Category Archives: Guided Tour

Where we paid for someone to guide us.

Wilderness Hikes, Active Volcanoes and Hot Water Springs

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Continued from yesterday”¦ Amazingly enough, our guide spotted a two toed sloth with a baby. He was really excited about it and proud of himself. Two toed sloths are rare to start with and hard to spot, so seeing them in the wild is a big deal. Seeing a mother/child duo was an especially big deal. We watched the sloths for a long time, each taking turns looking at them through the guide’s binoculars. True to their nature, the mama barely moved at all, not doing much more than turning her head. The baby also barely moved, though the baby was harder to see. They have an almost prehistoric look to them, sort of like a tiny ape, but even more primeval. Seeing them was so exciting!

The guide pointed out a small fern that curls up when you touch it. Of course, we can’t remember what it is called now. When we were in Tahiti, we went on a tour where the guide had pointed out that same plant to us, mentioning that it was an introduced species, not indigenous to Tahiti. Now we know where it came from. We also spotted the plant in Tonga, too. The guide also showed us a species of elephant ear plant with the biggest leaves we have ever seen.

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Here is a shot of Eric and Christi near the Continue reading →

Welcome to La Fortuna, Costa Rica

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This morning the alarm went off at 0500. It was still dark and we had a hard time getting up. We were out the door right at 0600, just after sunrise. We were on our way to the airport to pick up our friend, Mike, who was flying in from San Diego. Even though Heredia looks really close on the map, we were told it would be a 40 minute drive from the hotel.

On the way out of town, we did a quick drive up and down some of the more prominent streets to at least get a glimpse of this supposedly great city. As in most towns in Latin America, there is a large town square near a big church, but we didn’t see anything else that looked particularly historic or noteworthy. Heredia looks like an average town. We were literally the only car on the road. Ticos (Costa Ricans) must not like to go out early on Sunday mornings.

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There is a two lane highway that connects Heredia to the airport. We found the road and headed out of town. On the outskirts of Heredia there were Continue reading →

The Puberty Party and Learning More About the Kuna Life

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Continued from yesterday”¦ After everyone else was served, we were offered the beer. Suddenly, all eyes were on us, intently watching for our reaction. Visually speaking, we would have mistaken it for molasses. It was black and thick, like syrup. They insisted we do the little dance prior to drinking it. Another local joined in to lead us in the dance, which we think we followed along with pretty well. We went to down our beer. It was absolutely disgusting. Mr. G had lied when he said it was non-alcoholic. In those 8 days, it had definitely fermented. It wasn’t a strong alcohol taste, but it was enough to make a gross beverage even grosser. Christi could barely get a small sip down. Eric took one gulp. Everyone insisted we finish our cups. Eric took another sip and said he could drink no more. Everyone was disappointed we wouldn’t drink it, but simultaneously incredibly amused by our reaction. We sat down and held onto our cups for a while people continued to insist we drink it. When it was evident we would drink no more, two guys drank it for us.

We asked where the girl being honored was. Apparently, a special room with a special layout is built for her somewhere, and she is Continue reading →

The Mangazina di Rei

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Continued from yesterday”¦ After we finished at the museum, we headed to Rincon to go to the Mangazina di Rei cultural center. It is housed in the second oldest stone building on the island, built in 1824, which was originally built as a food and farm tool storage center. The center tries to actively preserve the cultures and traditions of 100 years ago. We expected it to be a museum where you wander around at your own pace, but it was actually a guided tour. We joined a tour group about halfway through the tour. The group had just gone out into the gardens.

In the gardens, they grow the plants that were used for every day living, from food to export crops to materials for tools. They pointed out a tamarind tree, then gave us some tamarind juice to taste. It tastes kind of like beans and sugar and is different. They pointed out a calabash tree. Calabash are inedible, hard, and round, and are good for making assorted tools and cookware, such as bowls, ladles, and so forth. The musical instrument maracas (the shakers popular in Latin American music) are made from calabash, too.

They showed us candle cactus, which are used to make the living cactus fences. For some reason, they can only be cut on a full moon in the dry season or they rot. The guide showed us the tools they used to cut, move, and replant the cactus along the fence. The cactus cuttings form new roots and become a living fence.

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The guide also pointed out the kadushi cactus that they make a traditional soup from, and also explained how they cut and skin the cactus to get at the pulp inside. The cactus is absolutely enormous, but only young shoots are eaten.

They showed us the plants that sorghum flour is made from, which was the staple of the traditional diet. Sorghum is Continue reading →

Sperm Whale Watching Part 2

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Continued from yesterday… Sperm whales dive the longest and deepest of all the whale species, going down between 1.3 km deep and staying down about an hour. The longest recorded dive is 2 hours and 40 minutes. They will come back up for about 20 minutes to re-oxygenate their blood, then dive back down to continue hunting. There is no light that deep, so have an amazing sonar system to find food. They primarily eat squid, and have the most powerful sonar system of any animal. Males can reach up to 60 feet and 125,000 lbs. (18m and 60 m tones). Females are ½ the length and 1/3 of the weight of males. Babies are about 13 feet and 2200 lbs (4m and 1 m tonne) at birth. Sperm whales live between 50 and 70 years and can be found just about everywhere in the world with waters deeper than 3,000 feet (1,000m).

Female sperm whales travel in groups, along with their calves, and live in tropical or sub-tropical waters all year. A female sperm whale starts breeding at about 12 and continues to breed into her 40’s. She has an 18 month gestation period. When her calf is around two years old, she will breed again, so each female has about one baby every 4 years or so, delivering about 10 calves in her lifetime. The babies can’t stay underwater for very long, so one female at a time will stay on the surface with the baby as the others hunt for food. When the whales sleep on the surface, they make a ring with their heads in the center and their tail fins out. They put baby in middle, and thus are able to shoo off any potential predators with their fins.

The male whales migrate away when they are between 6 and 9 years old. They are not exactly sure where the males go, but it is almost certainly to colder waters up north, and possibly even the Arctic Circle. After being gone for 15 years, the males come back to tropical waters to mate. They meet up with a female for a season, then move on again. Part of his research is on the whale cultural groups. Whales have distinctive cultural groups with learned behavior patterns and dialects, just like humans. And, like humans, they communicate primarily via sounds. The whales instinctively know not to mate with someone who speaks their own dialect. It is nature’s way of preventing inbreeding.

And why are they called sperm whales? The whales have Continue reading →