August 19, 2009: Rara Avis

Owen: I don’t have much time to type because there are no power outlets in Rara Avis. We get our light from kerosene lanterns and sleep under mosquito nets. This morning, we woke up early, and got on a boat. We floated for about an hour, and saw a couple spider monkeys! After that, we got on two buses and headed to a restaurant for lunch. It was very expensive, but tasty nonetheless. During the lunch, the rain came fast and hard. We traveled a little further to the Rara Avis base camp to get rubber boots, store our big bags, and get on the tractor. They call this the “Tractor Massacre”. It was a very harsh and bumpy ride, over mud covered rocky terrain.

We were on the tractor for about 3 hours, and then hiked for the next 1.5 hours through the thick of the jungle. I couldn’t look at much more than my feet, because the walk was so muddy and unpredictable. When we arrived at the hotel entrance, we crossed a swinging bridge over a rushing river. We arrived to the lobby of the camp, had a cup of hot cocoa, and got situated in our rooms. The entire group then headed for dinner, which was amazing. I ate way too much. After dinner we discussed plans for the following day. Sean, Liam and I, along with what seems to be the majority of the group plan on waking up at 6 o’clock and going on a 5 hour long hike to the waterfall, but we will see how many people actually show up…

Liam: When we got to our room in Rara Avis, we found a huge grasshopper sitting on the wall. One of the rangers of the park came to our room and took the insect outside. It was weird trying to figure out the kerosene lantern that is our only source of light. I have never used one before and it took us a little while to turn it on. From the dim light of the lantern and the beams of our headlamps, we had to get our things ready for the early morning that we will have tomorrow. Hopefully the weather clears up by tomorrow so that our hike will be enjoyable; today it has been raining on and off all day. I’m off to bed now so I can get up at the early hour of 6.

raining on and off all day. I’m off to bed now so I can get up at the early hour of 6.

Sean: It seems our string of luck with the weather finally ran out today. It has been a wet one! As usually I really enjoyed the early morning boat ride from tortuguero. They spider monkeys were very cool, probably the most active monkeys we have seen so far. They were swinging all around in the tree.

Im not sure if the boys mentioned this, but today we had to pack only our day bags for the next few days. It was a difficult task to get all of our necessary items into our days packs.

The tractor ride was very entertaining. I cannot even believe the tractor made it up most of the mountain. I would not even consider our route a road. It was more of an area devoid of vegetation. There were huge boulders and large mud pits. Multiple times everyone had to get out and walk for a while so the driver could get going as fast as possible. At one point, it took about 40 minutes to make it over a rock and we all stood and watched as the tractor screamed up the rocks only to fall back down and have to try again. However, the most disappointing aspect of the drive up is that we did not have our cameras easily assessable. We were not able to take pictures of the toucans, green macaws, or king vultures we saw en route to Rara Avis. All of these birds are usually difficult to see. Our guide Danny was very excited about seeing a few of them, it was the first time I have really seen him get that way.

After dinner, as the boys typed their portion of the blog, I went on a night hike with the camp operator, Joshua. It was not the greatest night hike I have ever been on but we managed to see a green anole, a stick bug, many spiders, and a few tiny frogs. I need to mention that I spotted as much of the wildlife for the group as Joshua did.