Monday, June 29, 2002

Slow breakfast again today, I guess that’s just the way it’s going to be. We embarked for the drive to the Rain Forest Arial Tram located near the Braulio Carillo National Park. Mark has read in a guidebook that it tends to be cold up there so both Genevieve and I are in jeans. To arrive at the park you must first go through San Jose. Blech. This confirms our decision to not spend any time in the city itself. We arrived at the park a couple of hours later (and an hour later than intended), having driven through nice forests behind very slow trucks. The tractor arrived to take us to the tram, and we had a very nice ride. As I remembered, the rainforests are long on plants and short on animals, although we do see a couple of casque-headed lizards as they battle across the trail we are walking on. Of course, there are also lots of butterflies and countless things that we can’t see through the dense foliage.

After the tram ride it’s lunchtime but there’s no cafeteria so we head to the nearest town and stop at a likely establishment. Genevieve and I changed into shorts first, because of course, it was way too warm for jeans! Our restaurant is a good choice, they’ve got fish in a couple of big tanks at Genevieve’s eye level so she can entertain herself while we wait for our food, and as a bonus for mom, they are raising tree frogs and give tours.

Once we are finished with our food we head over to the frogs. Man, I really want to live in Costa Rica. I have this little 20-gallon aquarium with all kinds of lights and tricks to allow me to keep tropical geckos.  This guy has a huge netted landscaped area that is basically outside and the dart frogs and red-eyed tree frogs just go to town! He raises them with a permit from the government on the condition that he release all offspring into the wild. Very cool.

And so we head back to the hotel as Genevieve has been asking for the swimming pool and we are only too happy to oblige.

<<Previous | Next>>