Me no see ums

Having volunteered at the rescue centre, Tracey had wanted a souvenir, a t-shirt with "high 4 like a spider monkey". However, what she actually got was these:

At the rescue centre she'd noticed a some small drops of blood on her legs but it wiped off and stopped bleeding quickly. She hadn't seen or felt anything biting, so just ignored it. However by the time we gotten back to the room the bites had turned large red weeping sores. 

We discovered she'd been bitten by noseeums, said as no-see-ums...we kid you not. Thankfully the very itchy festering wounds will only last a couple of weeks by which time she will want to rip off both her legs (according to google). It is now four days later and they are still oozing from their miniature red volcanoes, cocktails are easing the pain.   Hopefully these words are sufficient and you don't need a closeup picture.

These noseeums, also now called "sporn from hell", only work with particular repellents, they bite through others. A few years back Andrew and Tracey found bug spray in Miami which said it included noseeums, at the time they thought it was hilarious, maybe even a joke...we can now assure you it was not.  Thankfully the spotty legs can be hidden with long pants...if only it wasn't so hot and humid, that was even a remote possibility. A dose of sunburn today, does disguise it a little.

The 0.5 level Rapids

After several days of extreme adrenaline hits, we decided to take things a little easier and less life threatening.  We had a relaxing morning following which we said goodbye to many of our travel buddies, just five of us continue together. Below is Manuel the sloth bidding us farewell.

In the afternoon three of us went off for safari rafting. Unlike the level 2-3 rapids rafting several days earlier, this was a gentle meander down a river, closer to a level 0.5 rapid. Though not completely safe, we were in a rubber raft in a crocodile infested river...wouldn't want you thinking we'd gotten soft.

This bat is about 5cm long.

They call this a Jesus lizard as they walk on water. We did see this but it was more a run than a walk, so we missed it with the camera.

Sloths are supposed to be slow but this one was moving quickly, perhaps it didn't like the torrential rain we were all sitting in.

This tiny red frog with blue legs is a poisonous dart frog. Apparently it is okay to touch as long as you don't have a cut on your hand and we wouldn't recommend eating it.

We stopped at a local house for afternoon tea, Deb made a friend.

Other critters along the way...

Having raced back quickly as our driver Antonio had a rugby match to watch, We met our two new travel companions and tour guide, Leslie. She took us to the Lava Lounge for cocktails (in La Fortuna at the base of the volcano) after dinner, we'll can already tell we'll get along well.

High 4 with a spider monkey

We are now in La Fortuna, at the base of the Arenal Volcano. Thirty years ago, it erupted taking the lives of many people and sloths. We'd post a photo if we could actually see it, but rain and cloud means we just have to take their word for it that it actually exists. Here Tracey - now hooked on adrenalin - threw herself off waterfalls for her next fix. Canyoning. Sometimes it is just as well when we arrive at a new location we often don't have time to time think about the crazy thing we've decided to do before we're on our way.

Canyoning included abseiling or repelling down 4 waterfalls (the tallest was 220m), climbing down and through small waterfalls and creeks, cannonballing into a rock pool and something called a tsunami. A tsunami is when someone blocks off the water flow of a small waterfall while the group climbs down and positions themselves along it, the human dam moves and the torrent of water falls over the group.

Deb spent her afternoon riding a tube down the river rapids, hitting almost every rock, cliff and jungle vine on the way down. Her manouvering of a tube is a little less skilled than her 4-wheeler ability. Though, in true Thomas-twin fashion, she fell off gracefully, backwards. Thankfully she slowed her descent down the rapids by hitting the large rocks with her ribs. 

The next day we thought we'd give a little back, by doing volunteer work at the local wildlife rescue centre. We thought we'd be shovelling poo and mucking out cages but instead we held hands with monkeys. Some of the monkeys here used to be pets, they need the hand holding or they get depressed...yep, just doing our bit to help out.

...and giving back rubs. Built up quite a sweat with the hard labour (I'm sure nothing to do with the heat and humidity). 

This monkey didn't want us to leave, but we had to get back to work.

Preparing dinner for the monkeys, parrots and coati.

Here are a few of the friends we made...

...but we couldn't quite shake the feeling that we were being watched.

After our hard labour at the rescue centre, we thought we deserved a little relaxation time, so went to Baldi Hot Springs, which has 25 thermo mineral hot water pools flowing naturally from the base of volcano. The springs range from around 33 degrees to 48, with a few smaller ones at the extremes. 

 Some of the pools had a swim up bar. At least it doesn't hurt when you fall off the bar stool after a few cocktails.

This is the last night that all together as a full group, some go on to Panama and others home. 5 of us continue to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica with 2 new people and a new guide.

