It was nice to arrive in Cahuita after our adventurous boarder crossing into Costa Rica. This was a charming little Carribean village just 30km before Puerto Limon. We checked into the secret garden lodge, a quiet cabinas run by a dutch lady. Cahuita is built on a small cape into the sea which has two long beaches on either side. That afternoon we visited the playa negra which has fine, black sand. A few surfers were showing off their skills.

The next morning we headed to the other side which is also the beginning of Cahuita national park. We walked on a long trail through some jungle about 10km to another beach. On the way we saw a lot of wild animals like monkeys, vivid colored butterflies, tropical birds, spiders, snakes and a white nose coati, a type of raccoon.

We then settled on the remote beach for our lunch and relaxed in the sunshine. Suddenly 2 green (apparently non-venous) snakes, 50cm long descended from the tree above us and started inspecting our snorkel gear and rucksacks. I tried to relocate them to another tree, but after some time they found a way back through the canopy of the trees and kept coming back down to our stuff. Finally we gave up and started our way back to Cahuita. We saw another coati eating a fruit and didn’t mind being photographed from close up.

After a delicious meal during the nightly monsoon rainfall we had to run back to our cabina not to get too soaked. Unfortunately a tropical cyclone was forming in our area which meant the next day was very gray and often rainy.Still very warm though but not really a beach day. So plenty of time to organize a few further things for our trip further along. We sorted all our accommodation between Christmas and New Year, as during this time of the year we will not be able to just show up and get a room. So it was a perfect day for some emails and travel research.

The next day we decided to head further up the coast and spent a day in the famous Tortugero national park. This was already an adventure just to get there. We started on the 8am bus to Puerto Limon, another busy port town where truckloads of banana are sent all over the world. Then we had to catch a 30min local bus to a small place called Moin. The canals to Tortugero started from there. So we loaded everything on a flimsy speedboat which took us another 100km up the coast. This was all through jungle rivers and canals which run parallel behind the beach. Just flat, brown water and now waves. Hence the boat could go at quite some speed. We saw already some wildlife like monkeys, crocodiles and birds (mainly herons).

After 4h on this boat we arrived safely in Tortugero village. There wasn’t much daylight left as it gets dark here just after 5pm. We went for a walk along the turtle beach, where we should find some turtle hatchlings coming out of the sand and making their way to the sea. We weren’t lucky though and other than lots of tracks in the sand we didn’t spot anything.

We gave it another try early in the morning, as this should be a good time to see them. And finally we found a young hatchling, just the size of a hand. Apparently only 1 in 1000 young turtles make it to adulthood. We now joined a local guy for a 3h canoe tour through the national park. It was very relaxing paddling through the jungle on a small canal, only hearing the wildlife around you and nothing else. We saw some young caimans, parrots, herons,capuchin and spider monkeys and very colorful butterflies.

In the afternoon it was time to pack our bags and head back from the jungle into the civilization by many different means of transport. First we had to take another riverboat which brought us upstream a jungle river back to the roads. Then we continued in a 4×4 jeep the dirt road until we reached the first small town. From there we had a public bus which took us in 1h back to San Jose’s Caribe Terminal. And a taxi finally to meet our friend Nicole in Pavas.

Cahuita to mila miejscowosc. Dlugo nie moglismy sie zdecydowac na jakis hostel. Jakos jest tak, ze osoby zagadujace nas na ulicy – mile panie – maja najciekawsze oferty. Tym razem pewna Holenderka nas zagadala i okazalo, sie ze za mila cena dostalismy calkiem przyzwoite warunki. W Cahuita zostalismy 3 noce. Cahuita posiada wlasny Park Narodowy polozony wzdluz morza. Naszego drugiego dnia wybralismy sie o 8 rano do parku i spacerek o dlugosci ok. 12 km zajal nam caly dzien. Spotkalismy oprocz mrowek malpki, ciekawe gryzonie, fantastyczne motyle i male weze. Dwa takie dobieraly sie do mojego plecaka. Erik zrobil im cala serie zdjec. Spacerek w czesci byl w lesie i w duzej czesci na plazy. Oczywiscie nie odbylo sie bez plywania, skakania i zabawy z falami.

