Tag Archives: Scenery

Camino Day 17 – Castrojeriz to Boadilla del Camino. A short one before The Long One

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Sunday 3 September 2023 – We exploited the facilities at Emebed Posada mercilessly to make many, many mugs of Twining’s finest Earl Grey before retiring for a comfortable night and a relaxed start this morning, given that we have a shortish walk of “only” 20km or so. Margarita was as charming as ever, despite having been awake since 3am to see whether her son’s girlfriend – Miss Bogota! – had succeeded in her quest for election. Sadly, no, but still Margarita oversaw a nice breakfast – excellent croissants – and, of course, more of Twining’s finest. So it was 0800 before we started out on a cool morning.  Yesterday we had worn shoes (Merrills) for the walk because of the threat of rain, and neither of us found them as comfortable as Tevas, so we decided to revert to sandals and hope that any rain would not be overwhelming. (Spoiler alert – it wasn’t).

Having done our homework, we knew that the route today involved a reasonably stiff, albeit not overly long, climb.  It wasn’t long before we saw what we were in for:

and, indeed, it was quite steep – 12% –

and it was quite gratifying that neither of us found a couple of kilometres of this gradient to be particularly challenging.  The views on the way up were decent,

and it was interesting to note the terrain; it looks as if at one stage the escarpment was terraced.

We reached the top, as one does if one keeps going,

and could just make out the castle on the top of the Castrojeriz hill.

There’s a short level stretch at the top leading to a mirador.  We wondered if we could see a decent view from  it, and the answer is, of course, “Yes. We. Cairn.”*

The descent, at 18%, is even sharper than the ascent

and leads down to a trail across a level plain

which, I suspect, is going to be the default scenery for the quite some distance as we head towards Léon. In a previous post I questioned whether this might be boring, but our experience so far is that, while the scenery might be unvarying, it’s not dull; furthermore, walking in it is not tedious, as we get pleasure from just the exercise and mental benefit from being outdoors. I should also add that our preparation for the Camino involved us walking the same 10km of Surrey roads and paths multiple times, so we’re accustomed to unvarying landscapes whilst still enjoying the exercise.

The winding path ahead gave me a chance to attempt more photos to convey the idea of “the path ahead”

but it wasn’t all unrelieved wheat and sunflower fields. We found alfalfa and turnips, too, for example.

OK, yes, there were other landmarks, too:

Ermita San Nicolás

Puente Fitero, a nine-arch 17th century bridge ordered by Alfonso VI of León

Nice view from the bridge

Reminder that you’re on the border
between Burgos and Palencia provinces

Shortly after the bridge one approaches a possible coffee stop, Itero de la Vega. (This prompted me to wonder what “vega” translates to in English; the answer seems to be “meadow”, which means that possibly the most ironic city name in the world is Las Vegas.)  You can tell in the Meseta when you’re aproaching a village, as the landscape changes – in this case, to woodland, some of which is not wild, but a formal plantation.

We were walking past this with a Canadian chap we’ve encountered and chatted with on occasion; he declared that he was going to whizz his drone along the lanes between the trees, in an Ewok kind of way. We wished him good luck and left him to it!

We had another encounter with Moaning Minnie on the bridge, where she was sure to tell us all about the art gallery she was going to be staying in that night in Frómista, and again in the coffee stop, where she managed to gather no fewer than three other people around her (including Jane whose generosity of spirit is to be commended) to help her with a foot problem. She’s beginning to sound like Louise the Limpet, a similar sort of character that another hiker and kayaker that we know has promised to Tell All About Soon.

As well as a bar, Itero de la Vega has a couple of interesting corners.

As we entered the village, some pale sunshine was beginning to throw our shadows in front of us.  When we left after coffee, however,

it had clearly rained quite heavily and was indeed still raining a bit, so we adopted rain jackets for a while until it became clear that life would be more comfortable without them; the wind had changed from foe to friend, in that instead of being uncomfortably chilling in cool termperatures it was now nicely cooling as the day warmed.

We were passed on the next stretch by another Pilgrim Under Sail,

though the wind direction and strength meant that this chap was heading downwind and was therefore in danger of an accidental gibe, which, as any sailing person will know, can be very uncomfortable.

Other notable sights included:

evidence that no-one really knows how  long the Camino Francés actually is or how much of it still lies ahead – this sign occurred about 4km after the one saying 455km; a canal,

the Canal del Pisuerga, part of a network of 18th century canals which helps feed the immense agriculture of the area; and the occasional Nice View.

