Pathways and crossroads

There are paths running through the trees at Alby's Lodge in Cahuite. Eight Capuchins passed right over our cabin this morning and this evening a large family of Howler monkeys made their way along a line of palms while we all watched. There are four cabins at Alby's. One is occupied by an incredible couple from the UK who are currently traveling the world for 15 months and home schooling their two young, extremely bright, well-behaved children along the way. They are like the storybook family you know do not, can not, actually exist because they are so nice and so kind and so loving even though you secretly want to believe they do exist somewhere because, deep down, you need to believe that pure, simple goodness really can make it in this world.

Protect the sloths

Another of the cabins is occupied by a young couple from Holland who were stayingat Casa Marbella in Tortuguero at the same time we were. The four of us did the guided tour of the canals together so ee were delighted when, to our surprise, they arrived here this morning. Cool people. They told us that this afternoon, while they were having lunch, a sloth came into the restaurant. As is common here, the place has no walls so she came in along the open rafters. The owner gave her some lettuce, she hung around a bit (literally) then went on through, crossed the dirt road, joined a fellow sloth and they headed for the beach.

Mr. Lee buying bread from the Italian breadman

The fourth cabin is occupied by a couple from Spain. She is a dunce and he is a total asshole who won't acknowledge that the rest of us exist. When the Howlers were sitting in palm trees looking down at all of us looking up at them, he shook the fronds and shouted to get the monkeys moving because he wanted more action in his damnvideo. None of us like him, not even the storybook people.

Marion, our German friend from Tortuguero, got here the day before we did. In that one day she hiked in the National Park where she saw a sloth, took the bus to Puerto Viejo, saw it, rented a bike, rode to Manzanillo, had dinner with us when we arrived last evening and left for Mexico City this morning where she will live with an Hispanic family for the next six weeks while she does a Spanish immersion program. She already speaks it fluently but has plans to teach it when she returns home. She was baffled that we would want to stay in the tiny town of Cahuite for the next six days and then do five more in Puerto Viejo. Not everyone is ready for the philosophy of One Thing of the Day.

Marion leaving for Mexico City

Tortuguero comings and goings

This little Capuchin monkey tried jumping, spitting (0:12), barking, shaking and throwing things to drive us away. Naturally, we obliged. I don't blame him a bit. I wouldn't want us in my jungle either.


The fuzziness is from raindrops.
It is such a treat being in a place where there are no cars, trucks, SUVs, buses, trains, campers, trailers, motorcycles or homes. And I have seen only one ATV during our time here. Of course, there are lots of motorboats on the river however many of them have four-stroke engines which are quieter than regular outboards so they are not so bad. Tortuguero really is at the end of the road. No. It's beyond the end of the road. And the path. The community website does mention that you can try hiking to Tortuguera but adds that you'll probably die trying.

Can you spot Raymond? He is looking at you.

When we first got here we took a guided river tour through some of the jungle water ways then went back another day in a canoe with a German woman we met enroute to Tortuguero. She was great fun to hang out with. Meeting cool people along the way is one of the best parts of traveling like this.

Marion

In the last four days we have seen all kinds of wildlife, including Capuchin, Spider and Howler monkeys, Raymond the Caiman, tons of lizards, a few toucans, frigates, lots of vultures, grackles, herons and other fisher birds. I found an unearthed turtle egg on the beach and reburied it in the sand and lent a helping hand to a couple of dazed and confused stragglers still paddling around in the sand after dawn. Good luck, little guys. And two nights ago we did the guided beach walk in hopes of seeing a mother turtle come up from the sea.

Turtle tracks to the sea

Watching a giant sea turtle lay her eggs in the sand, seeing a mother in a species so ancient that her ancestors watched the dinosaurs rise from the flux then fade back into it, seeing her repeat the birth ritual alone at night, as it has been done for 150 million years, then slip back quietly into the sea was an amazing and truly humbling experience.

We leave in an hour for Cahuita via boat, bus, bus and hopefully taxi. Hasta entonces.

Tortuguero outtakes

The only way to Tortuguero
is by boat or plane.
We went by boat.

View from Casa Marbella.

This little Capuchin had a pretty good view of us from her tree.

Mr. Lee spotted this
little turtle on the forest path.
Don't worry. She isn't dead!

She looked dead. She was pretty far from the shore and she was covered with horrible stinging red ants but she moved her head when I photographed her. I immediately scooped her up with a leaf and rushed her towards the beach. The damn ants started swarming up my arms. The little bastard's really bite. I think they inject some kind of acid. Anyway, I had to put her down a couple of times along the way to brush them off. But we made it to the water, I released her to the sea and, as far as we could tell, she swam away but at least we know one thing for certain... the fucking ants didn't get her.

M. Lee also found this beautiful sand dollar on the beach. It was too fragile to consider trying to get it back to Nevada and, even if I managed to get it there intact, it would be in Nevada... a damn desert .... so I photographed it and left it on its beach.

