Monteverde, Costa Rica

sat 5, 29th : I wrote the first part of the report in Monteverde.
Monteverde was a typical spontaneous after beer on friday decision. Nobody had time or was up for hiking, so I left San Jose alone for Monteverde.
Monteverde is in the country famous for it's cloud forest reserve but a touristic place. It is located in the mountain chain of Guanacaste and the town of Monteverde itself with about 3000 people is found on an elevation of about 1200m.
I arrived in the afternoon and the weather was unexpected nice, since the rain season starts hitting San Jose now.
On friday I stayed directly in the cloud forest reserve in a really really nice room for just about 8 dollar. That is definitely not normal, but offseason and some begging helped. The reserve, a real paradise for biologists, is just gorgeous and a MUST see in the region. A heavy steady brise (it is very important for this ecosystem as I have heard) makes the canopy sing. In addition are birds and monkeys. This makes it mystic especially if you go there alone meeting hardly any people. The forest is of course very wet.
All in all it was one of the nicest forests I have ever seen.
And what an air, I havent slept that well in Costa Rica so far. Bird sounds, canopy singing, the fresh almost chilly air.
Today was a hiking day. I took of really early in the morning and found soon a hiking friend for the day. A dog and I called him "Knecht Feldspat". I was looking for a trail which would lead to a mountain, about 2000m. Of course I took the wrong one, a tiny one and was difficult getting through the dense forest, climbing over and under trees. I arrived about 3 hours later on the first peek before I realized that I had hiked the wrong mountain and took another path which finally led to the right one, characterized with satellite dishes and masts of the local television. But it was special, because I saw a Jagurundi (like a Jaguar but smaller and totally black). I didnt see the head very well because it disappeared quickly. Another animal was a huge snake, probably not poisonous regarding its head. Finally I came back an checked the local snake farm and a orchidee garden out. Now Iam sitting in a cheap hostel with internet, chilling out the rest of the day.
Afterward:
I hooked up on saturday with some locals and other hikers from the hostel and we drank some beers. Sunday was special. I did one of the famous canopy tours. It is called Sky Trek and you are attached to a strong rope and slid down over the canopy without having ground under your feets. Just check the photos out. The longest rope has 700 m and you are 300 above the ground. I got back in the early afternoon to San Jose and met some nice people on the way. A great weekend all in all.

New Photos: Diving Bocas del Toro, Panama

There are 5 new Photos from diving in Bocas del Toro, Panama. You can find Thomas, some fish and once me on them. Sorry for the bad quality but we only had "one time for use" camera without a flash or anything.

New photos: Buenos Aires

The photos of the Talamanca excursion are online now:
1) river scenery (also here on the left)
2) "Weihnachtsstern"
3) Turkey in Costa Rica
4) Sky clearing up after a heavy rainfall
5) Green Mangos, you eat them with salt
6) Group photo, Prof. Kussmaul
7) Diana in front of rock
8) In front of the Talamanca mountain chain
9) Crossing a narrow bridge with the Geomobil
10) River scenery dos

Buenos Aires, Talamanca mountain chain

This week I have been to the cordillera de Talamanca in the southern part of Costa Rica. It was a 3 day excursion of my Petrology class. Our base was in Buenos Aires (there are many famous city names for small towns, even Venice exists here too), a town which is basically surrounded by huge pineapple farms. That is local economy. The famous mountain chain of Talamanca starts north of it. There you will find also the highst mountain of Costa Rica, the Chirripo with an altitude of more than 3800 m.
In this area arent vulcanoes what makes it kind of unique for Costa Rica since there are lots of them in the north. Hardly any geological information about the area makes it also interesting for any geologist who likes to explore. Few roads are the reason for that, it is very difficult to enter the area and getting to remote places is either impossible or requires a decent amount of pacience and time. Still, we spent most of the time hiking and identifing rocks on the pathes which exist.
Interesting are the native villages which are along the trails through an incredible beautiful area. Tropical fruits of any kind, fantastic butterflies and a satured green landscape with just some little forests up on 1000- 2000 meters bring you in an enthusiastic mood.
Mid- april is also the start of the rainy season which hits Costa Rica first in the south. Thunderstorms develop in the early afternoon and are followed by heavy rainfalls. Roads and trails change quickly into creeks then what makes hiking to a wet adventure.
We spent the nights back in Buenos Aires, hanging out in the local bars which usually turn into Karaoke places for the locals after 10pm. Typical local songs but also rosty ones, like "greek wine in spanish" made the locals and us students laugh.

PICTURES ARE AVAILABLE TOMORROW!

