Let's Go Cave Diving!

            We got a late start this morning as we had planned to meet up with Luke around 10:00 so he could hand Arden off to Anna before we started today’s shenanigans. None of us slept in super long though so while we were waiting for Luke, Mom and I took Dad and hiked up the trail and to the lookout that we rode the horses to yesterday.  It was another extremely low tide today so a lot of the rock reef was showing today as well.  During the hike we got to see a nice sized family of Howler Monkeys, lots of butterflies, and a couple of small lizards.  I am beginning to see now that the Howler Monkeys are simply EVERYWHERE! You are almost guaranteed to see them most days you go out.  Hey, I’m not complaining! Though, if you didn't know what they were and the sound they make I definitely wouldn't want to have a family of those outside my tent at night, that’s for sure.  They sound anything but inviting…

            We met up with Luke right at 10:00 and shortly afterwards we were on our way to Barra Honda.  Luke really wanted to go there to see the caves, being a geologist and all, and we heard it was supposed to be cooler up there as well.  Sign me up!

The mountain we hiked to get to the cave at the top.

            We got there right around 11:30, good thing too because anytime after 12:00 and you couldn't get a guide which was required.  Our guides name was José and he was a really cool guy.  Didn't speak a lick of English, but caught on pretty fast that we liked photography and wildlife and went out of his way to show us what he could during the several mile hike up to the cave.  He would walk along the path all silent for quite some time and all of a sudden would burst out in bird call and sometimes I couldn't tell if it was a bird or him! 99% of the time he would get that particular bird to answer back and he would go along calling it for a while until we got too far away.

One of the many butterflies we saw on the hike.

            There was this one time that he suddenly stopped, dropped all the gear, and trekked off into the woods, telling us to wait on the path.  A short time later he motioned us to where he was and when we get there he point up into a tree.  Apparently he knew where this one nocturnal bird, a Potoo he called it, roosted during the day and had found it to show to us. Mom and Dad kept saying that another term for its variety, if you will, was a “goat sucker.” Don’t ask me why…

The Potoo

            We also saw a number of iguanas, other lizards, and tons of butterflies and Howler monkeys along the way.  I even got to see a little vine snake! I never would have seen it if it hadn’t have moved off the trail but it blended in so well with the tree branches I had a hard time telling which was stick and which was snake!

            When we finally got to the caves there were two other guides stationed there that helped us get our harnesses on and hooked up to the rope.  Apparently years ago people used to repel down into the cave but now they are a bit more sophisticated and have a ladder.  Well… more like several stuck together.  A really sturdy little thing but I can tell you hands down it was something that would never fly in the states. But that’s honestly what made it so cool, nothing in the cave but the cave itself.

            Once we got down to the cave floor, we did a bit of carefully walking over rickety and sometimes slippery rocks and can I just tell you it was really cool! I can’t really even describe it so these pictures will have to do…

           

            There was another little ladder down into a deeper part of the cave and that for sure would never have been ok in the U.S.! Just a little bit precarious there… but it was totally worth it and the cave was super cool! I can tell you Luke was having a hay day down in there. 

            After the cave and the walk back down, we said our goodbyes to José, tipped him for his awesome guiding skills, and started on our two or so hour drive back to Samara.  Luke and Anna are currently in the process of moving from their apartment to a temporary living situation at a friend’s house before they finally move into their new apartment on the 5^th. When we got back into Samara, we made a quick stop at the hotel to pick up dinner stuffs and then drove down to pick up Anna and the beebs as well as a bunch of their stuff to begin the moving out process.

A giant iguana we saw during our hike in Barra Honda

            The drive up to their friends house was a little interesting, straight up in places with a number of sharp, 180 turns.  I was pretty proud of the “Gutless Wonder” for making it up that way! Luke has also given it another description that might almost be a little better… a glorified skateboard… But I guess the fantastic gas mileage has to count for something!

            We had a great dinner with Luke and Anna, as always, and we even got to top of the evening by seeing some cool wildlife! While I was walking around outside when dinner was being made, I heard some rustling in the woods and getting my flashlight out, what should I see but an armadillo!! That was cool. I was super excited about that one and spent quite a bit of time watching it snuffle around in the leaves.

