Tag Archives: Tourism

Day 24, Part 1: Cor! Covado

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Tuesday 14 March 2023 – I don’t think that I ever, in all my 42 years in Corporate life, had to get up at 0330 and wait, in fear and trepidation that the taxi wouldn’t show up to whisk me off to wherever. But that’s what this particular Monday morning held for us. It never happens in business, therefore we must be on holiday travelling. The plan was to catch a boat to La Sirena, where we could spend a couple of days in the wildlife reserve that is the Corcovado National Park, an ecosystem that is reputed to house some 5% of the world’s total biodiversity.  Our mission, which we appear to have accepted, was, unsurprisingly, to see what we could see and what photos we could get of this huge biodiversity. But it required this early start.

The combined efforts of the agency looking after this particular segment of our trip and the concierge team at El Remanso, however, seemed to be on the same page, and Luis (the El Remanso chap who had picked us up in Puerto Jiménez) arrived at 0415 bearing breakfast wraps.  He would have picked up our bags from our room, too, but in an excess of caution I’d brought them along in case we needed sudden and swift access to them.  The agency had sent a pickup truck and so we rode the bumpy trail back to Puerto Jiménez. The idea was that we should take just an overnight supply of essentials to La Sirena and our suitcases would go on to meet us once we’d left the National Park.  Since my backpack was full of all my camera gear, this meant that Jane had take on a minimal change of clothing and toiletries for us both.

It was at this point that my visualisation of the journey to the National Park proved really wide of the mark.

I had fondly imagined that the reason for the early start was so we could go to this port (Puerto Jiménez, after all, would appear to have ambitions of portliness), where we would be catching a day-trippers’ boat of some size to get us to a disembarkation point near to “La Sirena”, where there is a ranger’s station at which we would spend the night,

Not quite.

What actually happened was nearer how I imagine the retreat from Dunkirk must have been, but without the military uniforms and the threat of enemy fire.

We were deposited near something that could only just about be graced with the the title “beach”, where it was clear that many other people were expecting to go on a similar journey to ours.

The soundtrack was amazing, courtesy of some parrots in the trees.

Fortunately there was someone there (apparently the daughter of the local  owner of some (all?) of the boats) who knew what was supposed to happen and therefore managed to develop some kind of order from the apparent chaos.  At least we had a decent sunrise to watch whilst we waited to see what happened next.

The lump on the horizon to the left of the rising sun is apparently Volcán Barú in Panama, which is normally hidden by clouds

The organiser lady put us in contact with a chap who calls himself Hossway, though for some reason he spells it Joshua, who had been given the mission to look after us until we met the guide who would lead us in La Sirena, even though he wouldn’t be travelling on the same boat as us.

Whatever.

After a while there was a concerted rush to the water’s edge as a small flotilla of small boats started to head into shore.  We’d noticed that a lot of people had taken their footwear off, so we did the same, just in case, and wondered whether the Tevas we were wearing were going to be the most sensible option.   We, along with a goodly number of Francophones, scrambled aboard what we hoped was the right boat and after a while it set off in what seemed to be roughly the right direction.  Other boats were doing the same thing, which gave a little confidence.

The Pura Aventura materials had talked about a fast and bumpy boat ride on a small boat

and that’s what we got – 90 minutes of very bumpily rounding the southern tip of the Osa Pensinsula (at one stage we could have waved to Luis at El Remanso, had he been watching out for us). We passed a couple of interesting sights en route: a magnificent storm cloud

which fortunately wasn’t targeting us; and a rock which is home to the Costa Rican supply of Brown Boobies

whose nests were being looked at, I imagine with greedy eyes, by Frigate Birds (with the white beaks).

We also Had A Moment when someone spotted some dolphins and so the boat did a couple of slow circles whilst everybody gurgled with pleasure and took photos of the patch of sea where there’d been a fin just milliseconds before.

