Lynn's Travel Adventures – Page 32 – "To Live is to Travel." Hans Christian Anderson

Another Rainy Day

March 1

Turns out the problem we had yesterday with the blog was the browser, so we switched from MS Edge to Firefox and we’re up and running again. We managed to upload one picture this morning. This is a picture of the street our flat is on taken from our bedroom balcony.

Today was our day trip to Sintra, Cabo da Roca and Cacais and except for taking the wrong bus and misplacing Peter’s train ticket we had no major issues. The train ride to Sintra was about 40 minutes and the train was very crowded. Luckily we managed to find seats so at least we were comfortable. Sintra is known for its palaces and castles. Once we arrived we bought a bus ticket that makes a loop around the area so we could get on/off wherever we wanted. Our first stop was at the beautiful Pena Palace, on top of a mountaintop. According to Wikipedia, on a clear day it can be seen from Lisbon but, unfortunately, today was so not clear; we could barely see it from the Sintra train station. We’ll upload some of our pictures when we can but they don’t do the palace justice. Here’s a link to a google search page that has several pictures. Pena Palace

The original part of the palace started in the middle ages as a chapel, then it became a monastery. The great earthquake of 1755 destroyed it and it wasn’t until the mid-19th century when King Ferdinand II (distant cousin to Prince Albert of England) decided to rebuild. It’s easy to tell which part of the palace was the monastery as the ceilings are fairly low (about 12 feet) and the decorations are pretty subdued. The new part of the palace has 20 foot ceilings and is much more ornate. The entire palace is quite beautiful. We got some good pictures of the inside so we’ll upload them as soon as we can.

Of course just as we headed outside to tour the terraces, it started to pour and because the wind was crazy strong the umbrellas were virtually useless. In addition to being wet and windy, the temp was only in the low 50s to it was pretty miserable. The good news is that it didn’t rain for too long so after having hot chocolate in the coffee shop, we headed back out spending a few minutes wandering in the garden. If it had been a nicer day we could have walked quite a bit as the park is huge but it was just too cold so we headed back to the bus. Once down off the mountain, we stopped for lunch at a small cafe. Lynn had cod, which is pretty much a national dish in Portugal. Peter ordered a hamburger, ignoring Lynn’s warning that hamburgers in Europe aren’t even close what we have at home. He should have listened….what he got was a burger made out of cod. It wasn’t bad but certainly not what he was expecting. Lynn’s fish was delicious.

Then we wandered around a few shops, buying a few gifts and a warm scarf for Lynn. We also tried Ginja, a cherry liqueur that is a Portuguese specialty. It was delicious. The sun actually came out for about 5 minutes but by the time we got on the bus for Cabo da Roca and Cascais, it was raining again. Cabo da Roca is the western most part of Europe and has a beautiful lighthouse on a hill. The ride was about 30 minutes but, unfortunately, Peter didn’t get a seat. The trip was beautiful and by the time we arrived the sun was actually out. We walked a short way to the cliffs, got our pictures, and headed back to the bus. The wind was even stronger than in Sintra so it was pretty cold, even with the sun.

The plan was to get back on the #403 bus and head to Cascais for dinner then take the train home from there. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans. What we didn’t realize is that the bus is not a circuitous route so when the bus came we got on it without a second thought. But, we got on the bus that was going back to Sintra…oops. We figured it out fairly quickly (the bus turning toward Sintra instead of Cascais was a big clue) but short of getting off, going back to Cabo da Roca and waiting for the next bus, there wasn’t much we could do about it. So, we didn’t get to see the small fishing village but we have one on the agenda for tomorrow so we don’t feel too badly.

Our second misadventure came at the train station in Sintra. We didn’t realize that the train ticket we bought in the morning was also good for a return trip. We asked for one way so there was no reason to think we’d need it on the way back. Lynn found her ticket right away but Peter’s was no where to be found. He’d given Lynn everything in his pockets during the day which she dumped into her bag. As a result her bag was filled with receipts, maps, guide books, etc., etc., etc. The line was growing quite long behind her so after a few seconds of looking we finally gave up and bought a new ticket. Of course, as soon as we left the window she found the ticket….oh well.

