Mountain of Death

I remember leaving San Jose on a bright sunny January 2010 morning full of expectations with my friends Barry Wulff, Jane Luther, and 11 others. This was a 2 week journey through the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca to the Corcovado National Park, across the border into Panama and back over the mountains to Bocas Del Toro, and finally up the Caribbean Coast to Puerto Viejo, and back to San Jose. This trip was to be accomplished using public transportation, but after that first day crossing the Mountain of Death (Cerro de Muerte) with death defying curves and spectacular over looks to the city of San Isidro in a large public bus 5 or 6 of the group rebelled and forced Barry, our intrepid leader, to dig into our reserve funds and hire our own private bus and driver.


Here is a little "youtube" video showing a small car driving the Cerro de Muerte. Remember this is the PanAmerican Highway, the main and only route from North America to South America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAdoMEcoBuw

Home in the Cloud Forest

This guy is the reason for spending a few days here on top of the world in Costa Rica.

 

The Cloud Forest view from one of the rooms at Dantica Lodge

http://www.dantica.com/



These pieces of art work at Dantica are the carrot to get Ellen here.



San Jose, Costa Rica

Hotel Fleur de Lys right in the middle of down town San Jose, Costa Rica will be our home for a few days before heading south into the Cordillera de Talamanca.

Swiss quality with warm hospitality, the Fleur de Lys is a small, enchanting, discrete Hotel located in the cultural district of San José, Costa Rica. This newly restored Victorian mansion offers 31 individually decorated rooms, to make you feel at home. Rather than impersonal numbers, every room is lovingly named after a species of flower native to Costa Rica. Native artwork adorns the walls of each room, lobbies and corridors of the Hotel. Warm woods and soft colors provide an atmosphere for complete relaxation, and large comfortable beds guarantee a good night's sleep. Discover the hotel's charming atrium gardens with lush tropical planting

Some fun art from San Jose  our transportation   San Jose with 288,000 population is about twice the size of Eugene, but the metropolitan area is well over 1,000,000. We hope to dance, eat, explore, find cool music, art, and visit the Bellavista Fortress near to the hotel. Ellen is hoping to keep up her training for the Mother's Day 1/2 marathon in Eugene.  The Bellavista Fortress, a crenallated, ochre colored building  was built in 1917 and was originally a military barracks: the exterior walls still have many bullets lodged in them from the country's 1948 civil war. It became the site of a museum in 1950. As a result of this coup attempt the president abolished the military in Costa Rica. Because of this Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates in the Americas of 95%. The infant mortality rate is about 8.7 per 1,000 live births compared to the U.S. rate of 6.2 per 1,000.

 

We hope to find more than "casado" (rice and beans) to eat while in San Jose. This may be the best food in the middle of the country. We are not expecting too much in the way of fine cuisine on the road, however this looks very good!

 



Costa Rica in February 2015

Here we go again off the beaten path. Costa Rica has so many different spaces and critters to explore that the choices are difficult. There are the famous stops to check out the sea turtles in Tortuguero and Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean Coast, La Selva the world famous rain forest experimental station, Monte Verde's Quaker Swiss cheese and cloud forest, and all the volcanos surrounding the Capital City of San Jose. We wont visit these stops except for a couple of days in San Jose on this trip. Instead we have chosen 3 stops, 2 in the same national park for this adventure. The folks at My Costa Rica put this itinerary together for us so we will be on our own rather than with a group like we did for Java and Bali a little over a year ago.
http://www.mycostaricalink.com/hotels/off-the-beaten-path/

Main road in San Gerardo de Dota

The first stop will be Cerro de la Muerte, "Hill of Death" and the village of San Gerardo de Dota (pronounced San Herardo) straight south about 80 kilometers from San Jose and the former capital Cartoga high the Talamanca mountains. This place is smack on the famous Pan American Highway that traverses Costa Rica from its northwest border with Nicaragua to its south west border with Panama. The Pan American Highway in this part of Costa Rica is a windy steep 2 lane road filled with pot holes that reminds me of the highway in the US that crosses Sonora Pass in the California Sierras. San Gerardo de Dota is home to the Resplendent Quetzal.








We will abandon the warmer clothes we have brought along for the mountains before leaving San Gerardo de Dota because we will be limited to 25 lbs. baggage each from here until we return to San Jose.



