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Bugs, Snakes, Birds, and Turtles

13 Jun

After F and D departed, the crew lounged around the rental house until the house cleaners kicked us out and then headed up the mountain to San Gerardo de Rivas. This funky little mountain town is the last stop for folks headed to hike Mt. Chirripo; we did not hike the mountain on this trip (but R and H took this serious hike on earlier in their travels). We did, however, venture to Cloudbridge Reserve to pay our respects to H’s thumb. We spent the evening at Casa Mariposa – a super cute hostel at is built into the rocks along a stream and open to the wonderful world… which meant we had a few insect guests staying in our room and one black snake. H and R were a bit more comfortable with our roommates, but Landin and I decided to pitch at tent to have a little more privacy. Nothing like sleeping in a tent indoors. H and I got up early to do some trail running along the Cloudbridge waterfall trail and worked up enough heat to jump into the most beautifully clear, cold stream 3 times.

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We continued up the mountains toward the Cerro de la Muerte (Mtn of Death) and stopped at the Mirador de Quetzales for some bird searching – and we had success! One female Quetzal added to my list as well as 20 other birds. Our Guide was wonderful and we sipped hot chocolate as it rained before heading down to San Jose for the night.

We made a very early drive to catch a canal boat the next day to Tortuguero National Park. Clic Clic runs a very affordable canal boat out of La Pavona. Tortuguero was hot hot hot (cold water shower never felt so good) and wet wet wet. So to mitigate the heat we had milkshakes, naps, and hammock swings (to create some breeze). We did enjoy the national park and took a night walk to see a Green Sea Turtle looking for a nesting spot. Also we paddled around the canals in a dug out canoe and again found plenty of rain in the rainforest.

Once we had enough humid heat, we retreated to the mountains to give our clothes a chance to dry out and soak our muscles in the hot springs of Volcano Arenal. We found the cute town of El Castillo and stayed at Essence Arenal, which serves a wonderful veggie dinner and has spectacular views. After spending the morning in the heated stream waters (we even found a free access point across from the most expensive spa), we drove around Lake Arenal to find the brewery and stopped

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on the way back at Pizza John’s for pizza, home made ice cream, and a some interesting/great conversation.

Landin and R were scheduled to leave early on Tuesday, so we made the track back to San Jose. H and I are now headed to the East Coast for some beaches and Caribbean food.

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There is a camera on the knot on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea AKA camera alert!

9 Jun

Before G joined up with us and put our blogging back on schedule we left off in Nicaragua! We left with a promise to ourselves that we would come back on our journey north; we had Traci’s birthday coming up and we all decided that surfing was the priority! So we packed up our belongings and headed to Tamagringo aka Tamarindo.

After the ferry, taxi, bus, border crossing, bus, and final bus we arrived in Tamarindo, which was surprisingly empty and quiet even considering that it was low season. As we were walking with our giant heavy bags down the main drag, a hotel manager stopped us and asked us if we needed a place to stay. He offered us a kitchen and three beds, and once Traci had talked him down in price it was a deal that was hard to refuse!

During that evening after a very exciting bike (apparently riding a bike after a few years is not as easy to remember as the saying would lead you to believe!) and grocery run R decided to try out the couch surfing website in an attempt to find a fellow surfing host. She was successful and we made contact with a wonderful gentleman with a hotel in Playa Langosta. He offered us an even better deal that we could not refuse so we packed our bags and moved down the beach.

The hotel in Playa Langosta was awesome! We had a small pool bordered by hammocks, a mini kitchen in our room, free bike and surfboard rentals, and two great Swiss boys and one wonderful Venezuelan neighbor who arranged a sailing tour for Traci’s birthday!

The morning of Traci’s birthday was welcomed with pancakes and a failed attempt to surf due to poor tide timing. So instead the day was spent with frutas con leche, ocean swimming, and beach relaxing until our sail boat was ready for us.

The sail trip was not only an adventure on the ocean, it also had food and free rum and punch with a great live band! You can imagine after a few punch drinks, things can get a little crazy; let’s just say that by the end of the sailing adventure there was a camera at the bottom of the ocean and a new rule that R is not allowed to touch electronics while around moving vehicles or bodies of water! (This also implies that the reason we have no photos from Nicaragua onwards is entirely to blame on rum… and we hope to remedy this situation in Panama, the Central America travler’s dreamed-of shopping locale)

Once on land we then proceeded to get a ride home from some nice gentlemen (well, at least as far as we remember) and then after some pool time ended up at Pacifico bar on lady’s night where we danced the night away to a live band, but had to deal with a very rude entrance girl, who I recommend avoiding at all costs (she quite nearly ruined the night, and after all we had been drinking and dancing that’s saying a lot)!

The next day was followed with much-needed surfing recovery and relaxation day. We arranged scuba gear rental for the following morning to try to perform dive and recovery for the lost camera in the ocean. But no luck! We did meet some fantastic dive people from Italy at Agua Rica; they were so wonderful to us and went out of their way to help us recover the camera that we know if we pass through again we would love to book a tour with them!

After the unsuccessful recovery mission and the nonstop surfing it was time to move on and head to Mastatal to make chocolate! But first we stopped in San Jose to meet up with our wonderful Peruvian friend, Gonzalo. We made dinner and took him out to a movie, laughing and talking the night away :-)!

R is in charge of our next post about making fantastic organic chocolate in the middle of the Costa Rican mountains, and then we will be caught up while G continues to update on the current trip! Only took us 2 plus months and an intervention from the organized sister to get on schedule!

ALERT! If anyone feels like practicing their rescue scuba skills and finds my camera that is located in Tamarindos Port under the large sailboat docked the farthest from the beach PLEASE return and there will be a reward that includes a haircut and hug from R (and she hates touching), a surf lesson or/and snowboard lesson (probably not in the same location), a hand holding scuba session, as well as immense gratitude from us :-)! These rewards are indeed up for barter if you show up with the camera intact with memory card; however, we will except pieces of camera with memory card (really I just want the memory card!)!

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