Sunday 26th January

Up at 5:50am Limon still a distant dot on the horizon showered, shaved and up for breakfast in record breaking time. Whilst enjoying a full English we watched as the officer of the watch turned the ship round performing a perfect 180 degree pirouette in the centre of the tiny Limon harbour with Celebrity Equinox impatiently waiting to follow us in. Both ships will discharge a total of over 4,000 passengers onto the small town. We make our way down to the theatre for the start of our tour, arriving ten minutes late 7:10 and having been given our little sticky badges (no. 4) we sat and waited a further 20 minutes whilst gangway are put in place and other procedures are gone through etc. etc. By 7:45 we were all packed into our coach and on our way. The temperature is already 23°c and humidity close to 100% Our guide Leonardo tells us that there are ten different habitats in Costa Rica, but we won’t be seeing all of them. We are heading for the tropical rain forests, mangroves and lagoons. As we travel along the shore road we see black rocks on the surf which we are informed is coral that previously was under water. It is now nine inches out of the water following an earthquake in 1990/91. We are then told that Costa Rica has about a hundred tremors a day most of which you can’t feel, but with all this geothermal activity going on underground there are 112 volcanoes 80 of which are still active. Not to worry we are going to see birds and butterflies 900 species of the former and 15,000 species of the latter, though we won’t see them all. Thank goodness for that we’d be here all year. Leonardo is none stop in his delivery of facts about Costa Rica, suffice to say that banana crop is the main export followed by pineapple, coffee, sugar and palm oil. But he assures us that the banana is not the real thing, it is a hybrid bred for the demands of the western supermarket and he then produces a carrier bag from which he pulls ‘real bananas’ all of two inches long and tasting delicious. We all had some and they really were nice a sort of delicate banana flavour and sweeter than the supermarket model and less floury.

After a short drive we pull up alongside a train with steps up to an open ended carriage like in the old fashioned cowboy films. Air conditioning was the same as the energy efficient air conditioning on that bus in Aruba – a complete absence of windows. We were warned not to put our heads or hands out of the window as they could be sliced off by the undergrowth and he wasn’t joking. There was to be no commentary whilst the train was moving, because he could not make himself heard over the noise. Rickety was an understatement. As we lurched and trundled along with branches attempting to snatch us out of the carriage, we noticed we could see the track between the floorboards.

The forest was dense and even if you had wanted to get out and walk there was no space between the trees. When we looked down onto the forest we could see black, brackish water glinting in what little sunlight that penetrated. Goodness knows what horrors lurked there. We were beginning to enjoy our trip when we suddenly ground to halt with lots of excite shouting in Spanish from our guides. They had spotted a three toed Sloth. The train reversed up a little and there it was, just hanging around, as three toed Sloths do. It doesn’t look a comfortable existence at all but he seemed happy enough from what we could see, he didn’t do much, but then Sloths don’t do they. Further up the track we screeched to a halt again accompanied by more excited chatter. The guides had spotted some spider monkeys, the train positioned itself so that we could see them all and then the guides started calling in monkey language to encourage them down, but they were having none of it and just stared down at us with that bored monkey expression and scratched their… well they scratched. We had to get moving and off we went again staring at the butterflies and brightly coloured birds. One that shot by us was jet black with the brightest red breast I have ever seen.

Soon we were seeing the waves crashing on the beach through the trees on the right and we travelled along for a few miles with forest to the left and the ocean to the right, before coming to the region where banana plantations began to appear on both sides of the train. Banana trees grow to maturity in six months, produce a full stem of bananas three months later and then die. Each bunch of bananas is covered by a plus plastic bag and Leonardo asked for suggestions as to why this may be. There were several, I ventured that it meant they were pre-packed by the time they were ready for picking. Leonardo’s look was all that was required to indicate the absurdity of that remark. It turns out that there are several reasons, they create an even micro climate, the bag protects against the sun and so ensures an even ripening of all the fruit at the same time. Without the bag the top bananas would ripen first in the sun and by the time the bottom bananas had ripened the top ones would have withered and they protect against insects & spraying. And why blue, because black would mean that the temperature would be too high inside the bag and red is nature’s warning signal that would deter beneficial insects. I forgot the reason against yellow, it was a long day. It’s a great climate for bananas apparently, because Limon is in the tropical rain belt and in close proximity to the equator the temperate is even all the year round (28°/32° degrees). Perfect for banana growing, I now know why they don’t grow bananas in Accrington.

