And the Sun Sets on Samara

            It was our last full day in Samara today as we will be leaving for San Jose tomorrow afternoon. I will be leaving my parents from there to fly home and then off to Australia! We went to Luke and Anna’s church in the morning again and afterwards spent a relaxing day mostly at the hotel.

             Arden took a nice long nap and while she was out we sat around and talked, played a game of Munchkin, looked through the horrendous number of shells we have collected, began the task of packing our bags, and bemoaned how incredibly sore we were. Oh my goodness. My arms and legs are protesting like none other after that workout they got yesterday paddle boarding!  Mostly it’s my upper legs from all the straining to balance over all those white caps.

            When Arden got up we took our last walk down the road to get our usual double scoop ice cream cones and then decided to take one last stroll down the beach.  

Obviously enjoying their ice cream... 

            Dad and I of course couldn’t resist picking up a few more shells along the way (not sure where we’re going to PUT them now….) and Anna walked down the beach from the house to meet up with us. She had decided to spend the morning at home, baby free, because she has a big test tomorrow morning.

            To finish off our last full day, Dad and I took a drive past Samara and down to the far end of Carrillo beach to see the sun set on our time in Samara. It’s been one fun trip getting to see Luke, Anna and Arden, especially being here to see Arden turn one. I am really going to miss these guys!

It's been fun Samara!

My favorite song from church this morning.  

Starting the Morning with a Workout

            Today was another early morning.  Mom had enjoyed the stand-up paddle boards so much yesterday that we had rented two for the day, planning to switch off throughout the day.  Mom and I had the first outing and we were to be at the surf shop by 7:00.  We acquired the boards and carried them to the beach to start what was to become our “early morning workout.”

            To start it off, we had a super hard time putting the leg strap of the leash on and I’m sure all the Tico’s (native Costa Ricans) were laughing at us with our obvious struggle and boards constantly getting pummeled by the waves.  Note to self; next time, put the leash on BEFORE you get in the water and are standing right in the middle of the wave break…

            Once we got over the wave break and on our boards we hoped that the sea would be a little calmer but it was not to be so.  It was relatively windy this morning so the water in turn decided to be quite choppy.  I don’t think I stood up even once the whole time. I just sat on my knees pretty much the whole time. The wind was strong enough that I really only had to paddle on the right side of the board and the wind would do the rest from the left to keep me going straight. I guess I should be happy I didn't have to do a ton of that hand changing business!

            It was still super fun though and we got within a relative distance of Isla Chora before turning about. Mom said “Tell me when you’re tired so we can turn around.” Boy am I glad we turned around before I was tired because the way back was much more of a workout than the way out.  We were fighting against the current AND the wind the whole way and I think it took us about four times as long. But seriously, it was still super fun.  I got to see a bunch of flying fish jump in front of my board as well as a needle fish! There was one time when I was looking off towards the wave break by the reef and I could of sworn I saw some sort of ray jump out of the water.

            “No way.” I thought “Must have just been a bird diving or something.” No 10 minutes later we had this fair sized manta ray leap out of the water and splash back down right in front of our boards! Whaaaaaat??

            Since we got back to land a bit earlier than we had told Luke and Anna, we walked up the beach to their house and left the boards leaning against the side of the house. Mom and I then spent the next hour just sitting on the beach and talking.  Good times J.

            We went to check and see if they were up a while later and after saying our good mornings bid them farewell to let them get more woken up on their own while we headed back to the hotel.  By about 11:30 we were back at their house again and took over care of Arden while Luke and Anna took the paddle boards out for a spin. They were out for several hours and I got to spend my time doing my own thing and finally got to Skype with my best friend! That was awesome and just what I needed J.

            After Luke and Anna got back Mom, Luke, and Dad decided to go into town to get supplies for dinner and the daughter of Luke’s neighbors, Julianna, came over and wanted to hang out.  We spent a little time just hanging out in her house before we headed down to the beach.  We mostly just hung out and talked and I got to meet some locals that she had grown up with.  We also played a little Frisbee on the beach.  I think we might be having lunch sometime tomorrow after church so I am pretty excited for that!

            When I got back to the house, it was just Anna as Dad had been dropped off at the hotel and Mom and Luke had gone to take the paddle boards back to the shop.  The two of us (with Arden of course) got to just sit on the floor and hang out for a while and that was awesome! Anna has been so busy with school and such that we haven’t seen much of her much less had much time to just sit and chat! After a while we got a call from the others and that was our cue to pack up and head back to the hotel for dinner.

