Costa Rica Videos

Here's a youtube link to our videos from Costa Rica

Pictures

Here is a post with a slide show of the pictures we took. We have some video also, so I'll put that on later.

Day 10

This is our last night in Cahuita and we´re very sad. Last night we just came in to town and had some really good pizza at Corleone´s then called it an early night and went home. We were in bed by 9 again so we could get up early and go snorkeling.

Kathy was feeling much better this morning so we finally got to go on our snorkel trip. We´ve snorkeled quite a bit so we are a bit jaded when it comes to finding good spots. Cahuita is only one of two living coral reefs in Costa Rica and according to Pattie at La Piscina, 80% of it is already dead. It´s very sad. The living coral we did see was very nice, but you could tell instantly that it wasn´t very healthy. Apparently the run off from the banana plantations is the major culprit leading to the decline of the reefs. But, Costa Rica is reluctant to do anything about it. Even though tourism is their major money maker, the banana companies are all owned by the same monopoly that owns the cell phone company and electric company here. So it isn´t in their best interest to change their ways.

There were some really cool things to see nonetheless. We saw some really big schools of fish that let us just swim right through them. There were also some HUGE brain corals that must have taken millions of years to get that size. The highlight of the tour was a huge stingray that Kathy found. It was about 5 feet wide and just spent it´s time floating around until it found a nice spot to dig into the ground and eat. Shortly thereafter it floated away off into the great beyond.

After the snorkeling trip we decided to skip the walk back through Cahuita National Park and instead headed back to the hotel where we napped in the hammocks. We were awakened by a giant iguana eating in the tree nearby and sat there watching it for a long time.

Now, after napping we are back in the main town center of Cahuita and are waiting to go eat at what Lonely Planet says is the best seafood restaurant in town. After that, who knows, we may just get crazy and go watch Iron Man at the movie theater slash restaurant next door. Hopefully that nap will help us stay up past 9pm tonight.

Tomorrow, we unfortunately have to head back to San Jose where we will spend the night in order to catch our 6am flight back home on Monday morning. We aren´t looking forward to going to San Jose so we´re planning on catch the late bus back tomorrow so we can stay here in Cahuita as long as possible.

This will likely be our last post unless something spectacular happens tomorrow. So thank you to all who have tagged along with us during our Costa Rican adventure. See you back in the States!

Day 9 - Still in Cahuita!

We love Cahuita so much we decide to stay here for the rest of our trip. We will leave here on Sunday morning. We awake early after a monstrous rainstorm that passed through last night to a beautiful sunny day here in paradise. We decide to relax a bit before our snorkel trip with Ulysses at the Beach House. We eat lunch at Ricky´s again where the service is awesome. Kathy hasn´t been feeling well all morning so instead of snorkeling we decide to take it easy laying under the walnut trees looking for sloths. We layed here a bit, but knowing me, I couldn´t sit around that long so I went and hung out at the Reggae bar down the street with some really cool rastas while she relaxed and took a nap. She´s better off not having me around.

After declining a bit of "Maria" I decide to chill out a bit with some beers instead and watch "Congo" with my new Rasta buddies until Kathy feels well enough to meet me. She meets me at about 3:30 and says she´s feeling better, but I don´t believe her. Simon, the owner of the Reggae bar, gives her a some blended up watermelon to make her belly feel better. She is now feeling better. Tonight, we have no plans. We´re just going to find a nice restaurant to have a nice romantic dinner and wait until our snorkel trip tomorrow.

Only 1 more day left in Cahuita and we are very sad that  it is ending already. The Europeans even pity us Americans because have such little time for vacationing.

End of Day 8

After a trip to town to post our blog we head back to our hotel to play some rummy and enjoy a
special Carribean pasta that we will be cooking ourselves. There really is nothing special about it except that
we bought spaghetti sauce in a pouch and have put some type of sausage in it. The spagehtti was not too bad. We have found a table very near the ocean, at our hotel, where we can relax and enjoy our dinner.