Once back in Lisbon Peter finally got his hamburger as we found some at the grocery store and made them for dinner. Of course they didn’t taste anything like our burgers but they were okay.

Tomorrow is another day trip, this time with Grey Line tours. We’re heading to Fatima and two other nearby towns. We could have gotten to Fatima on our own by taking the bus, but we wouldn’t have been able to see the other towns so we decided on the tour.

It’s almost 8:30 here and we’re still a bit jet lagged so we’ll close for now. Take care everyone and we’ll talk again soon. Hopefully we can get a couple of pictures uploaded in the morning when the internet connection seems a bit faster.

Love to all…..Lynn and Peter

Rocky Start of Our New Adventure

February 28

Our fist couple of days have been filled with challenges, the last of which is the blog. Not only will pictures not upload but the text isn’t showing up on the screen either. So, we’re writing it in Word, then copying/pasting into the site.

Anyhoo….

The trip was uneventful but long. We had a 7½ hour flight to London, then changed planes for Lisbon. We had a bit of a crisis before boarding our Air Portugal flight because the gate agent didn’t have a return flight in her computer. We explained that we were flying back from Stockholm on 5/26 but because it wasn’t showing up in her computer, she wasn’t going to let us board. Of course, Lynn couldn’t find the confirmation email in her phone so she had to connect her laptop to the airport WiFi and, luckily, found it there. This has never happened before. Even in 2016 when we didn’t have a return flight at all because we took the cruise back to the States, it wasn’t a problem. We have two additional flights (Lisbon to Paris; Paris to Copenhagen) but now Lynn has a picture of the return reservation on her phone so there shouldn’t be any further difficulties.

The flight to Lisbon went smoothly as did getting through immigrations and customs. We grabbed a cab to our AirBnB flat but didn’t hang around long before heading out for some sightseeing. By this time we’d been awake over 24 hours and knew if we sat around too long we’d fall asleep. Our host, Luis, suggested taking the red tourist tram which makes a short loop around the city and takes about 90 minutes. It’s a hop on/hop off but we stayed on the tram, making note of the places we wanted to visit today. Of course, Lynn dozed off a couple of times but she still saw most of the sites.

Lisbon has about 264 days of sunshine a year, unfortunately yesterday wasn’t one of them. When we got off the tram it was raining pretty hard and we’d left our umbrellas at the flat. So, by the time we got home, we were pretty soaked. The evening was quiet…. dinner, watching the Rick Steves’ Lisbon episodes on YouTube and planning our stops for today. We actually managed to stay awake until 10pm before finally getting to bed, a mere 40 hours after waking up Monday morning.

After a great night’s sleep, a delicious breakfast, and 10 minutes of frantically searching for the house keys, we headed back out to the tram. Even though the tram is supposed to be on a 30-minute schedule, we waited about 50 minutes before it finally arrived. We rode for about 20 minutes before getting off at the Praca de Commercio, which is one of the main city squares. It’s right on the marina but since it was another cloudy, rainy day (had umbrellas today; but much too windy to use them) the view wasn’t that great. There’s a 1.5-mile-long bridge that looks very much like the Golden Gate Bridge and it turns out that both bridges were designed by the same company. We didn’t get a real clear view of it due to the weather but maybe the weather will clear before we leave so we can get a better picture.

