Just photos for now. There are too many historical sites to visit!

Updating photos first!

I will post an update soon on my lengthy trip to Greece and then my time in Athens. Until then, here are photos from my day on an island next to Santorini. It felt like a ghost town. 

Manuel Antonio National Park is Costa Rica’s smallest park. It covers only 1,983 hectares. Don’t let the size fool you though. It is home to 109 species of mammals and 184 species of birds. It is feasible to see the whole park in only a day, but most people dedicate two days to exploring the trails and enjoying the beaches. To be honest I wasn’t enthralled with the park. Supposedly, Forbes ranked it in the world’s top 12 national parks. I don’t know the validity of this claim, but would strongly disagree with it. Argentina, Canada, and the US alone would put this park way out of the running. I saw a lot of monkeys, but the main attraction for me were the sloths. I only saw two sloths and they were very high up in the trees, but they were there!

So let’s talk more about los peresozos or the sloths. Interestingly enough the word for sloth and lazy in spanish are one in the same. There are two species slowly lurking in the trees- the Brown-Throated Three-Toed Sloth and the Hoffmann’s Two-Toed Sloth.
Below I have typed out what the signs in the national park state (grammatical errors included) about each species.

The Choloepus Hoffmanni or the Two-Toed Sloth: “This mammal feeds on the leaves of the trees, which have little energetic value and make their metabolism slow, as well as the sloths movements. They are brown in color, though in some exceptions a dark green can be spotted among its fur, which is cause by algae. Its mouth is longer than its cousin’s, and their hind legs are naked. The two toed sloth has nocturne habits, though it can sometimes be seen active during the day.”

Exciting fact alert!

The Bradipus Variegatus or the Three-Toed Sloth: “Their three pointy claws help them hang on the trees and climb in search for leaves, which represent most of their diet. The guarumo is one of their favorite foods. The process of digesting is slow, as they have a big stomach. They can sleep more than half the day, moving very little, and only when in search for food, or when climbing down to the ground to defecate, which they do every eight days right in the roots of the same tree, as if they were naturally fertilizing it.”

Did you get as excited as I did? They poop once every eight days and right at the base of their own tree. I read that fact at the beginning of my two days in the park. I kept hoping I would spot a sloth on its slow and lazy way down a tree to defecate. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. The two sloths I spotted were of this variety obviously, since the Two-Toed Sloth is nocturnal.

The species that provided me the most entertainment was the White-Headed Capuchin Monkey. There was a troop of them grooming, fighting, and enthusiastically sharing a juice box. A mother walked right past me with her baby nestled up against her neck. The park’s sign stated, “It belongs to one of the smartest groups of monkeys and it feeds on an assorted diet. They search among the foliage of the trees to find insects and other small animals. They also feed on a variety of fruit, and are important seed dispersers. Their tail is not prehensile, but it does however help them keep balance.” Unlike the other species in the park, the White-Faced Capuchin doesn’t use its tail as a fifth hand, but just for balance. You aren’t allowed to bring any prepackaged food into the park. The monkeys love to get ahold of the plastic wrappings and eat them. This is something that really bothers me about people in national parks and zoos. Let the animals eat the food they naturally find in the wild or that is fed to them by professionals! So please respect this policy and leave the potato chips at the hotel.

In the park you can find three of Costa Rica’s four monkey species. One you most definitely can hear! The Howler Monkey has a very deep guttural howl that can be heard throughout the day.  According to the park’s sign, “This is one of the largest species of monkey in the country. Its tail serves as a fifth hand which it can use it skillfully to pick branches. They feed mostly on leaves and foliage, which makes their metabolism very slow. They howl as an alert mechanism or to protect their territory, and it is one of the most powerful sounds amongst animals.”

