Toucan Ready

From here we made our way to La Paz Waterfall Garden, a by far underrated tourist stop.  

La Paz Waterfall Garden

I don’t know if you have every been so excited that you had to hold back tears, but I have.  First off, we enter the aviary and I see the following Crested Guan just chilling.  We convinced her to go back into the aviary, because I am sure she was ready to dart out and escape if enabled.  Then we walked into another aviary that was full of toucans!  I almost cried when they put the toucan on me.  It was one of my happiest moments.  We saw all these beautiful birds, and my excitement just continued rising.  Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.  We entered a separate aviary and I found out that it was filled exclusively with toucans!!  I was ecstatic to have seen two in the trees a couple days prior, but never did I imagine that we would be so close to them.  This entire place was just amazing.  They had the largest collection of butterflies in the world.  They were everywhere and just landed on us as we walked around.  We also saw scarlet macaws, snakes, big cats, frogs.  We ended the tour by hiking to a couple waterfalls.  All in all, this was my favorite day in Costa Rica.  

Crested Guan

Toucan!

Toucan liked Nat too

Toucan Ready!

Little bird within arms reach

Scarlet Macaws

Butterfly garden

Butterfly landed on Nat

Viper

Venomous Snake 

Ocelot

Looking for frogs

Frog

Climbed in an ox cart

Waterfall

120ft waterfall 

These guys came up because they wanted people food

Poor man's umbrella

Onward, Ho!

From here we continued our trip to the surfer town of Jaco.  We had delicious tacos for dinner than walked to a bar for margaritas.  While enjoying our beverages, we saw cops trying to bust a couple gangsters in a stationary car – unsuccessfully because after minutes of searching they were unable to find any evidence.  Hey, at least the cops are patrolling the streets, right?  The next day we walked along the beach before heading back to San Jose.  The temperature was in the 90s, which is great after the cold weather in Dallas and San Francisco!

After settling down in San Jose, we made our way to the Jade Museum.  We passed by lovely churches and the national theatre on the way there.  Most exciting, in my opinion, was finding the flock of wild parrots!  So far, I have found the wild folks in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and now San Jose.  

Church in downtown San Jose

Wild parrots are in San Jose too!

National Theatre of San Jose

The Jade Museum boasts the largest collection of Pre-Columbian jade pieces in the world.  It was a very interesting collection of stone, jewelry, and vases.  My favorite was by far the erotic portion of the museum – fertility vases, penises and figurines holding their breasts.  Although, nothing rivals seeing Rasputin’s penis at the Erotic Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Love this one too

cute bowl

Check out the filed teeth! 

Fertility statue

Penises

Not sure what this bowl is used for

Rasputin's penis - St. Petersburg Erotic Museum, 2006

The next day, we took another driving tour out of the city in search of the Poas Volcano.  After more frustrating dead ends and confusing directions, we finally found our way up the mountain into the Poas Volcano National Park.  We were pressed for time because at about 10AM, the clouds from the forest billow down into the volcano crater, obscuring the view for tourists.  While in line for some coffee at the airport, I heard another tourist say that he didn’t see anything at all – too bad he doesn’t have someone like Nat cracking the whip to make sure we made our time deadline!  There were times he would basically be dragging me up that hill.  We made it though!  At the risk of breaking her hip, an older woman agreed to take our photo from the elevated pegs that surrounded the viewing points.

Poas Volcano

Picture from the Peg

This plant is commonly known as the Poor Man's Umbrella

We also hiked a bit further and found this beautiful laguna.  Although I think my highlight was the woman who was teasing a squirrel with a cracker – the squirrel started to climb up her leg causing her to scream and drop the cracker.  The squirrel grabbed in and ran back into the brush.  Serves her right for feeding the wildlife!

Lagoon

Continuing Through Costa Rica

Our vacation to Costa Rica is coming to an end.  Nat and I are sitting in the San Jose Airport, waiting to board our flight to Houston.  We may have one more adventure before us – getting our bags in Houston, through Customs and onto our flight to Dallas in less than 90 minutes.  Should be exciting!  Cutting it close at the airport makes traveling all that more fun. **Update - we caught our flight, even after I forgot my hat on the plane and had to wait for someone to retrieve it!**

Ready to go!