Soon after that we saw our destination for the day, Boadilla del Camino,

a small village which might be more extensive than San Juan de Ortega (almost everywhere is) but still boasts (apart from the inevitable church, of course) only one bar, one hotel and one albergue – and they’re all basically the same place.

At a distance, we were a bit puzzled by the construction second from left in the above photo. It turned out to be some kind of ruins of a mud construction,

perhaps the forerunner of the buildings that now surround it.

Boadilla looks like a fairly random collection of ramshackle buildings as you approach,

mainly because it is, largely.  It has its quirks, though,

a charming Ayuntamiento (Town Hall),

a huge church

with, engagingly, at least one stork’s nest on its tower

and a rollo which is definitely in the lead for the prize of Top Camino Rollo 2023.

Our hotel, “En El Camino” – “On the Camino” – is behind the rollo.  It also encompasses an albergue off to the left of the picture; together these comprise the entire eating and drinking  Scene of the town.  I had expected of the hotel something a lot more basic, but we have a comfortable room, were able to have a decent (not Nice, but nice) lunch, and could get gin and hot water for tea at the bar. What more could one ask for?

There was one moment of abject terror, as I sat in the hotel bar to start writing this page – Moaning Minnie Checked In!!! Maybe her foot problems had meant a change to her original plan for the day. Whatever, I was reduced to the Very British Problems approach – keep the head down in the phone and tablet and hope not to be clocked. It seemed to work, and I think she’s in the albergue. I know I’m being craven but I simply can’t face the idea of talking having to listen to her.

In the restaurant over lunch we saw today’s mystery object.

I’m tempted to run a quiz, but I’ll save you the agony.  It’s a horse-drawn threshing machine; sharp fragments of stone embedded in a wooden structure to be dragged over a harvest crop, it collects the wheat and allows the chaff to blow away in the wind.

The stats for the day: we covered 20.0km, therefore 343.4 in total, or 213 miles. We climbed 238m and descended 274m, by the way.

Tomorrow is the most challenging day since our 27km walk into Burgos. We have to cover about 26km to get to Carrión de los Condes. The challenge is longitudinal, not vertical, and it would be good to get there without being quite as tired as we were on reaching Burgos.  The weather prospects are uncertain – as I finish writing this a thunderstorm is thunderstorming outside! For the morrow, Accuweather says that rain will die down from 8am, others are less sanguine. So I suspect we’ll see what’s actually happening outside the window when we wake to decide how to handle the day. In any case I will report back; I’m just not quite sure when.  Stay in touch and you’ll see how things develop.

 

* Sorry, Mr. President. Couldn’t resist it.

So: Costa Rica, eh?

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Friday 7th April 2023 – Rather later than the “couple of days” promised in my last post, here are some valedictory thoughts about Costa Rica, which are worth exactly as much as you’ve paid for ’em.

Overall? We would heartily recommend it for a holiday (or even for travelling). The people are amazingly friendly and helpful, the country is safe and the sights are interesting.  The wildlife is rich, varied and occasionally fascinating. There’s a great variety of microclimates to choose from – cool (and damp) cloud forest to hot (and humid) Caribbean beaches; as well as wildlife watching (which was the main reason we went) there are many activities to choose from –  swimming, stand-up paddleboarding, ziplining, lying around poolside, white water rafting, hiking. This site gives a good overview.

Some research is necessary to ensure your visit is as pleasurable as it can be.

Timing of your visit is important.

  • The rainy (or “green”) season lasts from May to November.  If you don’t like it when it rains, probably best to avoid these times – and anyway bear in mind that in many parts of Costa Rica it can rain at any time, which is why all the hotels provide umbrellas.  Outside the green season, the rain tends to be in sharp showers rather than continuous downpours.  You can find more information here.
  • If you want to see specific phenomena, check your seasons.  In Ostional, turtle season is February. In San Gerardo, Resplendent Quetzal season is March. And so on.

Location is important.

  • If you want to swim in the sea, the Caribbean coast is probably the best place to go.  It’s rarely safe on the Pacific coast, where rip tides are a feature.
  • If you want to have a base and drive around, then there are certain places to avoid, such as the Nicoya peninsula, where the road surfaces are not conducive to driving pleasure. Also, journeys take longer than you might think.  It’s difficult to average more than about 30mph anywhere and often this speed is aspirational rather than achievable.  Twisty roads, trappy road surfaces, and slow traffic due to heavy lorries all mean that patience is a virtue when driving from A to B.

Driving: the country is small enough that a car is a decent way to get around.

