Day 4: Tortuguero to La Fortuna

We booked a shuttle trip from Tortuguero to Fortuna for $55, but because it was the low season there weren't enough people to make the trip go.  It's a long story, but someone ended up giving us a ride all the way in his own car, after the early boat filled up and then we consequently lost our second planned connection.  I think he was a tour guide?  I'm not sure, but he was super nice and saved the day.  (and didn't murder us - bonus!)

But before we caught our boat out of town we had a canoe trip planned with the same guy that had taken us on a turtle tour the night before.  He was actually pretty awful, rude and chain smoked - on our nature tours - but we did see quite a few animals.  

Red lored parrots.

Green ibis.

Basilisk lizard 

Anhinga drying its wings

Tiger heron preening in the sun.

I asked if we could find some caiman, so we took some back canals.  There are manatee in these canals also, but it's very rare to see one.

We did see lots of these guys though, I think they are beautiful.  Spectacled caiman.

There is one hiding here:

Jesus christ lizard, hilarious when they run on water!

Finally we caught a boat from Tortuguero to Siquirres.

This is what our boat looked like.

Here is our trusty steed, that drove us halfway across Costa Rica.

There are fruit vendors all over the roads, we asked the guy driving us what this fruit was, so he stopped on the side of the road and had the vendor bring us some to try.  It's called mamón chino.

That foot belongs to a woman we picked up along the way...I'm not sure what the details were as she spoke zero English, and our driver spoke limited English.  But she was nice and taught me how to peel the mamón.  

It's called rambutan in other parts of the world, I know that they also eat it in Thailand.  It's texture is similar to lychee (they're related) but I don't think I've had fresh lychee, so I'm not sure how the tastes compare.  It was sweet, mild and juicy.

A bit of Oregon in Costa Rica!  We also saw Kettle Chips for sale several places.

We finally arrived in La Fortuna, famous for Arenal Volcano, which is in their backyard.  When I visited CR in 2006 lava flowed daily.  In fact when we got close to the volcano, we not only saw lava flowing, but also felt and heard it rumbling.  Unfortunately the volcano is now pretty much dormant.  But it's still beautiful, and this was the view from our room.

We finished the long day off with dinner at the Lava Lounge, owned by the person teaching our cooking class, which we took on Day 5.  Pretty good, I believe Aaron had fajitas, the chicken had been marinated in Salsa Lizano - yum!  My nachos were good too, I think one of two times we had "real" cheese while we were there.  

Chicken Coop!

I kind of left you all hanging with the chicken coop remodel...

It's still got a few things left, but we added some siding and trim today, and got this area all the way done.  We love it!

Day 3: Cahuita to Tortuguero

We caught the 6:30 bus to Limon, then took a taxi to Moin.  We had a great taxi driver who was Tico, but from Jamaican decent and he spoke perfect English, so we asked him all sorts of questions.  Neither Limon or Moin are particularly nice places, but it was on the way to Tortuguero, a place only accessible by boat, and I think? plane.  We chose the 3.5 hour boat ride through canals route.

Waiting for the bus

Breakfast waiting for the boat (for hours).  Yum - gallo pinto, my favorite!  Our captain is the man in the white tank top.

Lots of animals on the way in.  Clockwise from top left: Howler monkey, little blue heron, crocodile, iguana and great blue heron.  We also saw jacana, spoonbills, egrets, pelicans, cormorants, turtles and a just drowned calf that a crocodile was about to eat.

The view

Quick stop in the middle - the best fried plantains we had the whole trip.

Tortuguero is a tiny place with no cars.  Just raised pathways, I can only imagine what this place is like in heavy rains, it must flood like crazy.

Megan this is the end of town I don't remember.  Does it look familiar to you?

I feel like we would remember these freaky garbage cans.

Waiting for a birthday party to begin.  

Dogs.  Everywhere.

We walked into the National park on a trail that paralleled the beach with access paths every few hundred feet.

We saw this keel billed toucan, along with collard aracaris, a lineated woodpecker and a Baird's trogan.

Golden orb weaver spider, I have some better pictures coming up of these guys.  Their webs, when fresh, are yellow!

Me with turtle tracks.  We walked back along the beach, even though we were hot and tired, to look for baby sea turtles hatching, but didn't find any.

Casado again?  Yes please!  

That evening we went back to the beach with a guide to watch green sea turtles laying their eggs.  No pictures allowed there.

