Kayak Scott's Daily Adventure

The Beach at Manzanillo

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:38:51 +0000

We really did not have much of a plan for our last day on the Caribbean. Our trip through Puerto Viejo made us think that was not a great option, but enter the travel guide. A little reading on Kathy’s part and it looked like Manzanillo might be a little different. A couple of days before, after driving for several miles past Puerto Viejo we were thinking that it must be like an extension of the town all the way to the Panama border. Well, as often turns out, right about the place we turned around things changed and by the time we got to Manzanillo, it was completely different place. a wonderful sand beach with a coral reef right off shore, and coconut palms, and while you could rent a surf board there, it looked like a better place to kayak, which I did– $6 an hour and I spent a couple of hours playing in the surf on a sort of clunky sit on top Old Town kayak, but I was able to get it to surf. The tricky part was that the waves coming through the openings in the coral often changed directions and merged, so they came up unpredictably and quickly but that was all part of the fun, a few good runs and a lot of tipping over.

I spent a couple of hours playing in the surf at manzanillo

The snorkeling was pretty good here too. The water had about 30 feet of visibility which was surprising because there was a fair surf. I decided after looking at the water that it might be best if Grandma and Kathy stayed on shore . They seemed happy enough to sit on shore and read (that was pretty much Kathy’s plan for the day anyway). For me, there were plenty of reef fish, and I did manage not to cut myself on the coral, which in some places was exposed by the breaking waves. I have to get back here in August or September sometime when the sea is usually calm and the visibility much better.

Snorkeling at Manzanillo.

The little cabana we were staying in, was reserved for Saturday night when we booked it so we had to move to another place for our last night. We stayed at Kelly Creek Lodge, it was not a long move, maybe 100 yards. The Lodge is located right at the entrance to Cahuita National park. We were their only guests for supper, and they prepared a couple of large red snappers for us on the grill. Desert was a mango sundae with homemade chocolate sauce, however this home made sauce came from the cacao tree out back behind the lodge. It was so good that we cleaned out the little pitcher of extra sauce before we were done!

This is not the first mango sundae I have had, but it is the first to e the homemade chocolate sauce was made from the tree in the back yard.

This is what was left of the mango sundae, we even drained the little pitch of extra chocolate sauce.

Well, tomorrow we head back to Alajuela and then a flight home on Monday. Hummmm…. not sure I am ready for Iowa in February and Lent and all that is normal.

A Couple More Days in Cahuita

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 04:38:12 +0000

We have enjoyed our time in Cahuita. It has a nice beach, a national park, and the surfing here must not be as good as it is over in Puerto Viejo, because there are not so many surf boards and the associated culture here. There are a few over on the black beach but it is nothing like over there. We have come to appreciate the not so surfer focused towns in Costa Rica. Kathy spent some time on the beach and I hiked the trail along the shore. I saw 2 antbirds and saw why they are of such interest to real birders, what distinguishes them is really subtle and there are many of them to confuse!

This mother and baby sloth were in a tree just off min street in Cahuita.

We visited the sloth sanctuary. It was a worthwhile place, the baby sloths were cute, but I could not help but think they were being treated as cute animals for tourist to see and the staff to maintain. (apparently sloths raised in captivity do not do well in the wild, so they are maintained at the sanctuary). It seems that the center is really a place where people can see sloths. That seems a little strange to visit a center when they are so common around here. We got a close look at several wild sloths in the trees in Cahuita. One even went through the tree right above us while we were eating supper. We did learn at the sloth center that sloths only poop once a week and they come down from their tree to do it, so we were able to dine in peace. We did take a tour in a mangrove swamp (I actually did not see all that much mangrove), but it was a nice boat trip and we saw several birds that are new to my list.

We went on a birding hike that afternoon and I added about 18 species to my Costa Rica list. The best one was the white collared manakin. It is a brightly colored bird but it does not sit still for long, that with the strange cracking sound it makes with it wings made it a great find for me. Our guide kept pointing them out but for the longest time I either saw a quick bit of movement or could not even see what he was pointing out. Eventually one decided to stay put long enough for me to get my binoculars on it.

