Costa Rica 2000

Tuesday, August 1, 2000  - Corcovado, Costa Rica

It rained with thunder and lightening last night.  At high tide the crashing waves were so loud, I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't always distinguish between thunder and waves.  It was so loud it sounded like 60-80 mph wind, but there was no wind there over 8 mph.  A nice breeze by the ocean, but no strong winds.

There was one critter noise near my tent all night.  I didn't want to use the restroom at night (no electricity at night - power of flashlight only), but it was going to be a few hours before light and I was in distress.  Once it quit raining, I went.  All I saw were 2 huge toads.  The night before we also saw a red crab hiding in the dining area.  During the day we saw lots of Jesus Christ lizards and another kind.  We also saw a 3-foot long green iguana.
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We ate breakfast about 6:30 am.  (Sun rises at 5:30am).  We had grain cereal with warm milk, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, rice and beans, scrambled eggs, pancakes and orange juice.  If you like healthy meals, there is no way to be hungry here.

After breakfast, we took a short walk north on the beach.  It was misting the first part and cleared for the return trip.  We played in the rivers and walked along the beach.  The boys enjoyed throwing a tennis ball or their sandals up the river and catching them as they floated back.  They also love rearranging the rocks and sand in the river.

We saw three scarlet macaws flying overhead and squawking, and we saw brown pelicans in the water and flying overhead.  We saw a Yellow-headed Caracara eating turtle eggs on the beach.  The bird had a white chest and head, brown rest of the body, and when flying, it had white wing bars midway on it's wings.  It also had stripes on it's tail. 
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For lunch we had cooked broccoli, cooked cabbage with corn, sea bass that seemed to have a coating (it was EXCELLENT!!), rice, beans, bread and lemonade.

Today started off cloudy, then turned clear, but not bright. It was somewhat steamy.  It will surely be hot in the jungle.  We left for the jungle at 2:30 pm on the canopy tour hike.  It was sunny and we were sweating, but it wasn't real hot.  I'd guess the hike back took about ½ hour.  There was a covered shelter near the tree with the platform.  There we put on harnesses and hard hats.  All our packs and cameras were lifted up in the tree first.  There was a platform about 8 or 10 feet square one hundred or so feet in the air.  There were 3 Tico helpers.  One at the top to help disconnect you from the pulley and reconnect you to the safety ropes on top; one at the bottom of the platform to hook you to the pulleys, and one strong Tico to manually turn the crank to get us visitors to the top (one at a time).  I was the last one to the top.  Fairly soon we saw spider monkeys.  I took several pictures, but it was cloudy and dark, and only one was very decent.  I then turned to look in a different tree and saw a brown-mandibled toucan.  Then with one shot left in my camera, I let someone else take me and Skyler's picture.  (Asher was at the bottom - not old enough to come up on the platform.)  By that time it started raining, and I couldn't change my film in the rain.  It poured, and we decided we were a lightening hazard on top of the tree, so we descended, by pulley.  We walked back in pouring rain.
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At 6:30 pm, it was dark, so we waited in the hammock hut which had hammocks, a bar, dart board and ping pong table.  The electricity is on during the day to cook the meals.  We were waiting for 7 pm supper.  A frog was making a loud noise between a "whoop" and a "bloop" (like a drip or a bathtub drain).

Supper was cooked squash, spinach soup, cooked eggplant, rice, chicken with mushrooms, baked potato with sour cream, carrot and orange juice, bread and coffee cake with marshmallow cream type frosting.  There were 16 guests tonight, 8 last night.  One new family from Atlanta.

Rain had started again, not heavy (8:30 pm), but there was lightening and thunder.  The ground was pretty soppy.  The water in the bathrooms comes directly down the mountain from the streams.  They always have good water pressure.  I don't understand tropical septic systems, but toilet paper is put in the trash can.  Showers are cold water only, but cold water there isn't as cold as cold water in Kansas.

When I checked the boys, both were asleep in the same bed (cot-sized).