Hiking, A Whales Tail & Gone Fishing

Sooo bye bye volunteering, hola more exploring – yay diddy yay! 😀 Julius asked if he could join me for his remaining 2wks which was all good as hey he is good company and let’s not forget that precision german organisation – (saves me faffing about). Another plus is that it can be a pain in the bum at times travelling on your own – it’s the little things – needing a tinkle and having to take all your bags with you, arriving somewhere hank marvin and needing the supermarket with all your bags as you search for that cold bar of chocolate – oh sorry I just saw a pink pig flying by.  Gawd what I would give for some Galaxy *removes dribble from keyboard*

It was also farewell to Nick who was taking it for the team and had another 6-7wks volunteering on the build.  Julius and I on the other hand headed off to Parque Nacional Chirripo in hiking mode.  Chirripo being the highest mountain in CR at 3820m and home to amazing flora and fauna whilst at the same time providing spectacular views of the Caribbean and Pacific coast.  The plan of action was to get to Crestones Base Camp where you spend 1 night and then resume the next day.  Therefore a 2 day hike or if you wanna explore more 3 days.  I was kinda thinking that at 1.91m and 1.50m respectively that I was kinda gonna be jogging on this.  As it turned out tickets for said event – yes you had to get tickets for both park entrance $15 each day but more importantly the accommodation was the willy wonka gold ticket.   Bods had either booked months in advance or were queuing up the night before the night before – yes you read that correctly.  So for 3 guys in our dorm, there were only 5 tickets available for the day they wanted to hike, said tickets up for grabs by bods in other accommodation as well.  So men on a mission, they were queuing Wednesday night for the 06.30 Thursday opening at the rangers station and their tickets were for hiking on the Friday.  They went prepared with wine, beer and chocolate (did someone say chocolate?!?) – plus one of them was a hottie … hold fire I’m coming with you! In reality I must confess I wasn’t too keen to be out all night being bitten to pieces but would have gotten there for the 04:00am shift.  As it turns out the combo of the ticket saga along with Julius chest infection oh and hearing that the basecamp accommodation was known as ‘Le Refrig’ due to you freezing your bits off, put the mockers on said hike. That kinda thing I’m not too keen to do on my own as there weren’t masses of bods hiking there and I didn’t want to trip and be lying part way down a mountain hallucinating choc and flying pigs.  However, what we did check out and hike (around 6hrs) was Cloudbridge Nature Reserve, a reforestation project born in 2002 comprising 700 acres and run on a donation basis, which as well as being beautiful, was also an amazing achievement.  http://www.cloudbridge.org/the-project/

Our hostel accommodation this time was Casa Mariposa situated in San Gerardo, which was kinda funky with it’s rock and wood construction.

Next stop another 04:15 alarm special for the 05:15hrs bus – make that plural – to get us to Uvita.  I was kinda dreading this bit as aside from a couple of lights, the rest was pitch black down hill, probably 30mins with backpack on rocky uneven ground to the bus stop – yay.  I was hoping that someone might just happen to be passing with wheels – cue back to yay for the law of attraction cos we hadn’t been walking for more than a min then a pick up stopped and we were on board – oh yeah baby! Uvita was home to my favourite hostel so far as well … the rather fabulously named ‘Flutterby House’. Now it was run by 2 American sisters and was a tad ‘high five, slam dunk’ cue Julius ”zay are very loud’ but fun, super friendly, helpful and of course great customer service.  I would like to say that our accommodation was in pic 1 or 2 … but I would get a pimple on my tongue.  Pic 3 it is … up the steep ladder making sure you were none too squiffy.

The nearby beach, literally 5mins, was part of Marino Ballena National Park and stunningly beautiful.  The ´Whales Tail´is a walk you can do at low tide, the name due to the fact that from the air it hmmm looks like a whales tail and I have included a snapshot as exhibit A (not from me  – budget doesn’t include private aircharter even for my loyal readers). The guys were on a mission to crack open the coconuts and after mucho grunting, groaning and generally wacking against a concrete post – hmmm this is starting to sound a tad rude … am still on the coconut ok? Anyway they peeled the layers back to reveal drum roll … the little hairy thing you see at the fairground – we are still on coconuts.  Back to Marino Ballena National Park itself – guy came running past looking a tad frantic ‘has anyone run past?  They’ve taken our cameras and everything!!”.  Alas there were signs everywhere plus both the ranger on entry and our hostel said to not leave anything unattended as thieves were operating.  Sad state of affairs with a tiny minority and their thoughtless actions as the local people we spoke to were lovely and very helpful.

Another day and another 04:15am alarm, oh goody goody.  This time a couple of buses to get us to Puerto Jimenez down on the Ösa Peninsula of CR.   We were hoping to check out Corcovado National Park cited by National Geographic as ‘the most biologically intense place on the planet’ however I didn’t realise that 3 days were required to hike in and out.  So plan B check out local trails and fishing.  Our accommodation this time was the Jungle Hostel – bunks complete with mossie nets – run by the very lovely Peter and Louchi.  Peter had a boat ‘Watermelon Sugar’ and provided fishing trips.  Now I was a tad dubious re this excursion as although I eat fish I didn’t want to be their murderer!!  Yes it is a little rectangular thing I see on my plate not a full figure body with beady eyes looking at me, but I did rather want to go out on the boat.  So as you can see it was a stunning day with calm waters aside from the shoal of fish who were our guide for catchment.   Cue first catch to JB – it was a macarella – heyyyyy macarella … dum diddy dum, diddy dum diddy dee dee … (what do you mean that’s the macarena?! It’s my song and I’ll sing it how I like) … oh yeah here we go, left arm, right arm, left palm, right palm, left shoulder, right shoulder, hip, hip, gyrate and jump … woohoo.  Whoops I’ve digressed.  Peter deemed it was too small so it then went back in said water (yay!).  Next up was JK … who caught a bonito … this was also deemed too small and once more went back in (yay!).  A Jack fish was the next one which Peter passed verdict on ‘not good for eating’ – back in it went (yay diddy yay!).  The rest of the day yielded no more fish, which apparently was unusual and I think that JK was a tad miffed that the smaller ones had gone back in but I was a happy bunny :-D.  Locals also showing us how they fish and we finished our day with a bit of swimming around the Mogos Islands … aaah.