It can REALLY rain in the rain forest!

Today's port:  Limon, Costa Rica.  A new port for us.  We had hoped to go to the sloth sanctuary but we left that decision a little too late and it was full by the time we tried to book.  Second choice was Veragua Rainforest, which turned out to be a really great day.  

First thing to know about Veragua is what the name means.  Ver translates to "see" and agua is "water".  And we certainly did that.  Since the temperature fluctuates little, there are two seasons in most Central American countries:  wet and dry.  It's the dry season right now but we could tell right away that there had been some significant rain because there was standing water everywhere.  Oh, and it was raining when we arrived in port.  :)  Our guide (more about her later) told us that they were having some "unusual weather" and that it had been raining for 4 days.  Undaunted, we boarded the bus with about 40 other passengers from the ship (more about them coming up, too!) and headed off in to the jungle.  

Our first look at Costa Rica from our balcony.  The skies look promising! 

First things first, let me tell you about our guide.  Her name was Josh.  Actually, it was something much longer but she didn't tell us what it was because she said we wouldn't remember it anyway.  Without knowing what it was, I cannot accurately say if that would be true, or not.  Josh was enthusiastic about her job, but she was not the best tour guide we've ever had.  She seemed to be distracted easily, and would lose her train of thought.  As a result, she told us the same information over and over again during the 1-hour drive to the rainforest.  For example, I will never forget that the original currency of Costa Rica was cacao bean, and now is the colom, which was named so in honor of Christopher Columbus because she mentioned it about 6 different times.  She also used the phrase "more THAN less" a lot.  And incorrectly.  The drive is "more than less" one hour; a bus ride here in Costa Rica costs "more than less" one US dollar; the three toed sloth is larger "more than less" than a two toed sloth.  Andrew stated that I should cut her some slack on this, since she is speaking to us in her second language.  Fair enough, but it still stood out "more than less" to me.  

And, the other passengers...we noticed straight away that everyone on this tour was much older than we were.  To be fair, almost everyone here on the ship is much older than we are.  We know this from both personal observations, and from the fact that people constantly point out to us that we are the youngest people on the ship.  Technically, that is not true, because I've seen other people who are likely to be our age or even younger.  As well, I've seen at least 4 kids.  We don't have any issues with people older than us, but on cruise ships they do seem to come with a few common traits of which "giant complainers" tops the list.  I am not exaggerating about this one little bit.  If you were to judge the overall experience of many of the passengers on the ship solely by their most prevalent facial expression, you would think we were about to serve a 20 year sentence on a chain-gang.  Honestly, it's non stop.  Complaints heard on the bus included:  the seats are too small, the air conditioning is too cold, the air conditioning is not cold enough, the road is too rough, the drive is too long, someone took the seat I wanted...and so on.  As well, two women behind us were incensed that the guide said our tour, which started at 9 am ship's time, would be 6.5 hours (more than less) long, and that we would arrive back to the port at 2:30 pm.  Completely oblivious to the fact that ship time and local time may be different, they spent at least five minutes irately discussing how that just wasn't possible.  

So...the ride was rough, the bus seats were, in fact, quite uncomfortable and it did take more than (not less) an hour.  No complaints from me.  I am typically at work at 9 am on a Tuesday!  We also got to see some truly gorgeous countryside of Costa Rica, some local farming areas, and four sloths in various trees along the way.  

When we got off the bus at the Rainforest, we were divided in to two groups.  Those who wanted to hike to the waterfall, and those that wanted to walk along the easy, flat trail.  We chose waterfall - we thought with all the rain it would be quite lovely.  It was, by far, the less popular option and there were only 12 people total in our group.  Our guide was a lovely older gentleman named Orville.  He started us off with the rainforest exhibits that included snakes (warning one snake skin photo ahead), frogs, butterflies, and orchids).  I loved Orville immediately, and even more by the end of the day.  He had a dry sense of humor and a slow grin that would start in one corner of his mouth and gradually spread across his lips and up to his eyes.  He talked about the importance of choosing world leaders who understand that success of conservation efforts and the condition of the environment are as important a factor in a country's health as the economy.  He talked about how our need for "more of everything" has resulted in the loss of plants, animals, habitats and ecosystems that we will never be able to recover.  He is a wise man, and I am better for the time that I spent with him, to be certain.  

The tour with Orville lasted about 4 hours, and included a ride on a gondola (Andrew's favorite), a hike to the waterfall, a hike on the flat trail (bonus for us) and tons of expert information on the rainforest of Costa Rica.  A younger guide later told us that Orville was the first certified naturalist guide in the country.  Besides Andrew and I, only two other people in our group spoke English.  The others were a large family-group of Russians who did not seem to understand much of what Orville was saying.  Oh well, more Orville for us!   

One more thing to mention is that it rained almost the whole time we were there.  Not a nice, soft rain.  A hard rain.   Rainforest hard verging on torrential downpour.  I'd like to tell you that we were properly prepared for this, but we were not.  They were selling rain ponchos on the ship ($3!) as we departed, but we were foolishly naive and declined.  After the first 30 yard dash from the butterfly exhibit in to the gift shop area, we purchased some.  I'm not sure why, at that point, because were so wet we were actually wringing out our shirts.  The rest of the story is best told with the pictures we took...enjoy!

Spiders, though plentiful, were not part of the exhibits.  They didn't seem to know that, however, as
they were everywhere.  And big.  No scale here, but this one is about 2 inches from legs to legs.  

This one was even bigger.

Snake skin that was tossed out of one of the exhibits on to the foliage.  Luckily, this was
the closest we got to a snake that was uncaged. 

View of the mountains in back with low cloud cover.  So pretty.  

Leaf frog.  Likely also a leap frog.  

Lots of butterflies.  I didn't catch all of their names - too many!

Owl butterfly.

I didn't get the name of these, but the inside of the wings is a beautiful blue that you can only see when they are flying. 

The plants were also beautiful...

     

Orchid.

We were less beautiful after getting rained on.  

Looking snappy in our new rain ponchos!

The next group of photos were taken on the gondola ride down the side of the mountain, and then in the bottom of the riverbed in the thick of the rainforest.  

Gondolas coming up the hill

 View from the gondola car almost at the bottom

Banana plant

The waterfall was really swollen from all the rain

Bottom of the big waterfall and a small one

A weird, large tree.  If a person was standing in front of this tree, their arms would not quite reach to the part where it narrows.

River at the bottom of the gondola

Run off from all the rain

A sloth.  These things are adorable. 

Another sloth. 

Finally - this is Orville.  I didn't mention this before, but we found out near the end of our time with
him that he is almost 78 (!) years old.  I would have been shocked to hear that he was 60, to be honest.  P.S.  Note the nice post-rain hair!