Iguanas in the House and Birthday Cake

            Good day today. Very good indeed.  Mom and Dad had a very early morning stand-up paddle board lesson this morning (they called it “old people surfing”) and after they left I took Luke’s bike that he had left for me and biked down to his house.  I had really been wanting to bake a cake for Arden and my birthday so when I had biked over I took along with me a backpack of cake baking supplies. I got there even before Anna had left for school (about 7:15) and got to talk with her a bit before she left.  Haven’t been seeing much of her these days as she has normally been super swamped with school!

             Arden was still asleep so after Anna left Luke and I just sat around and hung out for a while, eating a very relaxed breakfast together.  After Arden woke up we decided to go about baking that cake and while I held Arden and read the recipe off the computer, Luke threw all the ingredients together.  There were a number of things we didn’t have and had to substitute for or omit entirely so was certainly a very interesting cake. While we were waiting for it to bake, we decided to take a walk down the beach and look for those coconut venders that I have been trying to find since I got here.  We had no such luck finding them but still had a great time collecting shells before we headed back.  Mom and Dad were waiting for us at the house when we got there and the cake still wasn’t done so we just hung out for a while hearing about their super fun time paddle boarding.

            Once it did finish, Mom and I went about making our respective frostings. She was going to frost half of it using her famous chocolate frosting and I wanted to frost half using a fondant idea I wanted to try.  Turned out alright if I might say so myself! At least, considering the utensils I was using; a glass cup for a rolling pin and a serrated knife instead of a straight edge…

            We also had a bit of an incident with an iguana getting in the house and that was a super short, but super funny, ordeal getting it out of the house! It was scrambling all over the place and at one point we had a human barricade made up of my dad and it ran right over the top of him! We finally got it outside though and I’m sure it will think twice before walking inside another building anytime soon…

            With the cakes done, we decided to head down the road and try and feed the local crocodiles down the way that we were told always hung out under this specific bridge.  We had bought some hot dogs as recommended and acquired some string from Luke’s very friendly neighbors.

            After I had spent a short time holding the hotdog into the water over the bridge with no success, a young couple from Germany came by and said they had seen the crocodiles yesterday.  They said a local had helped them and he had tied a coconut to a string and splashed it in the water continuously to make a lot of noise and attract the crocodiles

            We decided to give it a try and sure enough a crocodile showed up shortly thereafter!

            After that we decided to head back for an early dinner as Luke was planning to go with Anna to a school function later in the evening.  On our drive back past Carillo beach what should we see passing our way but a coconut vendor! We stopped the car right there and he happily came over to let us choose a coconut.  I got the 500 colonies one (about $1) and watch as he pulled it out of the bucket of water, whacked it with a machete a couple of times to get the top off and handed it to us with a straw. It honestly tasted a lot saltier than I was expecting but boy Arden sure loved it! We passed it around the car to begin with and gave her a sip. When I got it back she did all she possibly could to get me to give it back! She was waving her arms all over the place, screeching up a storm and trying to crawl over the front seat to get it! It was actually pretty funny.

Ardens first birthday party!

             Dinner with the family was pretty fun as well, complete with a birthday cake and presents for Arden. She had a lot of fun ripping into the wrapping paper and digging her hands into some chocolate cake J.

Digging into that birthday cake :)

Surfing Lessons and A Friendly Kinkajou

            Today was super fun seeing as I got to get up early this morning and take a several hour surfing lesson! Luke met us at the surf shop around 8:30 with Arden (whom he handed off to Mom and Dad) and then we strapped our boards to the top of the 4-wheeler and headed down Samara Beach.

            The first 15 minutes or so, our instructor gave us the rundown of how it was done, figuring out which foot went where, and drilling us on popping up into a standing position on the board. Apparently I am a “goofy footer” because I ride the board with my right foot foreword. Good to know J. We then headed out to the water to hopefully catch some waves!

            The waves at Samara beach are quite a bit smaller to begin with and apparently everything was exceptionally low today. Pretty good for beginners I guess but it also meant we spent a bit of time sitting on our boards and waiting for waves.  Honestly, that was ok with me though since we got to talk with our instructor a bit and get to know more about what he’s doing.  He grew up in Costa Rica, though not in Samara, and is actually leaving for Ecuador in a couple days to judge a surfing competition!