  • Every community (which may be as small as a handful of dwellings) seems to have a school for young children.  The areas around the schools are marked in the roads – “ESCUELA” – and on signposts.  The speed limit goes down to 40kph and then 25 kph around each of these areas.  I started off by observing these limits and then realised that no-one else paid them any attention at all so I stopped being so particular about this.
  • However, many (but not all) of these zones are guarded by speed bumps (“Reductor”), many (but not all) of which are painted yellow and/or signposted.  So it pays to be alert. Some of the speed bumps are aggressive.
  • There are also speed bumps to guard some (but not all) junctions with other roads.
  • Most major road surfaces are actually pretty good, although vigilance is required to avoid the occasional guerilla pothole or other degradation of the surface.  Once you get off the major roads, you’re either on dirt tracks, which are by and large fine provided you’re in a reasonably robust vehicle, or the surface is randomly paved and hence treacherous.
  • There was a reasonable supply of fuel stations wherever we went, and we covered most of the country.

Wildlife viewing: having a guide is essential, unless you are very sharp-eyed and expert at spotting small, well-camouflaged and occasionally deadly creatures.  Guides know what to look for when they hear the faintest noise; they know where to look for particular animals and they know the signs to look for that indicate nearby wildlife. And, once they’ve spotted it, they can tell you what it is that you’re looking at and will be able to use your mobile phone camera through a spotter scope to get a photo for you. I really believe that if you go walking unaccompanied you’ll miss 90% of the animals that are nearby.

Photography: if you want to take photos of these animals, for top image quality I recommend that you have with you a camera with the equivalent of a 400mm lens attached.  My particular kit was a Nikon Z6 with a 100-400mm zoom lens, which I used almost exclusively at the 400mm end – and I wished that I had a teleconverter to extend this to 560mm (but it didn’t arrive until after our return, regrettably).  There are other options:  a bridge camera such as the Sony RX10 IV will do a fine job; and increasingly there are mobile phones which will enable you to capture photos and video.  I can recommend the Samsung S22 (or, these days, S23) Ultra, whose 10x zoom capability will enable you to get good results if the light is adequate. And, as I said above, the guide accompanying you (you did arrange one, didn’t you? Good) can often get a decent photo using your phone and his/her spotter scope.

Spending money is easy.  Virtually everywhere we went was equipped to accept cards and, more often than not, phone transactions.  For cash, US dollars are accepted almost universally, and in one or two cases the dollar was the only currency accepted.  We did get some local currency (colones) out of an ATM, but never really needed them.  Some ATMs will dispense dollars as well as colones. It’s worth having cash available for tipping guides.  It’s not obligatory, but if the guide does a good job, I believe it’s the decent thing to do.

The only security tip we received was this: never leave anything in your car.  We were pretty careful and only left the car with anything in it a couple of times – and one of these was in a supermarket car park which had a security patrol.

Our favourite place? The Tranquilo Lodge. Superb in every way.

Our travel organiser? Pura Aventura. Equally highly recommended.

I’m a firm believer in the Reithian diktat which shaped the BBC in its pomp – I try to inform, educate and entertain and I hope I’ve achieved this in some small measure. These pages will go quiet for a while, until either something photographically notable happens to me or we go travelling again.  Whichever it will be, I hope to see you back on this site in the fullness of time. Until then…

Pura Vida!

Day 10 – La Finca Lodge (Arenal)

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Tuesday 28 February 2023 – Early morning number 2. Such a joy, being on holiday travelling….

Not, I suppose, a ridiculously early morning by many people’s standards, but the alarm went off at 6am so that we could present ourselves in some semblance of good order for a day of relentless tourism starting at 0730.  We were actually just finishing our breakfast, which had a decent aspect on to the property

when a chap came over to say hello.  It turned out that he was Danny, our guide for the day, and he was both a very nice guy and very knowledgeable (although we stumped him with the katydid. Hah! Score one for the tourists!).

Our first objective was the Observatory Lodge in the Arenal Volcano national park (where, you remember, we feared to trust the car tyre tread yesterday). It turned out that there was a route available with a much less hostile road surface, so we followed that, and discovered that the Costa Rican attitude to wildlife and tourists means that it is entirely possible just to stop, get out of the car and look at (and, of course, in my case try to photograph) things. Danny, who was clearly one of the good guides, was adept at spotting things, and so we stopped near a river where he had seen some monkeys in the trees.  It is a mystery to me, particularly given my failing eyesight, how these guys can spot things, but I suppose a child of five can do it with 20 years’ practice. So we just stopped and got out of the car, leaving just enough room for a fucking great truck which came along later to squeeze through. And he pointed out the monkeys.

