Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

My parents are arriving from Seattle today and after out fiasco to Tortuguero we still had a few days to kill.  Matthias had found a place that had a huge pool with water slides, was near the beach and we were able to camp.  We headed out there because it sounded like a great place for the kids and we thought it would be nice to camp again. 

It took us a couple of hours to get out there and it was really perfect for us all.  Both kids are so happy in the water and William loved the water slides.  We’ve gone swimming quite a lot on our trip and William can almost swim all by himself.  He’s so comfortable in the water and loves it.  Camping worked pretty well, too.  It was still a little humid, and there were a lot of bugs at night.  We just kept the doors on the van shut and kept the bugs out.

The next day we went swimming in the morning and then decided to do a little spring cleaning in the car.  We had room to spread out and were able to empty and re-organized a lot of the cupboards.  We swept the floors, cleaned the windows, the dash and took everything off the roof.  We’ve been carrying around a gas canister around with us since we left Seattle and it has been kind of a pain.  We always have to worry about someone stealing it, releasing hot air since it often sits in the direct sun and expands.  It’s still full of gas, so back up onto the roof it went.

About 45 minutes away was Manuel Antonio, the most-visited national park in Costa Rica.  The description in our guide book sounded really good, so we decided to head out there and check it out.  The road from the camping spot out to the main highway is a dirt road and some sections were pretty rough.  We heard two strange noises that sounded like something breaking, but we didn’t see anything obviously wrong so we continued.  About 15 minutes into the drive Matthias shuts off the radio and says “There something wrong with the car.”  It was sputtering, he pulled over to the side of the road and the car died.  My first thought was that it was out of gas, but the gas gauge was not showing totally empty.  First we opened up the engine cover and started checking hoses.  Everything looked connected so we got the gas canister down and Matthias emptied about 3 liters of gas into the gas tank.  That didn’t help.  We thought maybe it was the gas pump since it just seemed like the engine wasn’t getting any gas and we knew there was some in there.  It was about 90 degrees outside and ever hotter in the sun.  We were surrounded by African palm plantations, but that doesn’t mean we ended up in a shady spot on the side of the road.  There were also no stores in sight.  We didn’t have any idea what was wrong, so Matthias decided to empty the rest of the gas into the gas tank.  A nice man pulled over and asked us if we needed any help.  Matthias tried one more time to start it and it worked.  We had run out of gas after all. 

With a new found appreciation for our gas canister we continued on to the next gas station.  We found that was enough adventure for the day and decided to bag the trip out to Manuel Antonio.  So who would have thought our gas gauge would stop working just like that?  At the beginning of the trip Matthias measured our gas mileage with every full tank of gas.  We know that we get about 16-17 miles per gallon and that we can drive about 250 miles with a full tank.  But ever since Semuc Champey in Guatemala, the gas tank leaks and we can only fill it up part way.  We did some quick calculations and now we are always going to get 37 liters, which would be 10 gallons.  That is not enough to overflow the tank, and it should guarantee us at least 150 miles on the road.  And we all agree that we won’t drive anywhere without our gas tank up on the roof.

We decided to go out to Tortuguero, a national park on the northern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.  It’s a national park that is home to 4 different species of turtles, and the area is supposedly full of wildlife.  There are a lot of tours packages that take you out to Tortuguero.  They are expensive and we were not willing to spend a lot of money to get out there.  I had done a lot of reading on how get to Tortuguero independently.  It isn’t all that far, but it is relatively hard to get there since the park is actually only accessible by dirt roads and then a boat.  In the end it took us a 2 hour drive, an hour bus ride and then another hour long boat ride to get to Tortuguero and cost us only $10.00/person.  When we got there we wanted to line up a boat trip to go look at the wildlife: monkeys, sloths, birds, manatees, etc and spend a few days exploring the area.

