Toyota Costa Rica Trip . . . . Reflection

Well, I have been home for almost a month now. . . and I sure do miss it! Each and every visit makes me want to learn more and more about the place and its people! But more than that, it is an interesting contrast. . . they have so many wonderful resources and much appears to be done to try to recapture the rainforests and habitats for the wildlife and preserve the plant life. Yet the brown issues of waste and water continue to be a real issue that really needs to be addressed. The stark contrast of driving through San Jose and the surrounding areas is incredible. . .and sad!

Mar 5-7--Cano Negro--Caiman & Birds & Planting Trees & The End

Another early morning so we could make a lengthy bus trip to somewhere new! Today we went almost to Nicaragua---about 12 km away!

The neatest thing we saw on the way was at the Iguana House (not its official name . . . but what I think of it as). Years ago, a man set up a place as a refuge for iguanas (they have been harvested for food and their skin—think boots, purses). . . .and now there are hundreds there. As the bus was about eye level with the top of several trees by this place, there must have been 50 iguanas in that tree. . .of every age!! There was at least one sitting on every branch it seemed!! It was amazing!!

After a while we reached our destination . . the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge! Another sanctuary for plant and animal life! One of the true strengths of Costa Rica is the amount of land set aside for preservation of its biodiversity!! This is a wetlands area (although since it is the dryer season, it was not as wet as it will be this summer!) so we took a ride up the river to watch for wildlife.

For the most part we saw two different things. . . birds and caiman! We saw LOTS of kinds of birds, some found only in that area. . . lots of cormorants, iningas (hmm… need to look up how to spell that. . . but also known as snake birds), various types of herons and egrets and kingfishers! And a variety of other birds as well. And we saw caiman. . .really large caiman (which are a smaller relative of the crocodile) . . .and lots and lots of them. We even saw one catch a meal of a baby. . . bird of some kind . . I forget which one it was!

The other memorable thing about this place was . . .it was hot!! This was by far the hottest day/location that we had been and although we were in a covered boat, I actually got a little sun today. . .the last real day of activity!

After the boat ride we ate lunch and then did a service project. We met up with some elementary children from a school here and Toyota donated 40 trees which our group and the children planted on the river bank to help prevent erosion. This was a really neat project and I am not sure who had more fun. . .the teachers or the kids! Once the tree planting was finished, a rock (or more like mud) skipping contest ensued between some of the kids and the teachers! A lot of fun! And just goes to show. . . kids are kids everywhere! A hot, but rewarding day!!

March 6—Toyota again

Just like we began at Toyota, we ended at Toyota. . . but a distributorship/service center in Costa Rica. It was really neat to hear how his company had grown and evolved and how they had developed a mission and objectives to guide their work! And not only did they create them, each employee is expected to carry them on a little card and to follow them in their job every day! Another neat thing was that all employees (including the president) wear a uniform. . . the same uniform . . . so they are all part of the team and they all have a common mission and if you don’t know them personally, you don’t know the president from the guy who is going to fix your tires! Overall, a pretty cool concept, I believe! And the fact that they actually work to fulfill their mission and objectives was pretty unique!

We did some final discussion and processing of our time in Costa Rica, had dinner, and off to the hotel.

Travel started early the next day for some and was long and drawn out for many due to weather and plane delays! But I think everyone made it home eventually with more than a suitcase of experiences, memories, ideas and newfound knowledge! I know I did!! I hope you have enjoyed reading about some of my experiences and viewing some of my pictures a fraction of how much I enjoyed it. I will try to finish posting pics as soon as possible.

PURA VIDA!!! (pure life! The Costa Rican motto!)

Mar 4---Volcan Arenal

Well, yesterday was an amazing day! How can we top that??? Read on and you shall see if we can!!

Today we headed for Hotel Kioro at the base of Volcan Arenal (Arenal volcano), one of the most active volcanoes in Costa Rica (they have more that are active—but this one still has nearly constant activity!) since 1968 when it had a MAJOR eruption that destroyed an entire town.

The volcano is very interesting because one side is still fairly lush with lots of plant life. However, the other side is a mountain of ash and lava. And those who took the volcano hike said it was amazing how it went from being lava to being forest rather suddenly!

Our hotel was incredible and had a fantastic view of the volcano. Even though the top was covered in clouds when we got there, it was still beautiful. And the clouds came and went during the two days that we were there so that we could see the entire thing. . . including the smoke and gases that were being emitted constantly! Very cool! The view from everywhere where in the place was awesome! From the restaurant. .excellent! From the rooms. . .outstanding! There wasn’t a bad view in the place, I don’t think!! They all faced the volcano!

