Costa Rica finally

We had a great time in Costa Rica this spring. A geology professor at school does a continuing education class nearly every other year and we got to go along this time. He has the director of a private field station organize nearly everything so we got to do some really fun things in locations that weren't crowded by Americans.

We started out travelling around the country and our first stop was at a local market to practice our nonexistent Spanish. The produce was worth it though.



We were lucky enough to be around for an oxcart festival/competition.







Of course we were the only gringos around and so we got lots of funny looks. These folks take some serious pride in their carts though so they were all very nice about letting us photograph them and their art.

We spent the second half of our trip at a field station located on the Pacific side and had to take a rather interesting boat trip to get there. I don't have any photos but we got to see flying fish on the trip and when we took the boats out again to a national park.

Well, it was all very lovely and scenic until we had to land. Apparently they had not seen such large waves in quite some time. One of the folks helping the group ended up underneath the boat at one point. The worst thing that happened is that several folks got VERY wet and had their pride bruised but it was one of the more "interesting" parts of the trip. Yes interesting would be a euphamism here.





The field station and surrounding areas were great for nature photography.

The sloths are fuzzy because I had to take the photo through a spotting scope using my point and shoot:








Check out the bit of red in the coati's mouth. It's eating a crab.



We did try to be a bit educational and trapped bats. Often you can just set up a stationary net and the bats will just fly into it because they can't see it. However, the bats we were interested in live in caves that open onto the ocean so we had to stand there and actually toss the net over the poor things since there was no place to set a net. Marius was particularly entertaining to watch.



We spent one day out at a national park. I went on the long hike where we were supposed to see lots of wildlife, while Marius went on the shorter hike that was supposed to end in a swim. It turns out Marius got the better deal but there was a price. The group had two massive trees fall over and land right behind them on the trail.



No one was hurt and it was great hearing how much closer the trees fell to the group as the trip progressed.

There was also some shopping of course and they did a really nice job of making sure we got to see things being made before we bought them.



Including the organic coffee we got:



I never planned on going to Costa Rica because it all seemed very touristy to me based on the trips that others have taken. I have to say that Kelly (the geo prof) and the local guides did a great job of minimizing the touristy crap and we had a great time.