Last Couple of Days

February 7

Let’s get caught up. Monday Stebano took us back into La Fortuna where we picked up our rental car. It’s so good to finally be mobile. We had a great lunch before heading to our afternoon kayak trip. We’ve been kayaking several times both in Dubrovnik Croatia and in Carlsbad California, but those trips were very tame compared with this one. We decided to kayak the river rather than Lake Arenal as we had seen some kayakers during our boat trip, and it looked pretty boring. Since we’d never kayaked a river before we thought it would be fun.

There were only 3 kayaks, and we were the first ones to push off. Our guide, Pedro, told us to paddle to the far side of the river and wait for the other two kayaks to push off. That sounded easy enough, but we didn’t count on the river current, which was quite swift. It totally took us downriver and no amount of paddling was going to get us to the side of the river. We did what we could to slow the thing down and eventually everyone else caught up with us.

The river was very beautiful, and we had a great time looking for wildlife. We saw quite a few birds but the only one we knew was the Blue Heron…beautiful. We also saw a 2-toed sloth and a 3-toed sloth. You might wonder what’s the difference, other than the number of toes. Well….the 2-toed sloth is grey in color and larger in size than the 3-toed which is brown and smaller. Actually, it could be the other way around but that’s the difference.

Lynn finally saw her monkeys. We saw quite a few howler monkeys; several of them swinging from limb to limb. Very cool. We also saw bats. Who knew there were bats in a jungle river? They were quite small and nestled under the limb of a tree. How Pedro saw them from across the river is a mystery but he’s very good at spotting the wildlife. Unfortunately, all the animals were too high in the tress to get pictures

We also saw 2 crocodiles. Well actually Lynn didn’t see the first one because as soon as Peter said, “look at the crocodile on the shore”, she started paddling as fast as humanly possible in the other direction. She did, though, see the second one. Not all of it; just the tail as it slipped into the river…. the same river we were paddling in the flimsy kayak. Actually, they were very sturdy but seriously…. can it go up against a crocodile??? Guess Lynn has seen Jaws too many times (“you’re going to need a bigger boat”) and was very glad that there were no close encounters with the large reptiles. Of course, after that she looked suspiciously at every log until she was sure it didn’t have teeth.

We stopped for a snack at a small farm before paddling the last 30 minutes. All together we kayaked 6 miles on 2 rivers. It was a ton of fun. But by the time we got back to the car the sun was setting which meant we had the one-hour drive back to la casa in the dark. The first half of the trip wasn’t too bad but all of a sudden, we lost the well-paved road and lane markers. The road was still paved but not in great condition. It was also very windy which made for a rather nail-biting trip back. Actually, the hardest part was the last 2km up the dirt, pothole filled road to Wolf and Heidy’s house. It is an understatement to say we were very glad to get home and decided that would be our last trip out after dark.

Then on Tuesday we decided to drive to Tilaran about 30 km away for lunch. We expected a touristy town like La Fortuna but there really wasn’t anything there. We walked around a little but headed back home after only about 20 minutes. We stopped at a great place along the way for lunch and a delicious Pina Colada, which is becoming our favorite adult beverage.

This morning we left Wolf and Heidy’s guest house around 7:30, heading for the Pacific coast. Since our next Airbnb flat is also in the jungle, we decided to splurge on a night at the beach. So tonight, we’re at Croc’s Resort and Casino in Jaco, about an hour north of tomorrow’s destination of Quepos. We found the resort on booking.com and they upgraded us to a beautiful ocean view room. We got up here and broke all speed records getting in our bathing suits so we could hang by the pool. Seriously we were tearing through our bags to look for our beach stuff as if the pool was going to close and the bar would run out of Pina Coladas if we didn’t get out there within minutes. We headed first for the ocean, which was warmer than bath water. After playing in the surf for a while, we headed to the pool. We spent all afternoon playing in the pool, having a few drinks, enjoying lunch and taking a little siesta. We got here very early (11:30) so we had all afternoon to enjoy the amenities. It was quite the splurge but we’re so glad we came.

Tomorrow we’re off the Quepos where we’ll spend 5 nights. While our flat is in the jungle, we’re only 10 minutes from Manuel Antonio beach so we’re looking forward to it. Time to get dressed for dinner so we’ll chat again soon.