You can clearly see them in these photos, but it took me several minutes to be able to spot what Danny had seen from a moving vehicle – and I had to wait until they moved before I could make them out. I did get a couple of other shots eventually.)

We also saw something which was characteristic of holiday travelling here.  Rather like that game we might have played as kids (I never did this, officer, honest) where you stand somewhere and point up at, well, nothing at all, and see how many passers-by you can get to stop and take a look – well, if there’s a stopped car with people standing outside it staring into the forest, others will also stop and join in.  So we ended up with about five cars’ worth of punters, virtually blocking the road, all trying to spot what Danny had seen – at which point we quietly drove away…..  This is Danny, by the way, fully armed with binoculars and a great knowledge about local wildlife.

We headed into the Arenal Park and, erm, parked in the, erm, car park of the Observatory Lodge, which is a nice building, with a terrace outside which (a) provided us with a coffee, (b) provided decent views over the volcano (which is there behind the clouds, really it is)

and (c) gave a good look out over a feeding station where many birds were, well, feeding. There were large numbers of the ubiquitous Montezuma’s Oropendola, and a Brown Jay was holding its own against these bully birds.  There were also some smaller birds trying to get in on the action, either on the feeders or on the ground.

Palm Tanager
Female Green Honeycreeper and Emerald Tanager
Blue Grey Tanager
Male Green Honeycreeper. Yes, really.

There were others and I could show you many photos of vegetation where a bird was until milliseconds ago.

Let me give you an insight into how pushy the Monty birds are.  Here’s a video which shows the feeding station being replenished – watch what happens when fresh fruit is available all of a sudden.

The Observatory Lodge was originally set up so scientists could stay and study the vast eruption of the Arenal Volcano in 1968 and, now that things have calmed down a bit, offers various trails through the surrounding rainforest. We took one which promised a waterfall at the far end because that sounded good.  It took us through the Observatory gardens (which have several non-indigenous species on display)

and past some interesting sights, such as a rainbow eucalyptus,

some monkeys (yes, it took me ages to spot them)

and an entire family of coati snuffling around for food and entirely oblivious of humans.

We also passed some flower beds where humming birds could be seen and, if lucky, photographed.

Rufus Tailed Humming Bird
Black crested Coquette

Jane did a good job to capture the Rufus-tailed hummingbird as it went about its business.

(From a geek’s point of view, it’s interesting to note the clash between the 30 frames a second of the video and the considerably higher frequency of wing beats of the bird.)

Then we headed off on the Waterfall trail which led to….

…in my case an opportunity to offer to take a photo of a couple there who thought that having them pictured in front of the waterfall represented an improvement on the marvels of Mother Nature. They were a mixed-race couple. He was English and she, Scottish.  That’s not really an excuse, though, is it?

The way down

was occasionally obstructed by groups of Very Serious Birders

who thought that getting a photo like this

constituted a satisfactory result. Good luck to them, I say. I quite often find that wildlife spotting is enormously frustrating, because of my increasingly poor eyesight. Firstly, I can’t see the bleeders; secondly, even if I can, I can’t appreciate them unless I can get a photo so I can see what’s going on in detail. Many people will coo with wonder as they see some kind of exotic creature scuttling off to a point where they can no longer see it.  All I’ve seen (and this is if I’ve been lucky) is a flash of movement of something or other, which is hardly something to celebrate.  I need the photo so I can see what it is I’ve seen at leisure.  If it’s a good photo that others might like, then for me that’s job done.

Danny pointed out an interesting facet of tree growth in the jungle.  I’ve already shown you one tree survival strategy, which is buttress roots – the wide, blade-like roots which provide the tree with nutrition and stability from a distributed footprint.  Danny also showed us stilt roots,

A Walking Palm

an approach whereby the tree sends roots down separately from a central trunk, to lodge outside the footprint of the tree and provide extra stability.  The tree can also judge which side the light is coming from and send more roots down that side, to give it more strength. In that sense, the tree above can sort of move, hence it being called a Walking Palm. Either that, or it’s doing a handstand, of course.

If I were to walk the trail, I would simply think it was a nice piece of exercise, because I simply can’t spot stuff going on around me.  But some stuff is so arcane it takes an expert to find it. For example, there are some palm leaves that I would simply walk past without really noticing anything. An expert like Danny, though, can spot the subtle signs of damage to a palm leaf that tells him that a species of bat has made its home underneath the leaf.

