Leaving Costa Rica ~ Dec. 19, 2010

12/19
When I woke up it was raining a torrent. Hmmm...this did pose a problem for the adventurer who hates rain down her neck. However, there were lots of things on my little deck table to sketch.

So as soon as it was light enough (6:30ish) I was tackling the pile of treasures I'd collected on the beach the day before, including some odd little horned things that look like bullhorn acacia seedpods. Anybody know anything about these in Costa Rica? I've seen something similar in Kenya, but I didn't know they were here...(I just googled "bullhorn acacia," and that's what it is, for sure!)

As I sat sketching in the dim morning light, the flock of Great Curassows flitted by again. These big birds (turkey size) move very fast, and this was the best picture I could get ~ all the others were blurred. The males are solid black with a yellow beak decorations, but the females are this wonderful cinnamon red with barred tails and those tasselled black-and-white topknots! Stunning!

Later that morning, during a lull in the rain, I decided that I was going hiking anyway. The uppermost trail, Passiflora, beckoned, and I took off with my sketching bag encased in a plastic bag to protect my sketchbook and watercolor pencils from a possible shower. Here's the Passiflora Trail at right looking a bit mysterious.

There were lots of things to see, including lichen-striped trees, termite nests attached to monkey-ladder vines, and monkey-ladder vines in tangles. I stopped to watch squirrel monkeys in the trees overhead, and then, in a pattering rush, rain was coming down. I raced for the nearest tree with dense leaves and pressed up against the trunk (glad it wasn't a thorny one!).

A good, dense canopy like the one at left can provide fair shelter for a short rain, then water starts dripping through and you have to dodge around a bit to find a dry spot. I never did take out my sketchbook on that hike.

The wet earth and bark gave off a spicy, earthy scent, and as the rain shower trailed off to mist I resumed my hike, soon coming across these pretty woody flowers, which I sketched later under drier circumstances.

But I was starting to feel forlorn ~ this was my last full day at El Remanso, as I was scheduled to catch a plane the next day. Of course, WHERE that plane was going was really exciting, but still......

But to cheer me up, Mother Nature sent along another adventure. Adri saw me sketching heliconias along a path and asked if I'd seen the boa.

"No!" I exclaimed, and she grinned, saying "Then come see!" and led me to a tall shrub near the swimming pool where, right at eye level, a small boa constrictor was engulfing a Great Crested Flycatcher (Gera had identified the bird ~ it was way too far down the snake's gullet for me to tell).

The boa had apparently been waiting, hidden by leaves, when the bird landed on the branch next to it. The bird was no match for the small snake, which immediately wrapped itself around the bird and squeezed. So much for Tweety-bird! When I got there, the boa had been engulfing the flycatcher for more than an hour.

The snake had anchored its body to the branch with a couple of tail loops, and hung down below, coiled twice around the bird. With glacial speed, it was patiently inching its mouth upward around the bird's chest, which was probably three times the diameter of the snakes body. In the long photo at left, the widest part of the snake, right below the yellow feathers, is the snake's open mouth. The little pink blob at center is its lower front "lip."

Standing only inches away, I sketched and photographed the process. There was only time to get the outline in the fading light, so I took photos to help me finish it later. The whole process took several hours. Having gotten there late, it was dark by the time I finished sketching. By by the light of my flashlight I could see the yellow breast feathers and rufous wing feathers through the stretched-tight skin of the snake's belly. The whole adventure was, in a word, awesome.

By the way, the last picture of the boa's dinner, at right, was taken at dusk. On the disk, I could scarcely see the image. But in Photoshop I was able to improved the contrast considerably, since you can see it pretty well here. I still haven't added the boa's markings to my sketch yet. Maybe by the time I do the tutorial (next month) I will be able to show Before and After images of The Snake's Dinner.

Tomorrow I'll write about leaving Costa Rica and arriving in amazing Iquitos, Peru (not Quito, Ecuador ~ that's a different place).

'Til then!

Beach and Waterfall Massage

4/28

10:30am This morning Dan and I started down to the beach at seven, reveling in the pounding surf, skeins of brown pelicans patrolling the waves, and the fringe of palms, kapok, and beach almond trees fringing the beach. Crumpled papery eggshells littered the soft gray sand where a turtle nest had been raided overnight by a pizote.

We meandered south to the tidepools to bask in warm pools shadowed yet awhile by the cliffs. I lay in the pool floating weightlessly as the occasional incoming wave washed almost-hot water from more distant pools into mine, then surged across the pool to meet a similar frothy wave coming around the rocks at the other end, gently, gently. Sheer bliss.

We visited Dan's favorite wave-catching spot and let the rising tide froth around us. One largish wave broadsided us and swept me, giggling, ten feet up the sloping beach. We played and talked for hours in the shade of the cliff, hoping to avoid a tropical burn although since this is nearly on the Equator it’s possible to get quite a burn even on overcast days. Reflections off the sea can burn, too.

I’m off down the beach to the waterfall lagoon up a narrow canyon. Dan’s following at his own pace. He wanted to nap and I want to sketch, so away I go. We’ve seen twenty pelicans and a frigate bird, we watched a pod of humpbacked whales swimming south, and Dan saw flying fish rising and splashing back into the sea. (Later: Irené says the flying fish were probably mating manta rays!)

I’m sketching sprouting coconuts in the lagoon, and flowers with a most incredible gardenia scent. Gerardo just descended out of the narrow canyon, escorting an athletic group who just finished rappelling the waterfall. He says this is a flower from the guayaba plant. (Later: a tea made from the leaves of this plant is sometimes offered to guests who are suffering from upset stomachs.)

12:22pm Daniel came up from the beach and we went up to the waterfall a short distance up from the lagoon. This is a magical place, and even though five people had just rappelled it, it looked primeval, as though we were the first ones to ever see it. A wide stream of silvery water pours of a stone lip 30’ above us into a pool in a deep grotto. We stepped into the grotto and stood under the falling water, getting a breathtaking shoulder massage for as long as we could stand it.

Coming back out, we discovered a tiny poison-arrow frog, shiny black with bluish legs and a red band around its froggy outline. We found another one further downstream near a meter-long string of brilliant red flowers hanging from a sturdy heliconia plant. Termite nests like nubby black footballs perch in trees. A pizote forages on the bank above us and macaws flash in the trees above.

2.23pm Up the trail..... I have left Daniel back down on the beach again – he loves to sit and watch the waves, but Gerardo told us there was a sloth alongside the trail and I don’t want to miss it. I mean, it COULD move away. So I’ve been sitting at the edge of the trail for some time now watching through binoculars and I have spent a somnolent session sketching a sloth sleeping (say that fast three times!). Ah, movement! It has turned it’s head to look over its shoulder! And it moved its foot! Now its chin has drooped and it is sleeping whilst looking backward. The sloth is slightly below eye level, about 200’ away. It’s sort of tannish gray, and I’d never have found it on my own.

5:14pm I sat on my little sitting pad watching and sketching for about forty minutes.

The sloth began the session in one position (see the drawing with leaves) and ended in the other position (looking over its shoulder) which it held for fifteen minutes with occasional head movements. I finally left with a numb bum, tired but elated with my good fortune. Dan came along an hour later and admired it too, apparently in the same position.