The wild Caribbean coast at Pacuare

Day 9 - Wednesday 29th July 2009


Our brief stopover in San Jose was concluded in the morning as we finished some admin (bus tickets, white water rafting tickets etc) and had some food. My brunch consisted of an epic baguette that I made myself with gear from the supermarket. Our bus was at midday and we were travelling to a turtle sanctuary on the Carribbean coast.  This was quite a complex journey - the first section of which was the bus journey from San Jose to Matina.  This was followed by an epic car journey from Matina to a dock on the River Pacuare.  This section of the journey was very good.  We arrived in Matina, which was very stereotypically Caribbean - complete with lazy black men in rocking chairs.  Our lift to the dock was given my three local men in their cars.  One of these was a pick up truck for the bags - a sensible choice considering the dirt track nature of the roads.  The other two vehicles were standard family cars and were considerably less suitable.  My car got stuck in a puddle and was pulled out by the pick up truck with the assistance of the team members who were riding in the back of the truck with the bags.

The last leg of the journey was a boat ride along the river.  This was very ‘Live and Let Die’ as we travelled through a crocodile infested swamp in our motorboat.  Once at the turtle sanctuary we were given a brief talk by Scott - our English eco-warrior boss.  Our meal was provided and was typically rice-based.  At 8pm, half of the group (my tent group and the leaders) went out on patrol.  This was a 4 hour beach walk in the dark (and the rain).  In our massive 7km walk, we saw one baby turtle which we got to hold and watch slowly enter the sea.  Got back to our cabin at about midnight.

Day 10 - Thursday 30th July 2009

When we woke up we were able to fully appreciate our surroundings.  The mosquito net over my bed was covered in bat droppings.  Throughout the night I had heard them (and numerous other animals) moving around. Our room was very basic - bunk beds, candles (no electricity on site) and some clothes pegs.  Our breakfast was provided and we heard that the other group (which had set out at 11pm) had seen nothing.  They didn’t get rained on however.  In the morning we were given a lesson about the history, biology and issues facing sea turtles.  This lasted an hour wand was pretty interesting.  Lunch was at 1pm and was again provided.

At 3pm, all of us but Needers went out for a guided tour through the nearby jungle.  On this walk, we didn’t see much in the way of snakes but saw a variety of birds, insects and butterflies.  On top of this we saw a lot of howler monkeys which were a bonus.  I had a shower when I returned to the site.  The showers were fed by rain water and a well.  Everywhere was very eco-friendly - solar panels, very few lights etc and this was a very pleasant experience.  Although it is cliche to say it, the experience was worthwhile as a stark contrast to our affluent western lives.  At 6pm we had our last dinner at the sanctuary.  My group was doing the late patrol and we decided to stay up talking and playing cards until 11pm.  At 11 we left for our epic journey along the beach for the second time in two days.  Half an hour in we met the returning early shift we had frustratingly seen a full greenback turtle family.  Even more frustrating was teh fact that our group saw no turtles, but collected the data for the other group’s find.  We also had to walk further - 10km in all, so when I returned to my bat dropping covered bed at 2.30am, I felt that the whole process hadn’t been the life changing experience that I had expected.

Day 11 - Friday 31st July 2009

Our orders for the morning were to get up, get packed and get breakfasted by quarter past 9.  The boat left at 9.30 and the journey back to Matina was the exact reverse of the journey on Wednesday - the only difference being that there was another pick up truck and I was able to sit in the back of this with the bags.  The three drivers followed the same policy of trying to race each other back which was amusing.  We also got stuck in the mud again.  We had to wait around in Matina for our bus to arrive and therefore bought a bit of lunch, eaten on the stereotypical Caribbean street which was completed by an old man telling Chris how to fight off Bigfoot, should they ever encounter each other.

The bus journey was good, despite its length.  We walked back from the bus station and then tried to do our jobs for the evening.  This included booking tickets, restaurants etc.  My job was to sort out the kit bags, which sounded easier than it was.  Everyone had to go out, but I stayed in , had a 5 minute swim and then had a shower,  The evening meal consisted of a wonderful burger.  I spent the rest of the evening (a massive effort) working out how to divide the group kit.  on top of this I had to divide the food we had bought. The group had been out and bought supplies that included 3 onions on the nutritional side and 7kg on peanuts on the completely irrelevant (but heavy to carry) side.  At about midnight I had finally packed, itemized the group kit and sorted myself out for the trekking that was coming up.

