bueno. estamos listos.

I can't believe I havn't been on here since we hiked up Baru. Tyler would say he absolutely believes it because I tend to let time go in between posts until so much has stacked that I can't remember any of it..this may be true. I think he is so "faaayast" at blogging cause he can cover less and get in and out of the internet cafe like a jungle cat..very sneaky..very fast..undetected..few ticks..

The day after we hiked up Baru we got scootin' and packed all of our gear up to..as Tyler would say.. "hit the roooad". What he failed to mention about Baru was our unique experience actually getting to the trailhead. The morning we went out, we walked a few kilometers to, with great luck, be picked up by a worker heading up the hill to work practically at the park entrance. He gave us a local tour of the farms and waterfalls on the way up. Pretty awesome, yeah? After he drops us..only 3km away from the park..anOTHER truck immediatly picks us up and takes us all the way. This was nice cause it was a steep mother, this road. We hike in a half an hour and realize we are going down hill too much for a few fellas that intend on clawing their way to the top. We ask a dazed farmer..the only person in the middle of nowhere foothills panama volcano and turns out we were certainly not heading up..and no trails existed that would lift us to the peak upon which we wished greatly to be nestled. We walked back to the ranger station( the fact that it was shut down and the Baru summit hike is the most popular should have been a clue....eep) and find a farm owner who just happened to be heading to the OTHER park entrance where his other farm was. We got yet anOTHER ride..saw some amazing countryside and got a tour with a local whose family roots are buried deep into the hills of this refreshing mountain town we have come to love. We hiked up. it was "Good. Great. Grand! No yelling on the bus!" eh?? anybody? movie quote.

Anyway...the road we were on initially(confusing it for the path up the hill) was the Trail of the Quetzales. This connects our town to this smaller town of Cerra Punta. We hiked into the forest and camped along the trail. WONDERFUL. We made it out with out ever actually seeing this bird..I think it is made up at a talked up tourist trap..everyone wants an eyefull... I won't buy it. There is NO Quetzal! :) When we got out of the park we ate at a, should be illegal, bakery that moved my emotions and went up to David where we caught a bus to the Caribbean Coast.

We headed out to Bocas Del Torro, some islands off the coast. The first day was rainy. We have had job offers rolling in like CRAZY lately..so we sat up in the hotel and people watched and took care of some bidness back home. Next day we bussed out to the Boca Del Drago. There was this AWESOME beach nearly inFESTED with starfish. We took a snorkel under water and it was insane. Within 20 feet..like 20 starfish..all hanging out..possibly planning a barbeque or getting ready for softball practice..so many...a league.

We spent a few nights on this Big Island and a few nights on the less populated Bastimento Island. You can cut through the jungle to get to beautiful yellow sand beaches. Wizard beach was good for surf watching and had a wicked rip current that sucked you out little by little while you weren't paying attention. Tyler was diving into waves as if the trials for The US Olympic Swimming team were hosting trials on that island the very next day...look out for him on the tube...he'll be that guy in red, white, blue and blonde all over moving very quickly on slick surfaces and laughing over the sound system.

 We also took a lengthier hike the next day to Red Frog beach. Named, I suppose, after the tiny poisonous red frogs that inhabit the area above sand line. The rip was even stronger here..strong enough that it scared me Big Time. These kids were trying to show us red frogs(that was had been hopping over, on the hike in, like bananas in a Mario Kart race track) for money. We did not give them this and they through fruit and flower pods at us from a safe distance.... bunch of poos.

Bastimento was the BOMB. Great way to relax before the last city of our whole trip. We spent the day in

 transit to Panama. We hung out in David(2nd largest city in the country) for half of the day so we could sleep on the bus and dip out of buying a hotel. David was actually pleasant...busy cities seem busier from the bus station..I was happy we left that to kill the time. We hung out in the plaza and ate icecream and brownies and went to see a movie. Yeah Denzel! whoop whoop! Nothing better than seeing the timeless Mister Washington than doing it with a bag of edible loot. We were like the fattest people ever..Tyler bought a big bag of drinks and candy bars and popcorn for the movie and I made little progress with my cough and snap techniques while drinking my canned rootbeer... Anybody want to see a movie?? I talk alot..but I could use the practice at sneakishly opening tops in fast action scenes...