Grinding cacao to make chocolate.

The next day we went on a tour to a Bribri household that processes cacao in the traditional way. I am usually not all that interested in tours like this but this one was interesting, because our host was Bribri and she talked a lot about their culture. After the tour of their farm we took a hike to a nice waterfall, seeing both the green and black and strawberry poison dart frogs.

Poison dart frog.

Grandma Gloria at the waterfalls.

Late in the afternoon I found how helpful it is to have a local bird guide with you when you are birding in a place like this where so many of the birds are new to me. I spent a couple of hours by myself today but only saw 4 new birds that I was confident enough to Identify.

We have had some great seafood here. Every place we have eaten has been different but everything has been great. Our favorite is the coconut milk broth that is used in stew called rondon but seems to be the base of several other seafood dishes we had.

Calamari with Walter's famous coconut sauce,

Cahuita and the Coral Reef

admin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:23:06 +0000

Wednesday we went snorkeling off Cahuita national park. It is the only significant coral reef in Costa Rica. This is not really the best time of year to dive here as the water is a little cloudy. We had about 20 foot visibility, which is not too bad by Midwest USA standards. We saw the usual on this dive, nurse sharks, sting rays, and reef fish. The coral did not look quite as healthy as I might have hoped, but I imagine a reef right off of the mainland in a particularly vulnerable location. I am certainly not an expert on this though– I did see a couple of lion fish which was a treat for me!

Our boat taking us back out to the reef.

The reef is right off shore, but the national park requires that you take a local guide with you. This is probably to protect both the coral and the snorkelers. It would be easy to get cut on the shallower coral where the waves were breaking. It also creates a good source of employment in a town that looks to be pretty much dependent upon tourism. I have some video of the reef bu I am having troubling figuring out the video editing app onmy iPad

Kathy and Scott in the water at Cahuita National park.

Adolpho’s Garden Basalisks, Iguanas, and Long Clawed Crawfish

admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:14:59 +0000

A green basilisk lizard running across the surface of the water.

Today we walked around one of the lagunas to look for basilisk lizards. These are the lizards that run across the surface of the water when they are startled. We saw several and a even got an action shot of a couple!

We spend some time in the manager Adolpho’s garden today. They feed humming birds and fruit eating birds there in a near perfect setting. Colorful species come in faster then I could keep track of them, but slowly with our guide Didi’s help I started to recognize the males and females of the 16 different species that were coming and going at the feeders. The hummingbirdes are particularly hard for me because they are small, don’t sit still all that well and, there are 10 pages of them in my Birds of Costa Rica. some of these birds are absolutely stunning!

A golden hooded tanager at one of Adolpho's feeders

A scaly-breasted humming bird (I think).

A couple of scarlet rumpled tanagers having a shouting match over a piece of banana.

After watching the birds come to us Didi gave us a walking tour of Boca Tapada. By the river we saw some huge green iguanas, some must have been 20-30 pounders. It is surprising how much there is to a little town at the end of a really long and rough gravel road.

A big male green iguana.

We had lunch at a place outside of Boca Tapada, and feasted on long clawed crawfish from the river along with plantains and yucca, everything was excellent!

San Carlos River and Some Time in the Rain Forest Again

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Eye lash viper.

Fer-de-lance

Early in the morning we got a chance to see a couple of snakes that Brian Hauge caught recently in the forest. They were something to see! One was a bright Yellow eye lash viper, and the other was a small fer-de-lance. I used to be pretty much afraid of snakes, but I have to confess I really have been hoping to see a fer-de-lance, seeing as how it is one of the most venomous and when full grown largest poisonous snake in Central America. Brian says that a eye lash viper bite would be pretty serious too. It was also nice to see them with a skilled snake handler at the ready!

The boat was long and narrow, like an oversized canoe with a motor.