The best picture I got of the Armadillo with the pitch blackness and my phones flash

            A while later after we had finished dinner Anna suddenly pointed out the glass door to the front porch and there was a Costa Rican raccoon walking across the porch!  Pretty similar to the ones in the states aside from being a little skinnier, longer, and with shorter hair, but cool none the less!

¡Vamos a Montar un Caballo!

            We got an early start this morning as Mom and I had booked for ourselves a several hour horseback ride that took off in the early morning. We had a quick breakfast of fruit, said our goodbyes to Dad who was going to spend the morning with Luke and Arden, and walked down to the end of the road where the beach begins and waited until the horses showed up shortly thereafter.

            There were about 4 other people that rode in a group with us and we found out later that two of them were from South Carolina and two were from Virginia. Our guide, who spoke “pequito” (very little) Spanish, matched us with a horse using I’m not sure what scale.  Size maybe? Mom got a pinto horse named, you guessed it, Pinto, and I got a smaller grey horse named Andres which is Spanish for Andrew.  Yep Dad, you just got replaced by a horse for the day J.

Mom and I on Andres and Pinto

            Our guide took us down to the far end of the beach, turned us off onto one of the roads that we followed for a short ways, and then cut up and into the forest.  I guess I should say, we led him because there were three of us experienced riders that tended to consistently take the lead.  Whenever we got to a crossroads we would usually just look back and our guide would just motion us in the right direction. There was me and Mom of course, but the third was a man named Oscar who had apparently been riding horses for many, many years.  We got to hear some pretty cool stories from him about breaking horses, camping out on horseback, horses that he had owned over the year… A real, full blown cowboy for ya.

Our guide (actually up in front for a change!) followed by Oscar on Flecka and Mom on Pinto

            The horse that he rode was a rather fiery little grey named Flecka who ALWAYS just wanted to go, go, go! On several occasions the three of us let the horses go and galloped them up a hill or across a short stretch for a ways.  I’m not sure what exactly our guide thought of all of this since we couldn't really understand anything he said, but he seemed to be ok with it and figured out pretty quickly that we knew what we were doing.

            The tour was about three hours or so and we got to see some really cool scenery.  We stopped off at several lookout points along the way. One in particular that looked out over Samara beach was amazing! The tide today was extremely low and a good amount of the rock reef was jutting out of the water.  A bit more than normal I am told. We rode all the way to Buena Visa Beach the next beach over and then headed back towards Samara.

The view of the far end of Samara Beach

            My hind end is probably going to be so sore tomorrow after that ride as the saddles were far from comfortable, but I had a really fantastic little horse so it was well worth it.  He reminded me a lot of Toby (my horse) actually.  He was fairly calm and level headed, and yet had a lot of get up and go when I asked him for it.  A little jiggy and excitable here and there but all around a horse that I would definitely request again if we decide to go on another ride.

Andres after and awesome ride

            When we got back to the hotel I gave Dad and Luke a call to let them know we were back and then Mom and I just hung out for about an hour or so.  Mom did some reading and got to get some stuff done, and I finally got to check out one of those hammocks! A bike vendor showed up some time in the afternoon selling little meat and cheese turnovers and Mom and I bought several for me and the boys for when they got back

            Dad and Luke showed up a while later laden with one fish from their endeavor into the ocean and pocketfuls of rocks and shells. That’s what you get when you put a Geologist and a Biologist together! Luke, Mom, and I took a short trek around town to get some food shopping done so we could get started on making an early dinner. I got to see some more monkeys when we made a stopover at Luke’s house! Several of them had babies with them! That was cool.

Monkeys with babies!

The plan for the evening was to eat dinner at 6:00 and leave the hotel by 6:30 and drive to Playa Camaronal where apparently the turtles are supposed to come ashore after sunset. We made good time with dinner and headed out right on time before we realized half way there that we didn’t have as much gas in the car as we would have wanted. Gas stations in Costa Rica are nothing like the states in that they are quite rare.

Despite the fact we still haven’t put any gas in the car since we left San Jose and have since done a bit of driving around (in other words, great gas mileage!), Mom was still a little nervous about being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with the baby in toe.  When the low gas light came on that was the end of it and we decided to turn the car around.  Honestly though, that was totally ok and totally worth it in my eyes because I got to see a lesser anteater! Also called the collared anteater. I didn’t get to see it for very long since it was just in passing as we drove by, but still cool none the less!

