Day 16

Day 16

Corcovado Park Sirena Station

After a very rough boat ride, our group (which included us, an older couple of a retired business professor and a judge,  and a young Latvian couple who spoke Russian) arrived a Corcovado. We saw a feu de lance, the most dangerous snake in Central America and almost invisible. Then a family of peccaries (wild pigs), trotted by. Next was a two-toed sloth sleeping in a tree. Then there were the monkeys! We saw all four types, white-faced Capuchins (the mafia of the jungle), a sweet and sad looking howler monkey, spider monkeys, and final last and least, the squirrel monkey. As if that weren’t enough, we encountered a large anteater in a tree and finally a tapir which looked like a mini hippo wallowing in the mud. I am not even counting the three-toed sloth with greenish fur, the possum, iguanas, crocodiles, toucans, or many other birds.

 

peccary

posseum

squirrel monkey

tapir

toucan

peccary

2-toed sloth

Anteater

Boa

Capuchin

Crocodile

Howler Monkey

Day 15

Caño Island
Headed out for a day of snorkeling today with a mixed group of snorkelers and divers . We got talking to a woman from Philly who was a zookeeper. She gave us lots of monkey tips--such as watch out if a monkey “smiles” at you. He is about to attack. We have had such bad luck at snorkeling in Costa Rica that we were astonished at how good it was on Cano Island. The clarity was unbelievable--like a swimming pool. We saw a big sea turtle, a spotted eagle ray, sergeant major fish, angel fish, parrot fish, and many others I don’t know the names of. There was a school of grey fish that swirled around like a tornado and a school of barracuda passed very close by us.  The guide  showed us garden eels that stuck up out of the water like little sticks and when he approached them, they pulled themselves down under the ground. We passed a group of dolphins on our way to the island. We spent almost 2 hours in the water with a break in between. Fantastic!
-Heidi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTQrE4NuSJA
not our video but it looked like this.

Day 13 & 14

Two travel days so John is allowing me to write about them. Since nothing dramatic happened, he thinks my work will look boring and his work will look better.

We got the bus to San Jose with incident. Our hotel was perfectly fine except of course for the train that roared by blasting its horn twice an hour. We went to t he Gold museum which according to tripadvisor  is the number one thing to do in San Jose. The preColumbian gold in Costa Rica can’t compare to Peru or Mexico but the museum was nicely done--lots of video and interactivity. John’s knowledge gained in his anthropology class was quite useful. Who would think that anthropology could be useful!

I bought a new pair of sunglasses for $4--craftily bargaining a street vendor down from $8. I lost my Job Lot glasses somewhere.

Sunset at Drake's Bay

We got the 6:30 am bus to Palmar Norte and surprising arrived in time for the 11:30 boat. There are no roads open to Drake Bay so the only way in is by boat or plane. The boat ride was through a mangrove swamp and then out into the open ocean--Very exciting. Our hotel is cheap but there was someone waiting for us when we waded ashore. (There is no dock) After we settled in we took a walk along a path with the rain forest on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. As usual we acquired a dog guide. She accompanied us for a couple of hours. When she left us, John wanted to give him a tip but I said no. On the walk we saw a palm tree so big that it would take five people to circle it. There was a sorts of exotic fruit fallen from the trees and we saw spider monkeys as usual. Monkeys are becoming such a bore. (not really)
I like this place better than any of the others. It’s authentic. I think we will have a good time here. Even the dinner was interesting. We had whole fish, eyes and all. John said the eyes didn’t taste like anything but you will just have to take his word on that.

Day 11

Not much to report today.  We spent the day surfing, relaxing by the beach, and collecting energy for the long trip to San Jose tomorrow.  The most interesting part of the day was at the beach during sunset, when a drunk/crazy/homeless guy tried to get us to touch his hands.  When we didn't comply he threw sand at us, called my Mom a whore, and threw a rock at me (he missed).  I guess this town is a bit disorderly.
-Juan

Day 9

This is a horse.

This is one horse in the sunset.