Anyway by now we were nearing the mangrove that we were to tour by boat but before that we stopped for a selection of fresh fruits and a bottle or two of local Costa Rican beer. The fruit was great, trays and trays of it freshly cut into bite size pieces. The beer (lager) was, well lager. Those of you who know me will be aware of the speed at which I can down an IPA. I had barely drunk an inch of my beer (lager) when we were told the boat was ready. So I snuck my glass on the boat (even if it is lager, I wasn’t going to leave it and it lasted the whole two hours).

Before we cast off we were told that the crocodiles were a cosmopolitan bunch and they loved the variety foreign tourists bought them, so to keep our hands out of the water. I had no intention of putting anything of mine in the water before the warning and certainly not now, anyway I was holding my beer (lager) with one hand and my camera with the other. We castoff and had hardly gone a hundred yards before we screeched (as best a boat can screech) to a halt. Leonardo had spotted a Little Blue Heron, a beautifully formed miniature Heron with a body about the size of a starling but the colour Wedgwood blue, with feathers so fine it didn’t seem to have them. Further down the same manoeuvre was performed and we looked up to where Leonardo was pointing excitedly and saw nothing. “There! There! there!” he shouted, where? where? where? we all thought as we stared up into the canopy, all l could see was tree branches. Then like one of those weird pictures that if you stare at long enough suddenly transforms to a landscape, we saw it only twenty or so feet away, a massive Green Iguana. We only spotted it because it moved to eat a leaf. It looked big enough to bite your head off, I instinctively drew back, as I was aware that in my eagerness to spot it I had stretched my neck out somewhat and did not want to look like a tasty morsel. After a lot of camera clicks and ooh’s and aah’s we continued on our way through the dangling creepers, stopping every few yards it seemed, each time Leonardo had spotted something new and most of the times we had to look hard to see whatever it was until we saw it and then we couldn’t believe we had missed it. Something’s like the little birds that constantly buzzed the boat were easy to see, but when we asked what they were, Leonardo dismissed them with a wave of his hand, just mangrove swallows he sniffed. Typical the one thing we could see and they were barely worth a mention. Another excited halt and we could see, just hanging around, a Sloth. Oh! another Sloth we said (feeling quite the experts) we were soon put right. This is a one toed Sloth, Leonardo informed us. The other one was a three toed Sloth, suitably chastened we all pretended we knew that and it was the others who didn’t. I toyed with the idea of asking him if there was a two, four and five toed Sloth but after the episode with the blue plastic bag, I didn’t. And so it went on the Yellow Crowned Red Eyed Heron, the Brazilian Long Nosed Bat (no! I’m not making these up), the Snowy Egret with yellow toes that it wiggles in the water so that fish think it’s a worm, when the fish swim up to grab them, they get grabbed. Bit risky I thought after what they had told us about the crocodiles, perhaps crocodiles only eat tourists and wildebeest (or am I getting my continents mixed up). It didn’t seem long at all before we were on our way back, but not before our boat driver had rammed the bank tied up and shot into the jungle. We thought he’d gone for a Jimmy, but it turned out he’d heard the call of the Blue Jeaned Frog, I thought this was a stylish Frenchman, or a euphemism girls used for drunken sailors who try to pick them up, but it turns out that the Blue Jeaned Frog is a deadly frog that can kill a man just by looking at them (my mother-in-law can do that). It is bright red with blue legs, and our intrepid coxswain comes out of the jungle proudly carrying one on a leaf. Phew! we all took pictures, I took one over Carol’s shoulder, reasoning that it was men that these frogs kill not women. Apparently they get their poison by eating poisonous ants, digesting the ant and storing the ant’s venom. Nice, some of these creatures. After we had all taken a picture the coxswain passed the frog to another boat that had pulled up to see what all the excitement was about. Their guide was passing a picture of the frog round her passengers and was a bit squeamish about taking the real thing. Don’t worry luv I thought it’s a man killer, you’ll be OK.