After the Quetzal Tour, we went zip lining through the canopy behind the Trogon Lodge.  Once you get over the fear of accidentally handling the cable incorrectly and losing all the fingers on your hand, it was very fun!  It was exciting to get a bird’s eye view of the cloud forest.  Just beautiful.

Here comes Nat!

After our canopy tour, we packed up our two backpacks and three suitcases.  For the record, traveling this heavy is not my typical style, but I have been on vacation for an entire month and had to pack everything from jackets, heels and swim suits for every occasion.  On my Trans-Siberian journey, I packed one heavy backpack full of necessary items and just enough luxury items (hair products, makeup, jewelry, etc) that most people did not believe I was a backpacker.  Not being confused for a backpacking tourist was kind of a big deal for me.  I digress.

We hauled our rental car up the steep mountains of the cloud forest and headed to the beach.  Costa Rica is full of surprises.  Quite often we would be on a “major” highway but then would find our selves booted into a small city.  We would stumble around in our car, making illegal U-turns in an attempt to find the illusive highway that disappeared.  Eventually we would find our way back, after asking an average of 2 people for directions. 

Driving through the Cloud Forest

Playa Dominical was a small beach city with a few surfer hostels, restaurants and bars.  The highlight of this stop was definitely sitting on the terrace of the hotel and watching the wildlife fly – remember how I mentioned we saw toucans that flew by?  

The next day we headed to Manuel Antonio National Park.  We parked our car and were approached by workers of the national park who offered us a guided tour of the park.  It’s a good thing we agreed to take the guided tour!  There is a good chance we would have walked right through the entire forest and not even seen one animal.  You had to have a refined and trained eye to find the critters that lived in Manuel Antonio.  Often our tour guide would set up his telescope finder and show us a snake, lizard, crab or another creature, and it would take us minutes to even figure out where he was pointing his scope!  It was amazing!  

Black Iguana

Can you spot the green lizard?

Green Anole Lizard

Huge spider

Heliconia

The following photos were taken with an iPhone through the guide's telescope.

Eyelash Viper

Howler Monkey

Wasp Nest

Patriotic Crab

Harem of Bats

Interesting Facts

• You should always be careful not to touch anything in the Rain forest.  The eyelash viper is venomous and will easily look like another branch
• Howler Monkeys are the third loudest animal on Earth - after the Blue Whale and the Lion
• Wasps nests are vulnerable to monkeys when smaller, but by the time they approach the size above, monkeys steer clear of them. 
• The Patriotic Crab is thus named because it boasts the national colors of Costa Rica
• Bats often form harems, which include one male and two females

Toward the end of our tour, we found sloths!  I have wanted to see them since I was a freshman in college and my friend had seen them in Costa Rica.  They really don’t move, at all!  Not like the white capuchin monkeys that flew through the trees just feet in front of us.  They were even trying to steal our drinking water.  

Sleepy sloth

Monkeys!

Monkey with a plastic bag

They were so close to us!

Thirsty Monkeys

The raccoons were by far the most fearless animals we encountered through.  They would just walk up to a backpack in the middle of a group of people and trying to dig through it before sand was thrown in their faces.  They had become addicted to salty caloric snacks provided by tourists, and were therefore no longer nocturnal creatures.  When they got too close to some tourist's backpack, our guide yelled, "Throw sand at them!" to frighten them away. 

Brave raccoons

Fearless!

After saying “adios” to our tour guide, Nat and I went for a dip in the warm beautiful water that surrounded the park.  This beach may just win out Miami and Cancun for best place to take a dip.

Manuel Antonio

Beautiful beach at Manuel Antonio National Park

The Search for Quetzal - A Success Story

This morning, our quest for quetzals continued.  We began our hike at 6AM, because they typically arise between 6:30 and 7:30AM.  After some morning coffee, our tour group started our journey down the hill.  It was about a 15 minute walk from our lodge to this ranchers property - the day before, quetzals had been spotted there.  Quetzals mate during the spring months and their favorite food, avocado, is now scare in the region we were in, so we knew that seeing one might not occur.  As soon as we finished hiking up this hill, our group began anxiously scanning the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare quetzal.  Before I knew it, a flash of emerald green flew before my eyes and I alerted our group!  I had been the first to see the quetzal!  It flew into the tree about 200 meters from where we were all standing.  A minute later, it was followed by its mate.  Unfortunately, she was much harder to see, especially since she doesn't have that long tail to giver her away.

