call a road, more potholes than road and mostly flooded from all the rains. We then took a boat to Tortuguaro, along a very flooded river to arrive at our very flooded accommodation. We had to wade ankle deep to get to our cabin, one night we every found a toad taking refuge on our door...probably hiding from the crocodiles.  The lodge is right on the river's edge and on a small land strip, the carribbean is 100 metres behind us just across a small airstrip, yep we had to cross a tarmac to get to the beach. We wouldn't swim in either the river or sea given crocodiles in one and sharks in the other.

We had some time to look through town in the afternoon, given the town is one small dirt street, that didn't take too long. We all had dinner back at the lodge followed by a competitive game of dominos with Willis, our host.

After a late night of games and drinks we were up at 5am to do a boat safari. We found a Python in the middle of his breakfast, we believe a basilic lizard but all we saw was the tail hanging out of its mouth and later, just a large bulge in its stomach.

Back to the lodge we walked the 4km along the beach to the point the river meets, all the while in search for baby turtles making their way to freedom. Though as we'd learned, for every 1000 babies hatched only 1 adult turtle will survive. We were willing to help their survival if necessary.

In the afternoon, it was another jungle walk. This one required gum boots and sometimes wading, occasionally higher than the reach of the boots. The noise from water filled boots, meant sneaking up on anything was impossible. Other than a couple of howler monkeys we didn't see much and went back to town for a cooling daiquiri instead.

Later in the evening we stopped in at the local bar/nightclub. Clearly this place was rocking, you can't see it but the only thing on the dance floor was a dog and later a couple salsa dancing.

The next day we were back on the boat to head to our next destination, Cahuita. The was an amazing boat trip and will be a top highlight for the trip. Mostly for a bathing sloth just hanging out. Our boat was up very close while he just happily watched. The three toed sloth can swim quickly, thankful he was just happy to pose for photos. Perhaps he wasn't aware of the 3 metre croc we saw just around the corner.

Cahuita is a small seaside village with a National Park at its edge. In the afternoon we went for a stroll in the park (really a jungle). We heard that the week before a couple of tourists had been robbed in the park by masked bandits with machetes, thankfully there were a few of us and it was raining...again. We did manage to find 7 sloth, a yellow Lash viper, Agouti, a few howler and white-faced capuchin monkeys and a couple of squirrels. We're getting better at finding critters by ourself. In the first week even when the guide pointed out things, told us where they were, showed us on a telescope, we still found them difficult to see.

That night was a big local soccer match, so we head to a local bar to watch the game, drink Cahuita rum and later in the night sing karaoke (which they just google YouTube videos to sing along to).