After stopping at Tourist Information to arrange our upcoming day trips, we strolled the walking street. We weren’t very interested in the shops, but it was nice to walk, especially since the rain had stopped. We had a delicious pizza for lunch then headed back to the red tram. We got off in the famed Alfama district which is one of the few neighborhoods left standing after the 1755 earthquake that killed 30,000 people and destroyed the rest of the city. It’s filled with shops, restaurants and crisscrossing streets. We climbed up the hill (Lisbon isn’t called the City of Seven Hills for nothing; these suckers are steep, too) to the Castle of St. George where, miraculously, the sun actually came out! The Castle was built by the Moors in the 11th century and is still in remarkable condition, at least the exterior walls. There’s nothing left of the inside, but it was very nice to stroll around the grounds. Once leaving, though, we ran into our biggest challenge. Long story short, we got separated when Lynn ran into a shop for a couple of minutes. Apparently, Peter didn’t hear her say where she was going and when he looked up, she was gone. When she left the shop just a few minutes (seriously, no more than 3 minutes tops) she couldn’t find him anywhere. The worst part was, that they had no way to contact each other. In spite of 4 phone calls to Verizon before we left, Lynn’s phone wasn’t working so we had no way to reconnect. Peter said he waited for her at the top of the hill for 30 minutes but since she was at the top of the hill waiting for him, we must have been on different hills. Finally, a police officer let Lynn use his phone and found out that Peter had gone back down to the tram thinking she might be there…. she wasn’t. So, she headed down the hill to meet him at the tram but took a wrong turn somewhere and got lost in the Alfama. After about 30 minutes of climbing up and down hills looking for the tram stop, she found a tourist information office. Turns out, not only did she walk too far down the hill, but she also turned in the wrong direction when she finally found the tram tracks. In order to get to stop 5, she would have had to walk up yet one more gigantic hill. The office let her use the phone to call Peter and this time we decided to just meet at home. What an ordeal!!! The first thing Lynn did when she walked into the flat was to connect via internet with a Verizon Customer Service rep to troubleshoot her phone. After about 30 minutes, it was finally fixed. And we know it works because she just got a spam robocall from New Jersey. Hopefully this won’t happen again but if it does, at least we’ll be able to reach each other.

So, the first couple days of our adventure haven’t exactly gone smoothly but we’re still enjoying Lisbon. Tomorrow we’re going strike out for Sintra and Cascais, both of which are highly recommended. Sintra is about a 40-minute train ride from Lisbon and after site seeing there, we’ll take a bus to Cascais. We could take a tour but decided to go it alone. Hopefully we’ll have fewer challenges than we did today.

Guess that’s it for now. Have a great night everyone. We’ll post pictures as soon as we can.

Waiting for the Car

February 26

Ready to go; just waiting for car to pick us up. Notice the small suitcases. We learned a lot on our last European Adventure so this time we packed super light. We’ll need to do laundry every 5-6 days, but the euro washers don’t hold much more anyway so we should be good.

Talk again from Lisbon. Love to all.

Final Night on the Road

February 18

Hi from Clarksville, KY. We’ve been traveling for the last 2 days. Yesterday we drove for about 8 hours from Tampa to Dalton GA, just south of Chattanooga TN. We decided to take a little time today to visit a few National Parks that were on our route. We passed several yesterday, but we were focused on making time. It was hard to pass them by, but we wanted to get as far north as possible. Today, though, we decided to make a few stops, so we didn’t quite make it as far as we originally planned.

Our first stop today was Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Battlefield which straddles Georgia and Tennessee. We didn’t get a chance to see the entire battlefield, but they had a very nice visitor center and a great movie that explained the battle. It’s not one of the more famous Civil War battles and we didn’t know that much about it, so the movie helped a lot.

Museum display at Stones River National Battlefield

Then in Murfreesboro (about 30 miles south of Nashville) we made a short stop at the Stones River National Battlefield. We knew even less about this battle so, again, the movie was helpful. It turns out that all three of these battles involved the same participants on both sides. Stones River was first over New Year’s 1862/1863, followed by Chattanooga and Chickamauga in Sept 63. The final battle at Chickamauga is considered the “death knell of the confederacy” as their loss opened up the path to Atlanta.

Finally, we stopped at Andrew Jackson’s home, Hermitage, just east of Nashville. It’s not a National Historic Site so Lynn didn’t get a stamp in her Passport, but it was fun anyway. This was the stop that made it impossible to get to Indianapolis tonight, which was our original plan. We spent over 2 hours there, but it was worth the extra time. The first floor of the mansion is undergoing renovations, so it was covered in plastic, but the upper floor was beautiful. We wandered the grounds a bit before heading back to the car.

