On Our Way Home

Here we are, Fred, Lucky Ladybug and me waiting for the plane which we will board in about 3 hours. You know that I try not to be late for anything, but when given an option to keep the rental car longer and take a look at San Jose, I told Fred that I was ready to go sit and wait in the airport. In looking back over the past 8 days, I can think of so many things that I will never forget...especially the beauty of the rainforests that we were able to explore. The diverse vegetation and animals are so remarkable. I know that there are many reasons why we should all be interested in "saving" the rainforest environments, but the one that keeps calling to me is the notion of once it's gone, it will never be the same and for some of the flora and fauna, they will be extinct. We are thrilled to be coming back to share more of these experiences with our friends and students. One thing that I hope to do this year is collect some donations for the Bosque Eterno de los Ninos (Children's Eternal Rainforest). The students at The Learning Tree Montessori School (my old school) purchased one acre in this forest in 1991 to help with the maintenance and preservation. Perhaps we can do that again at Sanchez or at Riverhorse Academy. It has been great being able to share these experiences with our friends and family.

Today was fishing day, our last day that does not involve travel. We leave tomorrow for the plane ride home, via Ft.Lauderdale, FL..
We were up early for breakfast and left the hotel for the marina by taxi. We were headed out to sea at 7:30 and the first leg took us 32 miles out to a reef. The crew put out spoons and caught bait Bonita (12-15 inches) left and right. Once we had the required amount we began a slow troll. At about ten, Fred hooked up with the sailfish in the picture…what a fight. This leaper was finally boated and tipped the scales at 60 kilos. The picture unfortunately does not show the entire fish. For sailfish it’s catch and release with great emphasis on doing the least harm while documenting the size. At another time over the reef we hooked and lost a great fish. Perhaps a Snapper or Grouper or a Sea Bass…whatever it was it could not be turned. From the pull it exerted on us our guide thought it to be over 100 kilos. We witnessed a fellow in another boat land a huge Snapper, somewhere near 90 pounds, about 40 kilos. After a day on the water we returned sun-drenched but elated at the catch…the only sailfish caught in Quepos today. Gail was the able photographer and we will add the movies to our vacation DVD. I look forward to seeing my brother, and son-in-law in Ft.Lauderdale as they are fishermen too. Teresa will be there for an added treat. It will be off the airport at 7:00 a.m. to catch a flight home.

Hasta la vista, Costa Rica!!

Manuel Antonio National Park

Our walk through the Manuel Antonio National Park, a lowland humid tropical rainforest began at 7:30 this morning. We walked for about 4 hours and we could really tell the difference between being in a tropical rainforest and a cloud forest! It was very humid and rather hot. By the time we were finished our clothes were drenched with sweat and our bodies had totally given out…we were exhausted! After a cool dip in the pool, we make a good lunch and enjoyed the local Imperial cerveza, followed by a 2-hour nap.
Going back to the rainforest experience…we saw animals that we had not yet seen – squirrel and capuchin monkeys, a toucan, a 2 1/2” long iguana, a skink, a white bird that we need to identify, a white-tailed deer (Fred was surprised and happy to see her), agoutis, a sloth, some butterflies, a large grasshopper, red-legged crabs, and many hermit crabs. Part of the park went out to the beach, so we enjoyed the beautiful blue ocean and the soft sand, as we made our way up to Cathedral Point, which gave a wonderful view of the coastline and some nearby islands. As I said, we went early, and by the time we left, the beaches were crawling with sunbathers, young and old.
Our biggest delight was the troop of capuchin monkeys, which we have included for you to enjoy, too. The vegetation was different, too – there were fewer epiphytes, so the forest appeared more open and a little bit brighter under the canopy. We noticed that there were many more palm trees in the forest, including one with long spines on its trunk. Unfortunately, I did not notice the spines when I reached out to use the trunk for balance…it feels like a cactus thorn went in my finger. We will be doing our full day fishing trip in the tomorrow, so we hope to have a picture of “the BIG one” that did NOT get away.

Our day began bright and early and on the way out of town and just because we couldn’t figure out how to get on the right road, we came across several people looking up into a tree by the road…it was a two-toed sloth! Right there on the road and not in the cloud forest where we spent five hours looking for one yesterday. We stopped, of course, to take some pictures which we included in our blog.
The trip out of the mountains was down some of the steepest and curviest roads that we have been on yet. I bless my stars that Fred can drive on these mountainous, winding, gravel, pot-hole filled roads. We are now on paved roads for the rest of our trip. We checked into Hotel Verde Mar at noon…it is right on the beach and we have a pool outside our door, as well. We have already taken a dip in the ocean and in the pool. We will get up early tomorrow and walk Manual Antonio National Park. It is the smallest park in Costa Rica, but has some of the best opportunities to see monkeys and lowland birds. We are now using an Internet Café for the rest of our blogs, so unless you just happen to catch us online…no Skyping for a while. it costs $1.00 for 15 minutes! enjoy this post...by the way, everything on this pc is in spanish!

Monteverde Cloud Forest Revisited

It has been exactly 17 years this month that I, along with 20 other teachers, visited the Cloud Forest. As I walked along the paths, my head was filled with fond memories of the diverse flora and fauna. Fred and I walked for over 5 hours, taking in all of the beautiful sites, sounds and smells. We saw many types of butterfly, birds, bugs, and of course, vegetation. Trying to decide on which picture to share was really hard, but we agreed on this one. It is a Guan bird(related to a turkey) and her chicks perched in a colorful tree next to a 3 tired waterfall. I wish all of our friends and family could be here with us, as words and a few pictures cannot express the absolute beauty and uniqueness of the cloud forest. We will be on to the Pacific coast tomorrow, about a 4 hour drive south to Manuel Antonio. We will have to go to an Internet Café to post to the blog, so we hope to keep the daily updates coming.

Seafood Feast! That is an understatement, for sure. Marvin cooked the entire meal at our table. A couple from Dallas joined us, so we had it prepared for four. In one pan, drenched in garlic, butter, and white wine, was the lobster…at least 2 each. In the other pan was a seafood lovers delight: clams, mussels, prawn, shrimp, octopus, squid (calamari), 1/2 crabs, and crab legs and claws. Again these were prepared with butter, olive oil, garlic and white wine. It was quite a production. We had never seen so many different types of seafood prepared together…a once in a lifetime event.

Monteverde - Day 1

Our trip to Monteverde took about 4 hours this morning. The roads were rough most of the way and we refer to them as “washboard” like. We saw men herding cattle up the road, as well as many riding horses along the way. We are staying in another bungalow and this one has a large garden tub, which we will take advantage of later. We went to the hummingbird gallery and were astonished by the flashes of brilliant color. They flew in and out to the feeders even in the rain. We took many pictures with our 3 different cameras and plan to return there sometime before we leave. We will walk through the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in the morning and perhaps do an evening walk to see the night creatures. We are going to walk down to the hotel restaurant tonight for a fresh seafood dinner. There is no internet in the room, so we have to take the computer to the lobby to blog, so there probably won’t be much Skyping here unless you happen to be on line when we are posting the blog each evening.