 

I have the best brother in the world who agreed to take a surfing lesson with me :)

            He also answered a number of my questions I had on how to tell when a wave is coming and about paddling a long ways out when you know the waves going to break soon versus waiting till it’s pretty close to start swimming.  So many details! I guess it's simply going to take lots of practice J. I kept forgetting one thing or another and would sometimes use my elbows to pop up instead of my hands, or place my knee on the board for balance which is a big no-no. I started to get it a bit by the end but I certainly have lots to work on.  Something I would definitely do again!

             After our surfing lesson we said out goodbyes to our instructor and hung out with Mom, Dad and Arden on the beach for a while.  Arden was evidently super tired and fell asleep in Mom’s arms while we were surfing.  The second time she has fallen asleep with someone other than Luke and Anna!

             We hung out in Samara beach for most of the afternoon, Mom and Dad taking the snorkeling gear down the beach and swimming out to Isla Chora. Luke and I decided to take a break from the water and instead walked with Arden down the beach. It was her 1^st birthday after all! I know she had a great day just hanging out with her daddy and having a very relaxing day J. 

            There were also a couple of horses at one point who decided to take a joy run down the beach. Honestly not too strange of an occurrence here.  There are a good number of pastures with lots of horses and I'm not sure whether they let the horses loose to graze along the road or they pop the fence but there is often a horse or two just walking through town or ambling down the road.

              We dropped by Luke’s house around 2:30 and hung out there for a while before saying our goodbyes since Anna was getting home early and they wanted the evening to themselves with Arden.

              After a bit of shopping for dinner supplies and tomorrows meals, we headed off down the road to a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center that I had really wanted to go visit.  It was really cool getting to see a ton of the native Costa Rican animals! There were a couple margays, a jaguarundi, a kinkajou, several crocodiles and a caiman, parrots, owls, a rainbow billed toucan, an armadillo, a spotted skunk, a peccary, some boa constrictors and a big cage of fruit and vampire bats. 

The mama Margay

               I think my favorite might have been the kinkajou.  A lot of the animals were sleeping when we got there since many are nocturnal animals but after sunset the all woke up including the kinkajou.  We were allowed to stick our hands through its cage and when we did he would come up, grab your hand, and just lick you incessantly. It was pretty cool and a little funny as well J.  

That funny little Kinkajou

Neature Walk

            This morning we had planned for us a “Natural History Tour” of part of Samara and it was to start pretty early in the morning.  We were ready and had Luke and the baby at the hotel by the time our guide showed up at 7:00 and then we all jumped into the back of his pick-up for a short ride down the road.

            Our guides name was Alvero and his grandfather was one of the first to homestead Samara a number of years ago.  Just about everyone in Samara knows of Alvero and his family, even Luke knew him! Apparently the house that Luke and Anna will be moving into (actually, did move into today) is owned and managed by Alvero’s family.

            Anyways, about 35 years ago Alvero's grandfather had purchased a giant chunk of land that neighbored his original plot and in an attempt to keep the forest and habitat much like its natural state, had converted the whole lot from a cattle farm to a dense and natural rainforest. That was where we went and spent about 4 hours hiking and learning about the natural history of the area.

Of course we had to look at all the birds as well :)

            We learned a lot about a number of plants in the area, which ones were good to eat and the original uses for some of them. There was one that was so rough it was used in the past to scrub dishes and such and another that you could peal the seed coating off and eat to gain energy. Another one contained tons of oils and was often fed to cattle to fatten them up.

            We learned what vines you could use for water if you were stranded in the forest, and how to cut them for the most effective extraction.  He showed us how to collect these certain termites from their nest for eating purposes and even gave us all some to try.  Not bad! Rather woody though…

            He talked about much of Samara’s history and one of the main reasons that much of the coral reef is now gone from the area. Apparently there is this one tree that was cultivate in abundance for a while, the Teak tree, that has leaves that are extremely difficult to erode and so during the rainy season soils and sediments are washed down into the ocean which kills the corals. Of course he showed us a ton of bird as well and helped us in identifying them by their sounds.

Gorgeous view of the landscape! Carillo beach is in the little cove on the left and the rest is Samara beach

            All together it was a fantastic hike and when we got back to our hotel and went to pay him, he let me go by for free because it was my birthday and gave us a discount on top of that because Luke was his friend.  An all around nice guy J.

            We walked down the road shortly after that because I had a craving to some ice cream at a little shop down the road. After quickly eating out melting cones, we headed off to the house Luke and Anna were staying at a short while later to pack up their stuff and clean out the house.  Luke and Anna had made a deal with Scott that their payment for his letting them stay in the house was for them to clean it well when they left.  My job was sweeping and mopping the floors, at times a tricky task with Arden crawling all over the place.

