HOLA,
It has been too long since we have been able to post anything on our blog. Our keyboard is in need of a transplant! Laurel, the wonderful owner of our rental house has loaned us a portable keyboard we can plug in so that we can at least let everyone know we are indeed still alive and enjoying ourselves.
We have done quite a bit of traveling since our last post. So much that we have decided to break it down into individual posts that we will publish on different days. We will probably do another post this weekend if Laurel can let us have the keyboard again. Hopefully in the next 10 days or so we can catch up on showing and telling you about our travels in this beautiful paradise.
Today we will concentrate on our trip to Playas Manuel Antonio, a city on the Pacific Ocean about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here. It is a wonderful little city, best known for being the location of the Manuel Antonio National Park (Read Rainforest). We visited there November 8, 9, and 10th.
I’ll explain the photos and then Deb will give you her take on this part of our adventure. This was a great trip that we both enjoyed. I hope the photos I have selected give you an idea of the splendor we were immersed in. The animals are all roaming free, and are everywhere we went. They are not in a zoo, but walking the streets, on the beaches, and in the restaurants. SO COOL.
The pictures in the top 4 1/2 rows are from a restaurant we ate at twice.
My cap between 2 glasses of refreshing fruit juice looking out at the ocean. The iguanas were on the roof of a lower section of the building. There were actually 3 of them! The Titi monkey was roaming around inside while people were eating, and the bartender gave him a banana which he ate and then slowly left! The 2 pictures of a sloth were taken just outside of the restaurant. The sloth is one of my favorite animals, so this was really a treat to see this close up. The beach is from Manuel Antonio, and there are two photos on the left of the hotel we stayed in. It was a very nice place, photos really do not do much to show the beauty and colors that stood out. On the right side, under a large leaf, is a fruit bat. This is an adult, much smaller than the African fruit bat we have at the Minnesota Zoo. This species is about the size of a tennis ball! Below the fruit bat are two different types of lizards. Very colorful, very fast moving. The picture on the left looks like a ball of dried grass. It actually is a hummingbird nest, made from dried grass!! It is just slightly bigger than a golf ball and was well hidden in the leaves. And finally, five pictures of capuchin monkeys. They were everywhere in Manuel Antonio, and I mean everywhere. The last picture is indeed a live monkey sitting on that sign, too good to pass that up.
Now I’ll turn it over to Deb. Hope to give more pictures and tales in a few days.
Pura Vida.
Hola,
Hope you enjoyed the pictures above. It was a great time. I love monkeys so it was the coolest experience for me to see them everywhere. We would walk out of our hotel and they would be tight roping on the electric wires. One monkey had lost its paw and our tour guide, Ricardo, told us that it was because it was on the electric wires prior to five years ago when they wrapped the wires to protect the monkeys. Costa Ricans take the environment and habitat seriously. There is no such thing as hunting in Costa Rica. It is against the law.
He also told us, with great pride, that the military was disbanded in the 70s and the money that had been spent on the military was put into health care and education instead. He has two daughters who are studying law and accounting. Because college is totally free, many Costa Ricans get multiple degrees. I said to him that I have spoken to many Costa Ricans about their country and they seem to really love it. Ricardo put his hand on his chest and replied wit such passion, “It is at our heart!”
If we hadn’t hired a tour guide to go through Manuel Antonio National Parque, we wouldn’t have seen 90% of the wildlife that we saw. Ricardo carried a camera on a tripod so that he could zoom in on the wildlife that he saw. All the guides would point out to the other guides coming through with groups when they found a particular animal. They would then all set up their tripods and check it out, too. Ricardo would take our phones or cameras and take the pictures, for us, through the lens of the camera.
Another thing we learned from Ricardo is that almost anything that is bright and colorful in the rainforest is poisonous. He pointed out some very beautiful mushrooms and said that they are extremely deadly. Others, he said, are hallucinogenic (and some of those are also deadly) to the point that if you eat it, you will be on a psychedelic trip for 72 hours and when, and if you come out of it, you won’t have much of a memory left. It will take a long time to get it back.
The parque was a great time. The restaurant where we saw the iguanas on the roof and the capuchin monkey was fantastic! The waiters would point out things like the sloth to us and show us where it was. Incidentally, Ricardo referred to the capuchin monkeys as devils and murderers. They eat the eggs of other animals and are ruthless hunters. They were so cute, though. They were always begging for food. We also saw a coati at the beach and an agouti. A coati is a member of the raccoon family. We were told that we should not take food to the beach because the monkeys would come and steal it from us. Agouti is a rodent, a large rat.
Our trip to Manuel Antonio was wonderful. The Ticos (the Costa Ricans) were terrific wherever we went and that has been our experience everywhere we have traveled in Costa Rica.
Having been a daycare provider for many years, I notice how well behaved the children are in this country. They are exremely respectful to everyone including their parents. I also spoke to Ricardo about this. He said, “We are very proud of our children and we protect them and nurture them. After all, they are our future.” Many people are concerned about sex trafficking of children and they make it a national priority to let all foreigners know that it won’t be tolerated.
On the subject of children, I have also learned that they study three languages in this country besides Spanish; English, French, and Mandarin. Mandarin, because they realize that the next great power will be China. They are preparing for that.
That is enough for today. We hope all of you are doing well and are happy. If you want to leave any comments, please do. We enjoy knowing that our blog is being read and we are not “alone” on this adventure.
Pura Vida,
Deb & Tim
Deb & Tim's Adventure 