So, tonight is the last night of the first half of our very first wintering over adventure. It truly was a great adventure. We left Chicago on Oct 24th, so we’ve been gone almost exactly 4 months. During that time, we put over 12,000 miles on our Honda CRV, we traveled through 10 states and all four time zones. We visited 22 National Parks/Sites/Monuments and two foreign countries (okay so we were only in Nogales MX for 2 hours, but we had to show a passport, so it counts). We spent time in the desert, the mountains and the beach. We had temps from 32 in San Antonio TX (go figure) to 95 with 88% humidity in Costa Rica.

Lynn with new friend, Larry, and a Cubs World Series ring.

There were several reasons for this trip. The first is that we’re homeless so why not be warm and homeless. But the second reason is that we’re searching for someplace to winter over every year. Given that Chicago is having a brutal winter, we so glad we were in a position to start our search this year. As much as we enjoyed Costa Rica, we’ve crossed it off the list of places to winter over. We would enjoy another vacation to see the things we missed, but we think we’d be bored there for an entire winter. We’re not big beach people and what little golf we found is quite expensive. Besides the heat and humidity, while better than cold and snow, was difficult on Lynn’s joints. Not only that but she hasn’t had a good hair day since she left Arizona. The same can be said for Florida so that’s off the list as well.

Beautiful Manuel Antonio beach, Costa Rica Feb 2018

Pool at our condo in Lake Las Vegas Nov/Dec 2018

Henderson NV was great, but we enjoyed Green Valley even more so right now that’s in the lead, but who knows what we’ll find in Europe. We’ve heard that the Algarve region of Portugal is a terrific place to retire. We are not sure we’d want to retire to Europe, but it might work for the winter. We’re spending some time there next month, so we’ll check it out.

Thanks so much for spending the last 4 months with us. We’re going to go quiet as not much is happening this week other than unpacking, repacking, getting taxes done, visiting doctors, running errands, etc. But, a week from tomorrow (Monday) we’re heading to Lisbon, so we won’t be quiet for long. Talk with you soon.

Love to all…. Lynn and Peter

On Our Way

February 16

On our private jet for the last leg of our trip to Tampa. Well actually we’re the only thru passengers. Should be at the hotel in 2-3 hours. Talk with you soon.

Last Days of Our Costa Rican Adventure

February 15

After a day of roaming around San Jose we’re back in our room for our last night in Costa Rica. Yesterday was pretty low key. We drove the 3 hours to San Jose where we checked into the Doubletree before returning the rental car. It was an uneventful, but interesting trip. The scenery was beautiful as we drove through the mountains and Peter saw a very large group of crocs in a river bed. Lynn preferred to do some last minute shopping but the pictures are pretty impressive. Here’s a video he took of these guys. https://youtu.be/-HDqgLBv86A

Once he got his fill of very large reptiles, he joined Lynn at the shop. He’s been looking at hammocks since we got here so we finally bought one. It’s a 2-person hammock with 3-foot pieces of wood at each end. The shop owner wrapped it up for us but we’re not exactly sure how we’re going to get it home. It won’t fit in the overhead and we’re not sure if it will make it in checked luggage as it is an easily “pilferable” item. Hopefully the SWA luggage guys are honest and we’ll see it again in Tampa. We’re also not sure where we’re going to hang it once we get home. We can buy a hammock stand but we’re thinking of putting up a pergola in the backyard so that would be a good place for it. We’ll come up with something.

The Doubletree is a very nice hotel and it’s great to sleep in a king size bed again after the full size one in Quepos. By the time we got settled and had lunch by the pool it was almost 3pm so we decided just to chill the rest of the day.

Today we went into San Jose for the day. There’s not too much there but we enjoyed a tour of the National Theater which was beautiful. It’s relatively small, only holding about 750 people, but it is filled with beautiful architecture, paintings and statues.