            After everything was all packed up Mom and Luke took off to the new house to settle stuff in while Dad and I finished up cleaning.  While we waited for their return after the cleaning was done, I spent a bit of time playing with Arden.  She was super fascinated with the Costa Rican coins when I would wind them up and spin them on the floor.

            I could tell she was getting super tired and thought I would give it a try putting her to sleep even though she has never fallen asleep for anyone but Luke or Anna before.  No sooner had I picked her up and started walking the room than she zonked out and stayed that way for a good half hour. Luke and Mom came back during that time and after Arden woke up we made for the new house.

            To end off a fairly relaxed and fun birthday day, I had really been wanting to see the sunset on the beach so shortly before sunset we headed to the beach.  The sunset was super pretty with red and orange right above the ocean and across the horizon as it came down. It was the perfect way to end a very good day.

Waves That Will Knock Your Socks Off

Despite having such a long and early day yesterday, Mom and Dad decided to wake up early again to go on a birding walk.  I said thanks, but no thanks to the offer and chose to sleep in for another couple hours.  They came back for me around 8:00 by which time I was up and ready and we headed off to Luke’s for breakfast. It was a nice relaxed breakfast of pancakes with honey, jam, and fruit before we packed up the car and the baby and headed out on the day’s adventures.

Since we never actually made it to Barra Gona beach the other day, we decided to give it another shot today and again traversed the windy gravel road to the river crossing which we again forded with no problems. This time we took the 4^th turn on the left instead of the 3^rd.

The beach was just as was described, about ¼ of the size of the bigger beaches like Buena Vista with sand that was pearly white. 

Starting out the beach day on a positive note, what should I see first thing upon getting out of the car but a sign saying to watch out for the dangerous waves and currents because someone had been killed in the currents several years before. Great, and I was planning on going into the water…

Luke was hardly phased as per usual and proceeded to sunscreen Arden, hand her off to Mom, and head off to the water with snorkel and spearing gear in hand.  Dad and I shortly followed suit, as was the decided plan, and after putting on our gear, waded into the water. I started getting nervous a little ways in with the ferocity of the fair sized waves and shortly after a fairly large wave came up with such force that it smacked all three of us to the ocean floor.  My mask was almost ripped off in the ensuing current and unfortunately Dad’s was.

Not so fun waves and currents close to shore...

We all exited the water at that point in favor of searching for Dads trusty mask (the one he has had for over 30 years).  Unfortunately our efforts proved fruitless, but refusing to let that dampen our day Dad went and acquired Mom’s mask and we made for the ocean once more.  Once we got past the wake break the current wasn’t all that bad to be honest.  We just had to wait for that one big wave to pass and then jump in and haul flipper out towards the open ocean. I think I was a lot more nervous than the boys were; they have both had a ton of experience swimming out in open water while I have had not so much. Just getting me prepped for Australia! 

Despite the raging waves, the water was super clear and the only murk to speak of was the sand that would get kicked up from the ocean floor from time to time.  I saw a number of fish, even a few skates that Luke almost stabbed with the spear, but overall the trek was unfruitful for spearing (mainly because Luke’s mask kept fogging up).

Mom and Dad heading out for their swim (Dad is either under or behind that wave)

Thinking we would give Mom a shot at snorkeling, we all headed back to shore to hand off some of the gear.  While Mom and Dad were out for their swim, Luke and I took Arden up and into the rocks where we looked at tide pools and searched for shells.  Arden had lots of fun sticking her hands in the small pools and grabbing at any snail she could find.

Arden having way too much fun in the tide pools among the rocks

Mom and Dad came out a while later, Dad taking a little longer while he took another swim through the area where he lost his mask in an effort to possibly find it. With Mom back, Luke handed off Arden again and made for the ocean once more with Dad, this time taking to the opposite end of the beach.

They were in the water for quite some time and we were beginning to wonder what had become of them when we finally saw them emerge onto shore a ways down the beach. The trip proved quite a bit more successful for fishing and Luke had succeeded in spearing four. He was quite happy with his success and knowing Anna had requested an early dinner, we decided to call it a day. 

Success!

Monteverde Cloud Forest

            Super early day this morning, whoo boy! Mom, Dad and I set our alarms for 4:30 and after dragging ourselves out of bed and getting everything packed, were up at Luke’s house by 5:30 to pick him and Arden up.  Then it was a three or so hour drive to our final destination for the day; Monteverde.  I remember going there once the last time we were in Costa Rica about 14 years ago (I was 7 at the time) and I remember it was a truly amazing place, and fun as well.  What I DON’T remember from that trip was the drive to Monteverde. Oh. My. Goodness.