Lake Arenal

Day 5 - Saturday 25th July 2009

Our last morning in La Fortuna consisted of breakfast and a tidy up.  At half past 8 a minibus collected us and took us to Lake Arenal.  We then caught a boat across the lake, which despite the rain was very scenic.  The was followed by another bus trip, this one from the other side of Lake Arenal to the town of Monteverde.  The last minibus journey was pretty epic as we climbed from the shore of the lake on a dirt track up the side of some impressive peaks.  The woman who was driving one of the minibuses decided to help us with our accommodation (as we had failed to sort it out ourselves).  We therefore managed to stay at a place which was on budget, but frankly a bit basic.

After we had sorted ourselves out a bit, we were given some jobs to do by the new team leader, Hugo.  Mine was fairly simple - find out whether the main attractions in the town would be open on a Sunday - the answer to which was yes.  My evening was therefore pretty free and at around 5 I went for a walk with Hannah, Daniel and Rob.  It was the local celebration of “the annexation of Monteverde” so lots of people were out and there was some singing and dancing.  Unfortunately this was curtailed by a powercut and a thunderstorm.  We ran back to our hostel and sat around while dinner was cooked.  The other group was in town, so some people met up with them, but I was tired so went to bed early.

Day 6 - Sunday 26th July 2009

The hostel that we had managed to find yesterday could only cater for us for one night, so in the morning we walked to another nearby hostel which was actually far better.  Before we could move however we had to pack and as I did so I thought I had lost my money belt.  After 10 minutes of frantic searching, I managed to find it, but it was a stark warning about keeping track of things.  Once at the new hostel on the edge of town we were able to clean up a bit and have showers before heading off into town for lunch.


The only thing that we had really planned for the afternoon was to go to the local serpentarium and for the rest of the time we didn’t have too much to do.  The serpentarium was amazing and I got to hold two snakes, one of which was a Boa Constrictor, and a turtle.  We were also told about which snakes were venomous, which we all listened too attentively, knowing that we would be staying in the jungle later in the month. My group was in charge of the evening meal and we decided to stray from the now generic pasta dish and went for a chicken salad with (something - poor handwriting) with pineapple for dessert.  It was a bit harder to cook, but worth it as the meal was very good.  We went over to the hostel of the other group in the evening, but soon left as it was a bit dull.  When we got back it turned out that one of the keys had been locked in the room.  Luckily we had Chris with us, who had learned how to pick locks while serving in the forces - which was amazingly cool to see.  That night there was a massive storm and none of us were really able to sleep.

Day 7 - Monday 27th July 2009

A night’s sleep that had only yielded about two hours of actual sleep left me very tired in the morning.  My first job was to collect the assorted bits of clothes that had been scattered around the hostel by the night’s storm - which was possibly the tail end of a hurricane.  At  o'clock we met the guide who was going to take us on a tour around some cloud forest.  He had come with a minibus so drove us there.  On the way, we stopped and got out as he had found a sloth in a tree which we looked at with his high quality telescope binocular thing.  Once we were there the tour followed a similar pattern, with him walking in the lead and stopping us if he saw anything major.

In this fashion we saw (and were able to take photos of) several birds, butterflies, bugs and monkeys.  The main destination for the walk was a hummingbird farm.  This was really good and I got some clear close ups of the birds.  Almost as good was the chocolate brownie I had at the cafe.  I had been feeling ill in the morning, but the brownie recovered my appetite.  The walk back was similar and we saw a few bits and pieces.  The afternoon was fairly free, so we all relaxed a bit around the town.  We all met up again ready for a buffet dinner which was really nice.  A few people went into town for a drink, but after last night’s storm I was dying to get to sleep.

Day 8 - Tuesday 28th July 2009

Yet another early morning as we were heading for the zip wire canopy tour.  We walked into town to the tourist office and from there got a bus out to the cloud forest where the zip wire would be taking place.  Once there we were harnessed up and given a brief demonstration before climbing up the first tower and going down the first wire.  The first few were fairly slow, as we got used to our equipment.  The brakes consisted of special gloves which were used to hold the wire in order to slow down.  After a dew wires we really got into it and went down with a fair bit of pace.  The fifth wire was long enough for me to record a journey (with questionable success).  The tenth stop was a ‘tarzan swing’ - basically a rope which we swang from.  This was pretty daunting, but worth it.


The last stop was the famous 1km wire above the canopy.  For this we went down in a pair (me with Rob).  I was at the front with the camera and he was on the back with the brakes.  The wire was about 200m above the ground and was really impressive.  Gallingly, my recording failed which I was very annoyed about.  We got a lift back into town, had a bit of lunch, changed some money and then caught the bus back to San Jose.  The journey was scenic, but a bit hot and sticky.  Once at the bus terminal we had a bit of a mess up as we all got into unregistered taxis.  Luckily we didn’t die and got to the hostel.  We went to the same gigolo restaurant as before, then to the hostel bar and then to bed.