One of the bars in town plays a movie every night and has 2 for 1 cocktails from 6-8pm. The sign said that they were going to play The Killers so we decide to head back into town, this is a movie we have been wanting to see. Upon arriving at the restaurant we find that they have changed the movie to Angels and Demons which we have already seen but we take advantage of the 2 for 1 drinks and stay for the movie anyway. The service is definitely on Carribean time,. which means that it is very slow and we are wondering if we will be able to take full advantage of the cocktail special before time runs out,.

After the movie we take a cab back to the hotel, the road there is pretty dark and we are tired. It is a good thing we did not walk because it starts to rain during the ride home and just as we get into our room Mother Nature lets loose. There is a good thunderstorm which lasts for a good part of the night. Rain falling on the roof is not a sound we here often in Arizona. I never thought I would say this after living in St Louis for so long but I actually miss the rain sometimes.

Enough blogging for now, time for more relaxation!

Day 8 - Relaxing in Paradise

Well we have finally made it to the place we believe is paradise. We have found a beautiful place to stay.

The grounds are gorgeous and we are right on the ocean.

After a great nights sleep we wake up around 8am. Wander to the reception area for some coffee and chat

bit with one of the owners. She is American and owns the hotel with a Native Costa Rican.

We decide to make the 2km trek into town for some breakfast and notice that it is much hotter today and it is still pretty early in the morning. So humid, something we have not yet gotten used to.

We find a cute little breakfast place, it was recommended by the owner of our hotel. The food was delicious and plentiful.

We are very anxious to get back to the hotel to swim in the natural pool especially after the long, hot walk from town. We have pictures but cannot post them at this time. It is absolutely gorgeous and the water is the perfect temperature. It is not deep so you can walk around most of it. Steve is so anxious to snorkel that he has brought our masks and manages to find a few different kinds of fish here. I am just enjoying the view and relaxing.

The hammocks are beckoning us so off we go to lounge for a bit. The trees that the hammocks hang in are home to a couple of sloths and we have been looking for them. They are so hard to spot since the move so

little and the tree is a bit dense. Steve is persistent and finds one, it is eating so the movement caught his eye.

It is pretty near to us so we have a pretty good view of her except for the leaves that get in the way.

It is so fascinating to watch them and their slow movements.  She is eating leaves and some sort of fruit that the tree produces. Eventually she moves across the tree to get to a neighboring palm where her partner is waiting to her. They are in the top of the palm, looks like this is where they rest. We will definitely be keeping an eye on them.

We have decided to stay here in Cahuita for the rest of our trip. It is so tranquil and relaxing. There is a National Park with tons of wildlife and some of the best snorkeling in the country here. Today we are just relaxing but will be snorkeling and hiking for the next couple of days. Sorry, no pictures this time the internet cafe has no way for us to upload them. Off to relax and enjoy the ocean!

Day 7 - To Cahuita!

Castor Hunter hooks us up with a boat ride from Tortuguero to Moin (near Limon). It costs $25 each for the boat ride, but it is almost a tour in itself. There were only 8 of us on the boat including the driver. It really is relaxing. We see all sorts of wildlife during the four hour ride, including a two-toed sloth in a tree where we stopped to rest along the way. There are herons of all sorts, caiman, and more spider monkeys. 

We make it to Moin at about 1:30 and thanks to the help from some cool Spaniards we met on the boat, we get in a van which takes us to Cahuita. We arrive about an hour later and are debating whether we should forget about our plans to stay at Piscina Natural since the driver is having trouble finding it. Finally, after asking some friends of his, he finds our place. And we are so glad he did.

We have truly found our paradise. There are only 5 rooms on the beautiful sprawling grounds that include a natural swimming pool fed by the ocean and hammocks that hang from walnut trees that supposedly have sloths in them. We decide that this is where we want to stay for the rest of our trip. It is about 2km from the town of Cahuita itself, but it is not a long walk and we do not mind the excercise. 

The hotel is great. Patty is an expat from Colorado and she shares the business with her partner Walter who was born and raised here. It only costs $35 a night and has a shared kitchen and community honor bar. You just take a beer which only costs $2 (or soda for $1) and mark it down in the book and pay for the room and the drinks when you check out - whenever you choose to do so. 

The town is really nice and very small. There are plenty of bars and restaurants and things to do nearby but it does not feel too touristy. There is plenty of local flavor and a laid back caribbean atmosphere. It is very Rasta here. 