Monteverde

Yesterday morning we visited the aptly named Cloud Forest, which is dense jungle high in the mountains and almost always covered in cloud. We walked through the hilly jungle for 3 hours, the highlight was a suspension bridge high above the jungle floor but the jungle is amazing in its self

After the cloud forest it was straight onto our afternoon activities of choice. The way this tour works is we have a group activity usually in the morning then we can choose from a range of other activities in the afternoon. We chose firstly a suspension bridge walk, 6 bridges through the jungle tree tops. By the first bridge we saw a troop of howler monkeys. 

The next activity was a sky tram up to the top of the mountain, this where Debbie and Tracey parted ways, Debbie took the tram back down and Tracey had her adrenaline hit, zip lining. There were 7 zip lines that zigzag you down the mountain several hundred metres off the ground, the longest 870 metres, the fastest around 95km/hr....weeeeee.  At one stage a toucan was flying by, you don't get that in Canberra.

After 7 zip lines, you had a choice of 1 more or you could do a free fall...why the heck not Tracey thought to herself.  Clearly some form of exotic illness had set in that had caused temporary insanity. Having watched a few other people do it and no one died, it was Tracey's turn. Basically all you have to do it jump backwards off a 25 metre high bridge, doesn't sound so hard. Then you free fall about half way, then a tension thing (the technical term) slows you down before you splat. Sounds simple...except every else did it feet first, Tracey caught one foot, tumbled backwards and did most of it upside down. Debbie saw hummingbirds :-)

As we mentioned previously, things just don't stop, it was straight back for another trip into the jungle to do a night walk. Interesting fact, scorpions glow under a blue light (below). How cool is that.

Saw a sleeping toucan

Also saw a terantula, frogs, snakes, an owl and a couple of armadillios (no photos of that, theyz is so fast). It was a big day, what next. As we lost power at our last hotel and we're now at the next place and Tracey is sitting in the room before dinner drinking rum to calm her nerves, that might give you an idea but that's for a later post ;-)

Hooning through the forest

Left Manuel Antonio and drove 5 hours north up into the mountain by mini bus to Monteverde Cloud Forest. Got to release our inner hoon on the 4 wheel bikes though spectacular jungle amongst the beautiful Blue Morphos Butterflies. During the practice run Tracey flipped the bike with Morgan from our tour group on the back..oops, for some reason she chose to go on the back of someone else's bike after that. We rode through creeks, through jungle vines trees and up and down muddy tracks. Deb competed with Peter for the title of biggest hoon...Peter won, but only just.

....we than drank cocktails in a tree.

Gourmet Costa Rican

Andrew rightly pointed out our blog was called Foodivore but there was so far no mention of food. Costa Rica is not known for its food and we can now see why. There's a lot of rice and beans, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today's breakfast below, the square yellow thing is a piece of cheese that is a bit like eating a sponge:

There is some Mexican influence here but without all the bold flavours or spicy heat. However, mostly we don't get a chance to eat much as we're always on the go and there are usually no meal breaks planned on the tour. This may be the first holiday I actually may lose weight. The fruit is good, the fruit based cocktails, even better.

Sloth tales

Having left San Jose yesterday, we took our public bus towards Manuel Antonio. Sadly, the bus did not have goats or chickens...or air-conditioning on a 37 degree day with 90% humidity. That wasn't the worst of it but more on that later. Today we went to the Manuel Antonio National Park. Within 50 metres we saw our first sloth, well really a guide pointed it out, we spent ages trying to spot something that didn't move and looks like a branch but eventually we got our sloth eyes on. 

Other than sloths we also saw agouti, squirrel monkeys, white faced capuchin, raccoon (really), forrest crab, basilisk (not the sort that turns you to stone), hummingbirds and giant mating female spider that eats her tiny husband after sex...for which the main event was happening while we were there.

...the small mass at the bottom of the big female spider, is the man spider

Above is our tour group at one of the beaches in the national park, great bunch of people.

Debbie stayed at the national park that afternoon to continue her hunt for sloth and other exotic creatures, while Tracey went to tame the rapids with a few of the group. We had a choice of being in one of two boats, the first level 2/3 rapids for beginners and the second for crazy thrill seeking adrenaline junkies who wanted to be thrown into the water and hurled toward rocks. Tracey chose the first given her interest in maintaining all her teeth. There was a great stop part way along the rapids to walk to a waterfall. We all had a swim in the gorgeous pool at the base before continuing downstream. Photos on that one later. And by the way, two days ago on the bus Debbie's bag was stolen that included her passport, cameras, money, credit card...yep really, but not letting it ruin the holiday.