There is one ceiling paining in the meeting hall that is very cool. The woman in the picture almost seems alive as her head appears to turn to follow as you walk. Seriously, when we were standing on the right side of the painting, she was looking right at us. As we started slowly walking to the left her head appeared to turn and by the time we got to the other side of the room, she was looking at us full face. It was pretty amazing.

Painting of woman with moving head. The head was facing the other way when we stood to the right.

Inside the Cathedral; simple but beautiful

We also stopped in at the Cathedral and another smaller church. Compared to the churches in Europe these were very simple, but they were beautiful in their simplicity.

San Jose has every U.S. fast food place you can think of, but we decided to eat with the locals at a cafeteria style restaurant. Lynn didn’t care for the yellow dish (still not sure what it is) but everything else was delicious.

Delicious lunch except the yellow stuff; not sure what it was but I didn’t like it.

After lunch we wandered around some more, stumbling into Chinatown. It’s only about 2 blocks long and other than the arch and balloons left over from Chinese New Year, there wasn’t much there either.

It took about 30 minutes to walk back to the bus stop for the 30-minute ride back to the hotel. We plan to eat dinner at the hotel as there’s not much within walking distance and the shuttle only goes to the airport. So, it will be another quiet night but that’s okay as we have a long day tomorrow. We’re taking a shuttle at 6:30am for our 9am flight. We stop in Houston and again in Raleigh (but don’t change planes) before landing in Tampa at 8:45pm. Not sure why we booked a 2-stop flight probably less expensive. We’re sure it sounded like a good idea at the time but now we’re wishing we were getting to Tampa a little sooner as we’ve got 3 days of driving ahead of us.

We’ll touch base again when we’re back in Florida. Have a great night everyone.

Great Deal

February 15

We’ll get you caught up on what we’ve been doing later today but we wanted to let you know about a great deal we found that some of you may be interested in.

As most of you know, in 2016 we spent 8 weeks traveling in Italy and Croatia after which we came home on a repositioning cruise. It was a great way to relax after 8 weeks of almost constant traveling.

In the fall of 2019 we planned to go back to Italy for 6 weeks to visit the southern part the country along with Lynn’s old stomping grounds of Sicily. We were also thinking about taking another cruise and, long story short, we decided to push up our next Italy adventure to spring 2019 and take another repositioning cruise. This time on Royal Caribbean. In 2016 we took Celebrity but their repositioning cruises only went to Barcelona or Southhampton and we wanted one that ended in Rome. The good news is that with the cruise at the beginning of the trip, once it’s is over we can FedEx our dressy clothes home and not have to drag them around with us the way we did last time.

What really sold us was the Itinerary and the price. Instead of 7 days of cruising across the Atlantic this time it’s only 5 days and we’re stopping at two additional ports in the Canary Islands. Right now they’re offering 30% off so we’re booking a balcony room (which we had last time and LOVED) for only $1100 each including port fees and taxes. That’s a 14 day cruise for only $2200!! We actually paid $200 more because we wanted a refundable deposit. Given that the deposit is $900 and the sail date is more than a year away (4/27/19) we felt more comfortable knowing we could get a refund if something unexpected came up. We leave from San Juan Puerto Rico but we can get there on Southwest very reasonably so that was no big deal for us. Here’s a link to the website if you’re interested in checking out this, or any of the other deals. We only checked out the repositioning cruises but they may have deals on other itineraries as well. The special offer expires on 2/28 so if you’re interested you might want to move quickly. We’ve got a great travel agent who handled our last cruise and is helping us again with this one so let us know if you want his contact information.

Royal Caribbean

That’s all for now. We’ll post again later after our day of sightseeing in San Jose. Pura Vida.