In the reading I did about Tortuguero I also heard it is one of the worst malaria regions.  I was the master packer for this trip and picked the perfect clothes for us all.  William and Matthias have pants with zipper legs, so they would be cool during the day and covered up in the night.  For Julian and myself I packed light cotton clothing so we could cover up in the evenings.  We all had one pair of shoes that would be perfect for small hikes in the turtle reserve and stable enough for traveling by boat and bus.  We were totally informed and prepared for a couple of days in Tortuguero.  Or so I though.

What I didn’t prepare for was torrential rains.  We didn’t see a single mosquito in Tortuguero – probably because they were all hiding in their homes from the torrential rains.  I first started to realize I was unprepared when we got on the boat and everyone had rain ponchos, long pants and coats on.  We were all in shorts, tank tops and sandals.  Once we got off in Tortuguero Village we walked to a hotel, got settled and decided to start exploring the town.  At that point it was lightly sprinkling.  We went for a walk on the beach and were hoping to see some turtles.  It’s sort of the “off-season” for turtles but some people had told us we might see a few baby turtles on the beach.  Well, we didn’t see any turtles.  Suddenly it started pouring, and was showing no signs of letting up.  We sat in a restaurant and all had something to drink, but after a while we decided to just run back to the hotel as fast as we could.  By the time we ran the 50 meters back to our hotel room we were all soaked down to our underwear.

One thing we’ve learned about humid climates is that wet clothes in high humidity don’t dry quickly, and they start to smell fast.  There is a really rank smell that creeps in after about 24 hours and (luckily) we’re accustomed to it.  All my clothes were wet and stank, and the humidity in our room was making all our dry clothes slightly moist as well.  That’s when Matthias said “One night in this place and we’re out of here.”  It was kind of heartbreaking because it was such an ordeal to get out there, and I still had so much promise of it being really amazing.  But the rains were so heavy, it was impossible to do anything but sit in our hotel room and complain about how much it was raining.  There was a 2 km loop through the reserve where you are nearly guaranteed to see monkey and birds.  It would have been perfect for us with the kids.  2km is a great distance because even if they refuse to walk, Matthias and I can each take a kid on our shoulders and carry them the entire way.  But the trails were so flooded and muddy that they wouldn’t let anyone out unless they were wearing rubber boots.  So much for packing the perfect shoes.  Disappointed that this outing didn’t turn out like I had hoped, I gave in and we decided to take the 11:30 boat back. 

Matthias agreed to watch the kids until the boat left so I could go on the 2km loop by myself.  I ran through town, rented some boots, bought a rain poncho ($1.60 for a glorified garbage bag) and raced out to the trail.  It was actually more frightening than fun.  The first 400 meters were fine and clearly marked.  I knew a section of the trail was along the beach and then went back into the jungle.  But of course, there was no sign anywhere, no people and there were a zillion trails leading off the beach.  I had to be back by 11:20 at the latest in order to make the boat.  I had seen one trail that was a little more developed than the others, so after walking for about 10 minutes past that trail I finally turned back and followed it back into the woods, hoping it was right.  The section of the trail was even muddier and more flooded.  My boots kept sticking in the mud and at times there was no more trail, just water.  I was alone and it was dark since the jungle can be really thick.  And guess how many monkeys I saw.  Zero.  Guess how many birds I saw.  Zero.  Do you want to know why?  Because they are all not even half a stupid as I am and they don’t go out in that weather either.  

Despite the rest of the trip being a bust, the boat ride out to Tortuguero was worth the entire trip.  The boats are narrow (2 seats wide) and long (15 seats long).  We drove along a narrow river surrounded by dense jungle.  The boats are very tipsy, and they sit so low on the water that at times you are sitting at a 45 degree angle just inches from the water.  Most of the river was brown from all the rain, but in the densest parts the water was black – not much light gets through and the rain doesn’t fall there and stir up the water.  Normally they scream down this river, but occasionally they slow down to avoid trees or other obstacles in the river.  Luckily they passed out rain ponchos so we were able to stay fairly dry.