We got the midnight bus and woke up in Panama City, the best capitol city in Central America!! I can't believe that people might just pass through this place. We lOVEd it. We stayed in Casco Viejo. This was originally Panama City before the Canal. Now it is an active remains in decay and reconstruction. Really 80 percent of the buildings are gutted with these standing shells of once hopping eateries and churches and apartments. It had a really nice to feel to it and we scoff at the idea of what a brochure of this part of the city will look like in 10 years. I want it to never change.

We went and saw the Panama Canal!!! That was cool...we tried to watch the locks through the fence but in this city you may as well be back in the states. 'Cause ain't NOTHIN' free! We went in the museum and went to an observation deck to watch the Miraflores Locks in action. These are 1 or 3 sets of locks on the whole canal. They are used to higher from and lower boats to sea level from the ol' canal. Look it up!! It's actually really interesting and this engineering marvel plays a Goliath role in World Trade. AAAND..we saw some big boats! whoop! It was kinda like a ball game..everyone in the stands with hotdog and beer in hand...Panama Canal. Check.

Our last night we walked around the old wrecked glamorous part of the city we were staying in and glanced across at the vast city skyline. We walked around the narrow streets dodging the great street kitty population and looking through the doorways of old hollow buildings.. last day in town we took a bus downtown to Panama Viejo..where only ruins of a city exist..half stone walls..lone standing church arches.. we wandered around until about dark and grabbed a crammed bus to the airport. The plane was delayed..we said goodbye with a fairwell dinner of crackers and beans...a trip favorite and drink bad water from the tap. **sigh** its been good!!!

I am writing from a Crown Plaza in Florida. Our flights got all jumbled up and the airlines put us in a hotel for the day and bought our meals! All this free soap and coffee!! We are draggin our heals to get to Chicago but I think my sweet Aunt Carole with be thankful that we could scrub somewhere else. Tyler says the hotel is like a decompression zone for us to sterilize our things and bodies and be , ever so gently, released back into the over sanitary clean cut states. We'll be up there tonight Carole, PROMISE!! Here comes the family, friends and states tour before our jobs start!!

Central America. A success. Stay tuned we are gonna try and keep this blog up.

Oh yeah..and we decided to take a breather from Colorado and try a Park that's new for the both of us. Our next adventure lies in between the peaks in Grand Tetons National Park.

Both working trails!! *sigh of relief* wonderful.

-rachel.

Corcovado

Corcovado sort of redeemed Costa Rica for us. We had been slightly unimpressed with certain parts of the country so far and Corcovado is painted as THE place to see wildlife along with a beautiful landscape, and it did not dissapoint. We woke up early in Puerto Jiminez to catch the early morning 4wd public transport out to Carate, from there it's a 4km walk along the beach into the park. The park is somewhat well known and there aren't many spaces available for camping, so all we could swing was 1 night at the Sirena ranger station, a 20km walk from Carate. Here is Rachel enjoying the bumpy ride out and a picture of the beach on the way to the park entry.










Corcovado was called ¨the most biologically intense place on earth¨ by National Geographic, and it quickly became apparent why. It seemed that every couple hundred feet we walked we saw a new insect, bird, animal or flower. In sections the beach was literally crawling with hermit crabs, by the thousands, a sheet of moving shells on top of the sand. Rachel said the sound of their legs reminded her of the sound pop rocks make in your mouth. These creepy spiders were also everywhere.











The hike was a flat 13 miles that went between beach and land, but there was so much to see along the way that it took us about 7 hours to walk to camp. Like coconuts full of hermit crabs and flowers.

Coatis and Tapirs (an odd sort of animal with a pig body, a flacid nose and elephant like eyes)

Cool trees

Spiky trees and soaring monkeys

Snakes (either a boa constrictor or the venomous pit viper) and beaches

Scarlet Macaws and forests

Whoo, this is a good example of a picture being worth a thousand words, or 160,000 words. Corcovado was AMAZING, nuff' said.