Po Cahuita postanowilismy wybrac sie na polnocne wybrzeze Morza Karaibskiego – do Narodowego Parku Tortugero slynnego z zielonych zolwi. Podroz byla calkiem interesujaca. Do Tortugero nie ma ulic, tylko rzeki i kanaly. Tak wiec czekala na nas podroz motorowka, ktora trwala ponad 3 godziny. Pierwsze poltora godzinki byly bardzo ciekawe. Nasz pan motorowy tez byl calkiem calkiem. Wygladal, jakby za duzo sie czegos napalil. Lodke prowadzil prosto, ale okazalo sie, ze aligatora, ktorego widzielismy to krokodyl (w Kostaryce nie ma aligatorow), a flamingo to jakis inny ptak. Dnia kolejnego inny przewodnik wysmial naszego pierwszego kierowce.

Wychodzimi z Erikiem z zalozenia, ze jak nie trzeba przewodnika albo biura podrozy do pomocy, to staramy sie sami cos zorganizowac. Do tego wychodzi nam to o wiele taniej. Pod wieczor wybralismy sie na plaze by znalezc male osobniki wykluwajace sie z jajek ale nie mielismy szczescia. W nocy mozna jeszcze zaobserwowac zolwie skladajace jajka, ale sezon sie juz skonczyl, wiec szanse na ta przyjemnosc byly bardzo minimalne. Z tego wzgledu, ze i tak bylo pochmurno i troche padalo, nie zdecydowalismy sie na nocne blakanie sie po plazy. Poznym wieczorem inni turysci podzielili sie z nami ich wrazeniami, ze mieli okazje zobaczyc male zolwiki. Powiedzieli, ze nad ranem tez jest dobry czas. Postanowilismy wstac rano o 4:30 i o 5 bylismy juz na plazy. Przez kolejne poltora godziny biegalismy z jednej strony na druga i wszystko co widzielismy to slady duzych zolwi i malych, swiezo co wyklutych. Jakby nie bylo slady tez sa ciekawe Poza tym widzielismy dwa male zolwiki. Jeden – inwalida tracil ciagle orientacje w terenie i zamiast isc w kierunku wody, krecil sie w kolko. Zanieslismy go wiec do wody. Prawdopodobnie i tak nie przezyje. Podobno jeden na tysiac zolwi ma szance stac sie doroslym. Potem znalazlam jeszcze jajko, ktore sama zakopalam uzywajac wlasnych pletworak!

O 7 rano mielismy kolejny plan programu, czyli 3-godzinna przejazdza kajakiem po rzekach i kanalach. Obserwowalismy najrozniejsze malpy, papugi, zolwie, ptactwo i motyle.

http://realtravel.com/e-295531-tortuguero_national_park_entry-caribbean_stew_and_turtle_hatchlings_on_the_beach

Today we visited a coffee plantation that was actually a co op of many families. (Diria coffee) We learned and saw how the coffee bean is cared for and harvested by the families. This particular plantation has many small farmers contribute by bringing their beans for processing and roasting. They practice organic farming which is quite difficult but preserves their land for many more years than using chemicals. Every part of the bean is either used for the coffee or for compost. A very pretty red type berry is the beginning of the process. Very little electricity is used as machines are turned by hand. The process also includes worms that help the production. It was all quite intriguing. Their contribution is then paid to families on a monthly basis in order for them to provide for their families and not blow their money all at once. Many companies that buy the beans will come and inspect their local school and family life style as to make sure all are being cared for. Twenty five cents from each bag of coffee goes back to support their school. Costa Rica coffee is probably some of the world’s finest and we were fortunate to taste and see it first hand. I will never complain about the price of a cup of coffee again as I see the hard work and very few dollars that is given to these families. The large coffee plantation in Costa Rica is Britt coffee which we enjoyed drinking at our resort daily.

http://realtravel.com/e-187765-diria_entry-coffee_plantation

Costa Rica is home to 109 species of bats, which number fully half the mammal species in the country. You’re sure to come across them during a visit. By day, certain species are easy to spot snoozing by clinging like vines to treetrunks. Another species gathers huge banana leaves together and weaves them into a kind of coccoon nest. Others, including Costa Rica’s three species of vampire bats, inhabit nooks and crannies in the roofs of caves. All are communal.

