Our last full day in Costa Rica - and the most adventurous.
We started out the day by going to the Feria Verde de Aranjuez, an organic farmer's market in downtown San Jose:
It was much like the farmer's markets and craft fairs that we have here. Fruits and vegetables, cheese, chocolate, coffee, bread, etc. We wandered around, and bought a few things. Terry and I bought some pasta and pesto - amazingly, the pasta made it home almost intact. We cooked it with the pesto a few days after we got home, and it was quite good.
We also stopped at a booth where an enterprising young woman was selling jewelry made from colorful scales from butterfly wings. A sign assured us that the scales were harvested only after the butterflies had died natural deaths. The jewelry was quite lovely, and I bought a pair of earrings for Terry, who then sent me back to buy another pair for her friend Beatriz.
We then set off on a long cross country drive to Selvatura Park for a canopy tour. This is one of several tourist sites in Costa Rica where you walk on hanging bridges through the treetops of the rain forest. Don, who by his own admission is terrified of heights, elected to skip this adventure, so we dropped him off at the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica.
This time, I'm going to show the map first:
As you can see, it was a very long drive, and we ran into some road construction which slowed us down. As a result, we were late for our scheduled tour, but we called ahead and they assured us there would be no problem.
Take a look at the map, and notice the far westernmost point, where the route leaves the major highway One. Notice that shortly after that point, the route gets very squiggly. From that point on, the road is a narrow, steep, twisting, unpaved road - mostly gravel, but a dirt road in some places.
Now, as a rule, I don't mind driving on roads like that. My family has a history of adventurous driving on such roads - in fact, I often refer to them as "Almy roads." But this one just went on and on AND ON! By the time we got to Selvatura, I had had enough. To make life even more fun, it had started to rain.
We met our guide, Tony:
That contraption he's carrying is a small telescope, which he would use on occasion to point out wildlife among the treetops:
As it happened, though, we didn't see very much wildlife. There are apparently several species of birds and animals that spend their entire lives in the treetops, and never come down to the ground. However, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to see any of them on any given day - the animals, after all, aren't on the company payroll, and don't perform on command. This is the real world, not Sea World.
We did, however, see a swarm of butterflies - in fact, one flew right by my face. And at one point, Tony spotted a hole, and took a small twig and poked it into the hole - and this is what came out:
There were eight hanging bridges, of varying lengths - this is picture of the longest one:
Here are some pictures of us on the bridges:
Here are a couple of pictures of the view from some of the bridges:
...and some pictures looking down to the ground below:
Not recommended for the faint of heart. Although the pictures really don't capture the distance.
Tony pointed out many of the plants, including this one, which he said was the second oldest plant in the Americas:
...referring to the plant at the bottom of the picture, with the rounded leaves. And then, of course, he pointed out the oldest plant in the Americas:
I took his word for it. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of either plant.
He also pointed out this plant, which bears the colorful Spanish name "Labias Calientes" - literally, "Hot Lips." The name comes from the fact that the flowers bear a resemblance to a pouty pair of women's lips (think Angelina Jolie... or Betty Boop). Unfortunately, you can't really see that in this picture:
At one point, I was intrigued by this tiny mushroom growing out of a crack in a fallen tree:
Of course, the several bridges were connected by trails:
...and stairs:
So poor Terry was suffering again.
A brief digression: Terry and Guillermo and I all belong to the same choral group, the Angel City Chorale. At rehearsal one night, during the break, one woman asked me if Terry and Guillermo were my wife and son! So ever since then, this has been a running joke among the three of us - he'll call us Mom and Dad, and we'll call him son. (Just for the record: he's not.)
The reason I mention this is that, at one point on the tour, Tony and Guillermo stepped off one of the bridges, and Terry and I were further behind, because Terry was walking slowly, and Tony said to Guillermo, "Let's wait for your parents!"
I can't figure out why so many people think that Terry and I are Guillermo's parents - he's so obviously Hispanic, and we're so obviously not.
Anyway - go back and take another look at the map. Notice there's an alternate route - highway 606, running south from Selvatura, passing through the town of Monteverde. Going back, I decided to take this road, in the hope that it would be a better road than the one we came in on.
It wasn't. Except for a short stretch of pavement as we went through Monteverde, it was just as bad. Gravel, all the way back to Highway One. And this time, I was driving in the dark. By the end of the drive, I was saying "I want pavement!!" To make life even more exciting, we passed this wreck on the road:
On the way back, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese food in Costa Rica - at least, at the restaurant we ate at - turned out to be much the same as at home, but not quite. The flavors were subtly different. Also, the chicken curry dish we ate had French fries in it! Part of the challenge was reading the Spanish menu and trying to figure out what the dishes were. I was especially amused by the "Tacos Chinos" - or Chinese Tacos. That's what they call egg rolls! Which actually makes sense, when you think about it.