Costa Rica Sketch Journal ~ July 11, 2008

Here we are on July 11. Actually, half of this day's journal page was written on the 10th, so you'll have to go back in time a day to finish yesterday off (which is actually day before yesterday because I took a TimeOut yesterday to show you the Swamp Book Cover). (I added an improved cover! Go look!)

Since I didn't have anything more to say on the journal page I was writing on the10th, and I didn't have anything in mind to draw, I just doodled in a jungle liana page divider and started the next day's entry.

Okay. July 11th was a big hiking day for me, going for the Ridge Trail. I love this trail, which wanders through deep forest inhabited by lizards; mushrooms (that lacy thing at right is a mushroom!); howler, spider, capuchin and squirrel monkeys; peccaries (forest pigs); and other amazing creatures. One always wants to keep one's nose alert on this trail. Smell something really funky? Freeze! It could be peccaries. They won't hurt you if you don't get between them and their piglets, but they travel in packs and they're pretty imposing. I've never gotten a good photo of one yet, although I've seen them from a distance a couple of times.

I had delightful encounters with agouties, a red-capped manakin, and (2!) Great Currasows. Be sure to click on the little pictures here to see bigger ones. The two female currasows were extremely nonchalant, ignoring me, and I watched them for several minutes with smothered excitement. But in comparing the photo sequence in my camera and my journal entry (which I wrote scarcely more than an hour later) I discovered that I had remembered wrong!

How could it be that I thought I looked up from photographing dung beetles to see the currasows? My photos of the currasows come BEFORE the dung beetles on the camera. Dung beetles were followed by this lovely little manglio seedling taking root on a rotten log. The human mind is an amazing thing. I'll never know what really happened now because the fake memory has totally replaced the real one. I really did those things, but not in the order I remember them. (So much for "truth in eye-witnessing!")

This photo of the currasows, by the way, was the best one I was able to get in the dim light (and it's been heavily tweaked in Photoshop to lighten it up to visibility, starting out as an almost black blob). It's a perfect example of why a journal sketch might be a better means of capturing the moment!

The Ridge Trail emerges into the open on the lip of a high bluff over the Pacific, at Bella Vista Point (see the journal page). Off to the right and way down below is the long stretch of solitudinous beach, and off to the left (not sketched) the trail plunges down at an alarming angle to that beach.

Arriving on the beach breathless but still in one piece, I meandered back toward the trail up to the lodge, admiring hermit crabs along the way. I'd hoped to have time to sketch them and the shells they had chosen this trip, but that just didn't happen. Next time, maybe. I made it back by about 2:30, worn out by my six hour hike.

Daniel had spent the day hanging out in the hammock reading Tollé and nursing his tummy, which was not giving him a lot of pleasure. I sat down in one of the lounge chairs, cheering him up with tales of my adventures, and coloring some sketches in my journal until dark, when the heavens opened again with a marvelous lightning show and downpour. Reminds me of Camelot ~ at this time of year most of the rains fall in late afternoon or overnight when you're happy to see them come.

I've included a photo Dan took of me and Adri, sitting down to dinner. The tables are always beautifully appointed, with different napkin folds, flower arrangements, and gourmet meals every evening, served by candlelight, by friendly, efficient waiters.

Happy hour precedes dinner, from six to seven, and Maikal, José, and Gerardo (not the naturalist), make really excellent mixed drinks. My favorites were piña coladas and cocolocos. These always made me a little goofy, and since I am a bit shy in crowds, this helped me be more at ease (even thought the "crowds" were never larger than eight or nine people, many of whom I'd already met during the day!). What a hermit I am!

As we headed for La Caramba that night under our big black umbrella I had no idea Montezuma was plotting revenge on ME as well as Daniel!

Costa Rica Nature Journal/Sketching Workshop ~ 8

The Last Day of the Workshop (but not the last day of this blog). I got up pretty early, because on class days it's hard to find time to journal-- by 5:45am I was lying in the hammock on my patio writing busily away, and sketching in some things I had collected the day before. (Remember, you can click on the graphics to get a bigger image.)

I was hoping this last day would be really fun ~ the only fly in the ointment was that Kathy would miss it, needing to catch the lodge van to Puerto Jimenez to make her flight to San José.

We all went to see her off and got Adriana to take a group photo of us (here it is again, the one I opened this blog set with). We hugged Kathy warmly and saw her off up the lane. As the Ticos say, "Que lastima!" How sad! Interestingly enough, during her previous morning on the beach (I think it was then -- right, Kathy?) she had painted a charming little beach scene that turned out to look amazingly like the scene we opted for during this day's final pleine air assignment. She later glued on a fragment of sea shell, as a memento.

In the classroom, after the morning's critique of the previous day's work, we packed up our journals, binoculars, watercolor pencils, sunscreen, waterbottles, etc., and headed down the trail to the beach.

Since we were all keenly interested in all things natural, it was hard to make headway in the face of the fascinating things we kept encountering...the camouflaged frog on the trail; crabs that became instantly invisible when they stopped on the sand; a tiny cicada that landed on Jocelyn's white shirt and made itself at home; feisty scuttling hermit crabs; and lastly, a gorgeous blue morpho butterfly with brown underwings.

When a morpho's wings flap up, the brown undersides blend into the scenery and it disappears. When the wings go down, the iridescent blue catches the sun like a turquoise neon sign, and it reappears as a blue flash ~ only to disappear when the wings flap back up. Morphos also fly an erratic course. Instead of flying in a straight line so a predator can easily catch them, they dodge from side to side while flashing brown and blue. Hey! Hah! Catch me if you can! We were fascinated. Marilyn is a butterfly aficionado, and tried in vain to catch a morpho on video. I've linked to a short video here, which I found online, so you can see the effect.

