Crusing in Costa Rica

Now that is an odd title for me. First of all, I thought I'd never be caught dead taking a cruise and second, Costa Rica wasn't high on my list of places to visit. It was another one of those , "Why not?" moments that are becoming more frequent in my life.

We were on a WindStar ship when cycling with Santana Cycles in Spain and Portugal in November and got an email announcing a half-price deal on some of their cruises. Richard and I had discussed getting away for spring break and one of the cruises happened to span that time. We signed up. It wasn't really on our radar until about two weeks before we left when suddenly we realized we'd better start thinking about what to take. We sat down at the computer one night and booked all of our shore excursions so we wouldn't have to debate once on the ship.

We had two nights in a hotel in San Jose in which to practice our slug technique, or perhaps given the country, I should call it 'sloth' technique. Richard particularly needed the time to just unwind and get caught up on sleep.

In many ways the Costa Rica we saw was not what I expected. It was nearing the end of the dry season and many of the trees lose their leaves to conserve moisture. I didn't expect to see bare trees in a tropical country. There was a blanket of brown leaves on many of the paths we took through the forest.

We chose the wildlife spotting options for our excursions except for the first one which was in Nicaragua and involved a trip to a volcano. I was a little dismayed by the signs in Spanish and English warning motorists to park their cars facing out in case they had to get away quickly. Other signs suggested that if there was a lot of debris coming from the volcano people might want to take shelter under their cars.

When we were there the volcano behaved itself. It spewed clouds of sulfurous gasses which were impressive enough for me. One of the guides I talked to reported being at the volcano with a group of visitors when the volcano decided to throw soft-ball-sized chunks of rock up over the rim. He said although no one was hurt, it frightened him. We talked for maybe five minutes and as I turned to go down the stairs and back to the bus I wished him well. That short interaction reminded me what I like so much about young adults. He was friendly, open, interested and interesting.

We visited Manuel Antonio park, Fincas Naturales, Corcovado National Park and Curu Wildlife Refuge. Our guides had very sharp eyes and all carried spotting scopes. One guide allowed those with small digital cameras to take photos through the spotting scope. We saw a variety of wildlife. There were many birds even around the hotel in San Jose. One of them looked like a relative of the magpie in body and tail shape although this bird was all black. There were numerous small song birds and Richard managed good photos of one that landed on our balcony the first morning while I was still asleep.

We saw pelicans flying in a v formation almost like geese and there were white and blue herons at various points of the trip. I was delighted to see two scarlet macaws fly overhead. Because they were against the light sky I couldn't see their brilliant colours but it was enough to have seen them in the wild. Macaws and parakeets are protected in Costa Rica and many of our guide have strong feelings that such birds should never be kept as pets. I mostly kept my mouth shut on the subject. The birds we have were all bred in captivity specifically as pets. I am absolutely against owning wild-caught birds who tend not to make very good pets anyway. Costa Ricans are not allowed to keep native birds as pets but people who had birds as pets before the law was enacted were allowed to keep them. That's how I got my best shots of a scarlet macaw. His name is Paco and he lives on Tortuga island. He had a serious injury to his wing and even after he recovered his health he was unable to fly. Paco has a perch around one of the palm trees where he sits and poses for the tourists. In the time I watched an photographed him he didn't utter a sound. I imagine a few good screams from a macaw would terrify some of the children visiting the island.

We were able to observe two and three-toes sloths, again thanks to guides with sharp eyes who knew what to look for. One of the varieties of sloth has an algae growing in its fur so it looks like part of the tree. The algae is necessary to the life cycle of a species of moth that lives in the forest. We encountered agoutis in many different places. These are rodents about the size of cats. They have long hind legs almost like a jack rabbit and, most surprising to me, they have no tails.

I'm not sure of the name of the relative of the raccoon we saw. They have long prehensile tails that are striped like a raccoon's tail. At one place we saw four or five different individuals some of which chased off one of the late comers.

By the time we left the country we had seen all three of the types of monkeys that inhabit Costa Rica and had heard the howlers do their thing on an early morning nature hike. I don't imagine you'd need an alarm clock if you were staying close to a bunch of howlers.

On our day at sea we spotted turtles and dolphins. I can't believe I forgot to bring binoculars with me. That will definitely be on the list of items for the next trip. Our guides were superb at spotting wildlife or evidence of it. One guide stopped us and pointed to a perfectly camouflaged nest containing two eggs about a foot off the path where we were walking. All in all it was a memorable holiday although I was very thankful to have an air conditioned cabin to return to after a couple of hours walking in the jungle.