Two Days of Adventure

February 13

Pura Vida (good life) everyone. We’ve had a couple of great days. Yesterday (Monday) we took a catamaran out into the ocean, stopping for some snorkeling. Compared to the snorkeling we did in Hawaii and Key West; this wasn’t really much. Actually, it was a bit comical as the tourists from 4 different boats (yours truly included) all headed for the one rock where we could see fish. It wasn’t a very big rock, so everyone kept crashing into each other trying to see the hand full of fish that were there. We saw some pretty ones, but we only stayed out there a few minutes before heading back to the boat. After that, we just played in the water for a while before going back on board to go down the slide into the water. Lynn did what Peter called the “baby slide” because she slowly inched her way down about half-way before finally letting go. But she did it twice so that should be equal to one big slide, right? After that we had a delicious lunch on board before heading back to the marina. All-in-all it was a very nice way to spend a morning. We were back to la casa by 1:30 and we both took a nap…. too much sun and open bar.

Then today we did something we’ve talked about doing since we arrived in Henderson Nevada the first of November….horseback riding. We had opportunities in both Nevada and Arizona but never got around to it. So, we booked a Rainforest Horseback trip on Viator. It has been many, many, many years since either of us was on a horse but we thought it would be fun. It was, but Lynn had forgotten how bad her knees have gotten since the late 80s which was the last time, she rode a horse. After about 90 minutes of riding, we got to our destination, a beautiful waterfall in the rain forest. Getting off the horse was harder than getting on and it took several minutes before Lynn’s knees would work properly. Our cowboy, Gilberto, lengthened the stirrups so the return part of the trip was a little easier on her knees.

Peter’s horse was Diala, and Lynn’s was Guapa. Diala was much more behaved than Guapa, who always wanted to be in front and she didn’t care how she got there. A couple of times she crashed Lynn into tree limbs and other horses to get to be in the lead. She also broke into a trot at will but luckily, she would go back to a walk after a few seconds. Lynn’s phone ran out of juice before we got to the waterfall so no pictures of that, but we did get a couple of us during our ride.

Once we got back to the ranch we had a delicious lunch before riding back (in a van…thank goodness) to Quepos. It was a fun way to spend the morning but we can now cross horseback riding off our list of things to do. Once was certainly enough. Back at the house it was time for another little nap. We don’t feel too bad right now but are dreading trying to get out of bed in the morning.

Tonight we’re packing up the little house because we’re heading to San Jose tomorrow to drop off the car and sightsee around the capital before heading home (well actually Tampa) on Friday. We’ve got reservations at the Doubletree Hotel and it will be nice to be able to put the toilet paper in the toilet instead of a waste basket….it’s the little things.

Talk with you soon. Love…..us

Weekend at the Beach

February 11

We feel a little guilty talking about our weekend at the beach when we know most of our family and friends are buried under a foot of snow but…

We spent the weekend quietly, visiting the local beach both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we ran into our guide from the National Forest, and he hooked us up with someone who could get us chairs and an umbrella. It was a very good deal, a big umbrella, two chaise lounge chairs and a small table for only 6,000 colones for the day. That’s just over $10. We were only there for 3-4 hours each day, but it was much less expensive than it would be at any of the beaches in Chicago. He was looking for us today and got us another great spot, this time under a tree which was even shadier than yesterday.

Maybe a good side job for Peter; surely he’s qualified about selling beer at Wrigley.

The water was bath water warm, and the waves were much bigger here than at Manuel Antonio beach from Friday. There were quite a few surfers out on Saturday but not as many today. Peter rented a boogie board both days and had a ton of fun frolicking in the waves. He said he thought he did a little better today because he didn’t swallow near as much water as he did yesterday. It’s the small victories.

Even with sunscreen Lynn got a bit burned. Not sure how that happened as she was only out in the water for 10-15 minutes at a time and then it was back under the umbrella, but it doesn’t take long down here.

Here’s a bit of the beach. It was a beautiful weekend. https://youtu.be/AzNsw-DQnkE

After we left the beach on Saturday, we walked for about 20 minutes back up the hill until we found a nice place for lunch. It had a beautiful view of the ocean and great food. Today we ate lunch on the beach from one of the beach vendors…. BBQ chicken on a stick. It was delicious.