So you have to know what to look for and then can have a go at photographing it

otherwise you’d walk by, unaware of the ingenious life strategy going on under your nose.  (This is a theme I will come back to in a couple of days, so stay tuned if you’re interested.)

We also saw a couple of Crested Guan.

which is to say that Danny spotted them and I took a photo of one of them.  It’s a good photo, I think, but I need others to help me see these things to get the photos.

And that was about it for our walk through the Observatory Lodge trails.  On a clear day, you can see the volcano.  Today?

Not so much. Never mind, the morning was absorbing and educational, and it was good to talk to Danny about life and politics in Costa Rica (hint – it’s no better or worse than UK or US politics, and just as frustrating).

For the afternoon, we had elected to go to one of the well-known attractions of the La Fortuna area – the Hanging Bridges.  There are two parks which offer a walk through the forest canopy, the Skywalk and Mistico Park.  On Esteban’s recommendation, we went for the latter,

mainly because the bridges offered a view of the volcano, and – who knows? – maybe we’d be able actually to see it later on in the day. There is a restaurant there, at which we lunched on a hearty and tasty local dish, casado, and which gives a view of the volcano.  It looked a little as if the clouds were lifting. Only a little, mind.

After lunch, we made as if to set off on the two-and-three-quarter-mile trail.  Danny stopped us before we even started, and pointed out something that – as ever – we’d have missed if we didn’t know what to look for.  In this case it was a snake,

and not just any old snake, but an Eyelash Palm Pitviper – one which was not fast asleep like the one we saw in Bijagua, but was coiled and ready to spring.  Apparently, they’re so quick that they can catch a hummingbird mid-flight. They are the sixth most poisonous snake in Costa Rica, and after a bite you have about three hours to get yourself to hospital, so finding one so close to the car park was a relief. It would have been a bugger if we’d been deep into the woods and got bitten.

This, although dangerous, is a small snake, and we asked Danny how he’d spotted it.  He let us into one of the local secrets – when something like this is found near where people go in the park, a tape barrier is erected to keep people away.  We found another example on the trail

but as far as we could tell its dangerous denizen had left the scene.

So, what did we see on the trail?

Apart from six suspension bridges across various canyons,

frankly, not a huge amount.  Danny was full of interesting information about how nature takes its course in a rain forest environment like this, but we scored relatively few photos of note. The bridge above gives the possibility of a decent view of the volcano if it’s visible.

One of the most important creatures for the environment is also one of the smallest – a tiny stingless bee called Mariola Amarilla. It’s no larger than a medium-sized mosquito

but has a critical role as a forest pollinator. The picture above was taken at a kind of bug hotel which is one of the various places these creatures have made a home, which you can tell by the entry point to their hive.

What other wildlife did we see?

Leaf cutter ants
A Barred Tree Creeper. We think.
A Broad-billed Motmot
A tiny anole lizard of some sort
A Giant Banded Anole lizard. Probably.
A wolf spider

and – Jane’s favourite of the whole day – a huge cockroach with a blue bum.

So ended a splendid day of exploration of the Arenal area.  It really brought home the extra value that a switched-on guide brings in this country; if we’d walked the paths by ourselves, we’d have missed virtually all of the sights that we actually saw.  Danny did a great job and was a pleasure to spend the day with.

After we got back to La Finca, we didn’t feel the need for a large dinner (apart from anything else we knew that we had to be away early the next morning), but we did feel the need for a beer.  So we quenched our thirst and, at the same time, had a great chat with Esteban.  There were some essential bits of information he provided – when we needed to get away in order to be at our next stop in a timely fashion, whether any of the roads were closed or crappy and how much our room bill at La Finca was (not much, actually – good value, good food, good service, thoroughly recommended).  We also chatted about how he got where he was – a very charismatic but slightly roguish figure providing a great service to guests in a comfortable establishment. In turn, Jane convinced him of the value of Duolingo as a language learning aid, and I put an expensive item on his to-do list – a balloon flight over Stockholm.  He is a qualified balloon pilot and actually offers balloon flights from la Finca.  Had we been staying longer, we’d have been tempted.

Alas, our time there was at an end.  The next day we had to get ourselves near enough to the east coast to be picked up for a boat ride to our next destination.  Pura Aventura were very switched on and had alerted us to a change in where to meet the boat.  So we had a somewhat longer drive, to Caño Blanco, for an earlier rendezvous with the boat. So, guess what?  Another early start….