Hello again

The trip to the Caribbean is on again. According to the Tico Times, while the rest of Costa Rica is getting pummeled by torrential rains and devastating mudslides, the Caribbean is experiencing the "longest dry season in more than a decade" and is "perfect for swimming for kilometers over bright sand and psychedelic reef". According to the article, the bottlenose dolphins and manatees are doing just that so, Kristiana, perhaps I will get that photo of a manatee for you yet.

Tomorrow we will do bus bus boat to Tortuguero... (San Jose to Cariari to Pavona to Tortueguero). Price, under $9 each. We'll stay in Tortuguero for four nights then we'll take a boat and bus to Cahuita for another six nights then on to Puerto Viejo for four nights. Then home. Unless, by my luck, storms drive us out early. Rain is predicted everyday next week so we shall see.

Best laid plans

Good-bye baby turtles running to the sea. Good-by glassy blue water that is but a rumor to me. Good-bye Capuchin and Howler monkeys. Good-bye frogs, coati and boas. Maybe another time? We are not sure where we will go, maybe home, but Costa Rica is a mess, roads washed out, mudslides, swollen rivers. And, as in all of Centroamerica, you are on your own. Traffic continues to move over roads that have been undercut by slides and already beginning to drop into burgeoning sinkholes. Mr. Lee blames me. Every time we get near the Caribbean the place is ravaged by rain and hurricanes. Last time we tried was during Hurricane Wilma. Not that we wanted to go there but even Cancun was shut down. We managed to camp on a wild beach though and I got a good poem out of it but ultimately the storms won, chasing us out early, leaving behind the two starving beach dogs we had befriended. It was so sad watching them in the rear view mirror as they ran down the mud puddle road after us.

Merry-go-round

The trip to the dentist went well. I may be done by Friday after all, which means we can still go to the coast, provided the road hasn't washed out. It is raining just about non-stop at this point. We went to our favorite soda (tiny cafe) for lunch, two people... rice, beans, plantains, fish, salad and tea... 4450 colones. We were home by three and saw no corpses along the way. There were lots of cops on the pedestrian mall today. Maybe it was their routine crackdown on vendors selling pirated music from plastic tarps on the sidewalk. I don't know. In any case, today the presence of the policia was as conspicuous as their absence yesterday.

Being home early, I am enjoying the company of little Dublin, one of two resident dogs here at Casa Feliz. She is very very sweet, extremely tiny and is, at the moment, cuddled beside me in the orange chair in the upstairs sitting room. As usual, Casa Feliz is one big dysfunctional family in which everyone gossips about everyone else. Currently, the most screwed up character is a 60 something Brit who recently married a much younger Tica woman who barely speaks English. He simultaneously suffers the ecstasy and despair of this insanity.

As I hear it, after a brief acquaintance they married earlier this year. After a brief honeymoon, she beat him up and he returned to the UK. They then reconciled via email. He returned to Costa Rica and they have been on and off ever since. Our host is of the opinion that she is trying to provoke him to violence (she hit him again recently) so she can divorce him and get his money though Mr. Lee tells me she would not be entitled to property he had before the marriage. Anyway, a couple of nights ago, while he was waiting for her to maybe come over at nine and maybe spend the night, he and I chatted about where they could live happily ever after. Not Costa Rica. Not the UK. Not the US or Mexico. I suggested Panama. He like that and decided that's where they would go. She showed up sometime after 10, left the next morning and he stayed in his room for the next 30 hours. People did call through the door a couple of times to see if he was alive. Tonight he and Lewis, a 23 year old UPER and graduate from a high school class of 15, went drinking.

Outtakes, San Jose

Hello pandemonium of parrots. Hello Costa Rica rainy season. Hello all day at the dentist. I go back again tomorrow. I am having some crowns redone and we are stuck here until the work is finished.

Sorry. No photos for now. The camera I have with me this trip is too conspicuous plus, at the moment, the rain is nearly endless and I don't want to risk ruining it. I should have kept my phone. I could have taken stealth pictures with it but that didn't occur to me until this afternoon. The day before we left Florida we mailed our phones, GPS, some clothes and a bunch of sea shells etc. back to Nevada to lighten our load as we are traveling only with carry on luggage. But I could have used the phone. Oh well. Writers write, right?

We took a cab from the dentist's office to the bus terminal tonight. Generally we'd walk but after six most shops are shuttered and locked turning colorful streets into grim alleyways after dark. Through the window of the cab I saw people wrapped in plastic and cardboard lying on the street in the rain and on a side street a dead guy lying on his back, hand palm down on the asphalt, a white plastic bag covering his body from the waist up, a yellow police tape stretched over the entrance to the parking lot and one cop car, lights flashing parked in the middle of the otherwise deserted street.