We had several close encounters of the wildlife kind this weekend. Yesterday we saw a 2-foot lizard at the restaurant then in the evening we saw about 6 macaws. We’d been hearing them in the early evening but yesterday was the first time we had seen them. There are quite beautiful. Here’s a video Peter took. https://youtu.be/02fyWlLii2E

Then today we had some visitors at the guest house. About 5 squirrel monkeys came out of the trees and moved up the telephone wires right up to the house. Not sure what the incidence of squirrel monkey attacks on humans is but they just stared at us for a while then scampered back away.

Not much else to report; it really was a pretty quiet weekend. Tomorrow we’re heading to the marina for a half-day sailboat ride. Since we’re both a bit burned, we’ll have to be careful of the sun but we’re looking forward to it. Take care everyone…. stay warm.

The Jungle and the Beach

February 10

Good morning, everyone. It’s Saturday and we’re seeing CNN reports of a massive snowstorm in Chicago. It’s 90 and sunny here. In fact, we were complaining yesterday how hot the house was when we got back from our day of site seeing. It looks like after two mild winters; we picked a good one to miss.

Yesterday, we drove to Manuel Antonio National Park, hired a guide and walked about an hour through the jungle. We’re so glad we had a guide because it would have been very difficult to see the wildlife without (a) the guide’s incredible ability to spot the animals and (b) his scope that brought everything up close and personal. It’s amazing how they can spot tiny bats under a broken leaf. On our walk we saw a really cool stick bird. It’s green and looks exactly like a thin green stick. We also saw several 3-toed sloths and another 2-toe sloth. Turns out the 3-toed are the grey ones. We saw it very well through the scope; with its grey spiny fur it looked more like a bird’s nest than an animal. Apparently, they sleep 18 hours a day and only come out of the trees once a week to poop and pee. Then they go back up to the tree for another week. The mom sloths are also not very protective of their babies. If a baby falls out of the tree…oh well. Mom’s a bit too lazy to go down to get it.

We also saw several different kinds of lizards, a beautiful crab, the bats, hummingbird (they can eat up to 500 mosquitoes an hour) and, of course, monkeys and raccoons. Those guys aren’t the least bit shy. There was a raccoon family of 4 that was strolling the beach looking for things to steal. Everyone kept their belongings either tied up or in backpacks so the raccoons wouldn’t drag things away. We saw them try a couple of times, but someone usually shooed them away.

The monkeys were everywhere, on the beach, walking the pathway and even in the parking lot. We mostly saw white faced monkeys, but we also caught some squirrel monkeys and one howler monkey. The howler monkey has a face like a gorilla…not very pretty actually. They hang out in the top of trees so they’re difficult to see and almost impossible to take a picture of unless you have an expensive camera with a great zoom. Since we’re using our phones, we don’t get many good pictures of them. The squirrel monkeys don’t really look like squirrels except they have a stripe of orange fur running down their backs. They hang out on the lower branches but move so quickly it was tough to get a picture of them as well.

Speaking of wildlife, did we mention our close encounter with a poisonous snake? It was on our walk to town from our guest house in Nuevo Arenal last weekend. It was dead but creepy just the same. Remember the old rhyme…. red on yellow kill a fellow; red on black venom lack…look at this guy.

After swimming at Playa Manuel Antonio for a while we hiked back to our car, stopped for a nice lunch then headed home to do laundry. Lynn had flashbacks to Venice where it took 3 days to dry clothes. Hopefully it won’t take that long this time, but the laundry didn’t dry before the sun when down. It’s now 8:40am and they’re still not dry. Hopefully now that the sun is out, they’ll dry before we leave for the beach. Today we’re just going to hang out at the large beach about 3km from here. They have chaise lounges and umbrellas we can rent. Since there’s no shade, it’s the only way Lynn can hang at the beach for any length of time. Instead of trying to find a place to park we’re just going to take the bus which stops about 50 meters from the house. Very convenient.

Have a great day everyone…. stay warm.