Main street in Boca San Carlos

Today we took a trip down the San Carlos River by power boat to the town of Boca San Carlos. The town is remote, there are not roads there so the main street in the town of about 150 is a sidewalk. There is an elementary school, a kindergarten, and a high school, a grocery store, and a bar. Nicaragua is right across the river so I tried a Nicaraguan beer, it was not too bad!

Black river turtle.

American Crocodile.

There were some interesting things to see and some interesting facts the our guide Didi shared with us. We saw American Crocodiles, black river turtles, amazon kingfishers, what fun! People fish for tilapia in the river, and trap freshwater “lobsters” (I think they are actually long clawed crawfish, but they are as big as a small lobster. The ones we ate were at least 10″ long).

In the afternoon we went into the rainforest with Brian. It was great to have a tour led by an ecology professor. It did not rain today so the poison dart frogs were a bit hard to find, but we did find 10 or so of the strawberry colored frogs.

We ended the day with another great Laguna del Lagarto dinner. An interesting thing about this lodge is that it is better known in Europe than it is in the USA. That seems strange to me because this is exactly the kind of place we like to visit best.

Strawberry poison dart frog

Laguna del Lagarto Revisited

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:24:45 +0000

A couple of years ago we came to Laguna del Lagarto Lodge on the recommendation of Alonso at Tropical Hostel in Alejuela. It was or first trip to Costa Rica and we thought the highlight of the trip was going to be the reservation that we had down at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula so we only spent a night and I have been wanting to get back ever since.

Grandma Gloria and Kathy at the overlook of Baja del Toro falls

We took the same route which brought us past the waterfalls at Baja del Toro, so we stopped to take a hike to the base of the falls and to have lunch. Grandma Gloria made it most of the way to the bottom but she paid for it with sore legs for the next couple of days.

We got to the lodge about 4:00 pm, so allowing for the stop at the water falls and lunch, driving time was about 4:30. It is hard to measure travel time by distance in Costa Rica.

The great curassow was hanging out at the trailhead.

The lodge itself was pretty much the way we saw it last time we were there. They did have a tornado a while back and decided to get the permits they needed to remove some of the downed timber, so that has had an effect on the look of the forest because it meant skidding out some pretty large logs.

I cannot say enough about this lodge! The 1,200 acres of primary growth rainforest that makes up the reserve was purchased years ago and became an “ecolodge” before that idea was known by the rest of us. They hire local people at the lodge, and they train them in more than just the “nuts and bolts” of the operation.

The night watchman Henry leads the cayman and red eyed frog tour

The night watchman leads the caymen and frog tour each night, and he knows each caymen by name. Our guide on the boat and bird tour was as good as we have had in Costa Rica, he grew up in Boco Tapada, and he also serves tables at the meals. Our guide on the Rain Forest Tour was not from the area, but he does have a phD, in biology and he tended bar when he was not on a hike with guests. In short there is not the hierarchy of employees that seems so common at ex-patriot establishments in Costa Rica.

When you stay at Laguna del Lagarto you pretty much have to eat there (it is a fairly remote place). That is not at all a problem, though, because the food is reasonably priced and exceptional–heart of palm salad, yucca, plantains, everything is served buffet style so you can sample whatever you want, (and then ask what it is ).

Dinner at Laguna del Lagarto Lodge is always an adventure.

Trek 2 Trek Day Five

admin — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:59:16 +0000

Today’s ride was really short, about 13 miles. We rode from Columbus, Wisconsin to the Trek plant in Waterloo. The weather was great so that makes 5 greats days in a row!

We got a great tour of the Trek Bicycle factory. We saw the race room where they get the pro bikes ready and the carbon fiber layup room, and they fed us a great lunch before we left for home. What a great trip this was, there was no one along who was difficult. Ann and Katie were great organizers, Steve did a fine job with the route, Dave Clabby from Overland Tours was incredible.

When Kathy first asked me if I would go along on this ride I was thinking I would do it because she really wanted me to. BUT the truth is this was great time spent with some great people!