I spy with my little eye... a Quetzal!  Can you??

Check out the not zoomed in photo I took.  I believe that he would have been impossible to spot if I had not witnessed him fly into the tree.

Quetzal Male

Sorry this photo is so large, but this is the only way to see his little face!  It really is quite a miracle that we even saw them.

All the following photos are of the Trogon Lodge where we stayed for two nights.  It is a beautiful place, in the San Gerardo de Cota valley.    

The view I was gazing upon as I blogged yesterday

Trout - major food group at the lodge

Posing in front of a waterfall during our hike

Beautiful flowers and scenery

View from our cabin

Last two shots were taken minutes ago from our new hotel, Hotel Cuna del Angel.  Nat and I have been seeing here drinking beer and working on the computer.  We have been watching the birds fly by - we even saw two toucans! 

Candid shot from the balcony

Sunset over the jungle

The Search for Quetzals

I realize that the last time I wrote, I was drawing blood in California, but it has just been too hectic to keep y'all updated lately.  I went from Austin to Dallas, to Los Angeles to work at my parent's clinic, back to Dallas for Christmas, to San Francisco and Santa Rosa to visit family and friends, and finally to Costa Rica.  I am currently sitting in a lounge chair over looking a stream at Trogon Lodge in San Gerardo de Cota, Costa Rica.

Yesterday, after obtaining a rental car near San Jose, we spent 3 hours driving down a highway, and a more secluded dirt road to arrive at our destination.  This place is beautiful!  It is tucked away in the forest and is filled with bright colored flowers.  This morning Nat and I went on a hike through the rain forest in search of the brilliantly colored and rare Quetzal.  No sightings yet, but we plan on taking a guided tour tomorrow morning to see their nesting spot.  With some luck we may just see one or two!  We did however see some ground birds that resemble chickens, some other little yellow and black birds and plenty of humming birds.  Post our Quetzal guided tour we are doing a zip lining canopy tour which should be equally amazing.  I will be sure to post pictures this evening.

As far as my summer volunteer trip, I have been given more contacts to speak with after my vacation and look forward to delving deeper into my planning when I get back to Austin.
I have also started jotting down various hours and activities I have been involved with over the years so I can be in a good position this spring to fill out my graduate school applications.

Vaccines and Blood Drawing

The last couple weeks have been very busy for me.  I spent them studying for exams, preparing a bioethics presentation on prenatal genetic testing, and reviewing for my finals in genetics and physiology.    A couple weeks ago I contacted the person who had access to soon to be expiring vaccines, but unfortunately it looks like I will not be able to accept the generous donation.  Without a nonprofit tax ID code or a serious method of transporting the vaccines, I was not eligible to except them.  I was also worried that even if they did make it out to Ukraine, I would not know who would be receiving them nor would I be certain there was an adequate refrigerator to keep them viable - what with the frequent blackouts, I suppose we would even need a generator.  After I get this project off the ground I will definitely reach out to her again though!  

Since finals, I have made my way to California and have been spending time with my family and working in my parent's clinic.  I basically started drawing blood within ten minutes of walking into the clinic after coming straight from the airport!  Although I once thought of myself as a blood drawing prodigy, my delusions of grandeur were quickly shattered along with my perfect patient drawing track record.  Drawing on schizophrenics might seem challenging, but wait until you have to draw primary care patients - old, young, overweight, dehydrated...  You basically have to go in blind and start fishing - two techniques that I am not comfortable doing!  The medical assistants have been teaching me how to find difficult veins when you just can't see or feel them.  

My parents run a high volume clinic with a wide variety of patients for me to gain experience working with - that is why I am here!  I am proud to say that I have already drawn more patients in just two days than I have in my short career as a phlebotomist in Texas.   I am excited to continue to be challenged this week at the clinic.  I will continue to update y'all on my progress.