So with that excitement over with, we hurtled back to our jetty at an exhilarating speed, as whilst the Blue Jeaned Frog had not killed anyone, it had delayed us.

Leonardo told us on the coach back to the ship that we had only seen a fraction of what Costa Rica had to offer and that if we spent a fortnight there we would see as many different species each day. It was a good pitch and we are going to see some more in a couple of days or so. I will let you know if what he said is true. But it was a great day out.

Wednesday 29th January

5:30am Rise, this is getting to be a habit, watched another sunrise whilst eating breakfast.

Puntarenas is 100 nautical miles West of Limon which we visited 3 days ago, the weather is just as hot though. Limon’s on the Atlantic coast and Puntarenas is on the Pacific coast, Puntarenas is drier though and more mountainous.

This morning we are going for a walk around the treetops, sounds a bit ominous as the temperature is forecast to be 36°C.

Once again we board our bus and our guide introduces himself as Jonathan (pronounced Jonaton) and our driver Darryl, I did a double take at the name, but no it wasn’t him, (just imagine the taxi bill). We set off driving south climbing all the time, through pineapple and sugar cane plantations. The undergrowth is less tropical looking the higher we climb, though there are still many broadleaf tropical plants typical of the rain forests. We stop for photos of iguana burrows, heads peeping out to see what all the fuss is about and further on we stopped on the bridge over the river Tarcoles, one of the most crocodile inhabited rivers in Costa Rica and sure enough, we see several basking in the sun beneath the bridge.

After an hour and a half we reach the trek and Jonaton gives us a severe warning not to touch any of the undergrowth whatsoever as many of Costa Rica’s poisonous snakes rely on camouflage and just brushing past leaves and bushes etc. can result in a nasty bite/sting or other. Thanks Jonaton, just what we needed. The path is through one of Costa Rica’s national parks and Jonaton tells us that 32% of Costa Rica is national park, where strict rules exist about building and chopping down trees etc. A bit like ours then. But seriously, Costa Rica is very keen on its National Parks as it recognises the value of them and their popularity to tourist. From what we have seen, if you are fascinated by varied wildlife, Costa Rica should be on your to do list.

As we descend into the forest the noise from the cicadas is deafening and they are only about an inch long (grasshopper lookalike with big eyes, for those who are wondering). Unfortunately it is a bit late in the morning to see much wildlife as it is too hot for them (what was it about mad dogs and English men), sweat is beginning to insist on being attended to, but there is nothing we can do about that as there’s not much sun under that canopy, so getting out of the sun is not an option. We trek on in silence, well apart from the cacophony of the cicadas that is and from the sound of sweat dripping onto the surrounding vegetation. We approach the first bridge and all bump into each other as the first person balks at stepping on. Even sorting ourselves out is an effort. When it’s my turn to step on I can see why. Through the wire mesh that forms the deck of the bridge you can see the forest floor some 200 feet below and the sides of the bridge are made of fence mesh, 6” square mesh that is. The whole bridge is suspended on cables about ¼” diameter and a notice sternly orders; “Maximum of twenty persons at one time”. This worried me as no one was counting and some of the people were; well not to put too finer point on it, well nourished. As we crossed, the bridge set up an unnerving swaying motion as everyone crossing seemed to automatically fall into step. Break step I think to myself but I guessed they wouldn’t know what I was on about if I’d shouted it out loud. Crumbs! Even the Romans knew to break step when crossing an unstable bridge. If anyone had been watching they would have seen twenty assorted tourist determinedly marching in step followed by a little skinny chap frantically out of step on a wildly swaying rope bridge high up in the canopy and they would have held their breath. Even the cicadas stopped their chirping to watch, eyes more agog than usual, at what these crazy tourists get up to when out of their native environment. We made it though, eventually and stepped on to terra firma, Phew! I thought, that’s that over with. Little did I know.