The problem though when we got here is that the telephone lines were down due to some explosion in Limon. This also means that the ATM machines are not working. And the hotel only takes cash. We only have a total of $34 in colones to our name so we have to make sure we are very careful in case phone service doesnt return any time soon. We grab some cheap burgers and fries in town but it costs us almost $16. So we decide to spend $5 at the supermarket and buy some spaghetti and tomato sauce in case we run out of cash. Luckily we have a kitchen we can use at our hotel. 

We spend the rest of the night lounging in the hammocks and playing rummy until it gets dark and then turn in early. Steve has tallied only 2 beers in the log book and still has 30 more to go to beat Bryan who racked up 32 during his stay at Piscina Natural.We are asleep by 9:30. 

When we wake up on Day 8, we find out the phones are back in service and luckily we can get cash again. We are saved! We plan on spending the day relaxing since we have done very little of that since we got here. 

End of Day 6

**Disclaimer - we have not been able to upload pictures but as soon as we get a chance we will add them to the blog**

So after our canoe tour with Castor Hunter we decided to go back and relax at the hotel. Since we had to get passes to the Tortuguero Park anyway for our canoe tour we decided to walk through the park to see what wildlife we could spot from land. We were not disappointed. Before we even enter the park we hear a group of howler monkeys in the trees at the entrance. Then further in we spot some more toucans and other beautiful birds. We also see a lot of interesting species of spiders and other insects. The banana spiders are all over the place and are huge and really creepy.

There are trails that lead from the main forest trail out to the adjacent beaches so we decide to head out there to see what we can find. There are turtle tracks everywhere! It almost looks like a monster truck rally was held out here. We see tons of nests, but no turtles. They only nest at night time.

On the way back out of the park we come across a family of Spider monkeys. They are literally right above us, about 50 feet away. The dad is leading the way with one little one thats about 1 year old and an even smaller one that looks like it may be only a few months old. The father and the littlest one make it to one side of the forest but the yearling cannot figure out how to make it across. So he swings back and forth and back and forth trying to make it to his family. Finally, the dad gives up on and he and the little one come back to get him. They head in another direction that is a little more conducive for the less athletic sibling. After spending a good 30 minutes watching the spider monkey we leave the park and return the rubber boots we had to rent in order to enter the park.

We then wander aimlessly around the town for a bit. After only 2 days it almost feels like we live here. We know some of the locals and even the dogs are familiar with us. We meet up with our two Scandanavian friends we had met at our hotel in Tortuguero, Joel and Stephanie, for dinner. We sit down at an inexpensive restaurant along the main street to eat when some other friends we met from La Fortuna - Kierran and Sheila from Bath, England - find us. We met this couple on our tour of Ecocentro Danaus with our awesome guide Arturo a few days prior. They are a really cool couple, probably in their sixties and have no kids. They remind us a lot of an older version of ourselves. Interestingly enough, Joel and Stephanie remind us of a younger version of ourselves. Also, we come to find out that Stephanie and Joel already know Kierran and Sheila from the bus ride down from La Fortuna! What a coincidence that all of us know each other and we all hit it off fabulously. We decide to all go for dinner instead at Miss Junies which is known as the best restaurant in town. We have an amazing dinner! The food was excellent and it was like having dinner with a bunch of old friends that we have known for ages. The four of them are scheduled for turtle tours that night so they have to leave at 9:30 to meet their guides. Kathy and I spend the rest of our night laying in a hammock with our newly adopted dog that we affectionately name Daisita. We sneak her into our room with us where she stays all night. I know...we are weird.

The next morning we are heading for Cahuita along the Caribbean coast.

Day 5 - To Tortuguero!

So we finally got out of Guapiles. It was a nice little town - not touristy so it was good in that aspect, but very little to do there. We got up early to catch the bus from Guapiles back to Cariari where we went yesterday and couldn´t find a working ATM machine. We then catch the bus from Cariari to the boat in La Pavona at 11:30 and arrive at the boat at about 12:30. The boat ride down the river to Tortuguero takes us about an hour and is so beautiful that we would have gladly paid the $5 each that it cost us for the bus boat ride as a tour rather than simply a way to get from the mainland to Tortuguero.

