giant spiders, three-toed sloths, and walking sticks

After a good night's sleep and another American breakfast, we headed to the guide post for our guided walking tour of the rainforest. We were driven a couple miles down the road in one of the resort's trucks and dropped off with our guide Pedro. The mid-morning sun was hot as we walked along a trail that ran parallel to the road. Pedro pointed out a massive spider resting on a leaf and I cautiously took a picture of it, not wanting it to leap at my face or spray venom in my eyes. I didn't know exactly what terrors the exotically dangerous animals of the rainforest had in store for us, but I was going to worry about them regardless.

Once we entered the forest, the scene became more similar to the walk Deb and I had taken the previous day. The bright sunlight was hidden by the densely layered canopy of foliage. The few thin streams of light shone sunny spots here and there on leaves and fallen logs. But very little light was lucky enough to reach the jungle floor. As we walked, Pedro told us about the plants and animals indigenous to the area and he'd pose questions to us in a game show manner that was both charming and educational. Pedro was also amazing at spotting animals high up in trees that we would never had noticed without his assistance. He carried a telescope with a tripod and after setting the sights on an animal high in the trees, would invite us to have a look. If you line the lens up just right, you can take photos utilizing the telescope:









We got to see a three-toed sloth languorously eating a finger-shaped fruit high in a tree and a giant black lizard, also high in a tree. Pedro led us to a rickety old bird blind where we could see a huge tree overlooking a wide point in the river. Sitting in the tree were white birds, hundreds of them, as plentiful as fruit, just hanging out, doing what birds do. I was hoping that a loud noise of some kind would startle them and they'd all fly out of the tree at once... but nothing like that happened. Now all of this wildlife was really amazing, don't get me wrong. It's just that we were really hoping to see some monkeys.

Pedro heard monkeys in the trees once or twice, but they were far away. He even cupped his hands over his mouth and did a kind of hooting monkey call, but it didn't seem to attract any real monkeys and we continued on our way. Pedro took us to a a mangrove tree that had the most amazing root system. Each root was thin (about an inch or two), hard as a rock, and up to six feet high. They snaked out from the truck in waves, creating walls of undulating tree roots. And here is a picture in lieu of a thousand more words.

We made our way back toward the pickup point and Pedro's eagle eyes spotted a grey hawk high up in a tree. He zeroed in on it with the telescope and gave Deb and I a closer look. It was odd to see such a familiar looking bird in such an exotic setting. And while we were looking up at the hawk, a more exotic animal, an insect named Phasmatodea, or walking stick insect, fell out of a tree and landed on my arm. This resulted in a surprising lack of surprise on my part and almost no high-pitched shrieking. I think I was stunned by the sheer size of it the thing. It then proceeded to jump onto Deb (she also reacted with surprising nonchalance at having a "Temple of Doom"-sized bug on her). When the aptly named stick walked onto her butt, I took a picture of it.

We met up with Jack and he drove us back to the resort. We had a quick lunch and rested up for one last hike before it got too dark. One last search... for monkeys.

video blog #4: leafcutter ants in Costa Rica

heart of darkness

I must admit, our first trip to a Central American shore was a bit of a disappointment. The water was a grey mix of roiled sand that resented our trespass. The beach, however, was empty. We had some company from that group of a half-dozen American teenagers and their chaperone, who were apparently on the greatest field trip ever. But even their brief hollering was drown our by the noise of the surf and we didn't even notice their exit. After that, we had the beach to ourselves and we lounged around until we got hungry. Then we took another amazing walk through the jungle and had a very civilized little lunch at the thatched-roof, open-air restaurant in the center of the resort.

Perhaps "resort" conjures up an image of a much bigger complex than Hacienda Baru actually was. There was a front office, a guide post, some small maintenance sheds, the restaurant, a netted butterfly sanctuary, and about a dozen well-built little cabins (some duplexes, others stand-alones) surround a small, bean-shaped swimming pool. A complex system of tiny drainage ditches crisscrossed in every direction to draw the ample amounts of daily rain into the jungle.

It was getting late now and we decided to take another jungle trail before it got too dark. Jack, the soft-spoken American who'd owned the resort for twenty years, told us to make sure to bring flashlights. "You don't want to get caught in the jungle at night," he warned us,"it happened to me once, but never again." After our hike to the beach, we took this advice very seriously and took two flashlights.

The trail on the northside of the resort was different from the southside trail we'd taken to the beach. There were savage looking trees whose bark could bite, as it was covered entirely by giant, razor-sharp thorns (we would find out later that the trees had been planted by ranchers years before as a way to deter monkeys). The terrain here was flatter—there was less canopy, sparser trees and more high grass. But it was no less exotic or intimidating, and as we ventured further from civilization, the twilight crept in and the jungle began again to surround us. The darkness spread from the black corners of the trail and quickly covered the detailed green jungle in a grey haze. We walked briskly and with greater purpose, not knowing exactly how long the trail would take to lead us home.

