roatan, honduras

i’ve died and been spirited off to some tropical paradise where i dive all day and all night and the beer is only 1 buck a pop. if i didn’t constantly need change, or have this need to do something meaningful with my life, i’d marry a dive instructor and live a glorious impoverished life.

i know i haven’t written in days (or taken a single photo) – i landed on roatan, an island off honduras’ carribean coast, at 9 on Saturday. By 12:30 I was in the water at 15 meters checking out schools of blue tank, fairy basslets, and stoplight parrotfish (in their initial phase – these mosaic’ed fish start as females and turn into males later in life!) i’ve done 8 dives so far and each has been more mind-blowing than the last. i love the sensation of weightlessness and controlling my buoyancy and movement with my breath, filling my lungs with air to rise and blowing bubbles out to float down effortlessly.

there are three other people in my advanced diving course, hannah and debs, 2 expatriate brits now living in the Bahamas and a mexican guy galo who couldn’t dive today because a bug flew into his eye when he was on his bike, and it swelled closed. ever since my underwater naturalist class, marc, my instructor at coconut tree divers, has been pointing out not only the giant fish you can’t miss, but also all types of tunicates (which are so funny), corals, crustaceans, and plant-life. i still find it true that if you can name it, you suddenly realize it’s all around you. there are these ubiquitous plants called halimeda that i didn’t even see until i found out what they were called. the plant produces limestone which it covers with a green algae. when they die, they disintegrate and are responsible for producing 70% of all sand in the carribean.

on the down side, i have got sand fly and mosquito bites all over, mainly from walking up and down the beach between snorkels. one of the girls in the dorm, when she saw my be-measeled back and arms, gave me a prescription antihistamine, which has reduced some of the swelling. but it’s all good and I don’t feel right complaining. i love it here all the same.

almost forgot to mention -- i swam with a huge pod of wild dolphins!! i got about 5-10 meters from them. i swear i am not making this up. between dives, we were cruising along and spotted them. fred, our boat driver, overtook them, we all jumped in the water, and as i sped toward them, i thought, this is why i have been swimming my whole life.

it´s hard to to describe the last few days of my life but i´ll try

i´ll start from now and work my way back to the celestial waters of tenorio and the horrendous journey to get there. i´ve got the top bunk in a hostel called tranquillo backbackers in san jose and have to get up at about 4-30 to get over to the bus station. amy and i drove 5 hours down a dirt road and on the two lane interamericana into the valley san jose and heredia sit in, surrounded by volcanoes. it was a great drive, but sometimes slow, cruising behind a caravan of trucks going 40 kmh and near impossible to pass.

we started at sol y luna lodge (address to come when i get them off amy), which is the best lodging option on the other side of this guachepelin hotel´s private road to the park (can you believe it, a hotel gets to charge you entrance to a national park!) Wonderful people, clean new rooms (only 1.5 yrs old), lots of local charm, which mostly manifested itself during the local football game on the pitch the hotel built and maintains. Maella, who is part-owner and also chef pointed out toucans to me and made a mean banana pinapple smoothie, which can become a kind of pina colada at night if you add rum.


this morning we did a short walk around an area of rincon de la vieja national park filled with bubbling mud pots, called pailas here because they resemble the vats used for hot sugar cane syrup. we were recuperating from what we came to find out was a 19 km roundtrip hike up two peaks, inactive crater von seeback (1898 m) and active crater rincon de la vieja.

it was some of the most amazing hiking i´ve ever done and some of the whackiest. the first part of the hike up was slow going (mainly becuase amy and i hadn´t been sleeping so great on wooden slat beds) through a mix of tropical wet and dry pre montane forest. it was an enchanted dark trek up past giant ceiba trees, strangler figs, regular ol´deciduous growth. when we got to sitio copelares trail intersection, we decided to take the longer von seebach crater hike first, you know get it out the way early. we didn´t realize what we were about to tackle was what lonely planet calls a rocky scramble to the top. the book also advises travelers to take a guide. thank god for amy who at the very least recognized that the piles of rocks, when present, indicated our trail (karins), and at at least one point got us off the ledge of a cliff any back on track. we summited without quite realizing that´s what we were doing. the views from the top were great. von seebach was a bit of a dud (an amazing dud), a smooth green carpet covered the crater where lava once spewed forth.

luckily, we didn´t have to climb all the way down through the field of sharp igneous rock, because there was a path that ziggzagged us over to the other crater. the trek over was easy in comparison and offered beautiful views of lush green hills and lago los jilgueros on the one hand and a barren lunar landscape of ash on the other. we hiked to the top of a point and looked down a long saddleback to our destination - rincon´s active crater lake (1806 m). walking the sack i experienced what i think was vertigo. if i concentrated on my next step it seemed like the landscapes on both sides of me were rushing to catch up with my vision. it was cool.