When we arrive we are greeted by a guide named Castor Hunter Thomas who leads us to our hotel Cabinas Princesa. The hotel sits about 50 meters crashing waves on the beach and there are hammocks and a swimming pool there for us to relax in. We choose the room we want to stay in and then head down to the front desk where we pay 30,000 colones (about $60) for our 2 night stay. Not bad for a nice room with an ocean view!

The town is awesome! There are no cars or motorcycles and only 1 main walking street through town. The souvenir vendors and guides are not pushy or overbearing. It really is a wonderful little town. We tour the town a bit then grab some beers and rum and coke in a can for Kathy and head back to the hotel to sit and stare at the ocean and wait for the rain to pass over.

At 5pm we head down to the hotel´s restaurant and grab a few more drinks and wait for Castor Hunter to meet us to let us know what our time slot is for the turtle tour. We also meet two very nice Scandenavian people that are also staying at the hotel and have drinks and dinner with them. Dinner at Miss Miriam´s is excellent. The beef steak is to die for and Kathy was in love with her Chuletas (pork chops). We then head back to the hotel by 7:30 to meet up with Castor Hunter Thomas for our turtle tour.

It´s pitch back when we head out to the beach with 6 other people in our group. We aren´t allowed to use flashlights or photograph the turtles nesting because the white lights will scare the turtles back into the ocean and the guides are only allowed to use red lights so that we can see what´s going on. As we walk to the beach, Castor Hunter explains the nature of the turtle conservation efforts in Tortuguero as well as their biology and the struggles each turtle must go through in order to even survive to reproductive age. He tells us there are 4 different species of turtles that nest here in Costa Rica which include the Green turtle, Hawksbill, Leatherback, and Olive Ridley. Tonight he predicts we will only see green turtles but if there are any Hawksbill present then we have to leave the beach because they are a particularly rare and endangered species. He also tells us that they lay over 100 eggs and that the survival rate to the reproductive age of about 25 years is only 1-3% when you account for unviable eggs, and raccoon, dog, Jaguar, bird, fish, and shark predation. Which makes what we see when we finally reach the beach even more amazing.

The first turtle we come across is indeed a green turtle as he predicted. When we get to her she is in the process of laying the eggs in the hole she so tediously dug out for the first hour since coming on shore. We watch as she plops each egg out one by one. Castor tells us the entire process from coming on shore, digging the hole, laying the eggs, and camouflaging the hole takes her about 2.5 hours.  As we let other groups watch her lay her eggs, we turn back to the ocean where we see another green turtle crawling out of the surf. How he saw her, we don´t know, since it was pitch black out there. But our eyes adjust and we watch as she waddles up near where the sand ends and the vegetation begins. She actually moves much faster than we thought she would. But as we approach closer, we see that she has turned back towards the ocean and is hightailing it back into the water. Castor tells us there is already another turtle nesting where she was heading and so she will return back to the ocean and come up again at another time. We go to see the second turtle nesting and notice that she had accidentally dug up some eggs that had previously been deposited by another turtle and was depositing hers in the exact same spot. It was just a coincidence, but those eggs she dug up have no chance of survival now. This is yet another obstacle an unhatched turtle must withstand in order to even be born.

We go back to watch the first turtle as she is now burying the eggs she has layed. She works methodically and covers them up almost perfectly. In the process of covering her eggs she showers me and Kathy with sand down her shirt and in my mouth.

It really is amazing when you think about the fact that these 3 females, despite all of the dangers they had to overcome, ever made it to back to this very beach they were born at 25 to 100 years ago. And it´s sad to think that although these species have survived for hundreds of millions of years almost unchanged, in a matter of a few hundred years they have almost been wiped off the face of the planet. It´s also sad (and hopeful at the same time) to think that their very survival today depends on the benevolence and selflessness of people such as those here in Costa Rica. We leave the beach sad - but also hopeful. We head home to get some sleep for our 5am wake up call and our meeting with Castor Hunter for our canoe trip.