The last species of monkey found in the park is the Squirrel Monkey. The park’s sign explained that, “This species of monkeys is the smallest in Costa Rica. In the past they found themselves restricted to small patches of forest in the central pacific region of the country and it was necessary to protect these areas. They are omnivorous, and also hunt small bats to feed. Inside the Manuel Antonio National Park, 33 species of plants have been identified which serve as food for the squirrel monkey. The subspecies, Saimiri Oerstedii Citrinellus, can only be found in our country, and it barely surpassed the thousand individuals, located inside this park and their surroundings.” If you do visit the park, don’t expect to see nearly as many of these as the White-Faced Capuchin.

While swimming in the ocean, I witnessed the slightly funny phenomenon of people in a “wave” running out of the water to defend their belongs. A gaze of raccoons was slowly working its way down the beach scavenging through haphazardly left behind backpacks. As soon as people realized what was happening, they would madly race to grab their lunches back. Once an area was “cleared” of any food to be stolen, the raccoons moved on to the next section of beach and another group of people would rush out of the water.

I also spotted the black spiny-tailed iguana, the white-nosed coati, and a common basilisk (not nearly as impressive as the one in Harry Potter).

My overall assessment of the area is if you are planning a short vacation, I would skip Manuel Antonio and focus either on Tortuguero during turtle mating season, or really explore the undeveloped terrain of the Osa Peninsula. If you do make it to Manuel Antonio, spend a full day at the park and drop some money on river rafting. The river rafting is expensive, but I talked to several people who loved it. Also, be prepared with an excessive amount of bug spray. I normally am the person in a group who doesn’t get one single bite. That has not been the case here. I have even had strangers make comments about how many bites I have on my legs.

*Money Tip: A taxi from Quepos to the national park should not cost more than 3,500 colones total.  Whatever you do, make sure you agree on the price before the trip begins! I don’t know why you wouldn’t take the bus though. It costs 305 colones and it comes every half hour.

I will most definitely be posting reviews of places I stay in Greece, but will probably wait until after to share the historical aspects of what I see. I can’t wait for you to be reading about my time in Athens! The food… the museums… the HISTORY! I really hope that I find several occasions to wildly throw my hands in the air and scream, “Opa!” Wouldn’t you? ​

Go back and read the Tikal and Monteverde posts! The only thing I have done in Samara is play beach volleyball everyday with a local team. Literally, that is it. 

​Well I have had some interesting experiences in Costa Rica. A few years ago my brother recommended the book, Blue Zones, so I read it. I really liked it and became sort of obsessed with the idea of pursuing nutritional anthropology. In the middle of the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica there is a very prominent Blue Zone. The area has a very large group of centenarians. When I first planned to come to Costa Rica, I made a point of dedicating a couple days to hunting down old people to glean some of their wisdom on how to live a long and healthy life. These couple days basically made the decision that I needed to rent a car because the central peninsula is hard to get to and actually used to be even harder until a large bridge was built. In the book the author discusses how this bridge alone changed the lifestyle for the younger generation and thus has dropped the life expectancy. It allowed fast food and more coke cola to enter the area. As I drove over the bridge I thought to myself, I bet China or some Asian country built this bridge. Yep! Taiwan did! Ha. 

I reached the town of Hojancha and parked the car. I approached a stranger and inquired where any centenarians lived. The guy immediately said,"The Castillo family has an old lady. They live over the bridge about 1 km past the soccer field." I drove and didn't find it, so I stopped to ask a farmer and he gave me more specific directions. The problem was that my definition of bridge and theirs is very different. The third person I asked said, "Yea, my neighbor." There were three girls all between 8 and 10 playing in the yard with two elders looking on. I approached and asked if I could ask them some questions. They were very receptive and gave me a chair. I explained that I had read the book and wanted to write an article about living a long life. The man, Jose Calisto Castillo Carrillo, is 88 and his daughter is in her early 60's. His mother is the most famous centenarian in the town at the whopping age of 109. I asked them about her lifestyle. They said she used to eat dinner at 5 pm and get up around 2 am to work in the fields. In their opinion, the key to her diet was that there were no preservatives and all meat was organic and grass fed. They also said that the most important factors behind her longevity are the fact that she is always surrounded by a lot of family and that her faith is so strong. Jose explained that he lived in a nice house because his son is a priest and the church bought it for him. He lives there while his son is evangelizing throughout Central America and Africa. I hesitantly asked if I could meet his mother. He immediately jumped up and put on a fancy shirt and leather shoes. He didn't call to give her warning of course, but we were on our way to meet not only a centenarian, but THE MOST FAMOUS ONE! I had done it and only in a matter of an hour of hunting. As we drove Jose proudly sat in the front seat smiling at all the locals who were very confused why Jose was in a car with a gringa. 