But finally, we settled on a scene near the north lagoon (see yesterday's map) and sat down to create our assignment, which was "a beach scene in color, with foliage, a close-up of some item found on the beach, with some journaled comment/s." We spent a contented couple of hours on our pen sketches, then recorded the scene with our digital cameras so that we could add color later on. We could have added color at that point, but hey, it was pretty warm out there, and we needed to catch the tidepools before the tide rose back up too high.

So, hot under the midmorning sun, we trekked half an hour or so to the other end of El Remanso's long, footprintless stretch of beach to the tidepools, where we commenced to strip down to our swimsuits (and that colorful underwear again) to burble up to our chins in the jacuzzi style pools. Every few moments the returning tide would wash white foam into the pool, refreshing and cooling the warm water -- it was heavenly. Marilyn managed a timed photo so she could set the camera and fling herself into the pool to be with us in the picture.

When we'd gotten enough sun and surf, we all dried on my huge (but folds up tiny) travel towel ~ what an excellent purchase THAT was ~ which I then hung on a branch of the beach almond tree to dry (it did, within an hour).

Marilyn and Jocelyn headed back around noon as they had planned, but I had brought a granola snack, as I had planned (when I travel, I carry a whole bunch of these for emergencies and, well, hedonistic pleasure. The lodge would have provided a bag lunch, but I DO love my granola bars!). I plunked down in the shade of the big rock to sketch and journal. Later I went down the beach, turned in at the waterfall creek lagoon, and went up to the waterfall.

After walking up the creek for a few minutes, admiring the heliconias along the bank and hearing scarlet macaws overhead, you start to hear the rush of the waterfall. It plunges (I'd guess 40', but I could be wayyyyy off) into a small, dim grotto, very private, and you can stand under the deluge in water up to your calves, and let the water pound your shoulders in a totally satisfying aqua-massage. Heavenly. (okay, okay, I confess to airbrushing on that charming bikini!).

Later, after I'd returned and taken a short swim in the pool, we all gathered at Jocelyn and Marilyn's cabina to work on our beach scenes and then critique them. They critiqued mine, as well, which is always helpful and properly humbling to an instructor. We teachers need critiques, too!

Although Marilyn's journal page wasn't finished that night, she has since sent me this photo for the blog. Before dinner that night, we shared our journals with the other lodge guests, laying them out on an empty table. They were a real hit, with a constant stream of admiring viewers until Elyer and Michael began bringing the food. I guess there's no competing with fresh-caught-tuna steaks and mashed juca (tastier than potatoes!), with green beans, the plate decorated with an artful arrangement of julienned peppers and fresh jicama formed into a delicate flower; and finally, a tasty flan dessert with caramel topping. Oh, the food at El Remanso is always delicious! We would eat until we could eat no more.

The workshop was over now, but the journaling definitely was not. The next day we would have the entire day to explore the forest and beach and have more adventures, which we would then journal with abandon. See you then!

Howler Wakeup

April 20

5:24 am, El Remanso Wildlife Lodge, Osa Peninsula

The howler monkeys started roaring at 4:55am and are still going strong half an hour later. In addition to the “oooooaru, arooooo, rooooah!” are some “woof-woof-woof” calls, then more moaning roars. It is an extraordinary way to wake up.

I’m sitting in a basket chair on the tiled patio in front of our room in the increasing dawn light. The sun comes up every day about now, and sets around sixish pm, so we’ll have to get up with the monkeys to get the full benefit of the day. People go to bed around nine here, so we’ll still get our sleep!

A Tico (a friendly name for the Costa Rican people) is singing a Spanish song down in the kitchen, so I went down and fetched back a cup of delicious coffee. Ahhhh……. Birds are chattering in the tall trees overhead, and for a few minutes at about 5am the cicadas pulsed with a sound like those bamboo rain tubes, a high-pitched rattle of short bursts – breathtakingly lovely.

Yesterday we went down to the beach and tested our trail legs. The lodge is on a high ridge, with heavily forested ravines on each side and a steep trail down to a lovely, wild Pacific beach. Just out of the restaurant, we were met by a 30” iguana snoozing on the trail, then down near the beach we spooked a mama coati mundi, called pizote (pee-so’-tay) by Ticos, with four kittens. She galloped away with one in her mouth while the other kittens bumbled, clueless, after her.

We didn’t stay long on the beach – it was a very high tide, with the water almost up to the edge of the forest, and it was late in the afternoon, so after a short ramble in the sand and an inspection of hermit crabs taking shelter up the buttressed trunk of a forest giant, we headed back up to the lodge.

Going down took a bit more than fifteen minutes. Coming back took me closer to forty-five (Dan’s in better shape. He made it back up in less than half an hour). I didn’t mind returning slowly, though, because I got to see a lot of cool things: the trail overarched with blooming scarlet hibiscus flowers with frilly petals and fuzzy hanging tongues, brilliant blue and purple hummingbirds guarding them fiercely; a slim vine snake (harmless) crossing the trail then twining up a shrub to safety, and the leafcutter ants. I'm having trouble taking sharp photos in this dim light!

On the way back up the hill I collected a leathery tubular canopy flower to sketch, dropped from high above. I'm eager to start sketching -- I've turned my journal on its side and I'm writing on the left half and leaving the right half of each page empty for drawings. Since a page looks really bare without any pictures, that encourages me to keep sketching. I've also collected a little hatched bird's egg, and now I see a bug on a plant. Time to draw!