We’ll do turtles another night when we actually have a safe amount of gas in the car.  Certainly not worth it, especially when we have Arden to think about!

Communication is Key

            We decided to change things up a bit this morning and instead of having Luke bike up to meet us, we drove down to his house to meet him. Arden was just waking up when we got there so it was perfect timing!

            We took off from there almost right away and made our way to that out of the way road we had found the day before which took us to the far end of Samara beach. We sat on the beach for a little while and had a breakfast consisting of lots of local fruit and some hard boiled eggs. After that we left dad with Arden this time and Luke, Mom, and I headed off down the point with our snorkel gear to find a good launching spot. 

            I had decided to borrow dad’s snorkel mask this time because mine had really hurt the bone on the underside of my nose while snorkeling yesterday and dad’s mask was made of rubber while mine was made of plastic. Turns out the thing had hardly any seal on my face and after several nose-fulls of water within a 2 minute time span, I decide it wasn’t a good idea to try and spend the next several hours swimming in it. I swam the short distance back to shore, shouted back “I’m going to go get mine” and headed quickly off back over the rocks and down the beach. 

I waved a quick hello to dad and Arden, explained the situation, and headed back off to the point with my own snorkel in toe.  By the time I got my flippers and mask on and had launched myself back into the water, I found that Mom and Luke were no longer in sight. Thinking I would just swim out a little ways and find them just over that next wave, I soon found out that my phobia of murky water was a little worse than I had thought. I must have spent the first 10 minutes hyperventilating and trying to get myself calmed down, and suddenly finding myself directly on top of a sting ray at one point definitely didn’t help.

It finally became evident to me that I probably wasn’t going to find them from the water, the waves rising up in either direction to block my view, so I aimed myself in the direction of Isla Chora and prayed that my legs and mind would hold out since it was shorter by this time to swim to the island instead of back to the mainland.

A good 10 minutes later of swimming against the currant I was stumbling out of the water and onto the rocky beach of Isla Chora, tripping over my flippers the whole way, and who should I find coming out of the water a little ways down the beach but Mom and Luke. Despite having left the launch off point a good 5 minutes after them, I had still beaten them to the beach. I must say, I was not the happiest at being left but apparently they hadn’t understood that I was coming back.  They just thought I had called it quits and gone back to hang out with Dad for the day. Oh communication! 

I cannot tell you how glad I was to finally reach that island!

            Mom and I sat on the beach for a little while to give my legs a little rest and Luke headed back out to the water to see if he could spear something.  Mom and I followed suit shortly thereafter and went out to swim the reef. 

            Apparently not much of the reef surrounding the area is alive anymore as much of it died after the huge earthquake in 2006. It was still cool to see what we did but I wonder what it looked like when it was alive!  The water was a little murkier than I would have liked as well, but by this time the tide was coming in and bringing a bunch of the murk with it.

            On the way back to the place we came in, a fair sized turtle rose up off the reef below me and swam off towards deeper ocean.  I followed it for a ways and it was cool to swim along with it for a while before I turned around and headed back to Mom and Luke. 

            After that, Luke and Dad took the fishing tackle and went to do some fishing off the beach and Mom and I hung out in the shade with the beebs. Nothing was caught this time either but can I just say, there are A LOT of pelicans around! They like to hang out in fair sized flocks on the water and it’s really fun to watch them fly up then drop and dive into the water.

She absolutely LOVED emptying that bag of fishing tackle, watching us put it back, and doing it all over again!

             We left the beach well into the afternoon and Luke and I did some hanging out around town while Mom and Dad drove off to Carillo to inquire about some horseback riding tours. We went and got some ice cream from a local bakery, took a stop in the “ICE” store to get a sim card for my phone (only $2 and now I can actually make calls within the country!), and then a bit of strolling around town to look at a bunch of the souvenir shops. I finally found a new pair of sunglasses that I liked since my old ones are just that; old. All scratched up and well loved indeed.

            When Mom and Dad got back, the sun was starting to sink and we headed back to the hotel to make ourselves some dinner.  Anna joined us shortly thereafter from school and we had a nice evening catching up and talking over another awesome, Luke prepared meal.

Finally Feeling the Heat...