We reached the house and there were four relatives sitting outside chatting away the afternoon. The hostess of honor remained inside putting on her best clothes and a very special rosary sent directly to her from the pope. Her name is Francisca Carrillo and she was born November 3rd, 1906. Six months ago she lost her sight and her hearing is very bad. So her granddaughter had to yell in her ear who I was. It became obvious any information I was going to get would come from either Miguel her 75 year old grandson, Jose her 88 year old son, or her 65 year old granddaughter. She asked to feel my hair and then grabbed my head close to her bosom and proceeded to say a blessing. She then asked her granddaughter to get her special ear rings. The granddaughter asked me to sign her book. Page after page after page were filled with the names of all the people who had come to visit. There was a column to write your nationality and the purpose of the visit. Ten days previously two doctors from Portland, OR had visited. The day before a journalist from US News and one from France had visited. The walls were covered with pictures of news crews who had come to document the longevity secrets of this very impressive woman. It was a surreal  experience. I had found her. I knew I would, I just didn't expect for it to be that easy. I had thought I would need to drive back the next day. It just goes to show that at least asking is always worth a try and the hospitality of strangers may surprise you.

The drive from La Fortuna to Monteverde was eventful. The trip is roughly four hours give or take depending on how you drive. It is a scenic route around a large lake with some nice views of the volcano. I passed a lot of German establishments, a massive boa constrictor crossing the road, hundreds of wind turbines, and got to experience Route 145 and 606. These roads made me realize why the trip from La Fortuna to Monteverde is so long. As the crow flies, it isn’t far, but the condition of these roads is atrocious. No wonder their groceries are so expensive! To truck anything into the interior of the country takes forever. For about two hours I remained in 4WD and was driving about 15-20 kph. It felt like hiking. You set a goal of making it over the next hill, but that hill just doesn’t come for a long time. The drive made me feel thankful. My country has its own problems, but we have well built infrastructure, a love of efficiency, and in general things just work the way they should. I guess that is why sometimes it feels boring to me. When I travel the element of the unknown and things not working, make the who experience that much more of an adventure.

Monteverde is acclaimed for its cloud forest. The area sits at roughly 4,600 feet. Its misty weather and higher elevation means that the average temperature is significantly lower than the plains. Its average temperature is around 64 degree F. This was a pleasant discovery after surviving La Fortuna with no A/C. Most people come to monteverde for the hanging bridges high up in the forest’s canopy, ziplining, hiking, and to visit the plethora of reptile, butterfly, and hummingbird sanctuaries. I spent one day hiking in the reserve, ergo I spent a day walking in a cloud. Don’t expect great sweeping views of the surrounding area. It gets its name- CLOUD forest- for a reason. I spent the next day ziplining at the famous Selvatura Park. The longest zipline was 1,000 meters! It really was awesome. I wish you could gain a bit more speed, but I loved every minute of it. I also checked out the hanging bridges and the hummingbirds. I saw one hummingbird that was a brilliant purple. The last day in town I drove to check out a few art galleries. The natural surroundings have enticed many artists to make their home among the trees. The first gallery I visited was owned by Roberto Wesson. When I can afford to drop 4,000 USD on a painting, I will go back! The second belonged to a woman named Sarah and it was a trek to get to. She moved to Monteverde from the US in 1971 and bought a wooden plank house out in the forest. She actually bought it so long ago that it now resides IN the reserve. In the afternoon I went to a frog house and took an evening tour of the frog enclosures. It was amazing to see the diversity of frogs Costa Rica has. There were many poisonous and toxic frogs. One huge species sweats out its poison. If you touch it, the poison will seep through your skin. One species is clear and you can see its organs. The most beautiful frog is by far the Rainbow Frog.
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Overall, it was a nice relaxed place. I definitely think you can do it in 2 days instead of 3.

