One of our third day in Ostional (turtle town), our hotel owner Felix drove us up to his favorite beach, Playa Sanjuanillo. It was gorgeous; two little inlets of warm, turquoise waters and gentle waves. We hung our towels and beach bag off the branches of an almond tree that stood on the line of beach that split the two inlets, leading to beachhead.
Category Archives: Alicia
Monkeys Everywhere! The Video
The crazy monkeys at Manuel Antonio. At this point, one had already hissed at me when I tried to get my bag away from him and then reached into the bag and ran off with our underwear. So, if I seem a little panicked- I was! there were so many of them!! and they were fearless! And they wanted our beach bag! (the kids, however, did not share my fear, as you will see)
La Arribada of Turtles
Yesterday, our favorite taxi driver from Monteverde drove us four hours away to a coastal town called Ostional so we could witness the monthly arribada of Olive Ridley turtles. We had been following the Ostional Guides’ Facebook page to find out when exactly this would start and arranged with the taxi driver to take us the day after it began. (Let’s just spend a second to appreciate that fact – a normal, everyday taxi driver that drove us to our favorite taco joints and bakeries for the weeks we were in Monteverde also readily agreed to drive us to a town four hours away. This is a common thing here and it is so. great. Personalized shuttle service, basically.)
How to Do a 7-hour Road Trip in 12 Hours Flat
The mission today was to get from Drake Bay – far, far south down the Pacific coast – to Monteverde, a tiny enclave in the mountains of central Costa Rica. Continue reading How to Do a 7-hour Road Trip in 12 Hours Flat
The $300 Death March to Touch Tapir Butt
Let me say, right off the bat, Drake Bay – home of the elusive tapir – and I do not get along. It is in the southernmost part of the Pacific side of Costa Rica. For miles and miles there is nothing but a gorgeous, lush, remote landscape directly ordered up for Jurassic Park and other prehistoric jungle movies; undeniably beautiful and unspoiled. We got there by boating through the world’s largest mangrove reserve into the sparkling waters and crashing waves of the ocean. The place we stayed had a bunch of bananas hanging in the open-air kitchen for the guests and one, closer to the river, for the monkeys, who came and tucked them under their arms like little thieves in the afternoons, scampering back up the vines into the canopy. While snorkeling, we saw rainbow fish, dolphins, and whales up close and personal. After less than four days there, I could not wait to leave. Continue reading The $300 Death March to Touch Tapir Butt
Drake Bay Photos
Click on a photo to see enlarge it, read the caption, and start a slideshow.
The boat to Drake Bay leaving after dumping us and all our stuff on the wrong beach!
After a hot day, a boy can’t resist running out to feel the downpour
The beach nearest our AirBnB where we get picked up for all our tours
Little snorkelers – they took to it like pros!
The beach where we took our snorkel break
snorkel break
Xander determined to open a coconut –
..and – SUCCESS!
CLOSE encounters. eeks!
A school (bunch?) of dolphins swam up to our snorkel boat just after we got out of the water- and then stayed with the boat for 15 mintues
Corcovado Tapir Tour: Sloth through the tour guides telescope
the circled thing is a grasshopper that is, you’ll notice, as big as Xander’s hand!
spider moneky dangling
a Coatmundi – the Costa Rican equivalent of a raccoon
A strangler fig, which seem to be as common as birch trees in NH but waaaay cooler. You can climb up in them once they’ve properly strangled their host tree.
Whale bones from a whale that washed up on the beach two years ago – Daisy is standing next to the mandibles, the spinal column is between the kids
The Money Shot – Total Tapir
Xander took a night hike and got some fabulous pictures – this is a poision-dart frog
A glass frog – from the top.
The glass frog with the flashlight below so you see its transluscence and leg bones
Can you see the frog in this photo?? (it’s there!)
Xander just thought this guy was cute
Chillin’ Drake Bay style
Day 2: Adjustment Period
Snippets from Daisy’s conversation with her father tonight:
“We went to a mall. We wanted to watch a movie but it didn’t even have subtitles, so I saw a little arcade in the mall and we played games.”
“Today was awesome– we saw pigeons picking bread at the place we were eating. It was gross.”
“So how was your day?”
Are We There Yet?
(*photo taken from the balcony of our AirBnB; notations explained below)
July 31st: 1 down, 364 to go
I am typing this in our tiny, clean, artsy, low budget AirBnB. It’s 7:12pm and I am wiped to a level of exhaustion that I maybe experienced in the delirious weeks after childbirth, but it’s a toss-up. Continue reading Are We There Yet?
Monteverde in August
This section will tell you the nuts & bolts of where we were and what we saw/did – not so much our impressions, but just the facts, ma’am. Continue reading Monteverde in August
What are we doing?
Welcome to our travel journal!
Family and co-workers already know this, but for those I just keep in touch with via Facebook, the big news is that Xander, Daisy, and myself are taking a year away from our day-to-day lives to live in different countries around the world. Continue reading What are we doing?
The Hooksett Globetrotters 