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.