We go hiking in the rain forest at Harvey’s Place and visit Casa Orquideas (House of Orchids)
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At some point in the night we headed into Costa Rican waters which put us back an hour in time zone (and bought us an extra hour of sleep). I was awakened by the sound of the engines reversing as we came to a stop in a very pretty little bay. The sun was just coming up (5am local time). We thought this was the first place we were going but it turned out just to be a stop for customs and immigration. A bit later, we headed off again to Harvey’s place.
Harvey’s place is someone’s home. There are no roads, it’s only accessible by boat and next to a primary rain forest with trails. He lets (I’m sure for a small fee) Cruise West come and take people through. It’s a great spot, on a nice beach. And Harvey told me that for most of the year, it’s good for snorkeling, except when it’s really raining, then the water is too cloudy from the sediment in the river. They basically have two seasons here — the rainy season and the really rainy season. But it didn’t rain on us while we were walking.
It was very very muggy but the jungle/forest was really interesting. The tree roots have giant buttresses that hold them to the ground since there is very little topsoil. And there’s very little debris on the ground. Unlike a northwest forest, leaves that fall to the ground only last a few days because things decay so quickly. Our guide found a variety of palm tree where the baby stalks can be pulled up and the bottoms are heart of palm. I had a few bites. It was quite tasty.
About 10 minutes in we saw a Toucan. It was very far up in a tree and difficult to spot but I managed to get a (bad) picture of him. While we were looking at him though, our guide heard howler monkeys and we headed back the way we came to look for them. And sure enough, we saw about 5 of them jumping from branch to branch. Supposedly they don’t move around much but today they were. I guess they saw us because they got agitated and started howling, which is an amazing thing to hear. Very loud, almost like a dog howl. I wish I could have recorded it.
We stood and watched them for 5 or 10 minutes. Our guide told us all sorts of nasty stories about them. If a new male becomes dominant, he kills all the infants (so the tribe starts over with his progeny). If the first child is not a male, the female uses herbs and things to abort it (how she knows it’s a female is not known).
We walked through the rest of the forest without seeing any other creatures and returned back to Harvey’s back yard where we wandered around a bit. He was growing pineapples and red peppers, papaya and various other interesting plants.
We headed back to the boat, Marion before it started to rain, and me after, which means I got pretty drenched. We had lunch and then it was on to the Orchid Garden. This is another private residence where they grew 100 varieties of orchids and other plants (I think). I was busy taking pictures and not really listening to the talks. It was a beautiful garden very nicely landscaped. Unfortunately, it started to rain which meant breaking out the plastic bags to protect the camera. But I still got some nice photos.
We wandered around the grounds. While Audrey was crossing a little bamboo bridge, it gave way and she fell through it. It was more embarrassing than anything but she did end up with a good bruise on her shin. I imagine it’s hard to keep anything wooden from falling apart at some point in the rain forest. Unfortunately for Audrey, she hit it at just the right time. And in fairness to her, some much larger people had walked over it before she did.
After the tours it was back to the boat for dinner. We found out the zip line tour we had signed up for was canceled which didn’t break my heart. So we signed up for the “strenuous” tour tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t rain on us again, although the rain is quite pleasant. It’s the camera gear that’s the problem.
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