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Tikal was a powerful Mayan conquest kingdom in its heyday. The surrounding city-states were either forced to pay tribute to Tikal through military action or voluntarily accepted Tikal’s protection and became its vassal state. Some structures date back to the 4th century BC, but it was at its height between 200 and 900 AD. There is evidence that supports that they were in contact with their northern neighbors the Aztecs and that in the 4th century AD Teotihuacan (the Aztec’s capital in central Mexico) conquered Tikal. The site was abandoned in the 10th century AD.

My guide, Reyes, shared a lot of interesting information about the Mayans. They had an interesting number system that was a base 20 system that incorporated the concept of zero. They had a symbol for zero, one, and five. Check it out:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_numerals. Reyes pointed out that there was no fresh water near the city of Tikal. Its builders built the city to be a natural reservoir. In addition, the Mayans had a very sophisticated  understanding of the stars. The many temples in the city align perfectly with the rising sun on specific days of the year. Reyes was great at pointing out the animal life. We saw three species of toucans, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, coati, a impressive multi-colored turkey, and several other species of birds. I think Reyes was shocked by my ability to put up with the heat in the name of seeing history. He said most tourists stay a maximum of three hours and we were there for almost five.

Fun side fact: From the pictures above do you recognize a scene from a Star Wars movie?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to share of my adventure the following day. I went to the famous ATM cave. The tour guide was a jerk- don’t go with Ian Burns, but the cave itself was really impressive. The Mayans used it as a place to leave offerings to many gods, but predominantly the god of rain. The other gods were recognized with the hope that the offerings to the rain god would not cause jealousy or anger. Their economy was completely based on their corn crops and in the later years of the empire drought devistated their society. The use of the cave for offerings increased greatly as the droughts got worse.

Most offerings were either food based or the blood of a noble. Noble females pierced their tongues and noble males pierced their genitalia. The blood was then caught in a bowl and left for the gods. I asked if one noble would have to piece themselves multiple times over their lifetime and the guide said there is no way of knowing. For the males’ sake, I sure hope not. They probably had the earliest Prince Alberts in history! That is something to put in the books. There were also some human sacrifices though and their bones are still in the same positions as they were found! 1 km into the cave (3km from the entrance to the end), there are three sets of fully entact remains. One was a young boy who appeared to have his hands tied behind his back. The guide pointed out that the skulls are all dramtically cone shaped. This is because the Mayans held corn in such high regard and found it athestically pleasing to have a head shaped like it that they would tie thick pieces of wood around the sides ot their children’s skulls to reshape them. No thanks! The Mayans would kill their human sacrifices by cutting out the heart, slitting the throat, or by cutting off the limbs and allowing the person to bleed out. This sounds horrible, but it is important to keep in mind that the Mayans were not as aggressively or frequently sacrificing humans like the Aztecs did.

The Belizean government decided not to excavate the cave, but to leave it as it was found so that people can see the history as it was left. The tour begins with a 45 minute walk through the jungle. You have to swim into the cave and there is a lot of swimming throughout the three hour tour. You can’t bring anything in with you because a year ago a tourist dropped his camera on a skull and crushed it. That is ok because you really wouldn’t want to be holding anything while you are navigating through the water, stalactites, and slick embankments. I highly suggest dropping the money and giving into the monopoly the ATM guides have. It is a fun adventure to go spelunking and on top of that you get to see a piece of history (well at least many pieces of pottery and skulls). ​