Day 6

After an exciting tour to see turtles nesting we are more than willing to wake up at 5am to catch a canoe tour by 5:30. Early morning is the best time to see wildlife, before all the motorboats start coming through. There are hundreds of bird species that live here as well as 3 different kinds of monkeys, caiman, sloth and manatee.Our guide Castor Hunter Thomas meets us in ¨town¨and takes us to canoe where we load up very anxious to see wildlife. We set out towards the Tortuguero National Park.

It is not long before we see a heron sitting on a branch with its wings spread out. We are told by Castor this is becuase he has dove into the water and is now drying off. Soon we here a sound that sounds like a dog barking.
These  are the howler monkeys who do not like loud noises apparently. We are not noisy but there are some motor boats going by.

We continue paddling through the canal searching for anything. Of course our guide  he has to point everything out to us. I know that he has been doing this for years so he knows where to look He spots an iguana sunning himself on a low palm branch. We move in to get a closer look and take pictures.

Next Castor guides the boat into a shallow area with very low lying trees where there are a couple of baby caiman, they sit motionless and allow us to take pictures. It is so cool that we can get so close and they do
not move at all.

We move on to another area spotting more heron and iguana. Eventually we see some spider monkeys hanging out in the trees. They are not easy to see at first but their movement through the trees easily gives them away. We sit for a bit watching them eat and be monkeys.



We continue through the park and spot more caiman and birds.We follow a spider monkey on his walk through the trees. He is moving farely quickly and when he comes to a break in the trees, he has no trouble jumping from one to the next.

Finally, we see the last species of monkey, the white faced capuchin. He is the smallest of the 3 that we have seen and is very busy picking leaves for his breakfast. It is so amazing to watch these animals in their natural
habitat.

We are nearing the end of our 3 ½ hour tour but not before we see a group of howler monkeys hanging out together in a treetop along with their tiny baby. We also see a decent size caiman sunning himself on the bank camoflauged in some vegetation complete with a butterfly on its head.

What an awesome tour, it was so worth getting up at the crack of dawn to see nature at its best.
The rest of the day is ours and we plan some hiking through the park and then some R and R.

Day 4

Kathy´s catching us up with day 3 as I fill us in on day 4. Well, we only stayed in La Fortuna for one day, but since we rented the scooter, we were able to fit in a lot in that little amount of time. One of our goals for this trip was to go to the town of Tortuguera which is situated on the Caribbean coast and is surrounded by National Parks included one that extends into the ocean itself. It´s well known for its protected turtle nesting grounds, crocodiles, manatees and other wildlife. We figure it´s going to take us a while to get there since we´re relying on buses the entire time. We actually love traveling this way. It makes us feel more like we live here rather than just visiting. So we have to wake up at 4:30am on August 1 to catch the bus leaving La Fortuna at 5am. Luckily that crappy little place we stayed at last night was only about a block away so it didn´t take us long - which is nice because it was pouring rain in the morning. By the way, it rains a lot here, particularly in the mountains, but doesn´t typically last too long which is nice.

We leave La Fortuna headed for Ciudad Quesada aka San Carlos. We then had to wait for 3 hours for the next bus to Puerto Viejo Sarapiqui because we just barely missed the 6 o´clock. We figured we´d call some hotels in Tortuguero to make reservations because we actually just read in the Lonely Planet guide that this was the busiest time of year there due to the fact that it´s turtle nesting season. That was probably an important piece of information to have prior to heading out for it. But, fortunately we found a room available at the place Lonely Planet actually recommended called Cabinas Princesa and when I spoke to the lady she was very nice and told me she´d hold a room for us until we got there that night.

So we finally get on the bus and are now heading to Puerto Viejo Sarapiqui. It takes about 2.5 hours to get there from San Carlos, but probably would have only taken 1.5 hours had they not stopped every 5 minutes to pick someone up or drop someone off. It may be frustrating for us, but it´s everyday life for Costa Ricans. Buses in Thailand did the same thing so we were kind of used to the concept. Actually, as an aside, Costa Rica and Thailand are almost identical countries in every aspect except for their language. If you took down all the Spanish signs here you would have difficulty telling the difference between the two. Well there are also no Asian people here, although we have seen a couple Chinese restaurants that we can only assume are run by Chinese people. Man, those people are ubiquitous.