The vans load with Bicycles to bring us back to Owatonna

Trek 2 Trek Day 4

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:35:09 +0000

Getting ready for the 74 mile ride from Mauston to Columbus Wisconsin

Day 4 took us from Mauston, Wisconsin to Columbus (about 13 miles from the Trek Plant). Again, the weather was fantastic, and the route was great. Steve did an exceptional job of route planning for this trip and he was great about being flexible when new possibilities emerged. Kathy and I pretty much have our confidence back, everywhere except gravel covered corners (I think that will take a while). We decided to stop in Wisconsin Dells and ride a couple of rides. Dave from Overland Touring is really great, he got to Timber Falls in the Dells before us, convinced them to open 2 hours early for us, and negotiated a half price deal to boot. I cannot say enough about Dave and the Overland Touring Company. He provided the logistics that made a trip with this many riders really work. He found nice places usually in the shade for us to have lunch, was always available, flexible, and did all of the things that allowed us to have a really great time not worrying so much about logistics.

In the afternoon, Tom looked at the maps (like usual) and found an alternate route that would take us away from traffic, and so we went from Portage to Columbus on some really sweet back roads!

Trek 2 Trek Day Three

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:21:52 +0000

Day Three was a great day (Actually, about as good as the two before it, but there were several memorable moments). First we gathered in the parking lot got on our bike and our route master, Steve Deetz, promptly suggested that we turn around and leave the parking lot from the other end. Pretty much everyone followed this good advice except the two tandems (that is, Kathy and me and Tom and Pat). Tandems are pretty hard to turn around and Tom is a good navigator so we left the group and followed Tom’s unique route to the east. It was a pretty good way to go too because when we did see the rest of the group again 5-6 miles later, they were behind us.

A few of us planned to ride the Elroy-Sparta Trail to Sparta and the rest took the paralleling paved roads. It became a race when Pat looked off to the north and saw the road riders paralleling us on the road. A little later when the road crossed the trail, they flew in front of us. A little after that we crossed the road right in front of them. By this time Tom had taken the pace up a couple of notches. We wanted to get to Sparta first! We were the locomotives and they were the Conestogas. Well in the end we got there about the same time, but the locomotives probably need to concede see as how we took two wrong turns in Sparta.

Later in the ride Kathy and I had a pretty scary flat. I think the front tire must have been loosing air because it was starting to vibrate. Anyway, when we went into a gravelly corner at about 18 mph, the tire blew and it was a struggle to keep the bike under control. I happened to have the camera running on the front fork, here is the video:

Adrienne, about to throw a bale at the Hustler Fest hay bale toss

The happy winner of the 3rd place award was from our group

Part of the group decided to stop at a bar, and while there, they saw the flyer for the Hustler festival that was going on in Hustler. They decided to check out the chicken throwing contest on the way through, but when they got there, the hay bale throwing contest was on instead. Adrienne ended up getting third place, a yellow ribbon, $2, and her picture taken for the local paper. Pretty good for someone who claims to never have touched hay who probably has allergies to such things.

Trek 2 Trek Day 2

admin — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 03:37:40 +0000

Linnea changing a flat tire by herself in the company of 8 male supervisors.

Day 2 took us from Rochester Minnesota to La Crosse Wisconsin. It was another great day, a little more wind, and about twice as many miles. The wind was from the south so it was mostly a crosswind and did not effect the ride much. The 80 miles went by quickly as we went from the rolling terrain east of Rochester and ended in a nice decent into La Cresent then across the Mississippi to La Crosse,

According to Adrienne Boese, the day included a lot of off road riding, swimming, and a strong head wind. I am thinking this assessment stemmed from the stop she made at the bar in Utica. Linnea, Shirley Steve and Jonathon enjoyed drafting behind a tractor. Kathy didn’t like the wind, she thought it was a little too hot, but she did like the nice winding decent into La Cresent. I am not sure if she like my company sitting right in front of her on the tandem or not

A few mile from the finish, Linnea had a flat tire. It was one of those gun shot sort of flats where you could probably hear it 100 yards away and you wondered if you should take cover She was pretty pleased as she changed it all by herself while 8 men pretty much stood and watched her You Go Girl!