On we trek, past various exotic plants pointed out to us by Jonathon who is too far up the line for me to hear properly. Until we come to one large tree that Jonaton proudly announces is a Trumpet tree, the leaves of which are very good for slimming. Why it’s called the Trumpet tree, I know not, but the Trumpet tree it is, and if you eat its leaves you will lose weight. As all the trees are protected, there is no way of disproving the theory, but I can almost hear the reaction I would get in the Jolly Brewers if I came out with that story. Further on we stop by another tree, this one’s called the Naked Indian Tree (don’t ask), it is good for curing cancer. Jonaton tells us that a man with only hours to live had drunk the sap of this tree and is still alive after ten years. He didn’t say how the man managed to chop the tree down, drain the sap and drink it. I didn’t ask, no point in spoiling a good story.

Round the next corner another swinging footbridge. Oh no! This one looks longer higher and swingier than the first one. The line marches determinedly on to it (the guy who was first last time, has slipped back down the line, traumatised by his first experience). Same experience as last time, but by now I’m too hot and sweat soaked to care. Round the next corner we happen upon a Wanacastre tree (or Ear Tree), this one’s good for; (wait for it), making earrings. It’s true, Jonaton told us the native Indians used it to make earrings. (Jolly Brewers laughter rises to a crescendo). We all stare up in wonderment that the Indians would bother to trek this far into the jungle to find a tree suitable for making earrings, with or without swinging rope bridges. On we trek, it’s getting hotter if that’s possible.

Round another corner high on a hillside and Jonaton shouts LOOOK! We all stare up to where he is excitedly pointing. High in the sky, we stare and as our eyes become accustomed to the unexpected brightness, we see a tiny black dot. That, Jonaton tells us proudly is a Crested Cara Cara, which it turns out is a sort of black and white eagle. He could have told us anything at this point, we must have lost at least a stone in sweat. It was whilst looking up at this speck in the sky that someone pointed out that we were in the way of a trail of leaf cutter ants and sure enough looking down we could see a long trail of ants all busy carrying a section of leaf high above their heads. They looked like a miniature trade union protest from the sixties, and they hadn’t bothered to go round my foot they were marching over it. Jonaton told us that they didn’t stop day or night, continuously storing leaves for the production of fungi in the nest. He said if you look carefully you will see each leaf has another smaller ant on it who’s job is to clean the leaf prior to storage and sure enough there was a tiny brown ant busily cleaning the section of leaf whilst being carried back to the nest by the larger soldier ant.

Over the next bridge, but not before Jonaton tells us he is going to take a photo of each of us with our own cameras as we step onto the bridge, because this is the biggest and the best. Presumably so there is evidence in case of disaster that we were smiling when we started out and not forced on to it against our will. When I get the transferring/uploading of photos sorted Paul will be able to put them on the blog and the true horror of what we (well I) have gone through, will become apparent. Carol seemed totally unperturbed, nerves of steel that woman.

Then the final challenge. We have come to a fork in the path (and a fork in my life). Jonaton is standing there, arms folded and grim faced. “Dat way” he points to our left “is a da bus ana da easy way back, dat way” he points to our right “is a da final bridge ana da Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree. If you no wanna cross the bridge twice then you can go straight to da bus ana miss da Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree” It appears that to see the Giant Wild Cashew nut tree we have to cross the bridge and ‘see the tree how big it’s grown’ then cross back to follow the trail to the bus. I hesitate, Carol does not! She walks to the right without so much as a glance at me, nerves of steel that woman. Several of the group slink off to the left muttering about being allergic to nuts. Jonathon stares at me with unblinking eyes. You wanna go with them to the bus or you wanna go with them nodding to Carol’s disappearing back. The challenge is obvious, go to the bus in disgrace and live the rest of my life without ever seeing the Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree and in the sure knowledge that Carol has, or walk tall (well tallish), cross the bridge twice and see the Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree. If only Carol had gone to the left the decision would have been easy, I could have gone with her, with the excuse that to do otherwise would have meant leaving her alone in the South American Rain Forest. As it was she had trolled off happy as you please leaving me alone in the South American Rain Forest, well me and Jonaton. So in the end I went right, dragging my feet reluctantly to the final (optional) bridge and the Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree. We crossed, we saw the Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree, it was a big tree. We crossed back and climbed after the others and then stared the people on the bus in the eye. That bridge was one hell of a bridge we said to each other and that tree! You have never seen a tree until you’ve seen a Giant Wild Cashew Nut tree.