Eventually we arrived at what we knew was going to be a “wet landing”.  Ours wasn’t too wet as it happened, but it could well have been.  The boat and shore crew can have their hands full keeping control of the boats.

So, there were were, on a stony beach, a bunch of people at least two of whom were wondering what the hell was going to happen next, again with an extraordinary background soundtrack.

We linked up with Joshua and he led us half a mile along the beach to a “welcome” station, where one’s bags are checked for contraband such as food or single-use plastic bottles.  (We came to an agreement with the chap there that he would ignore the small plastic bottle I mentioned that I had with me, provided I promised to take it away with me – slightly embarrassing moment.) There’s a check-in book which we also wrote our details in.

And then we three set off on the mile-long walk to La Sirena’s Ranger Station.  At one stage, Joshua cautioned us not to brush against this acacia bush

as it provides a home to fire ants (they live in the hollow thorny-looking structures), who earn the right to live inside the plant by fiercely defending it against any attacks.  Apparently, their bite is pretty uncomfortable; but we weren’t afflicted.

We saw some kind of hawk on the walk (sorry, don’t know what sort, may be a Grey Hawk)

and also passed a tree which Joshua called the Tourist Tree

because it peels in the sunlight.  Ho, ho.

So the first exciting installment of the morning came to an end as we arrived, around 0800, at the La Sirena Ranger Station.

As well as being where the National Park Rangers base themselves, it does a healthy sideline in supporting tourism in Corcovado.  All tours in the National Park are guided, and the guides also use the station as a base.  There are sleeping facilities

(more of that later), a dining room and a kiosk.

The kiosk is where you can rent a towel, a pair of rubber boots and a locker, all of which Jane and I did – my camera backpack weighs 30lb and I was buggered if I was going to (a) lug it around on a wildlife tour or (b) leave it lying about.  You are obliged to take your shoes off before going on to the station,

so we left our Tevas on the rack, donned boots and were introduced to the chap who would be our private guide for the next day and a half – Angel.

We were due to undertake four guided walks with Angel – two today and two tomorrow.  He proved to be an excellent guide and we saw Lots Of Stuff.  Now that I’ve set the scene, I’ll describe the walks (the “Flights of Angel’s”) in separate posts; I hope you’ll come back to read how they all went and how successful were my attempts to capture the local wildlife.

 

 

Days 22 and 23 – El Remanso, the day

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Sunday 12 and Monday 13 March 2023 – We had nothing to do until the early evening. So, having had some relaxation time at Villas Alturas and needing to fill the yawning void between breakfast and sunset, what to do? We went for a walk. Obviously.

El Remanso (“The Haven”) Lodge is set in many acres of rainforest, and there are several trails one can choose to walk, only a couple of which are restricted such that you need a guide to walk them. The obvious one leads to the beach. So, off we went, along a well-manicured track

which led to some steps down, at which point we realised that the route back up was going to be a bit of a challenge.

Over the whole two-and-a-quarter hours we really didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. Had we had a guide, I suspect we’d have seen more. A butterfly obligingly posed for me

but otherwise we got to the beach without noticing anything further. They’ve kindly marked the point where the trail hits the beach so you can’t get lost

and we walked along the beach trying to find interesting things to photograph. Frankly, we didn’t have a whole lot of success – its just this beach, you know? There were some hermit crabs

and a coconut shell appeared to be surprised to see us.

The powers that be at El Remanso are keen to point out that at high tide there is no beach, but that as the tide goes down some tidal pools become visible, so we went and fossicked about there for a while

and did the sort of things that one does if there’s not a lot to see.

Having fairly swiftly exhausted the entertainment possibilities, we retraced our footsteps. There was a branch that looked amusingly like something that Long John Silver might have left there

and some Frigate Birds flew over for me to photograph – I think one of them was being chased by the others. Frigate Birds are unpleasant like that.

The climb back up the track to the Lodge was, indeed, challenging – some 420 steps in oppressive heat and humidity. But we made it in the end, which made the lunchtime beer a very welcome thing indeed.