We had a brief talk by a volcanologist about the volcanoes of Costa Rica and Arenal in particular. The hotel we were staying at is actually in the red zone, which means in the case of a major eruption we could have been archeological artifacts one day!!  But, luck was with us and it didn’t do anything surprising!

During the afternoon we had three choices of activities—a volcano hike, a hanging bridges hike, and the canopy tour---aka zip lining!!! Although they all sounded very interesting, I went for the thrill of zip lining (and after hanging bridges at La Selva and Tirimbina I was glad I hadn’t done that one—although they did get to see howler monkeys—which I had not seen!!). The zip lines were great although I really prefer the ones I have done before over this particular company. We just went back and forth over the canyon and are a HUGE rush!!! But, it was still good and it is always fun to be with people who have never done it before and see the thrill that they get!!

Then it was back to the hotel to enjoy the comforts. After such a busy week, it was definitely time for some relaxation! And one of the benefits of being near (or maybe on) a volcano, is that they produce heat. . .which in turn produces natural hot springs!!! The hotel had just recently built its own hot spring pools so we got to spend a little time soothing our tired and sore muscles in the natural thermal hot springs. Along with the beautiful landscaping, it was truly like being in paradise!

The only downside is that Arenal stayed clouded over much of the evening. It eventually cleared but no one saw any lava glowing until around 4 when one guy caught it! Lucky him!!

Toyota Costa Rica Trip--March 3--Snake Day

Can you find the hidden object???

What a day, what a day!!! Awesome, awesome!! So much to see and do! Gotta love it!! We are now at Tirimbina Wildlife Reserve. This reserve was actually started by a man from Wisconsin quite a long time ago. What foresight for someone from the states!! This is a quite large wildlife reserve with a small cacao (think chocolate) plantation within it.

Today started with one of my favorite things. . . . hiking in the rainforest! You just never know what you will see . . . and we have been fortunate to see a lot so far (many of the things on my mental list—toucans, monkeys, sloth, frogs). . .. but I have been wondering when we were going to see some snakes. . . . and today was the day!!!

As we went on our hike today we started snake day with seeing (barely) the hog-nosed pit viper! This made me a little happier, but it was in a den and all we could see was a small part of its back (and, yes, it is poisonous) as it was digesting food! The guide said that the previous day it had been lying on the path and you could actually see the bulge where it had eaten something! So, I was still hoping for more! We continued on our way and saw more bullet ants (black, about 1-1/2 inches long with a BAD bite—fortunately I didn’t find that out personally!!). They are some SCARY looking ants!

We continued on our way . . . . saw more insects, plants, a REALLY big tree on our way to the chocolate tour. At the chocolate tour we learned the history of chocolate (it was drunk for a LONG time before it became candy!) and saw the cacao tree that it came from and a demo of how it is made! It starts in a big pod (you can see these in the pictures) that grow directly on the tree (purple pods have a fungus. . . .bad, bad, bad!!).

The process goes something like this: You crack the pod and find the seeds inside with a white gooey stuff on them (again, more pics of this) which actually tastes pretty good—pretty sweet. The seeds are removed from the gooey stuff and left to ferment. . . yep, ferment! Sounds yummy, right??? When it gets fermented just right it is dried, then ground, and tastes pretty bitter. Then hot water can be added and mixed to dissolve the powder and make cocoa or less water, add some sugar. . and voila, you have chocolate candy! Good chocolate should have over 70% cacao (Hersheys and Nestle do not qualify!!)! Our guide also happens to be a chocolatier (he has trained to make specialty chocolates and is just beginning to sell to the public—good stuff!) so he was very excited about this part of our trip!

Although cacao has long been a product of Costa Rica, it is not really well suited for its humid climate. As a result a very bad fungus has attacked the cacao plantations and many are struggling or even no longer functioning! Many of the cacao pods that we saw had this fungus. After the demonstration (and tasting  at all phases of this process), we got to go see the trees. . . and along came snake #2! Well, actually it was just sitting on the side of the tree. . . .an eyelash viper (yep, this one is poisonous, too!!). Very green and with incredible camouflage. I had to really look to find it! Cool, cool, cool! But more to come!

After this we quickly hiked back for lunch and then had a presentation about the indigenous tribes of Costa Rica, quickly looked through a museum, heard from a Maleku (one of the indigenous tribes) father and daughter, and then participated in a couple of their crafts! First we carved a gourd with this small razorblade type tool. . . .this is NOT an easy task. . .especially for someone as non-artistic as me! The woman was incredible! She was outlining hummingbird designs for some folks in minutes! I did mine all by myself and considered it pretty good for me! It surely gave me a much better appreciation for their art work!