It was all anti-climax after that. The trip back was fast, as it was all downhill. We stopped at a hotel for fruit and drink, and when we got back to Puntarenas we stopped at a bar for a beer and to try and download the photos. But their wifi seems as slow as the ships so I’m still not sure what success I’ve had. Anyway sea day tomorrow so can catch up on various things, like sleep.

Tuesday 18th February

We arrived at the deep water harbour Tutuila which is not very wide for a ship the size of Queen Elizabeth, in fact as we sort of eased our way in we could hear dogs barking and cockerels crowing on shore. The inlet, surrounded by high cliffs covered in lush undergrowth which fall below the surface as deeply as they tower above us. Small buildings cling precariously to the cliff faces, mostly at about sea level but some brave souls have risked sticking buildings to the cliff face higher up. They sit there half enveloped in undergrowth, leaving one to wonder how on earth the milkman gets there each day. As we reach our berth the overriding impression is one of complete silence as once more we are surrounded on all sides by towering tree covered steep slopes rising to almost vertical upper reaches. It is not long before we are once more ashore, walking through the impromptu market that was convened to welcome us, to the gates of the small dock area manned by local police dressed in the traditional “skirts” though I guess they have a proper name for them (kilt maybe – perhaps not). Our ‘coach’ was waiting for us. Coach is perhaps too grand a word for it, as it was a traditional island bus with beautiful polished wooden bodywork that had flames painted on each side (presumably to give it the impression of a speed it did not have), fully air conditioned in the manner of this part of the world (no windows) which also doubled as our escape hatches in case of accident. Or so Kelvin our guide told us. He advised us that the air conditioning was fully adjustable, all we had to do was use the coaches’ communications system to let him know if we were too hot or too cold and he would advise John (the driver) to speed up or slow down accordingly. He was a Samoan of ample proportions who was also a paramedic. He advised us that the bus was fitted with an airbag pointing to himself and the modern communications system he spoke of (which we could also use to tell him to speak up) was a length of string stretching from front to rear, which if pulled produced a sort of strangled squeak. Seats were wooden planks covered in a thin red oil cloth and placed closer together than Ryan Air could ever dream of achieving. Kelvin said that we would not need seat belts as the coach didn’t go fast enough and we were so tightly packed in no one would move anyway. Suitably briefed on all aspects of our transport, we set off in a series of lurches and bangs, the air conditioning came on and Kelvin launched into his well-rehearsed commentary. We followed the coast road round to our first stop which was opposite a small island they called Flower Pot Island on account of the fact that it looked like a flower pot (why else). According to Kelvin the reason the island was there was a very complicated love story that included cannibalism, princes and princesses which would take far too long to relate here. However as we approached the island, there was an ominous load banging noise from underneath and the poor old bus came to a premature halt in a layby opposite Flower Pot Island. Whilst John called the bus hospital we sat under the coconut palms and took photos of the sea, the island, the bus and each other, until a replacement bus turned up. The replacement was slightly more the worse for wear that than the first, but with fully functioning air conditioning. We were soon on our way with a new driver called Lotto, apparently the driver goes with the bus so hopefully with a name like Lotto we should be OK. The rest of the trip went without incidence and we were shown the runway, sorry international airport (two flights per week), the golf course, a church and many more places of which the islanders are extremely proud. The scenery around the coastline is stunning, so to hear that the population of Samoans is shrinking was a surprise. On our return to the ship we stumbled on board to freshen up and have a bite to eat before nipping ashore again to McDonald’s (I know, I know) but it’s the only place with WiFi. We got caught in one of those torrential tropical rain storms which could have passed for a hot shower if we’d had some soap and anyway we shouldn’t have bothered, as so many others had the same idea that we were not able to log on when we got there. So we made our way back, had a proper shower and watched from the balcony as we executed a perfect standing 180° turn in the small space available and with many a blast on the ships sirens, bid farewell to the extremely friendly islanders.

