Dear Friends and Family,

Well, we left behind the gallo pinto and lovely coffee when we returned to California last night but we gained our own bathrooms (which at my age is not to be undervalued!). Matt and I had a fabulous time while we were in Costa Rica, thanks mostly to the lovely, lovely Ticos (Costa Ricans) we met at every turn. The nature and wildlife there is a striking calling card, but the real treasure are the Ticos.... 

After my last letter to you all, Matt and I headed into downtown San Jose for a little R and R. We holed up at the Cacts Hotel to watch seemingly endless Seinfeld and Frasier shows, ate only at Pizza Hut (which are JAMMED by Ticos, amazingly enough) and washed all our underpants. Heaven indeed. 

At the base of the park, we headed due east and entered another world...the world of the black Ticos! All of the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica was settled almost exclusively by blacks from the Caribbean in the late 1800's when they were hired from Jamaica and other Caribbean isles to work on the immense banana plantations by the Bananeros (rich banana barons) and it still retains a largely black flavor and atmosphere. Actually until 1949, the blacks were not considered citizens nor were they allowed to travel over the mountains to the "white" part of Costa Rica. I was cluck-clucking at this racism until I realized that CR was way more progressive than the US because our color barrier was not even nipped at until the early 60's in our country. Anyway, the Atlantic/Caribbean side of Costa Rica looks different (sugar shack, Jamaican style architecture), smells different (banana, banana, banana) and sounds different (English is first language of black ticos, which is why so many of the official tourism guides are black).

The land is flat and a dense humidity floats over the thousands of hectares of banana plantations. On the way out to our destination, Calixto stopped at a banana processing plant so that we could see how our Chiquitas are picked, packed and processed....The HUGE bundles of bananas ride a mini-roller coaster in from the fields, each "mano" (what we consider a bunch) protected from bruising by foam pads...they look like the women at the beauty parlor, with little pads sticking out all over. At the processing shed, each mano is cut from the huge bundle and thrown into a large shallow pool of water. They float over to women who sort them for export-quality bananas versus domestic consumption; the domestic ones are tossed overhead to a moving line while the export-quality are carefully and tenderly shifted to a new soaking pool. There they are washed a bit more and then enrobed in plastic and packed into those large boxes we see in our grocery stores. Some sort of chemical (anti-ripening perhaps) is sprayed on the bananas just prior to them being wrapped. Then the boxes are shipped to the US (and other places) via boat...no wonder they were so green when they were packed!

Now a friend of mine told me that since we were in a tourism van with a guide we missed the transportation experience of the local bus. When you take the local bus out to the coast, the bus stops at the entrance to the plantation (there is no way to avoid transiting through a plantation as they are so vast...), everyone must get off and walk over this special pad that disinfects your shoes and then, after the bus trip through the plantation, you must get off the bus again, and armed banana plantation police come on board the bus to search for stolen stuff. I have no idea what one would steal, going through the plantation, but there must be something to require such a stop. It sounded very controlled and fascist to me.

But then we got to Cano Blanco, which is the starting point for the next type of transport...down the canals. There are very few roads on the east coast of Costa Rica as all transport and communication happens on the canals. "Botes" (boats) and "lanchas" (launches) carry people, pigs, chickens, produce, furniture, magazines, beer (oh, thank God for beer!) and anything else that needs to be transported through the maze of mangroves. 

It is amazing! We got on this launch, sat down and proceeded to float by houses, trees, clouds, sloths, crocodiles, birds, trees, vines and other boats. It was a whole other world of tall, dense green foliage leaning out over the canal, broken only occasionally by a wooden house on stilts or a lone man in a boat fishing. The water was still, dark green and dense. The main canal was fairly wide, about 100 feet or so, but the canal we were headed for was the "quaint", narrow one visited by the tourist hotels.

We were dropped off at Cano Palma, the location of COTERC. COTERC is the Canadian Org. for Tropical Ecology and Rainforest Conservation...about 100 hectares of land purchased by caring Canadian scientists and naturalists who want to save a few meters of land from slash and burn. Tom Mason, the invertebrate curator at the Toronto Zoo, was our host, teacher, guide, walking encyclopedia and master guaro drinker....what a man! We joined a group of about 10 other crazy nature lovers for 5 days of night walks, day walks, bug talks, bird spotting and snake avoiding...and a few pina coladas on the side. It was an amazing experience...on our first night walk alone, we saw three fer-de-lance snakes! I was terrified....these brown-patterned snakes are among the world's most venomous. They are native to all of Costa Rica, but especially the low-lying wet parts, as in the COTERC property. (I later found out that Tom feels so strongly about protecting the native wildlife that when the local tico resort finds any fer-de-lance on their property Tom goes over to collect it to release it on COTERC land so that it won't be killed).