Map of boat trip from Sierpe to Drake's Bay and beyond. We will visit Isla de Cano 12 miles off shore.

 



 
 
 
 
 
 


The second stop will be down the south side of the Cordillera de Talamanca through the city if San Isidro to Sierpe, Drake's Bay and the Corcovado Adventure Tent Camp on the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Coast line is now running west to east along the Osa Peninsula and the Corcovado National Park. These are pretty fancy tents with hammocks, mosquito nets and resident monkeys. The tent camp has all 4 Costa Rican primates in the near by forest.





 To get to the camp we need to transfer to a small boat for a hour plus ride down the coast. We will be in one of the only intact coastal rain forests remaining on the Pacific Coast of the tropical Americas that has not been clear cut. This is one of only two places in the world where we can find the beautiful Scarlet Macaws feeding above our heads in Palms and Cecropia trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third stop will be further down the coast by boat to Sierna and Carate on the east end of the Osa Peninsula just out side of the Corcovado and up into the tropical rain forest mountains at Luna Lodge. Luna Lodge is the fanciest place we will stay on the whole trip. The entire front wall of the large room we stay in is windows looking directly into the tops of the trees below. Perfect for watching parrots, toucans, trogons, mot-mots, and hummingbirds.

La Luna Lodge

When we leave La Luna we will go by 4 wheel drive taxi to San Jimenez and the small airport to fly back to San Jose.

I will post a few more times with details about the places we'll be visiting. I will try to add web sites for your curiosity and investigation. For starters here is the web site for the Cecropia Tree and Azteca Ants. Cercropia trees are also a favorite hang out for sloths.

http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/ants/ANTPLANTS/CECROPIA/Cecropia.html

The Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Slidell Louisiana

The Gulf Coast of Mississippi was clobbered much more than new Orleans, Louisiana, but they have made a marvelous come back in the town of Bay Saint Louis. They have turned the stumps of shattered trees into art.

The Pearl River watershed near Slidell, Louisiana is a wonderful refuge of plants, critters, and wetlands. This is the first sanctuary greeting migratory birds as they cross the Gulf of Mexico from Central and South America.

 There is still much destruction in the swamps and bayous from Kristina and Camille.

These cool knobs sticking out of the water are projections of tree roots that help the swamp trees breath.

King Zulu Parade Mardi Gras Teaser

Near our hotel on Magazine Street in New Orleans is the parade route from many of the world famous Krewe Parade groups.  We have been warned to check out the smaller neighborhood parades during our week in New Orleans, but how can you refuse Zeus and Zulu. Okay, okay, I hear you all there will be fifty million screaming, "Mister, mister throw one to me," with arms out streached and waving in front of us. There seems to be no end to the warnings, "Don't bend over", "Hold hands to stay together", "Don't carry nothing", "Keep your plastic cup full", "Watch out for the babies on top of step ladders." We hear very little "Dance, Dance, Dance" "Sing and Swing", "Kiss your lover",

Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras night

Where else can you go but walk up down from Decatur to Bourbon for the music and fun on Mardi Gras evening in New Orleans. Everyone want to get and give hugs except for those misguided  lines of folks carrying a large cross pushing everyone out of the way down the center of the street.

 Dinner was scrumptious. Maybe some chicory coffee today with Beignets.

But first some hangover mix.

 The streets and balconies were packed. Surprisingly the rest of the town was empty and closed.

Maybe it was the rain

Everyone was having a great time except for this group of about 100 misguided souls who had lost their way.

 Canal street was blocked by Bourbon Street Parades and a red carpet from the Marriott to the big hotel across the street.

We couldn't find a cab for less than $20 to take us ten block to the Greenhouse in so we walked the 10 blocks down Magazine Street.

 

Crescent City Brewhouse Jazz and Oysters Mardi Gras

Here we are Crescent City Brewhouse

In the French Quarter

Mardi Gras Night

I am still looking for Ignatius J. Reilly's statue on Canal Street and the D. H. Holmes department store where John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" begins. I do have on my green deer hunter's hat in honor of Ignatius.  Ellen may put her lacy black spangle attire back on. More photos will follow.

 

 

I will be having Oysters and Gumbo tonight!

 

Maybe a Hurricane libation