i made it to the viewpoint without falling over the edge. words can only go so far in expressing the natural beauty i have experienced on this trip. the bubbling sulphorous lake opened before us milky turquoise white and the clouds created shadows on its surface. we hung out no longer than the advised 15 minutes breathing in the fumes, and started back across the sadleback.

the hike down rincon was nothing like the scramble up seebach. it was steeper, but the earth was packed mud and felt soft under my feet. the way down followed the path of the water that must daily form rivers that run down the slope of the mountain. for about an hour we were walking down empty trenches about 1 meter deep. then we had to repel down ropes to get to the colorado river, which has its starting point right next to the trail.

after lunch and about an hour of hiking the afternoon hours-long deluge began. at around 4-30 we arrived back to the lodge drenched, boots water clogged and heavy from water, exhausted, happy.

in between hikes we had a beach day at playa hermosa. we stayed in a wonderful little place i think called the iguana inn. it was a little odd b/c we had a separate shower and a separate toilet and neither of them were in our room. we snorkeled around coves all day and caught the sun on isolated clear-water beaches.
i´m getting tired.

but one last thing--on friday i had a hellish 12 hour adventure getting from monteverde by taxi to a little town to irma, picking up a local bus going to liberia, meeting up with amy and ryland who had rented a car from a town on the pacific coast, and getting to this crappy-ass place called rinconocito, who had ignored our reservation and booked the place full. exhausted, we headed off to the nearest hotel with a vacancy to spend a short night near volcan miravalles. in the morning we righted ourselves and, switching to plan b, headed to the rio celeste lodge (close to volcan tenorio) with no reservations, just hope and fatigue. we were welcomed by kasta and alexander ordinez, two wonderful people, who shuffled other guests around to make room and showed us true kindess. goes without saying the lodge was awesome - there were a few cabinas situated on a house-farm and the majority of the food we ate was homegrown (pollo, eggs, milk and butter).

after getting settled in, it was a quick drive to the rio celeste trail head. i can´t say enough good things about the hike and the people i did it with, so i'll let the photos here speak for themselves. the rio and waterfall live up to the name -- celeste, celeste, celeste. i´m off to bed. love to all.

guanacaste - annexation

not sure where i left off on this thing. the good news is - the real vacation starts now. i´m done with any formal studying and am off to explore guanacaste. next week the region celebrates its annexation into costa rica so i´m counting on some wild fiestas.

finished up the week back in the jacuzzi at monteverde lodge recuperating from some wasp stings with their signature lemonade. i´ll have to make it when i get back - it´s a mix of vodka, cilantro, mint, sprite and a jalapeno. i got stung on my finger and my leg on the way back from THE monteverde waterfall. the hour hike itself was memorable - lots of leaf cutter ants coming down from the canopy with leaves the size of m&ms, ropes to repel down and rivers to fjord. angela who i was walking with got it worse - she got stung on her face.

santa elena - agulas

i keep coming across these birds that i think are called agulas - there must be a nest of them between the school and my house. like most birds they hop around in the branches overhead, but they´re humongous - i´m talking turkey big - and are really clumsy up there. then they make this noise that sounds a lot like a sqwawk followed by a fart.

i spent about 7 hours in the santa elena reserve yesterday -- another cloud forest with both primary and secondary growth. after hiking the majority of the trails all afternoon, i went on a night hike that was wonderful. all kind of little critters hidden during the day become active at night - walking sticks, spiders, may beetles, crickets, frogs and toads, and even a kinajou. bats attracted to our torches flew overhead and our guide, memo (guillermo) explained that over 50% of all mammal species here are bats (i can´t wait to see more). a collared pecary (looks a little like my power animal, the wild boar) adopted by the biologists at the reserve decided to join us on the hike. the pecary, charlie, would wonder off the trail to find some delicious leaves and then scare the crap out of us by rejoining us without warning. we were careful not to be too surprised - if pecaries get scared the spines on their back raise and they emit a vomitous odor.

the stars were out for the first time during my stay in monteverde, which made the motorcycle ride back even cooler.

generally, i´m having a wonderful time. most of it i spent not thinking about business school -- when i do i find that it stresses me out more than anything. why don´t i just move to the pacific nw and settle down with some fellow tree hugger. ¿do i need this? if anyone has any words of wisdom, please email.