 We departed Montezuma today, and headed for Santa Teresa, a nearby surfing town.  The bus from Cobano (a travel hub in the peninsula we’re in) to St. Teresa was the slowest motorized vehicle I’ve ever traveled in. Children on tricycles flew past us as we slowly drove down the road.  After finally getting there, we found our hotel and settled in.  We relaxed for a bit we decided to take a long walk on the beach. Honestly, I don’t really like long walks on the beach.  Sand is a terrible surface to walk on, the scenery is repetitive, and you have to walk back exactly the way you came.
Several kilometers of walking later, we decided to head back to the hotel.  We turned around and started walking back (exactly the same way we had come of course), and suddenly we were practically knocked over by some dogs aggressively playing with each other.  There were three dogs in total, a Rhodesian Ridgeback (the first purebred, and also castrated dog I’ve seen here), a smaller, brown, energetic mutt, and an old black dog. I named them Rhody, Humper (he constantly humped Rhody), and Old Blackie (which sounds vaguely racist in retrospect).  They started following us, which we thought was kind of cute, but then they never stopped.  Kilometer after kilometer, down the beach, down the road, into a restaurant, they never stopped following us.
We sat down in a mostly empty soda.  Rhody and Humper started playing in between the tables.  Old Blackie had fallen behind kilometers ago, due to his feeble, old body. The owner/cook/waitress of the restaurant gave us our menus, and took our orders. Our food arrived and we began eating.  Humper was incessantly living up to his name, and my Mom began to theorize why.  She began loudly talking about how Rhody probably looked like a female to Humper even though he was male.  All this loud discussion of gender and apparent gender was making me uncomfortable because the soda owner was a very obvious transvestite, and I feared she would think we were talking about her/him.
We returned to our hotel, dogs in tow, and talked to the owner.  In about ten seconds he somehow managed to send the dogs off packing.  We rested and headed out to the beach again for sunset.  A group of horses was walking along the beach, which we happily photographed.  Luckily they didn’t decide to follow us home.

This is three horses in the sunset.

Day 8

John has been doing all the blogging so I am giving him the night off. He has also been hogging the computer leaving me to do emails on a hand-me-down Andoid. If you have received strange emails from me referring to Cosa Ricardo--it’s the Android’s fault.
What I have loved most about Costa Rica are the small unexpected treasures--the sounds of the howler monkeys, bright green lizards, magnificent spider webs, and plants that fold up when you touch them. The people are unexpected surprises too. Today Costa Rica won a game in the World Cup. You should have heard the shouts of joy. We were in a small town Cabuyo that consists of one dirt road and three soda (restaurants). I heard shouts of “Goal! Goal! Goal!” from all the televisions in the town turned to the same game. For the next hour everyone was on the street hugging, shouting, singing, beeping horns. Costa Rica beat Brazil 3 to 1!
Our trip today was to Cabuyo island that is only accessible at low tide. It is the town’s cemetery and is reputed to be haunted.. We didn’t see any ghosts but the buzzards hanging around the graves did creep us out a bit. We snorkeled at the coral next to the island but we had to be sure to get off by high tide.
We walked 2 k to the Capo Blanco National park nearby and saw lots of lizards, spider monkeys, and an agouti which looks like a beaver with pig legs. Nice hike but as usual we sweat so much we looked like we  had taken a shower with our clothes on. I didn’t know the human body could hold so much water.
We planned to return to Montezuma on the same bus we took in the morning. We thought we had missed the bus so we started walking the 7k back. Then we saw them--the howler monkeys. We had heard them every day since we arrived in Montezuma and finally caught sight of them. They were huge. John does a great howler monkey imitation but I made him stop because they were getting too interested. Then the bus came and we bumped and rattled down the dirt road along the ocean with the driver shouting at motorcyclists Quieres que te mato? ( Do you want me to kill you?) We ended the day with a evening picnic at the beach and some coconut ice cream. Montezuma is a nice little town but it’s Saturday night and I understand why they nickname it MonteFUMA and I have seen more dreadlocks than I have ever seen in my life. Tomorrow we leave the"hippies" of Montezuma to find the "surfer dudes" in Santa Theresa. Pura vida!

Cabuyo Ilsand low tide

Cabuyo Island high tide

buzzards

Cemetary

Spider web

Howler monkeys

Day 7

Spider monkey.

We began our day with a complementary breakfast from the hotel.  The blue jays that pestered us yesterday at breakfast have returned with a vengeance.  They almost exclusively steal sugar packets. Invading the restaurant appears to be the only way for them to fuel their massive sugar addiction.  We headed out for another day at the beach.  After swimming and relaxing on  the shore we had lunch.  We said goodbye to Chris and Kelly as they departed on their voyage to San Jose, and ultimately home.  

Overcoming my fears of hidden leaches/crocodiles.

I'm the one in green pants, front and center.

As we returned to the hotel, we encountered a pack of spider monkeys.  They clambered through the trees surrounding our room, and even scampered over the roof.  After watching them for a while we left for a hike up to a nearby waterfall.  A local guy guided us (we didn’t ask for it, but he insisted), and when we got there he showed me where I could jump from, and how to climb behind the waterfall.  Afterwards, we ate dinner at a nice soda (small, simple restaurant), and retired for the day.
-Juan

Crouching