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Costa Rican Exploratory Tropical Journey
- Part 2

November 22 - December 4, 2010

Trip Leader: Dave Foster.        Dave's home in Costa Rica: click here.

Author: Robin Gurule.         Photo Galleries: view Robin's, Jan & Dave's, and Martin's photos.

Participants: Mary Thompson, Martin Staley, Jan Studebaker, Robin Gurule, and Dave Foster.

Day 10 - Wednesday: At Mary's insistence, we did a local zipline tour. Then, in the afternoon, Mary, Martin and Jan flew an ultralight with a local pilot. It was the cutest little plane you ever saw, and lots of local traffic stopped to watch as they landed.

Martin about to takeoff in the ultralight.  The "wing" on top is powered during
take-off, then auto-rotates for the rest of the flight for stability and lift;
vertical landings are possible.  Wow.....this was cool!

Day 11 - Thursday: We went on a kayak trip with local guide Popo down the Rio Oro, into the estuary, and finally into the open ocean. After some serious paddling, we made it back to Playa Carrillo. We stopped at a beach along the way, got lots of good nature information, and caught up on lots of local happenings.

Popo's son takes a break while paddling on the Rio Oro before entering the estuary leading to our exciting and beautiful ocean kayak trip, as Robin scans for
birds and crocs in the jungle.

On our short walk home we saw a huge crocodile just down the road from Dave's house (!!), and there was a little phosphorescence in the water when we later returned to the beach to wash off our bug bites. We have learned that the ocean water seems to kill the local chiggers, so we're spending more time in the water.

We found out that the restaurant just up the road from Dave's is both excellent and inexpensive.

The beaches we visited were gorgeous; perhaps the finest in Costa Rica
was visible from Dave's front porch, and provided us with body surfing,
snorkeling, and a multitude of beautiful shells which will soon become
art in the capable hands of Mary.

Day 12 - Friday: At Mary's insistence - again! - we did another zipline tour, this one in Nosara. This tour was much longer than our last one and everyone had a great time, except that Dave stayed home to take care of all sorts of business at his house.

During the previous day's kayak trip, we had heard from Popo that there was an "arribada" (a whole bunch) of turtles coming to lay eggs at Ostion. Supposedly, 8,000 turtles per day were arriving. So we drove there, asked for directions, and were told that the turtles only come in at night! We went down anyway, to eat lunch, and fortunately one turtle obliged us by coming to the beach and laying her eggs. Hundreds of turtles swam in the nearby estuary, waiting for nightfall. A local said he had come down the night before, and the beach was solid with turtles. Holes were everywhere, as were empty shells from where the local vultures had unearthed and eaten turtle eggs.

We ran across this giant sea turtle on day 12 as she began to dig in before
laying her eggs.  She appeared unconcerned about our presence.

Some of us did a little snorkeling in the evening. We saw bright blue, almost luminescent fish, sergeant majors, and other colorful sea life. Particularly interesting were some puffer fish and a couple of juvenile barracudas.

Day 13 - Saturday: We made our way back to the Liberia airport, where we were reunited with our wayward blender and its pal the mattress pad. But it caused bag searches on the return trip, too! Delays getting through Immigration and Customs almost made us miss our flight back to Albuquerque, but Dave's persuasion got us on the plane.

Zipline Canopy Tours:

Ziplines start with steel cables strung from platforms. In Costa Rica, the cables run through and above the rainforest. You sit in a climbing harness suspended from the cable by a pulley, backed up with webbing and carabiners, and ride the cables from platform to platform. Everyone is equipped with a leather glove for braking, and is clipped into something at all times, with guides doing all the clipping in.

We first did the Arenal Canopy Tour, near the Arenal Volcano. It was a rainy day. The platforms were located very high up in very tall trees, and the rides were spectacular - long, high, and fast. The only slight downside was that the rain loosened whatever lubrication had been applied to the cables, and transferred it to us as we zipped along. We ended up dirty, though happy.

Jan above the canopy on one of the medium length sections of ziplines found in all three of our canopy tours.  Our speed was so high (up to 40 MPH) that we easily got to our forward destination unless we panic braked.  Each tour had up to 12 zipline sections. We tried forward, backward, upside down, and multi-partner glides.

Our next zipline tour was closer to Dave's house, in Samara. This was a family business and was charmingly funky. Our friendly young guides, who wore flip flops and surf shorts, served us pineapple, watermelon and cookies midway, on a swaying and somewhat rickety tree platform. We heard but could not see the guides' brothers installing a new line nearby, in the jungle. The rides were fun, moderately fast, and mostly within the forest canopy but with some great ocean views. The descent from the final platform was a fast rappel / fire ant dodging experience.

The last zipline, Miss Sky Tours, was near Nosara and the sea turtles. Cables were attached to concrete pillars rather than trees, so we started and ended every line on land. We soon learned that starting on land gives the advantage of a running start, to add some speed. These rides were the longest, going from side to side of a canyon, over a river. Very beautiful.

In fact there are ziplines closer to home, for example:

We wonder if they have the same appeal as the rainforest canopy tours.

Back to Part 1


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