El Remanso also has some hanging bridges

so we spent a little time pottering about on the track that connected them, and then it was time for the scheduled activity of the day; a night walk. This was led by Alejandra,

a guide we’d met and chatted to during the day, who rather charmingly took off with us as soon as we turned up, leaving the other guide to deal with a group of about six people.

As is the way with these guided tours, Alejandra, whose great knowledge and enthusiasm made the tour very interesting, showed us many, many things we wouldn’t have seen had we been by ourselves. To spare you a litany of torchlit photos of insects and amphibians, I have squirreled the photos away on Flickr for you to look through if you’re interested. I will inflict a couple of highlights on you, though.

Alejandra found us a Fer-de-lance, the most poisonous snake in Costa Rica

and a Bicoloured Scorpion

which looks amazing under ultraviolet light.

We watched as an Anole Lizard gradually changed colour under the torchlight

and there were, of course, frogs, both small and large.

Red-eyed Leaf Frog
Bullfrog

That was it for the day. We were due another guided tour the following day, which was a whole morning jobbie, so we took ourselves off to bed and tried for some sleep.

Some chance.

To start with, that bullfrog got together with his mates and they had a singing competition, very starkly (alongside games of Marco fucking Polo) underlining one of the downsides of having no glass in the windows.

I think they knew something that we didn’t at the time, because at around midnight it started raining, with optional lightning and thunder. The noise was terrific; and when it rains in Costa Rica, it can really, really mean business, and do so for many hours, e.g. in this case until 6am, when I captured this video.

We were convinced that this would mean the cancellation of the morning walk, but it didn’t – and apart from the forest trail being a little muddy in places, there was very little evidence that there had been a seven-hour deluge recently.

Our luck held and our guide, this time for a small group of six of us, was, once again, the lovely Alejandra. As before, she was able to spot things that we wouldn’t have known to look for. As before, to spare you having to scroll through endless photos of what we saw, I have put them in another Flickr album for you to look at if you’d like.

Some highlights: an Osa Anole Lizard, showing off, or possibly telling a rival to bugger off;

another Anole Lizard – Costa Rica’s answer to the chameleon – showing the sophistication of the camouflage it can adopt (the one we saw last night was bright green because of the leaf it was on);

a termite tunnel going all the way up a tree;

and a spat between spider monkeys, which we couldn’t see but could certainly hear,

all rather morosely surveyed by a howler monkey.

We even caught a glimpse of an anteater, but it was just a cream-coloured blur as it caught wind of us and shot off into the forest.

When we got back from the tour, we were lucky enough to see a couple of Scarlet Macaws. We heard them first, of course – they’re noisy critters. I managed to get this photo

and Jane rushed out to get a different angle.

This being our last day, we thought it would be a good idea to check up on the arrangements for transfer to our next destination, since we’re in a rather inaccessible spot and we knew that part of it involved catching a boat. So we asked at the font desk and….

Shock! Horror!!

We have to be picked up at 0420 tomorrow!!!

The ongoing story from here is a bit complicated and involves us going Off Grid for a couple of days, hence the rather hasty write-up of the twenty-four hours’ touring within the two days we’ve been here at El Remanso. I hope you feel you’re nicely up-to-date and that you can contain your souls in patience until the next update, when All Will Be Revealed.

Days 20 and 21 – Alturas to El Remanso: It starts and ends with tea

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Friday & Saturday 10 & 11 March 2023 – Yesterday (Friday 10th) was a day of blissful relaxation. It started with an uplifting discovery at breakfast

and, erm, that was it. We spent the rest of the day in utter sloth. It was wonderful. These holidays travels are great things, but the programme we’d followed thus far was pretty intense, so a day with nothing on the agenda was a pleasure. Villas Alturas even did our laundry for us, for $16, which was very welcome.