ok, one last comment - don´t come to costa rica if you want your money to last. this place is a haven for american tourists and the prices reflect it. everywhere else in latin america is probably a lot cheaper...

santa elena - week´s end

on friday a friend and i hiked the ecological sanctuary in monteverde. the most amazing thing we observed was an owl. amy spotted it (remarkable because it was of the unspotted variety -- ha, ha, little naturalists humor). it was well camoflauged, so my guess is that it must have been looking at amy for her to see it. at the end of the hike we took a quick dip in a pristine waterfall to cool off and got a massage from the falling water.

last night i finally met jennifer (my tica parents elusive daughter) - she lives up to her reputation (established by her mother over the course of the week) and was really easy to chat with. i was too tired just to breathe so fell asleep at around ten missing out on the festivities at bar amigos.

monteverde cloud forest reserve is kick ass (and for the price, $30 with guide, it should be).

we got lucky - in the morning we saw all three varieties of endemic monkey. first we saw spider monkeys, the rarest of the three, they move quickly through the canopy overhead and express their frustration at humans through urination, furious beating of the chest, and chucking branches and fruit. they´re super quick because they employ their prehensile tail as a fifth limb. next we saw howlers, monkeys with little gorrilla-like faces that make a noise like a dying dog. howlers are the only vegans of the three kinds. the white-faced or capuchin monkeys are omniverous and will eat just about anything, including fruits and birds eggs and other small mammals. the pack travels with one alpha male (juvenile males can travel with the pack until adulthood) who has really white testicles visible from far away. they have been mistaken for garlic.
we also got a peak at some other critters - a crab, which was a wierd find because i didn´t expect to see a crab in the jungle; an ajouta, which looks like a giant squirrel without a tail; a quetzal, which was rad because it´s the end of mating season and so they can be fairly hard to see and tons of hummingbirds which pollinate the forest. we walked on the continental divide (elevated terrain which forms a border between two watersheds such that water falling on one side of the line eventually travels to one ocean or body of water, and water on the other side travels to another, generally on the opposite side of the continent) and through an elfin cloud forest (all the regular trees are in miniature).

returning to montverde we were wet, tired and covered in mud that splashed up from the puddles on the forest floor (remember, you´re walking in a cloud, so you will get wet). all week my friend amy has lived next door to monteverde lodge - a hotel invisible from the road. we decided to explore - maybe it had internet? what we found was even better - delicious pina coladas, spicy jalapeno vodka lemonade and a jacuzzi. After a week of taking freezing cold showers (colder than cold, colder than the waterfalls here), it was BLISSFUL.

today, sunday, i went to a butterfly garden. my favorite butterflies are the glasswinged, which like their name says have transparent wings. the national butterfly of costa rica is most likely the morphos - for a while i mistook it for the spanish word for butterfly itself. when it settles on a leaf it appears brown, but when it takes off it displays a wondrous metallic blue color.

monteverde - tv tico

i had a great hike up a massive hill to TELETICO´s TV towers (channel 7 here in santa elena), where there was an amazing panoramic view of the tree-covered mountain range.

santa elena is muy lluvioso

so it´s week 2 and i have arrived in santa elena, costa rica´s high western mountains where i will be staying for 2 weeks. the region i am in contains a lot of costs rica´s cloud forest, which is evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level (thanks wikipedia!) this means it comes down in buckets in the rainy season and most of the time feels like you are walking through a cloud.

internet´s more difficult here, so you probably won´t hear from me as often plus it costs more. i have spent one night with my new host stay, and even though it´s very different from the middle-class family i lived with in san joaquin de flores, it is comfortable and they are very kind. olivier, the father, picked me up from the bus station in his taxi, a beat up 4X4; ana, my mama-tica works in a local clothing store. i´ve met their youngest, jose andre, who attends a bi-lingual school and so can chatter away in english and spanish, but not their daughter, but i know what she looks like from a 2X1´ framed glamshot that hangs squarely above the TV.

today i visited the cheese factory in monteverde, a nearby town founded by a group of alabaman quaker settlers who left the US to escape the draft in the 50´s. in the early days they made 55,000 kg of cheese per year and now make about that in one day. in addition to all the cheeses -- gouda, swiss, cheddar, and montetico (a local brand) -- they make ice cream, caramel and sour cream from the whey biproducts. i really enjoyed it, but then again i´ve become more interested in agri-business since my work on the mill project in Tbilisi.

classes are better this week - just me and another 24 year old chica from nj, so we get through a lot of material.