After we headed into Panama up into Boquette. It feels so nice to be back in the mountains, the heat on the Costa Rican coast was becoming unbearable. Yesterday we went up Volcan Baru, the highest and only volcano in Panama. The clouds actually cleared a bit and we had somewhat of a view, which I guess here is pretty rare. I´ll post pics when I´m able to upload them.

Costa Rican Havoc on yo wallet!

Man it is really strange how your mind just has to change gears at every border. It is a huge change going from Nica to Tico(That is what CR natives call eachother). New currency and new prices...Tyler likes to throw out how many Cordoba or Pesos something would be when we start thinkin its cheap here. The prices are pretty close to the states. But thats why Tyler is the banker...if you know him well. You get it.

Somehow we have managed to get to a ton of National Parks and bus all over this country in every Pacific nook and stay, for the most part, at or under budget. One thing different about Costa Freaka is the lack of Latin American culture busting at the seams and street corners. You get hit with a splash here and there but we have changed exploration gears also and are sticking to the hills.

Before we left Alajuela we took a trip up to Volcan Poas. One unique thing about Poas is that the bus takes you pretty much to the crater. Another is that we visited it on the first day of rain that the country has seen in over 3 months! We were SOAKed. It was super windy and cloudy. We hiked to the 2 lookouts but didnt get to see much further than 30 feet in front of us. We DID really scare some guy while we were hiding, under some braches, from the rain. That was pretty awesome. The visitor center was pretty cool and offered several comical English translations. It also put a stamp on the fact the the Japanese are really putting there fingers in the Central American cookie jar. There was a wall dedicated to natural disaster prevention and other related articles with photos and examples provided from Japan. Random(I mean...unexpected :)). We see Japanese companies often. Those fellas are just popping up all over the place! OH and I am pretty sure that I was fairly close to or was experiencing hypothermia. I have NEVER in my life been so wet and cold and unable to warm myself. My lips were purple and it kind of made us nervous. Tyler doesnt know I keep purple lipstick in my purse for occasions where coffee is expensive and we end up sharing it...oh gawsh he is too sweet. *insert maniac laugh image of fingertips tapping those of opposite hand*

After Poas we collected our tent and things from our hostel and booked it to Puntarenas. I need everyone to understand our sleeping situation in Alajuela. The hostel was ran by a Dustin Hoffman look-a-like from Spain whom I am certain was, at one point in his life, a professional body builder and lives life as if he is being filmed for some sort of an Eat Right/Live Right/Move Right type of video. He was always in short gym cloths and had really pump you up kind of music playing all the time. We were his first ever campers and this made him laugh everytime he looked at us or our tent in his perfect garden space. He was obsessed with the garden and watered it as often as he ate...which was all day. We stayed mostly dry. Just having him available to observe was worth the sprinklers.

We got into Puntarenas late and used it as a launching point to Montezuma. Puntarenas is referred to as the Pearl of the Pacific as its a port city at the tip of a 800km long by 100-600m wide peninsula. Cozy a nice for not much more than a morning walk through to the port. We caught the hour long ferry in the morning and bused a few hours to get to the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. We found an awesome quiet place to camp out of town right on the beach. The camping was actually the best part of the town. We had a wood burning stove, 2 chairs and a table for the beer. No rain fly. Fell asleep and woke up to waves crashing on the rocks. We walked the beach and found these nooks where maby 100 crabs or more were scurrying away from us. We also hiked out to this waterfall that had a swimming hole. Tyler would relay this as a [hippy dip].

We missed our bus out to the  Reserva Natural Absoluta Cabo Blanco so we walked the 3 miles and hiked around the reserve for the rest of the day. It is the oldest protected wilderness area in Costa Rica and was hot and sticky. We saw a ton of monkeys and read alot about the regrowth of the area and different plant species that are abundant. We hiked down to the beach and found a ton of floundered lobster and some fish..maybe a result of the red tide this coast is enduring. A man from the area said its an annual algae bloom that causes the water to turn brown and pollutes the water affecting many sea creatures. It also keeps surfers out of the water and kept us out as well. This was a really cool bat house in the reserve.