Kicking off the morning with a pretty nice bang; this morning while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom I heard some rustling and odd noises coming from the woods behind me so I looked around and saw none other than a family of Howler Monkeys!! I must say, that was pretty cool.  A short while later we went down to the open courtyard/dining area and what should we see in the trees above us but more monkeys! Apparently there is this one monkey in particular that really likes women and sometimes will come down and jump on your shoulder. I now have another goal for while I am here...

Apparently this one will sometimes jump on the shoulder of some unsuspecting woman.

            Luke biked over and met us around 9:00, a little later than we had originally intended but hey, the baby was actually sleeping so who were we to argue??

            The first place we went we drove out of Samara, not a huge feat to be honest, just out, a quick left turn, and then down ¼ of a mile and there is the end.  Like I said, small town! We went to the fair sized beach of Carillo (the name of both the town and the beach) a little ways out of Samara and can I tell you it was just gorgeous! Not many people around, shockingly blue-green water, and sand littered with these little spiral shaped shells. And I mean they were everywhere! Luke said he really hadn’t seen many on the beach in Samara and that the next beach over is always littered with sand dollars while we didn’t see any on this one. Apparently each little beach tends to have one specific shell it has in abundant quantities in comparison to the others.

           

            We took our time exploring and Luke, Dad and I left mom with Arden on the beach and took off with our snorkels, flippers, and one of the Hawaiian Slings.  We didn't really see much to spear but it was still super cool to swim around the reef and see some of the smaller tropical fish. Luke and I even got to see a couple turtles!

Happy baby on the beach

            The one I saw was a bit bigger than dinner plate sized but apparently Luke saw one that was gigantic! Almost the width of my outstretched arms he said! He had tried to point it out when he saw it but with the murky water and its agile speed in the opposite direction it had soon disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, rearing off the ocean floor.

            After Carillo, we drove back into Samara and found an out of the way access road that took us to the far end of Samara beach.  We then hiked around the point quite a ways to a spot where Luke has done an awful lot of fish the past couple weeks.  We did end up catching one fish, a rock fish, but Arden was getting really unhappy so we decided to call it quits a little early and head back into town.

Gettin' ready to do some fishin'!

            I started getting a pretty bad headache and it wasn’t until I got back to the car that I realized just how much sun I had gotten that day.  Despite having applied sunscreen multiple times, the sun exposure had still managed to turn my back and shoulders a lovely bright red color that gave off a little more heat than I would have liked.  Definitely not the first time I’ve gotten a sun burn and I dare say not the last.  By far not the worst either.  That one would have hands down been in Bryce Canyon, Utah where Dad and I hiked for 6 or so hours in 95 degree weather and I forgot sunscreen…. But that’s another story altogether!

            We ended the evening off with some awesome time hanging out with Anna once she got out of class and another fantastic meal cooked my culinarily savvy brother J

Directionality and Howler Monkeys

We got to spend some awesome quality time with the Wilmarths over breakfast this morning getting to talk to them more about their mission and what initially brought them over to Costa Rica in the first place.  It was really cool to hear about their “Goats for God” project which started out as a sort of loan project.  They would give a goat to a local and they would breed it and give the kid to someone else and so on.  They do more of a breed and supply program now.  It was fun to hear about how things had just fallen into place for them and while they had never planned on staying in Costa Rica to begin with, doors were thrust open for them and they have now been living here for almost 30 years.  

Felix enjoying the view of San Jose

As we were sitting there on the deck, we were continually getting buzzed by these little black stingless bees that were going after the fruit juice on the table.  Turns out that if you can find the quickness to catch one of those little buggers, you can shake it around in your closed hands and then let it go and your hand will smell like flowers.  Interesting little bit of Biology there.

            We left the Wilmarth’s well into late morning and made our way back into town the way we had come.  At least we hoped.  One the way in last night I remember we all sat their wide eyed at the end wondering how on God’s green earth we were ever going to backtrack that same path again.  Luckily God knew what was up and at a particularly crucial intersection, one we were afraid we would miss and at one point thought we had, there was a bit of an “accident of interesting circumstances” that forced us (and everyone else) to take the turn that we were supposed to take.  Turns out a particular semi driver had not known the exact height of his substantially tall load and had tried driving under a bunch of fairly low hanging electric wires.  The force of the impact had shattered and crushed the windshield of the semi and cracked and pulled down a massive telephone pole across the road boasting 15 or more other bunches of wires. So we wouldn't have been able to turn wrong even if we had tried with chunks of inactive wire and a telephone pole strewn across the street.  Luckily I don’t think anyone was hurt.