Deb walked past some fallen palm fronds when something stung her ankle. I took a look, fearing the worst kind of jungle insect, and was relieved to see only a couple of long thin needles sticking out of her ankle. After finding out she was okay, I took a photo for posterity's sake before carefully extracting the offending foliage. As the blackness of night completely consumed us, we tried in vain to illuminate the black trail with our tiny flashlights. Seemingly, on cue, we came to a small, muddy road that we knew from the map would lead us back to Hacienda Baru. We walked along the road in the inky darkness and listened to the orchestral din of the jungle's inhabitants, relived to be out of the canopy. Slowly, we made our way down the road towards dinner.

Before leaving the cabin that morning, I had killed a wasp on the windowsill and left it there. While we were out in the jungle, the jungle had found a way to permeate our room. Hundreds of the tiniest ants I've ever seen had swarmed through the screen to devour the wasp's corpse. I was too impressed to try and stop it; this tiny microcosm of nature presented for our approval. By the next morning, the wasp had been entirely picked clean and only a husk with wings remained.

Despite the fact that it was barely nine o'clock, we were both exhausted from the wealth of experience we'd managed to pack into our first full day in Costa Rica. We turned in after a leisurely swim in the pool and rested up for tomorrow's guided tour of the jungle.

rough waters & hazy sunshine

(editor's note: Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It has been over three months since my last blog entry. Once the immediacy of the blog faded away, a break from writing commenced. I knew I needed to finish the blog, even if it was now from a historical, contemplative perspective rather than written during spare moments on planes and in hotel rooms. But as time passed, the unfinished blog loomed larger and restarting it seemed an insurmountable task. Days of the week have no names when you're unemployed, and time passed as it often does. Even New Year's came and went. I was going to write on Dec. 29th, but waited because the first was a much more apt day to restart anew once more. And so...)

We walked through the jungle, stepping carefully around snaking tree roots and creeping vines, seeing new things around each bend and marveling at the sight of it all. Here and there, the narrow path was flooded and we tread carefully along the edge of the jungle to avoid getting our feet soaked. At certain points, the path turned into raised wooden docks that carried us over marshes to the next spot of dry land. Ahead on the path, a huge white crane flapped his wings and rose into the air in a majestic whoosh before disappearing into the canopy.

It was hard to know where to look. If you looked down, you would miss the quick glimpses of colorful birds as they darted across the path. If you looked up, your feet could trip or trample the criss-crossing regiments of ants forever carrying tiny bits of leaves into their subterranean tunnels. We kept to the path and tried in vain to take it all in. After crossing a wooden footbridge that carried us over about 100 feet of reedy marshes, we looked up and saw a huge toucan picking something tasty off a tree. Toucans, besides being famous in our minds for hawking breakfast cereal, are so different in design than their North American brethren. With that colorful beak that seems to take up half the bird, it's an animal that screams its exoticism from the rooftops. It was such a treat to see it that we spent far too long standing there staring up at it; leaving only after our necks ached from all the craning.

We could hear the beach now, the sound of the crashing waves mixed with the constant cacophony of the jungle. As we came out from beneath the canopy, there was some sort of low building and a group of American teenagers having something educational explained by a guide. The building turned out to be a turtle hatchery and we continued past them to the beach. The sun was bright and the sky was hazy, which meant we didn't need to put on sunscreen immediately. But I remember thinking we shouldn't forget to put in on later. The beach was empty and populated by tiny holes everywhere; spiders? crabs? snakes? I filled in a few dozen of the holes before we cautiously put our blankets over them.

We couldn't wait to get into the ocean and welcomed the rare opportunity to go into the water together. The beach we usually go to is at Coney Island and someone has to stay on dry land to guard our personal effects. The lack of broken glass, candy wrappers, and bottlecaps in the sand was another welcome change, unfortunately, there was also little chance anyone would come by selling Heinekens. The holes, incidentally, belonged to an innumerable population of small to tiny crabs that scurried hurriedly to the side in all directions.

The water, however, did not seem to want us and kept trying to forcibly throw us back onto the beach. My gimpy knee made balancing against the current especially difficult and once you got out into waist-deep territory, the riptide was just plain rude. Deb and I both got knocked down and sandblasted by the roiling surf. When we regained our footing and wised up enough to get out, our fleeing ankles were pelted by the pilgrimage of tiny rocks being drawn into the insatiable sea. We were about to try once more, when Deb spotted a ray (manta, possibly sting) near her foot and opted out of the Pacific Ocean once and for all. I followed suit and we relaxed on the beach, skipped stones into the angry surf, and forgot to put on sunblock.

jungle beach party

We dropped off our stuff in the little bungalow duplex and wandered back to a thatched roof restaurant. There were about eight tables, but only two had lights on above them. One was populated by four middle-aged guys from Orange County, so we seated ourselves at the other. We were completely exhausted and equally ravenous. There seemed to be only one guy working. He brought us our drinks: I had a local beer and Deb had a mango smoothie. The food was delicious, and not just because we hadn't eaten all day, it really was quite tasty. We devoured our meal and tipped generously (we think). Then we made our way back to the room with the help of our tiny flashlight and promptly passed out.