My favorite species is the fishing bulldog bat, a mammoth-size critter with a wingspan 24 inches across and great gaff-like claws like eagles. It’s so named for its feeding habits. Tortuga Lodge, in Tortuguero, is a great place to spot them swooping low over the lagoon to hook fish.

To learn about the ecology of these amazing creatures, head to Bat Jungle, in Monteverde. This two-year-old museum provides a fascinating insight into the lives of bats. Eight species flit, feed, and mate within a sealed enclosure–the bat flyway–behind a wall of glass. You can even don giant bat ears to gain a sense of their incredible auditory abilities.

http://www.moon.com/blogs/cuba-costa-rica/exploring-costa-ricas-bat-jungle-monteverde

This week was wonderful. It went by way too fast. We went to an organic banana, cacao, and timber farm last Wednesday. It was nice to see a farm that wasn´t a monoculture. On the way to Puerto Viejo, we were surrounded by monoculture banana farms in complete sun with blue bags filled with pesticides covering the bananas. So, like I mentioned before, it was nice to see something more natural. Jose Moore showed us around his farm and told us about the different plants and trees. We had a very delicious lunch made by his wife. She made chocolate cake using the organic cacao they produce on their farm. ¡Que rico! After lunch, we did an intensive ecology project looking at tree basal area, tree diversity, insect diversity, and other biological indicators. I´m going to have to use that data to write a report in the next few weeks. After collecting the data we went back to our hotel, had dinner, and relaxed.

The folowing day, we went to a permaculture farm in the town of Bri Bri. It was even better than the farm we had visited the day before! They had all sorts of birds like ducks, geese, chickens, pheasants, and turkeys. They also had tilapia fish, many different species of timber trees, star fruit trees, ginger, yuca, bamboo, tamarack, pineapple, banana, cacao, and much more. Their farm was amazingly diverse. It closely resembled a natural forest. Because of that, we were able to see a variety of birds, hear (but not see, unfortunately) howler monkeys, poison dart frogs, and supposedly there´s a boa constrictor living on the farm too. We walked around the farm for awhile learning about the different plants the family was growing. Then we had a discussion about indigenous agroforestry before returning back to Puerto Viejo for a free afternoon. I didn´t do much then, just hung out on the beach with Joanna and Julia trying to finish up our Spanish journals. That night we all went out to Johnny´s bar and danced away the night to Reggae music.

http://realtravel.com/e-185024-puerto_viejo_de_talamanca_entry-more_on_puerto_viejo

Hmmm…where were we? Manuel Antonio was like diving into Animal Planet for a day…if you can´t be bothered checking it out on the net, it´s a peninsula with a few of the nicest beaches either of us has seen and all the jungle you could ask for…if it hadn´t been for the entry fee we would have stayed a week! Cheapskates that we are, we packed it all into one day, hiking round the whole park in about 6 hours..we bumped into white-faced monkeys, crabs, iguanas, hummingbirds and a whole family of sloths taking a beach side siesta in a tree. We even saw (and HEARD) about two dozen howler monkeys going wild by the not-so-main road…apparently having assailed an American tourist with airborne coconuts a little while earlier. After nearly two weeks doing big cities Quepos and its laid back beach life really took our fancy so we stayed another day catching waves and getting burnt! Then it’s back to Spanish classes at our language school! They are great!

http://new.123teachme.com/travel/logs/64