A Senate of Crabs

Mood: Ballsy
Music: El Canto del Loco – Canciones

Today was easily the most adventurous, outdoorsy day I've had so far. After breakfast this morning, we caught a boat for a tour of Isla Bolanos, that island that we saw yesterday that's just off the coast. It's home to the greatest number of bird species in Costa Rica (or so they say), some 200 different birds. Anyway, when we left, it was looking gray, but not too bad – our guide, Adrian (who we think also owns or runs the hotel) said it would probably just drizzle. Fail. For the entirety of the twenty-minute boat ride, it poured. We were all soaked to the bones when we got there. But most of us didn't let it screw up the day.

Corin and I started the morning by walking around the beach. On Isla Bolanos, there are tons of perfect conch shells, and they are everywhere. They aren't especially large, but seriously, they're flawless. There are also these crabs, and they're so pretty that they look fake – you would think they had been painted by how colorful they were. Anyway, after we walked around for awhile, Adrian said we were just going to wander the beach for the rest of the morning. We were confused, because we were under the impression that we were going to hike to the top of the island to see the birds' nests. But Adrian said we couldn't, because it had been raining, and Ecoplaya (the hotel) didn't want to be held liable if one of us fell in a mudslide and snapped our necks.

Well, Alex and I decided we were going to try and hike up anyway, even if Adrian couldn't (wouldn't?) send a guide with us. Corin came with us, and we literally scrambled up the hill to the top of the island (carefully avoiding the crabs all the way up – they don't just chill on the beach, they're all over in the forest, too). When we got up there, the view was too amazing for words. We took so many pictures, of the view, and especially of the birds. They're everywhere! There were big black ones called garsos negros, and littler white ones called garsos blancos. There were pelicans, too, and one ginormous iguana (or rather garro – the males are garros, the females are iguanas). It turns out that a bunch of other people had decided to climb up, too, and I had to laugh because Adrian gave in and sent two guides along, Marven and Manuel. He probably figured that we would sue either way if we got hurt, so better to have a guide than not, haha. I was glad he did, because Marven knew a ton about the birds, and pointed out to us which ones were recently hatched and told us how to tell males from females. Both the guides were clearly at home with the climb – they both did it barefoot. And they both scrambled back and forth like mountain goats in order to help the girls who were having trouble getting back down to the beach.

When we got back down, a few of us decided to just go swimming with our clothes on, since we were still soaked from the boat ride out. Just my luck, ten seconds after I take off my hiking boots, I manage to step on a pointy something or other that's sticking out of the sand and gouge out a bit of my foot (gross, right?). Fortunately, Corin is a walking pharmacy, and soon had my wound disinfected, gauzed over, and taped up. Of course, it didn't do much good, because I decided to hell with it, I was going swimming anyway, and the bandage was off five minutes later, ha.

After a quick lunch back at the hotel, 13 of us jumped in a microbus with Teresita, Yanori, and Xiomara and went to a nearby virgin beach called Playa Rajada (the others stayed back at the hotel to lounge around the pool). I was really glad I went, because Alex and I had a grand island adventure. There's a little island that's not even a half kilometer out from Playa Rajada, and Alex and I decided to swim out to it. Nobody else would go with us, because the hilos de mar (those baby jellyfish) were out in force at this beach. But we said screw it, and swam out anyway. When we got out there, we decided to walk all the way around the island, just to have a good look. It's really cool, because at one point, there's a fissure in the island that runs almost all the way to the top, but stops just short to where there's a little bridge thing over the crack. The awesome part is that the waves crash right through the fissure, from one side of the island straight through to the other (it's not very big). And even cooler – there had to be 2,000 crabs, just hanging out. We decided that a group of crabs would be called a senate (you know – pack of dogs, pride of lions, pod of dolphins. Though as it turns out, it's actually a cast of crabs [http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Pointless/AnimalGroups.html]. Whatever, I like senate better).

After we had gone all the way around the island (ask me about our daredevil stunt to get across the fissure on one side :-)), we swam back. This was the only part of the day that sucked. Apparently, the hilos de mar had had enough of gringos in their waters, and I came out with so many red spots from their stings that I looked like I had a rash all over. It was really sore, but I wasn't about to let anybody pee on me, and we didn't have any vinegar, so when the shuttle driver offered to take one van load of people home early, I went willingly.

Now I'm back in the hotel room, relaxing after a shower and watching Friends in Spanish. I would save this until later, but the truth of the matter is that I don't think I'm up for much more tonight than going down to dinner. And I doubt I'll even get out of my pajamas for that, ha. But whatever, I explored two islands in one day. I think I deserve a night off, don't you?

Pura Vida,
Sarah

New words:
canegua/caricaco hermit crab
garro male iguana
garsos species of birds