Then we were given a small piece of burlap (bookmark size) to decorate using naturally dyes as paint. . .. and we got to use our fingers!!! How cool is that!! However, we only had yellow, red, brown/black, and olive green to work with! This time my lack of artistic abilities was really evident and this did not turn out so well!

We also learned some things about their culture which were rather interesting. If a man wanted to marry someone, he asked his father to ask the girls’ father and offered a gift of sorts and the deal was made. However, the father of the girl really couldn’t say no! So, the women really had NO say in the matter whatsoever. However, he did say that later if they decided to part ways, it was no big deal! Interesting, indeed!

Well, if this isn’t enough of a full day. . . . I decided to join some of colleagues on an optional night hike! This was an INCREDIBLE experience! We started off really lucky! The first thing we really saw was a kinkachu (I really need to check the spelling of this and hopefully I will remember before I post it. . .). This is an incredibly cute little critter that kind of looks like a cross between a monkey and a teddy bear! Adorable it was!!! And we got to see it twice (and the 2nd time we saw 2) and up fairly close as it was on the railing of the hanging bridge. Oh yeah, speaking of hanging bridge, we went over some really long, somewhat scary hanging bridges (no more than 5 at a time please, and please stay 5-6 feet apart. . . sounds so encouraging, doesn’t it!!).

On we went looking at various spiders (yuk---one dropped down between me and another woman. I had to push her out of the way so it wouldn’t land on either of us! Ooohhh.) and other insects and a number of little frogs called dink frogs (yes, that is there name!). And we saw a vine snake on a log and watched for a while. We then came across a tarantula. . .. however, before I got to it, it had went back in its hole! But, having the wonderful guide that we did, he got a stick and tricked the big guy into coming back out of his hole so we could get a good luck at him! Oh my, , , he was huge, brown, hairy!!!!! It was incredible watching the guide lure him out! Oh, could this get any better. . . .

Yep, it could! Our guide found another frog to show us.. . right near a river. . . and then we saw a huge freshwater crab. . .pretty neat. . .and then just as we were ready to move on, I spotted something slithering in the water. . .. yep, another snake!!! It was a 4-5 feet long Feur de Lance. . .considered one of the most aggressive poisonous snakes in Costa Rica. Fortunately we were on a bridge and it was in the water and it swam right up to us and under our bridge. . . . it was definitely a snake day! Then as we continued on our way we saw another smaller one (the same) on the side of our path but he slithered off into the forest and didn’t bother us at all! 5 snakes in one day!! How incredible! Another thing off my list!

On our way out we had another kinkachu sighting (this time on the bridge) and we saw a porcupine up in the tree! Even the guides were impressed with our luck that night!

What a day!! I do LOVE this place!!!

March 2--Leaf Cutter Ants & a 3-Toed Sloth!!!

Hola! Como estas? Today we got to pretend to be a scientist at La Selva Biological Station! This is one of the premier field research stations in the world and scientists and students from all over the world come here to conduct various kinds of research! The reserve is very large and varies in elevation to 100- 3000 ft. (I think it was) above sea level, thus creating many different microclimates for plants and animals (do I sound all scientific there???).

We were researching three different things—leaf cutter ants, birds, and ferns. The bird group went to certain areas of the reserve to count birds. Their guide also called many birds (amazing!!!) and if the bird responded, they could count it as they knew that it was in that area. The fern group had to take a plot of land and identify how many different species of ferns they could find . .. .and they now never want to see a fern again! (I was glad I wasn’t in that group).

I was in the group that studied leaf-cutter ants---which are some pretty amazing creatures! These ants cut leaves into pieces (or pick up already cut leaves or other objects) and carry them back to their HUGE ant hill. You will see long lines of these ants carrying leaves and objects that are more than twice their size. We had to conduct several different experiments. We put a rock in their path to see how long (or if they even could) make a path to get around it, see if they would take bread or meat in addition to the leaves, see what would happen if we moved an ant from one colony to another, measured how many went in and out in a certain amount of time, measured the amount of time it took them to go a certain distance, and how long it took them to drop off their leaf in the oolony and return. It was interesting to see the results. We gathered this data for leaf cutters colonies in the primary rain forest and in the open area to compare the results.