The next bus ride isn´t so bad. It takes us about an hour to get to our next stop on the way to Tortuguero called Guapiles. It´s a typical small Latin city but with less tourists and more locals. It really is nice when there are no tourists around. It´s the best way to get a feel for a culture when locals´ lives don´t revolve around placating tourists. They are much more sincere and genuine. That´s one of the reasons we travel the way we do.

Okay, so we have to catch the next bus from Guapiles to the small town of Cariari. We ate and walked around the town a little bit. Kathy likes to go to pharmacies in other countries because she likes to see what drugs they sell over the counter there. There was a professional soccer game that started at 3pm so all the locals were walking around in soccer garb. There was a buzz in the air just like before a Suns game. As we were walking around town, we came across a guy selling turtle eggs from the back of a pickup truck... Well being a conservation biologist, I was obviously appalled by this. We´ve read that turtle eggs get poached and sold on the black market as a delicacy but this was right in the open! And when I took his picture, he covered his face. He was obviously not very proud of what he was doing.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We had trouble finding an ATM in Guapiles so we decided to wait until Cariari to get cash out since they don´t take any cards in Tortuguero. After the 40 minute drive (Lonely Planet said 20 min.) it´s about 3:30pm and the first thing we do is look for an ATM. First one won´t work so we go down the street to the next bank - it doesn´t work either. We see another one a little further down...it doesn´t work either!! We ask around to see if there are any other ATMs around town. Nope! There are only 3 ATMs in this city and none...nada...nothing works! We´re screwed. We have about 20 bucks worth of colones left and we can´t go to Tortuguero without cash... so we have to bite the bullet and head back to Guapiles for cash - where we should have just gotten it in the first place. It turns out that it was actually a good thing we had to head back to Guapiles because we came to find out prior to heading back there that there were no other buses leaving from Cariari to the boat that takes us to Tortuguero... We would of had to go back anyway.

So, it´s about 5pm and we´re in Guapiles again. We find an ATM right away, grab the cash we need and then grab a cab to Hotel y cabinas Wilson that was listed in Lonely Planet. It was about like the place we stayed at the previous night except it had a tv and air conditioning....but no hot water. Well since we had to stay in Guapiles for the night, we thought we´d make the best of it. We went down to the park in the center of town where all the locals were hanging out watching the high school band practice. It was actually pretty cool so we hung out there a bit. Then decided to walk around some more and settled down at a little bakery and got a couple of Cokes in glass bottles. There must be something that happens to the chemistry in Coke when stored in glass, because it tastes so much better that way. A lady comes by selling Costa Rican lottery tickets. The jackpot was 90,000,000 colones, which we calculate to be about $180,000 so we buy one and decide if we win we´re going to donate it the conservation groups that work on saving the turtles down in Tortuguero - after we pay off our cars first of course.... We head to bed early since we´d been up since 4:30 that morning. We fall asleep watching tv in english with spanish subtitles hoping to pick up a few more words.

It´s now 9am on monday, August 2nd and we´re waiting to catch the bus back to Cariari. Hopefully we´ll make it to Tortuguero by about 2pm. Time to go check our lottery ticket... hasta luego.

Day 3

We are leaving Monteverde today for La Fortuna to see the Volcan Arenal. First a jeep, which is actually a minivan, takes us down a very bumpy, pot hole filled road, which takes about 2 hours. Here we come to Lake Arenal to catch a boat. It has been raining off and on all morning but, of course, when it comes time for us to get out of the van it starts pouring, and I mean pouring!!! So after a short walk to the boat we are soaked even  with a raincoat on.

The boat ride is pretty uneventful and its so cloudy and rainy that you can´t see much but we were told that on a clear day you can see the volcano. What we can see is very beautiful. Costa Rica has not let us down in beauty. It is so green and lush, lots of hills and mountains.

So, we get to the other side of the lake where we see a sign saying that there are crocodiles in the lake. Thank god we did not have to swim. Another minivan is waiting for us where we load up and it drops everyone off at their respective hotels. Shortly into the drive it becomes very obvious that this is a major tourist area. Lots of posh resorts line the road to Fortuna. We have decided  to stay at the very luxurios Mayol Lodge. We had read about it in the Lonely Planet book and it seemed like a clean, decent place and we needed a place close to the bus station since we have a very early bus to catch. Well, it was basically a room very, very basic, but what can you expect for $30. Actually, I think we payed too much for it.


