We had a buffet breakfast at 6 AM at the Aurola Hotel in San Jose and then were picked up by Carlos for the trek to Cano Blanco about 120 kilometers away on the Caribbean coast. It was a long beautiful ride winding down through the mountains from the central valley where San Jose is located. The grades up and down were very steep and the bus we were in was stick shift and Carlos was always shifting gears and I could hear the Jake brake whining as we would slow down for the curves. The scenery was spectacular with steep drop offs looking out at the mountains that surround the central valley.
We ended up on a dirt road after about 40 miles and our guide said “get ready for a free message." The road was covered in smooth and sometimes large river stones and it really was a message. We hammered our way along sucking dust often anytime a big bus would go by kicking up clouds of dust. There were sure a lot of buses, some of them very large and luxurious. I don’t know how they could hold up on such roads. We stopped for a little garden tour along the way were we were introduced to many varieties of flowers and trees that I instantly forgot the names of. We got up close and personal with some little orange poisonous frogs. We found out they are poisonous because of the food they eat. They were very cute. Eventually we stopped at a Del Monte banana plantation and took the tour. It was a fascinating process to see the bananas coming in from the fields and working their way through the process and being crated for shipment. We really did not know what would happen next at any stage of this adventure. All we knew was that we were going to “lodge” that could only be reached by boat.
Next we stopped at an “adventure” drop off point were about 10 of the passengers were going and had a buffet breakfast there with about 40 other people who were there for some kind of hiking and rafting adventure. We were happy- having our second buffet breakfast for the day. Then we were off again with our guide Lauda (Laura) and the bus driver Carlos. We continued up this gravel road taking in the sites for a long time perhaps an hour dodging buses that seemed to push us off the road. We passed many banana plantations and large cattle ranches with the lush grassy fields. There were a lot of Indian cows and bulls with the big hump on their backs. Eventually we arrived at a little store and restaurant next to a river. We found out that this winding river was actually a canal built back in the forties to move lumber out into the ocean and up to various markets. We were told this was were we would be picked up by a boat for a ninety minute ride up north to the lodge were we would stay for three nights and four days. We hung out for half an hour waiting for the boat and watching other board boats with perhaps twenty people per boat.
Our boat finally arrived and everyone helped us drag our luggage on board. The amount off luggage seemed ridiculous but we had brought what we needed for a month away from home. We were off and strangely we began to realize that we were the only people on this tour and we had our own guide and boat captain for the duration off what was becoming a really fun adventure. I don’t know how our money could provide for this kind of care but it was beginning to feel really good and we felt very special in deed. We saw many people and boats on the river but none with their own boat. Our captain liked to open up the throttle and go and we would navigate the wakes of other boats as we would overtake them with our boat lifting out of the water as we sped along. We joked about how our captain Ping really liked to drag race other boats and seemed to take great joy in passing them. Sometimes we would stop to look at a great blue heron or some other wild life. We arrived at the lodge on time and were surprised to find that the accommodations were absolutely charming. The whole compound consisted of an airy central dining hall were we would be eating for the next couple of days and a series of little cottages connected to each other and the dock and dining hall with concrete board walks that wound through the jungle about four feet above the ground. Our little cottage consisted of a large bed room, a large bathroom with a sink toilet and shower, and a small front and back porch. It was just beautiful tucked into the jungle with out even disturbing the trees and vines surrounding us.
We had lunch and then after a short nap we headed out for a tour of the beech which it turns out is a reserve for the huge turtles that come here from all over the world to lay their eggs. We got an interesting lesson about these amazing animals and saw where they dug up the beech to lay their eggs in holes three feet deep. We found one of the discarded eggs as we walked along. We then arrived at a little village for some shopping. This consisted of a series of little housed (huts really) along the river up stream from our compound. This was a real tourist trap and the prices seemed so high that we did not buy very much. Ping picked up after half an hour and we went back to the lodge for diner. The dining hall had about 30 teenagers who were here for a class trip and perhaps 10 older folk. A lady from San Francisco sat with Lauda and us for diner and we had a pleasant conversation for the diner hour.
We ended up going to bed around 9PM after checking out the swimming pool area and having brief devotions. We were warned that we would wake up a 5Am to the sound of “howling monkeys.” After a glass of wine we retired.
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