All that was fun and interesting, but the highlight of this day was seeing a 3-toed sloth with a baby!!!! They are amazing animals. They just look like a blob n the tree mostly but occasionally it would move it’s arm to scratch its’ backside and then you could really see its paw and arm very distinctively! In our hikes that day we also saw an iguana sitting in a tree, a big, very cool looking owl, more blue jeans frogs, a bright red beetle, a lot of really colorful lizards, and a number of birds and insects (of course!).

Overall, another pretty good day!

March 1---EARTH University

Another awesome day! They seem to get better and better! The day started early with a morning bird watching trip that ended up being more of a monkey watching trip!! Which is WAY cool!! This time we saw white-faced capuchins. . . and again it was a pretty large troop so we watched them for about 15 minutes as they traveled through the treetops! They are really fun to watch!!

The next neatest thing we saw was 2 toucans (you know. . .the Fruit Loops bird ) that were actually sharing food! It was really neat to see them passing whatever they had to each other! And we also saw a gray parrot just perched in a tree for a long time. And we kind of saw a macaw flying away but I just got a glimpse of it, unfortunately! It would be really neat to see one in the wild!! We saw a number of other small birds---lots of types of tanagers and grackles.

After breakfast we toured some of EARTH university and heard a little about some of the projects being done there. We visited their pig area (and the piglets were soooo cute!) where they were trying to determine if a larger, natural pen resulted in happier (and heavier) pigs vs. a small concrete bottomed pen. We also sow how they are treating and recycling the waste from the pigs. And we also heard a little about the work being done with buffalo.

In addition to the farm, we also visited the banana plantation and learned a lot about them. For one, they are a plant (not a tree) and you can easily chop one down with a sharp machete (as the plantation manager demonstrated---oh my, that guy knew how to use a machete!!!). Look for pictures of this over the next couple of days!! But it was really interesting to see how the bananas grow and are processed. I was amazed that a plant only takes a year to grow and produce and how it grows new shoots to become the next banana plant. It was pretty amazing!

One of the really neat things that they do at EARTH is recycle nearly everything and work hard to be eco-friendly and make the best use of all their resources! After they transport the bananas from the plantation to the packing area on this really cool tram thing (again—you will see pictures in a couple of days, I hope), they take the stems and recycle them! Although we didn’t get to see this in action, we got to see the plant and processing area for making banana paper from the stems. They use the banana stalks combined with recycled paper from the university and the area to make the paper.

It is amazing how they can recycle so many different things! This place was really incredible. Much of the food came from the University itself. I only wish we could have learned more about the different research projects!

Toyota Costa Rica Trip--Feb 29. . . .Spider Monkeys!!!

This afternoon was the best yet!!! After the schools we had returned ot EARTH university for lunch! We had some free times so a few of us rented bikes (no cars are allowed on campus (even for students) and were checking out the place. We found the banana packing plant and watched the cool tram used for transporting the bananas from the plantation. We also wandered through the botanical garden with all of the medicinal plants. It was really neat to see as they were all labeled with what maladies they were used to treat in addition to their name!

Eventually we ran into this guy working on his project who was able to give us information about getting to the primary rainforest. . .. and then I think he thought we were going to get lost and he was going to feel guilty because just as we were stopping at the security place to get the directions (as he instructed us), he rode up on his bike and offered to show us the way! People here are SO friendly (people are always waving at the bus when we go by!)!!

So, anyway, we biked about 5 km through the banana plantation and finally found our destination—the primary rainforest and began our hike! It was sooooo awesome! Since their were only three of us, it was incredibly peaceful and beautiful! Initially we just enjoyed the ambience and the soothing rainforest noises! Shortly after I mentioned that I had yet to see a poison dart frog this trip and wondering if it was too dry right now (this is their less rainy season). . . .moments later we saw a “blue jeans frog”—a red frog with blue legs.

From then on we saw various things! We saw bullet ants that are over an inch long—with a major league painful bite was one thing. We saw a couple of spider monkeys and we heard and saw something on the ground moving but we could never see it well enough to identify it! Then, just as we were reading to leave, we saw a WHOLE TROOP of spider monkeys pass right over us! It was incredible!!!! Several of them were carrying babies on their backs as they swung through the trees! It was really neat to watch them! They made some incredible leaps from a higher branch down to this one palm and it was sooo funny! We just stood there in awe and laughed at them! We found out when we got back that it is very unusual to see a large group of spider monkeys as they are not as common so we felt REALLY lucky!!

But then we were afraid we were going to be late for dinner so we biked like crazy people (well, for me it was like a tired person who isn’t in that great of shape---but it was not the leisurely pace we took going in!) the 5 kilometers back to our rooms! An awesome, awesome day!!!