So we head out to see what Fortuna has to offer. We see a lot of tourists and many souvenir shops. You can see the volcano from town and it is starting to clear up a bit, so we decide to head towards the volcano. By the way, it is still active and apparently lava is flowing on one side of it.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

Anyway, we see a scooter rental place and Steve is recalling our days in Thailand , so we feel confident that we can safely ride this thing. So we drive and get as close to the volcano as we can but the road to the observation point is very bumpy and would be brutal on the scooter.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We go back towards the lake where we got off the boat and find a side road to drive down. There is a tourist bus parked on the side of the road and everyone  is out looking up at the trees. Well, there is a monkey and her baby sitting up there. Yay!!! Our first monkey sighting, thanks to the tour, otherwise we probably would never have seen them.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We continue on up the road which is very steep in parts and follow it to the end  where there is a restaurant and a park of some sort that u can tour through, but the restaurant has a nice balcony where you can see the volcano and the lake, very beautiful.

There is a Ecological park that we wanted to see so we had back down into town. On the way back, another tourist bus stopped and everyone is out looking up in the trees. There are a couple of toucans and across the street is their nest. Very pretty birds with a bright yellow beak.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We get to Ecocentro Danaus. It is a reserve that has many plants, frogs, a butterfly garden and monkeys. We arrive just as it is closing.Disappointed, we turn away to go back to the scooter, Arturo, the kid at reception, calls us back and says its ok he will stay and let us walk through the park. He points out a sloth sitting in a nearby tree. No wonder we could not spot any in Monteverde, he is hugging the tree and looks like part of the tree. Again we would never have seen him if he was not pointed out to us.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We are enjoying the walk and come to a butterfly garden many different kinds of butterflies live here and are very beautiful. On the other side of the butterfly garden is the ranarium where the frogs reside. Arturo is here with another couple from England. Here he  points out various frogs to us. We continue on to the lagoon where there are lots of heron and supposedly a couple of caiman (small crocodile) although we do not see them.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

Next is the medicinal plant garden. Arturo, who is 20 at most, is very knowledgeable and tells us about the different plants. Cinnamon, mint, oregano, even a chocolate plant. More frogs and their eggs are also seen here.

We continue on the trail towards the end and see many flowers and other beautiful plants on the way. Steve is in plant heaven. He is so excited to see the different plants and wants to identify them all. High up in the trees are a couple of iguanas. They are very large but are just hanging out in the treetops.
On our way out I check the tree where the sloth was and see that he has moved and is now hanging out in one of the tree branches. He seems to be frozen in one position. Then slowly, very slowly he moves his arm and then a leg. It makes me wonder how the heck they get any where. According to Arturo, he comes down the tree only once per week.

Thanks to Arturo we had a great experience at the reserve. He was so friendly and we were so grateful to him for staying 2 hours late to guide us through the park and let us get the most out of it.
Back to town to grab a bite to eat and walk around the town a bit more. Off to bed early, have to be up at 4:30am to catch the bus.

Day 2

We wake up at 8am and it's beautiful and sunny outside. Not even a hint of the fact that we're staying in a cloud forest. Our plan is to go visit the Selvatura Park and Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve since it's much less crowded than the nearby Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. We spend the morning walking through the bridged canopies of the beautiful cloud forests, barely realizing  that there are screaming tourists flying over our heads on zip lines. Ahhhh, this must have been just what it was like before the Spanish arrived.  There's nothing like enjoying the beauty of nature as you're flying by it at 40 miles an hour.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

We manage to get away from the zip-liners a bit and realize we are absolutely alone in this rain forest. It really is spectacular when you get away from the tourists. The bridges are a bit wobbly but don't feel unsafe or anything. Of course the plants are spectacular and I can't stop trying to identify them even though I have no clue what any of them are. Kathy rolls her eyes as I try to tell her what family I think various plants may belong to. She takes it all so well though because she really is the most patient person on earth. And I think she enjoys plants more than she lets on.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

After spending about 3 hours on the hiking trail at Selvatura, we walk up the road a bit to Santa Elena Reserve. We truly are the only people in this entire park. It's so wonderful to be alone without anyone else around. We don't have time to hike the long trail, so we take a shorter trail instead that only takes us 1.5 hours to complete. We keep looking around for the resident sloths and spider monkeys, but they're really good at hiding and we're really bad at finding them. But we are assured that they do actually exist.