Monday 24th February

The approach to Tauranga was as nice as Tauranga turned out to be. We sailed past what seemed to be an endless beach that extended back to a thickly wooded plain, which in turn extended back to a long sharp jagged mountain ridge which resembled an ancient flint tool set in the ground. As we sailed slowly along the coastline, the ridge slowly descended and gave way to rolling hills and when we rounded a broad sandy spit and entered the bay the town of Tauranga appeared, spread right around the flat plain in front of the encircling hills. Captain Cook called this area the bay of plenty before he set foot ashore and you can understand why as you look at the landscape. It seems to be in the perfect place to capture the sunlight and be protected from winds by the hills. The early settlers said that you only had to tickle the soil for anything to grow,

After one of the swiftest disembarkations yet, we made our way to a Kiwi Fruit orchard (Kiwi360) where we were shown the fruit growing from vines in abundance. The vines are not irrigated, their roots descend deep into the volcanic dust sub soil that lies beneath the sand topsoil. Each plant transpires 60 litres of water a day through their leaves alone before taking into account that required to form each fruit, of which there are hundreds on each plant. The micro climate in this area coupled with the perfect soil conditions mean that the fruits they grow are amongst the best in the world but very few make their way to the UK or the US because the current poor exchange rates make it unprofitable. The orchard grew every type of fruit and nut you could think of, Avocado, Almond, Pear, Cherry, Lemons, Oranges, Pistachio, but many of these were not even harvested as margins were so good on Kiwi and labour is so short that Kiwi remains the priority. Because labour is so short no one is entitled to the dole during the three harvest months as there is more work available than people to fill the jobs, so no one needs to be out of work. All around the area are fields of Maize and other crops and in between fields of Frisian (incidentally they are moving to dairy from sheep as there is so little margin on Lamb). We finished up at The Elms which was the old mission centre where the early missionaries set up shop bring Religion to the Maori population who were busy happily fighting amongst themselves and saw no reason to stop. When the settlers arrived and took the Maori’s land, they got a bit cross as you can imagine and challenged the British army to a fight which the 68^th Durham and 43^rd Monmouth light infantry agreed to with relish. They collectively agreed that the ‘fight’ would take place on 29th April 1864 at Gate Pa in Tauranga, whereupon the 68^th and the 43^rd got their collective bottoms well and truly spanked, despite having a numerically much larger force. This great victory by the Maori over the British was all the more conspicuous for the acts of kindness shown by the Maori to the British wounded afterwards. But in the end it all ended in tears for the Maori, as these things always do and two months later the British, having got their act together, inflicted heavy losses on the Maori at nearby Te Range and the land war was over. Settlers take all Maori get nothing. Still it’s not all bad, it seems that things have improved recently as since 1985 financial reparations have been made to a number of Maori tribes and they have been “allowed” to buy land and “invest” in education. But to give the Maori’s their due they don’t seem to have taken it to heart and now live in peace and harmony with the settlers.

It is easy to see why, driving along (on the left) we could so easily be somewhere in the UK. The weather is temperate, the countryside beautiful and the town is immaculate and it is not hard to understand why people are so content here. Fifty or so years ago it was a holiday resort, today it is the fastest growing city in New Zealand and has crept into the top ten as the ninth largest. More and more people visited and stayed, firms began to relocate which attracted yet more people. Land reclamation began for the docks and associated industry until it became what it is today, a thriving town.