Day 2: Sloth Sanctuary

Well I hope you like pictures of sloths, because that's mostly what you are going to get today.  We barely made it to our 7 am tour at the sloth sanctuary, but just made the 6:30 public bus and got there 3 minutes early.

We went on a canoe for wildlife watching.  We saw a few things, but most exciting was our/my very first wild sloth!  A 3 toed male, and a pretty good view.  After that we had breakfast and joined some others for the standard sloth tour.  After that the behind the scenes tour began.

We met Buttercup (bottom left), Oprah (right) who was super active, and you have no idea how badly I wish I could remember that other sloth's name.  He was weaned too early and used to suck on his hands and has the same condition that happens to children who use a pacifier/suck their thumbs - an open bite, meaning his teeth don't touch, meaning there is nothing to hold his tongue in.  Pretty funny.

Next we got to see the toddlers climbing around their jungle gym.  The two bottom corner photos are from the nursery, those sloths are just a few days old.

Next we met Samantha.  Samantha was easily the highlight of this tour, and quite possibly the highlight of our whole trip.  Here she is crawling out the door, dying to meet us.  She was seriously so excited.

She very clearly chose Aaron to hold her first.  Everyone has asked about the claws, we did not feel threatened by the claws, although in the wild they will use them for protection.  The interesting thing though is that they can squeeze tightly with them.  Press all your fingers together, then fold your fingers toward your palm.  That's kind of how those claws work.  She grasped pretty hard with the claws on her legs, and even left little holes in Aaron's shirt.

Video here:

Oh man, I love her.

In order to process all this wonderfulness, we needed lunch, so we got our first casado.  Rice and beans, protein (or veggies), plantains in some form, a salad, and often extra things like half a hard boiled egg, cheese, or whatever they have on hand.  It is my favorite and I ordered it many times.  I like that you always/never know what you're going to get.  This one had patacones, the fried plantains on the bottom left.  We learned how to make these.  I much prefer these, which are made from plantanos verdes (green plantains).  Plantanos maduros (ripe plantains) are often pan fried lengthwise and taste more like bananas, which I abhor.

Then we had to reflect some more over plantain chips at the hotel.

Then we wandered over to Cahuita National Park for wildlife watching.  Lots of monkeys.

Another wild sloth!  What, you don't see it?  I am not feeling bad for not seeing a single one on my first visit to Costa Rica, those suckers are hard to see.  Someone showed us this one.

Here it is in all its glory.

The beach

Hermies everywhere.

And another casado...mmm.

Day 1: Costa Rica

We got in late our first day, we were scheduled to get in around 9 pm anyway, but we were barely able to land in San Jose, and got in even later than that.  There was a big storm, and as we went in for our decent, the plane accelerated and just took off.  We almost missed in the announcement that the airport was "closed".  We then circled for 30-40 minutes with turbulence, and all of the sudden, within 4 or 5 minutes we had a very fast, but good, landing.  We then waited about an hour for our prearranged ride to come - I'm not sure what happened here, but it worked out.  We got to bed by 11, then up at 5:30 to go rafting!

This map is not super accurate, but we started in San Jose and the rafting company took us to Siquirres where we left our things and ate breakfast, then got in the van again for the put in point.  We rafted the Pacuare for 4 hours, then ended up back in Siquirres.  We went during the rainy "green" season, but had very little rain actually.  This meant that the river was low and not going as well as it does sometimes.  Probably for the best, our ship mates didn't understand the importance of paddling through rapids, and would just stop mid rapid.  Luckily no one went overboard!  The best part of this trip (and the reason we took it so quickly after getting in), is that they will drop you off in Arenal, back in San Jose, or in Puerto Viejo.  It's a great way to get half way across the country comfortably, securely and while getting to whitewater raft.  

We had them drop us off in Cauhita, as I had no desire to return to Puerto Viejo.  Megan and I got bedbugs there the last time we were in CR.  Anyhow...Cahuita was nice and we found a place to stay for $20 a night.

Someone's pet parrot.  "Hola" "Como estas?" "Byye".  Pretty cute.

Drying clothes after rafting

Waiting for dinner

Ice cream after dinner!

Giant pineapples for a dollar a piece.

Not too many pictures taken today, but Day 2 might have been my favorite day.  Coming up next!

Home Sweet Home

We are home and I'm happy to report we slipped right back into everyday life feeling refreshed!  I'll start going through photos today and share them here.