We bussed back up to the ferry..sliced through the red sea back to Punta and caught a bus as it was literally pulling out over to Quepos. Not much for cheap sleeping and smelled like doody. We bused up to Manuel Antonio(named after the National Park we went to visit) We were pointed all over the coast for seriously a few miles to find a camping. Ya wont let us pay to camp? Fine! We slept for free on the beach and made a fire to cook dinner over. While Tyler built our fire for coffee I discovered my skill in cracking open coconuts. We drank a toooon of milk!! We also camped right by a lagoon where Tyler saw a crocodile and was sprawling with monkeys!! We found out in the morning we were pretty much sleeping in the Park. We walked into the park via the rocky beach and Tyler got whistled at by the guard!! We decided we saw enough and ate some beans and tortilla and left. we got to look at the beach park from our breakfast spot anyway. PRETTY!

Waiting for the bus to San Isidro we got emails from Denali National Park!!! Both of us!! It seems like job offers are just rolling in now and giving us alot of hope for the future!! Ive been contacted since by Yellowstone and before, both of us, by a few parks in South Dakota. After the rush and excitement of the offers we slowed down and decided to stick with Black Canyon. We get everything we want and all the time in the world to play in the mountains. We win!

From San Isidro we bused up to San Gerardo de El General and camped there as a base to hike Cerro Chirripo. It sits at 3820m as the highest peak in the country. We camped 2 nights in town so we could reserve a spot at the lodge up on the mountain. This gave us a whole day to sink wash cloths and lounge by the river..its nice to have a sec to slow down since we are hitting Costa Rica so fast and hard!

We left the second morning and realized we had mixed up hike info and the hike was actually about twice the distance we had thought it was!!! It was about 7000 foot elevation gain. Alooot of up hill, hah. We got to the lodge in the afternoon which was super chilly!! It was too late in the day to summit so we were stranded at the lodge to drink boxed wine and eat beans...what a sad life. The next morning we summited and hiked back into town. Our hike was about 17 miles that day but the view from the top was worth the push. The summit was beautiful and private and we ate about half of the grocery store when we got back in town!!! After a super long day of bussing yesterday we are back to the HOT coast on the Osa Penisula.

We will be backpacking through part of Corcovado National Park and getting ready to head into Panama in a few days..We found a good place to camp here in Puerto Jimenez...complete with a kitty, a few cute dogs, nice bathroom, plug to cook and a brah surfer body mind and soul healing sort of guy for Tyler to laugh at...we have it all......ahhh Costa Rica -rachel.

Into Costa Rica

Our last couple of days in Nicaragua were spent reaching the area of El Castillo, located on the Rio San Juan 2 hours or so downstream from the city of San Carlos. Our main attraction to this area was a fort that was built here by the Spanish in 1673, Castillo De La Immaculado Concepcion, along with the natual beauty surrounding the fort. The fort itself was awesome and virtually empty, I guess the 2 hour boat ride is somewhat of a deterrent for the casual visitor. The museum was great as well, with english subtitles! The area along the Rio San Juan has a ton of history, the fort was built to prevent pirate attacks on the city of Granada, and the river for a very long time was going to be the site of a canal linking the Caribbean with the Atlantic.

The town itself was kinda cool, its only reached by boat so there were no cars or anything like that. We didn´t have much time to spend there as we were about 10 days over on our visa already so it was a quick trip down to visit the Castle and back to San Carlos.












San Carlos doesn´t have much to offer, but it was kind of a nice town to spend the night in before leaving for Costa Rica the next day. We got a pretty cheap room with a nice balcony, it was about the only Hospedaje in town that wasnt "full", this is what they tell you when it´s basically only used for by the hour activities or to house poor local people. When shower time came though, I was all stripped down with towel in hand, I tried to turn on the water and nothing happens. So I go in the next stall (it´s a common area bathroom, typically in cheap hospedajes) and try there, nothing again. I tell the lady working and she hands me a 5 gallon bucket, which she motions me to dip into a 50 gallon barrel of water to fill up. So a bucket shower it was, and another extremely normal situation to be in in Nicaragua.