Bocas del Toro, Panama

My mother came for easter break, semana santa in costa rica, and we visited the Caribbean for about a week. Thomas, Philipp and Elke joined of course and we took of on april 8th to go to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica close to the border to Panama, by bus. I have to mention that all of us had to leave the country, because our visas last only for 3 months, and those months very over at that time. After spending a night in Puerto Viejo, a nice but too touristic place for spoiled individual travelers, we went on to Sixaola, the actual border town to Panama.
There, we needed to cross a river at the border on an old huge bridge with lots of holes. It was a little bit scarry since we very balancing on some rosty iron parts about 25 meters above the river. Have a look in the slide show, I will put some pictures on.
After our safe arrival in Panama we were looking for a way to get to Bocas del Toro.
This wasnt too difficult and a taxi brought us to the near river on which we continued on a little boat downstreams. The river ends in an huge mangrove forest in the Caribbean Sea.
Bocas del Toro is an old town on a beautiful island, as you can see on the map. The buildings which are built into the sea are incredible beautiful. It is a mixture between Italy's Venice and the Caribbean world of Earnest Hemingway.
We were looking for a nice hotel in Bocas and found one directly next to the sea, a wonderful appartment with kitchen etc., once again luck was on our side. My mother was really tired after the long ride, decided to have an easy relaxing day.
Thomas signed up for the PADI Open Water Scuba Diving course and was off. Of course, he passed it in hilarious manner after 3 days. Elke and Philipp went with one of those many offered tours snorkling and had also a great time.
My minority decided to go scuba diving too, the 1st time after 6 years again. I put the suite wrong on. Attached the air vent on the wrong side, forgot eaven to turn the air vent on, when I jumped into the water the first time, BUT it finally worked out and I dove into the world of corals and colorful fish. The following days were equally nice, my mother was fit again and we made tours to a lonely island, to a gorgeous beach with red frogs , Pfeilgiftfroesche in german and went snorkling. Even in the mangroves, normaly you never have a good visibility there but those in Bocas del Toro are special. General thats the way you do it in Bocas del Toro. You stay at the main island and take off to other islands for beaching, snorkeling, diving, dolphin watching, bird watching, surfing, etc etc. The place is touristic but it is tourism with style. The evenings were always great to, what can be better than having a nice cigar and a cool beer in an hangmat on a balcony in front of the sea. For my mother, she has arrived in Kiel safely again, it is still a dream.The time in Bocas ended as it had started. Thomas got his diving certificate and got 2 free dives. So we went diving together with a cheap underwatercamera to celebrate this special day. The photos are coming up. We dove to a old ship wreck, the first one for me too.
We left Bocas after 4 days and crossed the border again and went to Manzanillo, a little coastal village 15 km SE of Puerto Viejo. It was much nicer there. The Semana Santa had started already before we arrived and we had a hard time to find a place to sleep. But again, luck was on our side and we found a nice private house which we could have. We did a coastal trail on the next day with some snorkeling included. We got basically stucked in the mud on the way back. Just have a look in read the descriptions of the upcoming photos.
Finally we had to return to San Jose Costa Rica, a great Semana Santa was over.

Civil Service

I know now for some weeks that I will do my civil service in Honduras starting on july 16th for another year. I will work as an physical instructor for kids in a huge camp near Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
I think that is the best solution of a civil service and I am really glad that this has worked out.

Visit www.nph.org for more details.


Photo: tropical rainforest near the caribbean coast.

Summary of the past 3 month.

Since I havent written too much in the past months I will shortly tell you guys what is going on here and how the future will look like. This report is going to be very briefly since I could really write for days.
I will write real stories about weekends, parties etc. in the close future.

All three of us arrived on 22th of january in San Jose, Costa Rica. Not knowing much about studing or living here, we are die first students of Leoben, was the reason why we chose to stay in an hostel for the first 2 weeks till things would settle down. This was a great place with a pool, a cyber cafe, a beamer and movies etc etc. So I can only recommend it---- Costa Rica Backpackers.
In those 2 weeks we got in contact with Jorge Laguna, the chief prof of the geology department, also with Adrian and his crew, who are responsible for all the exchange students here. All of them are great and helpful people and our worries that we might have to pay extra fees etc. vanished instantly. After getting the important organisational stuff done, signing up for the mentatory spanish course and the classes we were looking for a place to stay.

We found a house pretty close to the university after a while which is huge and comfortable for all of us. With about 6 rooms, 3 bathrooms and 2 garages which is great for parties. Sadly but true, we got robbed in front of the house, but you can ask me about more details if you want to know more about it.

The spanish course lasted for 4 weeks and it was really important to learn the basics of spanish. We hardly had any time during this time since we spent like 7-8 hours a day studing. We are now studing on our owns, but we dont have much time since we are very busy with college, so it is becoming a slang right now with pretty bad grammar.

I WILL CONTINUE WITH THE SUMMARY SOON

Photo Album

I have a photo album at this homepage since there is more space: http://www.fotothing.com/dani1984

FIRST POST

Hi my friends,
I have just created a weblog. Now you can read my stories enjoy some pictures and write some comments. I think that this is a good solution to those mass mails which I don`t really like.
Enjoy surfing!
Yours, Dani
(photo by philipp @ bocas del toro, panama)