Costa Rica Nature Journal/Sketching Workshop ~ 11

My last day in the cloud forest started out a bit rough. When I was ready to get some breakfast, I trotted over to the concierge's building to telephone for a taxi. Uh oh. Nobody there, and no directions for how to look for anyone, either. Not wanting to bother the people at the gas station again, I decided to walk up the road to Santa Elena. It was only 6:30am, but in the tropics life generally starts really early and ends early, so there were occasional people and vehicles on the highway.


After about a half-mile walk (without my morning coffee, gritch-gritch) I arrived in town and ate breakfast then arranged, at a nearby booking agency, for a visit to Selvatura, a nearby cloud forest park with eight hiking suspension bridges and a whole slew of canopy ziplines. After a few misadventures (read the journal page) the first suspension bridge stretched invitingly before me and for the next several hours I was entranced.

It was misting lightly, but that only made the jungle, with its epiphytes, drooping-draping lianas, orchids, mosses, and huge gnarly trees more mysterious. From the railings,which spanned deep forested ravines, I was looking down into the tops of shorter trees, admiring the endless leaf growth patterns, taking in the shades of green, and looking out, and sometimes up, into giant trees adjacent to the bridges. From most of the bridges it was impossible to see the ground, but from two or three there was a stream partially visible way, WAY down (see journal picture).

Occasionally I heard, from a couple of the bridges or the trail, a faint ecstatic shout as a tiny human whizzed by far overhead on a zipline. The ziplines range in length from 219' to 1660' and I think if I get to Selvatura Park again I'm going to go for some zipline thrills in addition to walking the bridges again. I don't think there would be much time for rumination on a zipline tour, but just imagine the ride!

As I meandered slowly down the trail, I listened for (and heard) howler monkeys and invisible birds making all sorts of beautiful calls. I saw another slaty-backed nightingale-thrush, and numerous birds I didn't have time to identify. But mostly, I was just soaking up jungle. I could have stayed for days. And oh, yeah, I took scads of photos. Sigh.... However, Mai-Liis has offered this photo from HER trip to the cloud forest so you can see its eerie beauty. She says she didn't take more photos because she didn't want to get her camera wet.

I can certainly relate to that ~ as I was crossing the sixth suspension bridge, it started to rain. Foolish me. No umbrella, although you can borrow one at the park lodge (but when I had started out, it was only misting). Now, for the remaining distance of the hike, I got pretty soppy (but not cold), and by the time I returned to the park lodge, I could have used a towel. Actually, since it's rain that makes the cloud forest so lush and beautiful, I didn't feel I had any right to complain, so I went to the restaurant for a soothing cup of delicious Costa Rican coffee while I dried out a bit.


The turismo vans leave for town on the hour, and you can catch whichever one you want, so since my bus to San José was to leave Santa Elena at 2:30 I caught the noon van back to town (I had checked out of my hotel-cabina earlier and had put my pack in a locker at the park while out on the trail), had lunch, bought my ticket, and caught the bus back to San José right on schedule.


The rest of the story is on the journal pages, which you can read or not, as you please. Over all, I was quite happy with my little trekking adventure, and although a bit more Spanish would have made things easier, I got along quite decently with my few words and a bit of help from strangers. Costa Ricans appreciate their tourists, in general, since we bring a modicum of prosperity to the country. Tourism is one of the Tico's mainstays.

The main trouble with vacations is that they end. My whole trip was, in essence, quite smooth, and it was pretty contented, too, since I didn't know my camera had been pilfered until the day after I got home and I tried to find it in my pack.


Fortunately, in an effort to remain inconspicuous, the thief didn't take my camera case with the lovely Guatemalan-belt strap, so I still have something to put the next camera in. I'll be filling out the claim form later today, and I hope I can get its value back with which to buy a new camera.


But I don't want to end on a sour note, not at all. Because since I lost all my pictures, I have had a lot of rewarding post-class communications with my workshop students, and with Mai-Liis, too, as I've requested photos from them, and I've enjoyed the comaraderie as well as their generosity.

So there you have it. My February 2008 Nature Journal/Sketching Workshop in Costa Rica. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed creating it.


I wish to say muchas gracias to Joel and Belen for looking after me in San José, and to Adriana, Dani, Gerardo, Elyer, and all the staff at El Remanso for making my/our stay there so perfect.


And to you all, buenas tardes, mi amigos y amigas y estudientes!


p.s. well, that uses up a whole slew of my Español!

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!