The border crossing into Costa Rica was by boat. Immigration was a breeze and the border agent overlooked our 10 day overstay, which would of been a $2 per day fine (money fixes everything down here). There is supposed to be a CA-4 agreement between Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador where one entry into one of these countries gives you a visa for all. Well, it doesn´t quite work out so nicely, as none of the borders all agree on...well anything. And all are looking to make a few extra bucks off of you anytime you cross a border, money that literally goes into the agents pocket. This time, we win. Anyways, the crossing was pretty beautiful, and actually went across a waterway that people were paying to take a tour on! We saw a couple monkeys and some birds, and possibly a crocodile. Getting into Costa Rica took longer than probably any other entry we´ve had, but was still pretty fast. We got on a bus and headed for La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal.

It´s a different world here in Costa Rica. Buses run on schedule and on time, toilet seats are not considered a luxury item and I had my first hot shower in 7 weeks. Times are good down here. We spent the night in La Fortuna at a place called Gringo Petes, the cheapest in town but ran by a stinky old man. In the morning we bussed out to the volcano.

Volcan Arenal was one of the most active volcanoes in the world up until a couple of years ago. A hiker, her daughter and a guide were killed in 2000 by an explosion of lava or something. In 1968 it erupted and destroyed 3 small villages in the area, and it has had multiple eruptions after. It is now a National Park, but due to it´s history, only a couple of trails lead around the base of it and there is no entry beyond a certain point. But we walked around the trails and watched it for awhile, it didn´t look like the clouds would clear but they did, and we got a nice view of the top which was belching just a little bit of steam from it.

The bus system in CR isn´t as good as the rest of Central America, in terms of frequency and availabilty. Most likely because private vehicles are pretty common down here, while they are virtually unheard of in other CA countries. So instead of waiting for the next bus (5 hours) we caught a ride with a nice man and his son, and saw these awesome critters along the way! They are Coatis, or known as Pizotes down here and are part of the racoon family. These ones were very friendly and came right up to the car, the result of too many tourists feeding the wildlife.

With one more ride and a bus, we made it all the way to Liberia, the door to Rincon De La Vieja National Park. We lucked out and found a place to camp in town, on the lawn of a Bar/Hotel/Restaurant for only 2 bucks! The lawn was covered in mangos as well, but I took great care so that I wouldn´t contract the mange again. Rachel said the Karaoke in the bar ran until 4 in the morning, but I slept right through it.

The park is a bit difficult to get to without your own vehicle, but we caught an early morning bus to a nearby village and started walking up the road. We got to a guy guarding a little yellow gate that said 700 for admission, about $1.25 U.S. It supposedly is a private road, although it is the one that leads to the park. The price is per person, and the guy expected us to pay it just to walk through. After about 10 minutes of hassling him he gave up, turned his back to us and just waved us through. We win, again.

Rincon De La Vieja is often compared with Yellowstone because of the thermal activity that goes on there. Once we got in the park and got ready, we started our hike up to the summit of 2 craters. Didn´t see a whole lot going up, a couple of monkeys I think. Once we got above tree line the views got really good, and the summit was incredible.  Here is Rachel on a cool ridge line, and me showing how happy I am to be on top of an active volcano.













The one summit had a lake that must of had quite a bit of activity going on in it, Rachel described the smell as a "toxic tuna melt" and when the wind changed and the steam hit you I likened it to walking in on someone taking a really hot shower while eating an egg sandwhich. The fumes from it actually burned your eyes, it was pretty weird. Here is Rachel peering into the abyss.

That night the rangers for the park let us camp in the parking lot as long as we packed up before they opened, awesome! We spent the rest of our evening seeing how we could combine the food we had into a dinner, we came up with the double decker refried beans and onion with black pepper and ketchup sandwhich. Delicious.

Next morning we went on a short loop trail that passed all sort of thermal features; fumaroles, mud pots, a mini volcano and other sorts of bubbling stews.













Since our time in CR is pretty limited, I sort of mapped out a plan for our 3 weeks here. We´ve been making pretty good time and are ahead of schedule already so we decided to come and visit Volcan Poas, stay tuned.