All good things, however, have to come to an end, and our schedule insisted that we leave this morning (Saturday 11th). We had a moment of quiet bogglement as we checked out of Villas Alturas. The nice lass, whose name I don’t know how to spell, but which sounds like KC, asked us, in English, where we came from (not an unusual question, we’ve found). When we replied “from England”, she slightly floored us by asking “what language do you speak there?” We had to explain that English was the native tongue of England, rather than, say, German.

The plan was to get to Puerto Jiménez, where we would drop off the hire car, apologise abjectly for the small scuff we’d inflicted upon it and then a driver would magically appear and take us on to our next stop.

That’s pretty much what happened.

The journey over was pretty unremarkable, on good roads.

past plantations which we thought were probably for palm oil

though not all was well in some places.

We arrived in Puerto Jiménez, found the petrol station to refuel the car and a supermarket to refuel the tonic that would go with the remnants of our gin, and deposited the hire car at the office there, finding a decent route to the office despite the efforts of Waze, it has to be said.

The lass at the car hire place didn’t seem too put out at the scuff marks on the car (but I guess we’ll find out how seriously National Rental view these things as I keep an eye on our credit card statement over the coming weeks).

Our next destination is another Lodge, called El Remanso, which is on the Osa Peninsula, in the south of Costa Rica, on the Pacific coast . The arrangement was that someone from the Lodge would come and collect us. Officially, we’d have about an hour to wait, since we were early (because we’re well-mannered, and being late is rude). The hire car lass kindly got in contact with El Remanso to tell them we were here and had hardly put the phone down when a chap, Luis, arrived to collect us. I suspect that was serendipity, but it was nice not to have to sit around.

The ride to El Remanso was along a dirt track which was a bit rough, and was obviously being improved – widened

and the surface being worked on, though how this

was going to soften the ride isn’t immediately clear to me.

After three-quarters of an hour, we arrived at the Lodge and were processed into their system. Wonderfully, and rather noisily, we were serenaded towards the reception area by a pair of Scarlet Macaws, which makes me optimistic that we might get a decent photo of one whilst we’re here. They’re beautiful creatures, but hideously noisy.

El Remanso makes a big thing of its sustainability, so that a few things had to be explained, for example:

  • Their electricity is entirely from solar panels or hydrolelectric. So – no hairdryers to be used. (We realised at this point that there would be no kettle in the room, or a fridge in which to keep the tonic cold, which is a bit of a facer.)
  • To minimise waste, meals are pre-ordered one meal in advance – so you specify lunch at breakfast time and dinner at lunchtime.
  • There’s no air conditioning. No particular surprise there, since being efficient with electricity is important. And, the windows have no glass in them although they do have insect screening (philosophical question: is a hole in the wall that lets light and air in still a window if it has no glass in it?).

We were shown to the restaurant area

which is entirely open and built on a scaffold of bamboo. It has a bar in it and they are happy to provide ice, which came in handy when we treated ourselves to a G&T in our room, which they eventually showed us to. It took them a while, to be honest. It is clear that they wish you to know that they think that customer service is terrifically important, and everyone who helped us was friendly and cheerful; but they still left us sitting around for rather a long time when we would have been much happier to be settling into our room.

That was a minor whinge, and our large, comfortable-looking room has a terrific view

which, as you can see, overlooks the swimming pool, giving rise to a more major whinge, involving a family of Americans (two parents, two kids) who spent an unconscionable amount of time enjoying a pool game which we inferred was called “Marco Polo”, because they kept bloody shouting it, again and again and again and again. They were clearly having lots of fun. Us? Not so much.

We had arranged as early a dinner as possible – 6pm – and went to the restaurant for a perfectly decent meal, courteously and promptly served. And the day ended as it began as we made a delightful discovery

which augurs well for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Unsurprisingly, El Remanso organises Things To Do – there are trails through the forest, there’s a beach and so much can be made of walking about; and there are guides to do formal excursions. We have a night walk and a forest hike over the next couple of days, so I can now formally declare that the break from relentless wildlife photos is over. I hope to be able to share lots more with you over the coming days. You lucky, lucky people!