Jungle Sounds in the Night
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2012
1
4
21
Trip End
Feb 21, 2012
Where I stayed
Hacienda Pozo Azul Tent Suites
What I did
Hacienda Pozo Azul
La Virgen de Sarapiqui, Heredia, Costa Rica
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Clare, my roommate, and I both got up earlier than the alarm for our late morning. Had breakfast, packed up, took my bag to the lobby and worked on a few more photos before leaving.
We have a bus with driver Manual, who will be with us until Cano Negro near the Nicaraguan border. We drove through a lovely cloud forest landscape with windy roads, wisps of cloud on the tops of the mountains and lush vegetation. It was through a national park the name of which I do not recall (Braulio Carrillo National Park). Then we stopped at Sarapiqui at a supermarket for picnic supplies and breakfast for tomorrow morning if we wanted and a replacement for DEET insect repellant. After a bit we reached the Poza Azul Adventure Center where we signed up for various afternoon activities and we had lunch on the deck overlooking the Sarapiqui River. I had a wonderful ceviche with tostones - not sure about the name - but they were the double fried plantain patties. I ate too much and found it hard to do my nature walk.
Of the activities, I decided to do the canopy or zip-lining in Nicaragua, the horseback riding somewhere else, the rafting I had done in the Nile, so I chose the nature walk because Lou said the guide was very knowledgeable about plants. Rolando was very knowledgeable and seemed very excited about what he was telling us. I can't seem to recall much of it though; there was too much. We saw a number of poisonous plants - one had a sap that was very toxic to people but some animal was fine with it. He found us a frog after much looking around the frog pond. We saw lots of heliconia, banana and banana-relative trees. There was a garden where there were vegetables and fruit trees. Some of the fruits were extraordinary looking. Unfortunately, most of the fruit doesn't ripen until April. We went into a butterfly enclosure and saw quite a few butterflies. Along the path there were lots of ginger plants with flowers - so beautiful. I could have taken dozens of photos. I did. There was also a heliconia plant with fuzzy parts. Amazing and so nice to touch. I think we were not supposed to be touching things in case they were toxic. We also saw some trees with huge grapefruit and walked on a suspension bridge over the river. That was fun.
It has started raining as we left the center to go to our campground for "glamping" as Lou calls it. I think I just heard a howler monkey - the ones that sound like a rusty drain. Clare just pointed out all the noises around our tent. We have a wonderful platform tent, with electricity, wi-fi, two double beds and an attached bathroom with shower. In addition, there is a big deck with two chairs and a log table. We brought up our bags - not an entirely easy thing - and got settled before our picnic dinner. We have to be careful because there are mosquitoes here.
The dinner was wonderful- lots of foods: a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and carrots, palm hearts that I loved, some tuna in tomato sauce, a chili pickle, cold cuts, cheese, chips and dip and more. We had beer and juice to drink and I got to talk to several different people - whose names unfortunately I didn't get - I guess we are past introductions. After dinner, we stayed and chatted for a while. I left before Clare. I read a bit and then turned off the light and listened to all the night noises. The howler monkeys were out in full force.