            The next several hours were a good test in directionality and navigation for all of us and after 7 hrs (which should have been about 4) and umpteen wrong turns, backtracks, and u-turns later we finally made it to Samara!

            The hotel we are staying at is simply gorgeous and is a remarkably good deal for the price we paid.  While we were unloading the car and setting up our room, Dad and I kept hear this deep guttural calling noise coming from the woods beside the hotel and initially I wasn't quite sure what it was. A bird maybe? Turns out they are actually Howler monkeys and though I haven’t actually seen one yet, I really really hope that we get a glimpse of one before we go!

Just look at that setting!

            Luke and Anna biked up the road and met us with Arden a little while later and then we walked down the hill to get a look around town.  I haven’t been here long but I already love it here! The town is quite small from what I have seen, I mean really small, and it all seems quite homey and inviting.  It seems like one of those places that is so small that everyone knows everyone and it’s like a town sized family. We were talking to one of the ladies at the hotel and she took one look at Luke and immediately was like “Oh! I've seen you around town! You have a little baby you carry in a pack on your back and you like to go fishing!” Yep, sounds about right!

            Shortly after that we went to a little Mexican restaurant for dinner and Luke ordered a few drinks for us so I could give them a try since technically I am legal drinking age here and will be in the states in about a week and a half.  I think he is determined to find SOMETHING that I like before I leave since my “uncultured” palate doesn't like hardly anything pertaining to alcohol. I think I liked the Mojito the best even though that is A LOT of lime!

            Anna had to head home shortly after dinner to continue her studies (she is here to go to school after all) and the rest of us spent about an hour mulling around town, taking a short trip to the local grocery store, getting a tour of where all the street venders would be during the day, and even a short trek to the beach at the end of the road.

            Luke and I got to talking about the activities tomorrow would bring and I can say that I can’t wait to finally try out my new spear gun!

Aaaand We Made It!

So hey, we made it to Costa Rica in one piece!! No delays, rerouting, cancellations, or missing pilots this time for which I am exceedingly grateful.  Costa Rica at night is about as warm as Oregon is in the day time on a good day so I can only imagine what tomorrow morning is going to be like.  Whoo boy, better get that sunscreen ready! You can see the stars really well, even from San Jose and dad and I were able to make out Orion and the Big Dipper pretty quickly. When we went through customs, mom gave the lady the two passports that I had made for Felix and Felicity the fox’s and we got her to stamp them.  Success!!

When we got to the airport we had our rental car company waiting there to pick us up. As we were hauling our luggage carts behind our driver some “kind citizen” offered to “help” push our cart which basically entailed him shouldering mom off the cart and pushing it along for us.  We did give him a tip for his “trouble” though, as is customary here, and initially gave him what was the equivalent of 12 cents. We got a funny look for that one.  We amended it with one of the bills we had and he happily went on his way. Only then did our helper from the rental company look us over and say “Do you know how much these bills translate to?” Turns out we had given him 10 dollars for shoving mom off the cart.  Whoops!

We got to the rental place and had a bit of a run around getting things all sorted out but mom is fairly deliberate and firm so we got it all figured out. Bob Wilmarth, a veterinarian stationed in Costa Rica, met us at the rental place as we had arranged to stay at his house for the night. We followed him to his house in this tiny trinket of a car and at times were worried the thing wouldn't make it up the steep hills. Mom has since dubbed it the “Gutless Wonder.” Sounds about right.

Can you imagine we fit three suitcases, three backpacks, two fair sized boxes, and three people in this thing?? Excellent packing skills I would say (i.e. Mom).

In its defense, Bob’s driveway is one heck of a road, paved with cobble stones, pot holes, and dirt.  I think the car must have chugged and died 3 of 4 times before we finally got to a place where we could park and leave it for the night. I do wonder how we’re going to turn it around in the morning… But I am so excited to finally be here and get to explore this fantastic country for the next few weeks!

Time difference here is about 2 hours later than home so it’s about 12:15 here right now.  Tomorrow we say our goodbyes to Bob (that is, until mom and dad come back through and work with him for a couple weeks at the end of our trip) and head to Samara to our final destination where Luke, Anna, and Arden are currently living. So excited to finally see those guys again!