volcan arenal

just a quick blog:

sloths that sleep 18 hours/day
spider monkeys, spider monkeys and more spider monkeys
fake hot springs for american tourists
lava on volcan arenal

san joaquin - having una beera

after practicing asking for una cervesa fria it turns out they don´t even call it that, they use the slang spanglish una beera instead. i drank my first beera at the gallinero or chicken-coup bar with two of my host brothers and their friends sergio, johnny and randall (who are also brothers). there are two national beers, pilsen and imperial, and over about 20 or so they taught me how to curse in spanish and i told them a couple of choice words in russian. then they started doing impromptu karaoke to music of the familya fernandez (there´s papa fernandez, his son who also became a singer, their cousin, and their gardener).

the next day suprisingly i was the most alert student in class, probably because i had passed on my cold to the bahamans - still feel a little guilty about that. me, i am feeling better and am over the worst of it save for a nasty cough and runny nose.

san joaquin - exportacion

this morning i got a lift to cpi from olman hijo (olman jr) who is in med school now. his english is fluent - his bio, chem and world history classes at his private secondary school were taught in english. smart guy. the reason i needed a ride is that the downpour that started last night continued into the morning and i am poorly equipped for costa rica´s winter. the temperature here is probably in the low 70s and in the surrounding mountains even chillier.

today´s big achievement - i can now communicate in the past tense.

after class, five of us took a 45 minute ride to the canopy around volcan poas to zip-line. the longest cable was approx. 300 ft up and at least as long. the views of the jungle and the nearby volcano from up-high were impressive. i got the hang of breaking by pulling down on the line after my first try. i hear there´s more canopy and more zip lines to try in monteverde, my next destination, but it´s not thrilling buckled in so securely. i need to think my gear is broken to get the blood flowing.

san joaquin - delicioso

i am more settled today after a long, weaving pantomine with the araya ramos´ last night. i feel most comfortable in the kitchen of the house.

as a good american, it is my duty to devote at least some of this blog to the joys of eating -- maria elena is an excellent cook; this morning i had huevas con gallo pinto and last night sopa con maize and pollo with senor AR who told me that san joaquin is too small to be called a ciudad. in fact, of costa rica´s districts it is the smallest and so instead of a ciudad, it´s a puebla. it´s surrounded on all sides by volcanoes, which are always in the background on my walks through the town. san joaquin is the perfect place for people who orient themselves around landmarks. for everyone else, it´s a little maze. i have not seen one street sign yet and so walk until i see something familiar, then figure out where to next. SJ is not big enough to get lost in, but small enough that all the locals know who you´re not and must think it amusing the second time you walk by, back tracking.

in class today we had quite a conversation about food. the girls i am studying with, all three from the bahamas, claimed to like very little save for snails. no avocadoes. snail salad. no fish. just snails and rice. after class students gathered in the cpi´s courtyard for a cooking lesson.


the bad news is i can tell i´m coming down with something. i´m in the phase of sickness where you know something´s coming, but don´t know quite how bad it will be. i´m taking it easy, trying to stretch out my legs so i can hook them in to the lotus position, and catching up on my sleep.

san joaquin, costa rica - yo estoy cansada

i had my first-ever conversation in spanish with fernando my driver lastnight at 1:00 AM while we were waiting for this 19 year-old jeancharles character to get through customs. it´s much easier than russian -- i doubt i could have managed a conversation in moscow so early out of the gate. jc finally emerged at about 1:40 (turns out he´s belgian and his whole family is in one way or another connectedto the U.N) and we were driven to our respective homestays.

the family i´m staying with, mama and papa arroyo reyes´ and their three kids (though i´ve only met two and at the crack of dawn this morning which is when the whole brood seems to come alive) have been hospitable and the room and house are comfortable. the first thingmaria elena asked me in the morning was if i wanted some cafe con or sin lecho -- i wanted to hug her.

san joaquin de flores, the town i´m staying may be san jose´s equivalent of a rich dc suburb - except with 2000 people or less it´s a lot smaller. you can count the restaurants on one, maybe two hands. one of the school administrators explained to me that many of the towns in Costa Rica are centered around three of the most important things to life down here -- the church, the football green and theschool. Everything grows out from this epicenter.

The language classes through centro panamericano de idiomas (CPI) are ok. the teacher is 23 (i´m the oldest in the class) and not so professional, but i´m inclined to think that the lessons are secondary to being here and getting around (and knowing me, getting lost), so i´m happy. the school´smotto is carpe diem and that´s just what i´m doing.

i´ll add some photos as soon as i figure out how to say usb cable in spanish and where to get my hands on one. i´ve already got a few photos of some of the flora - purple, white, red, funky little flowers abound -- the local destaprimachatelnosti (landmarks), and the school´s courtyard. can´t wait to post.