The old man of Tortuguero

We've been offline for several days, up among the volcanos of the Cordillera de Guanacaste, great time, but poor or no net connection. More about that tomorrow - first Ros's description of a trip she had while we were on the Caribbean coast in Tortuguero:

"We’d seen Josh  around Casa Marbella in his khaki shorts, T-shirt and cap; slow talking with a round Canadian drawl, bleary-eyed, his greying hair tied back in a long thin pigtail. He turned up a few minutes late and looking somewhat the worse for wear to guide us through the rain forest on Turtle Hill – a rounded high promontory at the mouth of the Tortuguero River. The river taxi had room for seven passengers, but there were only four of us – Josh, a newly-wed French couple and me. We zip along the broad channel, the fancy lodges lining the banks with their parrot tablecloths flapping in the breeze. Guido grounds the flattened prow on the beach and we hop ashore, waiting for the ebb so the water doesn’t pour into our rubber boots.

We plod across the sandy beach and Josh points out the seed pods in the swash zone – large round pods the size of golf balls, flattened rounded disks and coconuts – all are far too large to be carried by birds or other animals and depend on water for their distribution. We pass by a cheap and cheerful row of wooden bungalows and cafes lining the beach and into the rainforest beyond. Suddenly it’s dark and dank, the cries of children playing on the beach absorbed by the foliage. There are 409 species of tree in this forest, four times as many as in all of  North America and Europe. All are struggling for survival, filling a niche in this complex ecosystem, all striving to reach the light. The trees thrive with their roots in the wet nutrient poor soil, but many other life forms struggle to stay dry. The white tent bats chew along the main longitudinal vein of a palm leaf so that it folds, forming a waterproof roof; they cluster beneath this during the day. Termites build their nests high up in the trees here.

The trail is muddy and slippery with brown decaying leaves. Occasionally we spot a tiny, bright red poison dart frog – the mucus on their backs is not poisonous to touch unless you have an open cut. Bullet ants can give you a nasty bite though, so I stay well clear. And I carefully avoid touching a vicious looking plant with spikes covering its stems and leaves, which can make you sick for days.

We hear a rustling in the tree tops and suddenly it’s pouring down; we hurriedly slip into our ponchos. I’m lucky, mine has a hood and it covers my backpack and hangs down to my knees; the others are drenched in minutes. The treetops way above us sway violently and Josh decides that we should retreat – falling branches are dangerous. We seek refuge in the nearest bar on the beach, Josh swigging his tumblers of white rum and water. I watch the kids splashing on the beach, the waves crashing onto the barrier bar just across the channel, and the brown pelicans effortlessly hugging the swell.

Soon Guido is here to fetch us and we drone back to the dock at Casa Marbella.  Josh steps unsteadily up onto the prow and then onto the dock, his foot slips on the wood slick with algae and he falls headfirst, backpack and all, into the brown muddy river water. He comes up looking disheveled and surprised and Guido helps him clamber back onto the dock. This is not the first time, and it won’t be the last…. "