Oh my god we caught a tarpon

Feb 1 We spent most of the day on a walk through the jungle. This was a new experience for us. The jungle is hot and humid. We were in 4-6inches of sticky red clay mud the whole day. Besides the jaguar track we saw, and heard and/or saw numerous species of birds, ants (one is called a bullet ant because it you get bitten it feels like you were hit by a bullet), a vast varietmy of plants (including the walking tree and many medicinal species), turtles, howler monkeys, spider monkeys (John's favorite), a giant rodent, and both species of poison dart frogs (my favorite). They are both the size of your thumb nail and the have enough poison to kill you. One is red with blue legs (the blue jean frog) and the other is black with bright green lines running across is body.

The power went out in El Castillo around 5 yesterday afternoon and was still out when we left this morning. Apparently it can be off for several days at a time here. We are here for two more days so that means we don't eat meat until we leave as refrigeration is essential to prevent meat from rotting.

Our hotel is the second floor of a house. It has a balcony overlooking the street below Which makes it great for watching people. This place is a vibrant working Nicaraguan village. Everyone is busy from dawn to dusk. I'm watching a elderly man across the street making cinnamon sticks from chunks of wood. It's a process that involves tapping the bark with a piece of wood, shaving off strips, and drying them. Then he repeats the process a couple of hours later. He was doing it when we left this morning and he is still doing it 8 hours later. It looks like he has about 8 cups of dried cinnamon. On the floor beside him is about 15 cups of cocoa beans drying on a nylon sack.

Feb 2. Oh my god! We caught a tarpon. John was holding the lucky rod. We all have had one on but they are notorious for shaking it. But what a tarpon! They estimated the weight at 140lbs. We could have produced an incredible fishing movie, if only we had a movie camera. It came flying out of the water a half dozen times before heading for "the rapids". We ran the rapids while tied to this 140 pound river monster. Fortunately for us we all exited the rapids at the same time. We took on 5 gal of water in the 20 ft panga (boat). It took about an hour to wear the fish out. Unfortunately it was hooked to deep in the gills to release it, as this is a catch and release fisheries. It's a pretty serious thing when you kill one of these dinosaurs. You immediately go to the army station to report it. Actually they were waiting for us as the whole rodeo took place right in front of town, so it was common knowledge by the time we got to shore. Anyway, the army takes the fish and supposedly ratios it out to the local people. No one is suppose to profit. I got some pictures. It's gigantic !

We had a guide and a driver. I'm convinced they hadn't caught to many big fish as they went crazy when we hooked on to the fish. It was truly a rodeo. But somehow they managed to stay with the fish. I was sure their rod and reel wouldn't survive the battle as the drag on my reel stripped in the first 10 minutes of our morning fishing trip.

The same afternoon we left for San Carlos, at the start of the river, still in Nicaragua. The next morning we got up and took a ferry to Los Chiles, Costa Rica. Going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica is like going from one world to another. To make the point, Coming back to San Carlos we were in a 40 passenger river boat but there were at least 60 people on board. It's a 3 hour trip which we started with only one of the two outboard engines running. Some poor guy was trying to fix the second engine while we were motoring along. He was half sitting on the top of the outboard. I thought for sure he was going to left behind. All we would see is a head in the wake of the boat. I wouldn't bank on them stopping. Anyway, I deviate. Compare this to the boat we took to Costa Rica (CR). There were seats for 15 and we were the only four people on board. Everyone even had a life jacket.

Hers's another comparison. Just before leaving Nicaragua I made a bathroom stop at the ferry terminal. It's one of those deals were you pay a bathroom guard 5cents for your very own square of toilet paper, which you take with you into the cubical and lock the door. The bathroom guard is usually a young girl or an older women who sit all day on a chair handing out paper. Everything was cool until I tried to open the door and the door handle came off in my hand. So, the rest of the family are patiently waiting for me to return 4 blocks away as we needed to get through customs before the ferry left. I won't say that I panicked but I gave the door a good hip blast and the door flew open and I flew out of the terminal. I think it scared the guard. Again I diverged. So compare that to CR where the first bathroom break I had there were no fees, no bathroom guard, and no locked doors. The best part of the bathroom break, other than the obvious, is there was hot water in the tap and it was under pressure. In Nic. all the water is cold, if you have any water, and it is gravity fed. Don't you think it's a bit ironic that in the socialist country you have to pay to pee but in the capitalist country you pee for free.

Here's another comparison. In Nic fruit seemed in short supply and we didn't see any plantations. Across the river in CR there are field after field of pineapple, papaya, oranges, etc. There is fruit everywhere. Mind you, it's not as cheap in CR as in Nic. either.

I think the differences between the two counties is that Nic. was consumed by conflict and wars for years while CR abolished it's military decades ago. CR has focused on tourism, education, and agriculture.

CR has suffered from continual inflation and the fact their money was never devalued. It takes awhile to wrap your head the fact that the exchange rate is 500 CR dollars to 1 US. We went to the ATM and first withdrew 20,000 CRD and soon realized that wouldn't go far so we went back in line and withdrew another 100,000 CRD. Supper was 50,000 dollars?...

Thinking of you in Costa Rica. So far we have spent a couple of days recharging our selves and our batteries in CR. we decided to spoil ourselves by going to an amazing hot springs. It's actually a high end resort but you can get a day pass for people like us. There are 27 separate hot springs and a waterside. Some of the pools are so hot you could cook yourself if you stayed in too long. Then we went on another jungle walk and saw two pit vipers(poisonous snake). The guide almost step on one of them. And that is why you hire a guide! Will Smith and his son were in the process of filming a movie in the same area. Lots of trucks and people running around.

We are now in the "cloud forest". Matthew couldn't figure out why we would want to walk around in the clouds. He had me a bit worried but it wasn't like that. It's a very dense wet forest, and yes it's very close to the clouds. We saw a sloth, tarantula, quetzal (beautiful bird which symbolizes the CR cloud forest), many other bird species, and a forest that is reminds me of the west coast rain forest but different species of trees. One of the highlights was the humming birds that think John's red hat is the mother of all flowers. He had several close encounters (within 3 inches of his eyeballs) with a humming bird.