            The first two hours were anything but extraordinary, fairly well paved roads, well marked road signs… the usual.  But the last hour… wow. I would say the roads were gravel, but this wasn’t just any gravel.  This was gigantor gravel, stone sized, some verging on boulders.  And then there were all the tight turns and the stretches that shot straight up or straight down. Oh, and then you had the combination of a hairpin turn WITH a straight up.  And this all the while you were clacking your teeth together for the consistent bumps and jolts.

            Some of you may know me as not the best passenger in the world as I tend to be a little on edge and overly jumpy sometimes while sitting in the side seat. Mind you, sometimes. It depends on the situation. Well, I can tell you I spent that whole hour on edge. I think Luke was actually quite entertained at my terrifiedness and I’m glad it at least made someone feel better. 

I’ve already made it quite evident that this little car is not the most gung ho, blazing its own trail, crazy driving type car.  It’s a great car for city driving and parking in tight spaces, that’s about it. That and great gas mileage. Just to give you a glimpse into my mind during that hour, here’s a bit of a picture ran through my head at one point;

From all the strain put on the poor car it finally decides it’s had enough and the transmission blows up, sending shards of metal into all four tires which then explode from the car, disintegrating into smithereens. This then causes the car to smash down onto its undercarriage which breaks off the exhaust pipe, cracking the oil pan and spewing oil all over the car.  The oil leakage than bursts into flames, igniting the entire car on fire, and we are left standing there in the middle of nowhere, with a baby, watching our blazing inferno of a car disintegrate into ash.

            That’s how bad the road was.

            Moving on from that lovely image… We got to Monteverde around 10:00, a little later than we had hoped but we still made good time. We had had some difficulty with directionality again once we got into a rather confusing town, and we learned that there was more than one place to do what we wanted to do.

No wonder we got lost...

Finally finding our way to the highly recommended Selvatura Park, we paid our entrance fee and got started on our day in the cloud forest! First was the several hour self guided tour of the Sky Walk which was a combination of about 8 suspension bridges that spanned the canopy of a good part of the forest as well as some well maintained foot paths.

Felix and I on one of the Sky Walks

 That was super cool! We got to see over the canopy of the forest as well as walk through parts of the forest and there were tons of butterflies and birds around.  I think we probably took twice as long as the estimated completion time since we like to stop every ten paces to take a picture, locate a calling bird, identify a strange fungus… Oh biologists J.

View of some of the forest canopy

We finished up with the Sky walk around 1:00 and made it just in time for the next tour of the butterfly sanctuary.  

The Butterfly Sanctuary 

We got to see a bunch of the native butterflies that they raised in this giant dome garden and they even had boards of the chrysalises that they collected in preparation for their hatching. A bunch of them were wiggling too!

The box of chrysalises 

One of the hundreds of butterflies

A recently hatched butterfly

After that tour, we made our way to the hummingbird garden where they had tons and tons of feeders set up and even more hummingbirds of various varieties buzzing and zipping around.  We sat in there for quite some time, Dad and I both content to sit and photograph and Arden completely enthralled by all the pretty, flashing birds.  

Female Violet Saberwing

At one point, this old and beat up looking Coati came ambling up out of the woods and walked about right around our feet looking for food and licking up the sugar water that had accumulated on the ground.  That was cool and it didn’t really seem to care that we were there.

We finally dragged ourselves away from the hummingbirds and left the park, driving a little ways into town to a café that was recommended to us as a good place to sit and watch birds.  We got some coffee and lunch and sat outside by the feeders to see what we could see.

We didn’t actually really see any birds, to our disappointment, so after a while we packed up again and headed down the road.  We took a short detour along the way to a park that we had spent a lot of time at the first time we were in Costa Rica, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. It was cool to just walk around for nostalgias sake and some of my memories as a 7 year old started coming back.

As we were getting ready to leave Luke started cutting up some fruit for our drive home and we had this rather curious coati come within arms distance of us.  It was pretty funny to watch it stalk up as close as it possibly dared and then just whip around and dart off a ways.  It did that several times!

The drive back home was rather uneventful, though of course there was that horrendous excuse for a road that we had to travel back over.  Yeesh! By the time we got home we were all happy from a fun filled day and ready for a good nights sleep.