Perhaps that explains why one of the guests was bitten that day, eh? He was a 200-lb. man who while running (never, ever run in snake territory...it's an invitation for a bite) down the COTERC path, received a glancing bite from a baby fer-de-lance. At first he thought he had stepped on a palm spine and so he took some antibiotics and went to bed. When he woke up the next morning in pools of his own blood, he realized that he had been bitten. Eight vials of anti-venom serum later, he was okay, shaken, not stirred. Needless to say, Matt and I saw way more ground than sky as we watched every spot we placed our feet. If the man had been bitten by an adult fer-de-lance, he would have had 3 hours to get the serum before he died.

So that wild world was our life for 5 days. Every night one of the fish people (there were fish people, bat people, bird people and bug people there...we were the only non-scientist types) would show on the station's small TV the digital photos he had taken that day....lovely shots of poison-dart frogs, slaty-tailed trogons, hummers, spiders (BIG spiders...colorful spiders), moths, butterflies, orchids, fish, snakes (his favorite was the yellow eyelash viper, another venomous fellow), monkeys and lizards. We all crowded around the TV, a beer or guaro cocktail (local sugarcane moonshine that will knock 30 years off your life!) in our hand as we oooed and ahhhed his shots and commented about the particular critter, while sweat dripped off our foreheads and the fan turned lazily above us.

One of our favorite shots was a short video sequence he had shot of a lovely green basilisk lizard (the Jesus lizards that run across water? They REALLY do..it is amazing) bobbing its head first up and down, then back and forth and then up and down again. Now that particular lizard had given Matt a nasty bite earlier in the day, so the photographer added a bit of dialogue to the video. "Did you bite Matt today?" and the basilisk nods head up and down..."Are you sorry you did it?" and the basilisk shakes his head back and forth..."are you going to do it again?" and the basilisk nods head up and down....Matt cracked up every time he watched that...as did we all.

Anyway, way too many stories to tell. I just want you all to know that I did not feel compelled (as some of the more insane scientists did) to swim across the canal to get to the tico bar on the other side. I was heartily reassured that the caimans in the canal were not interested in biting or eating humans, but at my ripe age I have learned to be a bit skeptical of folks who can say the latin name of every frog within 1000 meters....so I boated across as sedately as Katherine Hepburn did in the African Queen, ignoring the verbal drubbing from the crazy Canadians.

Our flight back to civilization, er, I mean, San Jose, took place in a 5-seater Cessna....we took off in a torrential rainstorm from the Tortuguero airport (a stretch of dirt road) feeling as if we had been catapulted into the air by a very large rubber band. In a few minutes, however, our clothes were dry and we were in San Jose. In San Jose we were welcomed and "kipped out" by the Woodwards, good friends of my in-laws. Their home was beautiful and so clean that I stared somewhat ungraciously at its cleanliness when we arrived. No dirt on the floor? Sparkling counters? Automatic coffeemakers? A refrigerator that gleamed? After a wonderful breakfast (I hardly let my bottom touch their upholstered chairs, I was so afraid of contaminating them!) they opened their hearts all the way by letting us shower and wash our clothes there. There are no words to convey the luxury and kindness of those acts. I actually soaped every inch of my body twice in that warm (oh be still my heart) shower. And, soft, clean clothing! Oh, to dream! What kind, kind people. 

Our last 10 days in Costa Rica were spent with George and William, who arrived soon after our showers...lucky for them! We welcomed them with huge hugs, breathless accounts of our travels and some good margaritas and cold frescas. It was a delight to be reunited as a family after a month's absence...(that would be an understatement). We had fun visiting the deep southwest of CR, the Osa Peninsula together.

We hiked, swam, boated (Matt caught some really BIG fish on his first sport fishing outing) and watched scarlet macaws play in the treetops. But the best part was arriving by boat at the small, tico-owned resort we stayed at. No pier or wharf on this steep beach, so the boat driver just revved up the motor to about a jillion speed units and ran it straight into the beach. Just as I thought I was going to explode into nautical petrolbits, the boat surfed a wave, jumped into the air, and landed smoothly about 20 feet up the beach, on the sand. It took me 20 minutes to catch my breath...it was impressive. Of course, the safety precautions we received prior to the landing were very thorough..."Hold onto the edge".

Our time in Costa Rica ended with a fun raft trip down the Pacuare River (except for the oar that hit me in the chin when we were going over a rapid...I now have very purple bruise on the very tip of my chin. lovely.) We spent a night at a jungle lodge on the river which was absolutely amazing in its isolation and scenery. From there, it was back to the airport, back to the US, and best of all, back home.

Anyway, the journey is over and so are my emails. I hope that I haven't bored you or been a spam in your inbox. Thank you for letting me write to you about our experience, and for your replies. They meant a tremendous amount to both Matt and me. Thank you for your support and prayers and I look forward to seeing you soon (without my bruised chin, though).

Con carino,

Molly