Costa Rica
We went south this January to NW Costa Rica; flying into Liberia, going to the coast for a week, then to a highland Volcano resort...
The coast is a tropical drylands forest; and by late January had shed virtually all it's leaves for the dry season. There is a remarkable effloriescence of their trees a bit earlier; but we missed it. Only by the coast where towns are planted up with exotics, and of course up the mangrove rivers and streams, do you find green forest. They work their year around a 'summer' when it's dry, and a wet 'winter' when we are in our high summer. When we arrived, it was the last weeks of summer vacation for the schools.
We waited our first exhausted night until 3 at a station on the coast to see the leatherback turtles... None were coming in, but we hear a dolorous lecture about their status. Ten years ago 2000 laid eggs; last year only about forty. They have instituted remarkable safeguards: that ten mile beach is protected by a berm to block lights, and rangers are stationed every 100 meters to block access except for fifteen guided visitors at a time. But it may be too late. Evidently the other sea turtles can still be seen in the coastal national parks.
We took a guided snorkle trip. The recession has hung heavy on the tourist guides; so we had a delighted and throughgoing captain for our little boat.We saw many jellyfish and several dead coral reefs. The pufferfish have persisted; so a staple of these trips is your guide catching one and inducing that curious defence. I found a sea-viper lying on the reef; we'd been told by an expatriot couple that these wash up regularly, and kill(no antivenin available) foolish tourists who pick them up. It locked like a little rattlesnake without rattle: it had the vipers blocky head.
The volcano Arenal supports a tourist industry itself. That formerly sleepy precinct was change forever in 1969 by its eruption, this in a region quiescent in western historic times. Since it's more or less constantly emitted lava, and has a classic cone and delights tourists on clear nights with and incandescent flow. It is, however, a volcano that spouts a heavy discharge of (poisonous) gasses; and thus could explode at any time. At it's foot: an earthen dam that impounds a huge lake. You can't help wondering if that's a good idea.
We stayed at lost iguana: a scotties castle in the forest. It's a labor of love by a woman whose spared no expense in creating a flower filled garden on the corpse of the original rainforest where a cattle rancher had his hacienda. She's a marvelous host and a fragrant soul, so we wish her well, The whole region was defloiated in the 60's by a populist government who gave land to every citizen to either grow coffee or raise beef. The land on the way to the capital is a quilt of small coffee farms; but north the lands were quickly bought up and amalgamated into large parcles where beeves thrived for about ten years until the soil was exhausted. Almost all of that meat was contracted by Mr Croc and served up in his McDonald restraunts that were metastasizing across america in that balmly and narcisstic decade. Thus: all of the1960-1980's americans carry a little bit of costa rico in our adiposity. The region is still green; so all the visitors wonder why the forest just doesn't grow back...
We toured with a wonderful man who was a naturalist. He's been taught enough english by a peace core volunteer, learned to take tourists on their wild rivers; and finally got recruited to do the same across western america. He'd been to more of them than me, and is a wonderful man to talk to about our forests or theirs. By 25, he'd managed to transition into university to study biology. George now leads tourists through the reminants of their primodial forest. And that's something to see: action enough for any norteamericano. Troups of howlers are abundant--they are almost omnivorous where green vegitation is concerned, so do well. The other monkeys that need fruit have done far less adapted to the new deal, but are occasionally seen. i wish I had George's full name and number; but the lost iguana staff knows him. He lives in nearby Fortuna with his young family.
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