From Steve and Kathy's Travel Blog

Us at the Rum bar owned by two Austinites that escaped Texas. The bar was really high!

Afterwards we head back down to town, tired, sweaty and hungry. We decide to go for some authentic Costa Rican pizza which is actually quite tasty. Me and Kathy manage to eat the entire 14" pizza (Steve 3/4, Kathy 1/4) before heading home to take a nap. Tomorrow we're heading to see Volcan Arenal in La Fortuna and in order to get there we have booked a route called a Jeep-Boat-Jeep. We basically take a jeep for the first leg then get on a boat to cross a huge lake, then back in a jeep again which takes us to La Fortuna. We'll see you guys then.

We're here!

Well we finally made it to Costa Rica yesterday morning at 5am. When we finally got off the plane, we weren't even sure if we were in another country. The airport was brand new and there was a Cinnabon at our gate to greet us. Yay for the proliferation of U.S. chain food. You're welcome world.

We breezed through customs and immigration, but our first impression of Costa Rica wasn't a very good one. As soon as we stepped outside the doors, we were mobbed by taxi drivers wanting to take us. Our heads were spinning and we were very annoyed. We hoped it wouldn't be a sign of things to come. We finally got a good guy that breezed us to the bus stop we needed to get to catch our bus to Monteverde.

So we get to the bus stop and there are people just standing around. Come to find out a bridge on the road to Monteverde had been washed out and they were discussing how they would get us there. So, after a tense hour of waiting, they load us up and we head out. So we're thinking they must have an alternative route to get us there. Come to find out on the way there that there is no alternative route. They're taking us to the bridge, where we must cross by foot (somehow)over to another bus waiting for us on the other side.

After 4 hours of driving, we come to a stop and we grab our things and begin the walk they tell us is only about 3km away. Three km later we make it the bridge. There is a 50 ft gap from the end of the bridge to the other side of the road. It was all pretty exciting. So we jokingly wonder how we're going to get across and then realize that there is a 3ft strip on the left side that people are crossing. Nice! We think, this won't be bad at all! Once we make it across we start looking for the bus. We start walking thinking it'll be just around the corner. And then around the next corner...and the next... About 7 hot, sweaty, bag-laden km later we finally come to a rest area where our bus is to meet us. It was like the Bataan death march! But we made it and were no worse for the wear.

We load up and head for the town of Monteverde - Santa Elena. It's a nice little tourist town but not too gawdy and and not full of annoying hawkers and leeches like other tourist places can be. But we walk around the small town, eat at this cool little treehouse restaurant and then go find a hotel to take a shower and a nap. We end up staying at this cool place called Arco Iris in Santa Elena.

We wake up and it's dark outside and our cell phones don't work so we have no idea what time it is. We figure it's 2 or 3am because we were exhausted and figured we slept right through dinner. Turns out it was only 7pm. I need to buy a watch...

We go eat some authentic Costa Rican hamburgers and french fries, wander about town a bit more than decide to turn in early and try to plan the rest of our trip.

Here we are at the airport with our suitcases on our back...good riddance Phoenix!

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and this is me wiping it off

This is mom putting cream on my chin...apparently I have some acne issues

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37 hours and counting

Only 1 and 1/2 days until we leave for Costa Rica and we still have no idea where we're going when we get there. That's how we roll... no plans - just seeing where the wind takes us. Our main goal is to avoid tourists as much as humanly possible, but I hear Costa Rica has become the new Florida where old rich people go to die. Funny thing is that they're probably the same people who support SB 1070... Ok, no politics! We're going to Costa Rica!!

We hope to make it down to Panama for at least a few days, just to check another country off our list. But who knows we may head up to Nicaragua instead. Either way, we're going to see both the Pacific and the Caribbean while we're there. Which reminds me, I have to remember the snorkel gear.

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