I don't know what time we woke up the next day and that was a welcome and wonderful change. We didn't have a flight to catch. We didn't have to drive 100 miles to our next destination. We didn't even have the pressure of making the most of our day. We were here for three whole nights and it was time to relax. We went to the restaurant and ordered two American breakfasts. We were still too dazed to worry about eating authentic cuisine; I wanted eggs and bacon, but mostly I wanted coffee. And really, what's most authentically Costa Rican than coffee?

Today we were going to the beach. We packed a bag and put on our brand new bathing suits. We had to make certain to pack out sandals and wear shoes because the trail to the beach stretched a mile through the rain forest. We were well-rested, we were excited to be in a new country with an exotic ecosystem, we were fueled by bacon and coffee, and we were on our way.

We went through a gate in the fence on the edge of the resort and we were immediately enveloped by the jungle. Huge leaves bordered the trail, while others hung overhead blocking the sunlight with their giant fronds. The towering trees were wrapped haphazardly with vines and giant blue butterflies the size of birds darted through the few rays of sunlight that the thick canopy of foliage allowed. Suddenly, I saw a long upright tail moving through the brush, the end curled slightly. Was it a monkey? We'd only been in the forest for a few minutes and we already had our first large mammal sighting. As it emerged from the brush, we saw that it wasn't a monkey. It wasn't a tapir. And I was quickly running out of rainforest animals that I was familiar with. It looked like a cross between a possum, a raccoon, and a monkey. We would later learn that it was a pizote (or coati, in English). It scampered off into the jungle.

I noticed some movement on the ground and bent over to see several dozen leaf-cutter ants marching in a line across the trail. I could tell they were leaf-cutter ants because they were each carrying a huge piece of leaf. They diligently made their way from one side of the trail to the other before disappearing back into the jungle. A line of unladen ants made their way in the opposite direction, past their burdened brethren, as they headed back for more leaves. We learned to keep an eye out for such processions as they criss-crossed, back and forth, along the length of the trail. At each of the many crossings, the ants had carved out small trenches with their years of harvesting.

As we made our way through the forest, we kept our eyes open and watched our step.

gypsy cab, plane, plane, taxi, bus, taxi

We got to JFK in record time. At one point, I think the driver was doing 80 on Atlantic Avenue, barreling down the empty black street, hitting all the lights perfectly. We had to arrive two hours prior to our departure, but I was starting to imagine the news reports about the car accident in my head. I asked him to slow down. He did so gladly and I tipped him $5. It had only taken 15 minutes from our door to the airport's curbside drop-off point—shattering all previous records.

The rest of the city was still asleep, but the airport bustled. We waited in some lines, took off our shoes, and showed some people in uniform our documents. The next thing we knew we were in Costa Rica. Deb and I tried to catch some zzzzs on our two flights and we'd maybe gotten a couple hours between us. Once we got there, we waited in some extra lines: immigration and customs. We were approved as tourists by rubber stamps and hopped into a taxi to the bus station.

In the hazy, sleepiness of the new day, the culture shock of being in another country takes on a dreamlike quality. The billboards are all in Spanish, people seem to drive differently, more aggressively, the air is thicker, and the plants are foreign and tropical. I was fading in and out as our driver manuevered through the narrow streets in the city center. There were lots of colorful, gated storefronts on both sides of our speeding taxi. We arrived at the bus station, and Deb used her mastery of the Spanish language to secure us a couple bus tickets and the next leg of today's journey.

I remember lush, green hills and getting a Coca-Cola at a small market in the mountains. After minutes turned into hours, our bus ride eventually ended. Deb got us a ride with a local cabbie who knew our destination. "You know Jack?" he asked. No, but we were keen to meet the innkeeper.

More green blurs and intermittent naps ensued. And as the last light of day was fading to grey, we climbed, at long last, out of the cab and into our little oasis of jungle paradise.

long day's journey into vegas

America is a big place. Don't let no one tell you different. Other countries, like Belgium, are very little and can be driven across in under an hour. But not America.

Not only is America big, but due to it's immenseness there are stretches where there is little to less. Homes are intermittent, towns are tiny and founded in the 1980s, and businesses close up early. 9pm on a weeknight may as well be 3am. Even the gas stations get boarded up when the sun goes down. Sure, they may have lotto, guns, ammo and beer—heck, they even have diesel. But we cannot wait until dawn for such amenities.

So we drive on, into the night, until we cross the border into Utah and find a largish town with an all-night gas station. We fuel up and make it all the way back to Las Vegas; heading straight back to the Sahara. During the drive we talked about our last big night in Vegas, but we quickly trade those plans for a cozy bed and a good night's sleep.

The next day we head out. Deb buys us breakfast at In & Out Burger while I get gas. We turn in our bug-splattered economy car and fly back to Brooklyn for our first visit home since our trip began. We thought we'd get to sleep in our own bed, but we didn't set foot in the apartment until 11pm. Then we called a cab to pick us up at 4:30am. It's better to stay up all night, showering, printing directions, and packing a fresh set of clothes, than to oversleep and miss our early morning flight to Costa Rica.

Now where did we put those passports?