Thanksgiving in Guanacaste

We had a fantastic holiday here in Costa Rica—it was another turkey-free Thanksgiving! We pulled the kids out of school a day early so we could drive to the Pacific coast on Wednesday and spend our entire holiday having fun. And wow, did we have a blast! (You can watch a slideshow with photos of our trip here: Thanksgiving pictures.)

We made the five-hour drive to Playa Grande in Guanacaste, an area known throughout the country for its surfing and fantastic beaches. Thursday morning after a big breakfast and some leisurely hanging around in hammocks at our beachfront hotel (along with a lizard and a funny squirrel for company) we went horseback riding. The weather was awesome—a real treat coming from the rainy, cloudy valley. Much of our two hours riding was spent on the beaches of Brasilito and Playa Conchal, though we also ventured off onto some trails near the beach shaded by a plethora of tall trees. (And yep, once again we saw monkeys on Thanksgiving—this time howlers that, as usual, made quite a ruckus.)

Our horses were White Socks, Raccoon, Zorro (Lauren’s horse), and Arroz con Frijoles (Rice with Beans—that was Erin’s horse). Soon after we mounted, our guide, Luis, let me know that Arroz con Frijoles likes to go fast, and a bunch of times on our ride he got going and the other horses all followed. We got to galloping at one point on Brasilito but didn’t go for long since the girls’ hats both blew off.


We all had a great time and I must admit, Erin in particular was a real natural on the horse. It was good fortune that she loved to fly down the sand on his back, because Arroz con Frijoles was definitely the most spirited horse of the bunch. White Socks and Raccoon were not nearly so eager to run, though Dan and I suspect that may be because they were carrying us instead of an 11-year-old kid.

After our horseback trip we cooled off in the Toyota’s AC and headed south into Tamarindo, the largest town in this part of the country. There we picked up some snacks and water for later and had lunch at Pizza Hut. I don’t know why it is, but we think Pizza Hut here is better than it is at home, and we were so hungry we didn’t leave a slice behind. We even had ice cream at Pops following lunch—one of the best ice cream spots in Costa Rica that happened to be in the most gorgeous shopping center I’ve ever seen, complete with a sprawling, free-form pond (host to turtles and fish), waterfalls, and beautiful trees and flowers.

That afternoon we went for a swim in the turtle-shaped pool at our hotel and then had an early dinner because we all went to bed at 6:30—yes, you read that right. Let me note that it’s not hard to go to bed early here because it’s already dark—not dusk, but nighttime dark—by this hour and because we normally wake up so much earlier here than in the States. Plus we were tired from the horseback riding and swimming! But this night it was especially important to get some rest because we had set the alarm to wake us at 11pm. We had something very special planned: we were going to Las Baulas National Marine Park with hopes of seeing a giant leatherback turtle nesting.

Lauren wasn’t too thrilled when we roused her out of bed at 11:00, but eventually we all got ready, put on the bug spray, and took our flashlights down the road about 50 yards from our hotel to the park’s ranger station. Las Tortugas Hotel is the center for the Tamarindo National Wildlife Sanctuary and Las Baulas National Marine Park. There isn’t much light on this short walk to the station because the turtles won’t nest unless it’s dark. The owner of the hotel where we stayed has been active for years in eco-tourism and sustainable development; this includes shielding the turtles from all ambient light both here and from neighboring beaches.

Las Baulas is a protected area vital to the endangered leatherback turtle; actually, it is the world’s largest nesting site for these turtles and one of the few remaining sites of significant nesting. Female leatherbacks come ashore at night to lay their eggs in the sand. They then cover the eggs and return to the ocean. The beach is restricted at night from October to mid-February, and people can only visit as part of a guided tour—so off we went, hopes high!

We were part of a small group of people and stood, single file, in the dark on the beach as we waited for a park ranger to spot a nesting turtle. While we waited, Dan and I noticed how amazing the sky appeared—there was extremely little moonlight, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many stars before. It was truly awesome.

We didn’t wait long until we trekked through the sand with only natural light and the guide’s red-filtered flashlight to help us. Soon we could see a giant swath of a path on the beach and right up from it was the turtle, digging deep in the sand. She was absolutely massive—the giant leatherbacks are the world’s largest marine turtles. She was at least five feet long and she certainly weighed more than our entire family! I wish I could have taken photos to share, but the turtles only nest in the dark and so we watched her by the guide’s red light which was aimed at her backside only.

It was incredible to see how this giant creature stretched her flippers (about the size of tennis rackets!) to make this deep hole. When she was nearly done digging, our group stepped away to allow another group to see the dig. We sat down in the sand and just enjoyed the cool ocean air as we waited for our turn to see the turtle again. And when we went back—wow! She was laying her eggs, sometimes three at a time. There were scientists there measuring her and counting her eggs. Erin heard one say at the end that she had deposited 56 eggs into her nest.

We didn’t get to stay and see the turtle go back to the sea—the rangers want to minimize humans’ contact with the turtles, and this was her moment. She had done her job and was leaving her eggs to fend for themselves.

Our family was in awe of this experience. We realized that with the giant leatherback in danger of being extinct, we were surely witnessing a precious and miraculous event. Both our family and the turtle had come a very long way to share in her nesting on this quiet beach.

A couple of months from now, some of those eggs we saw will be little hatchlings, and a few will survive the short yet perilous trip down the beach to the Pacific Ocean. Maybe my girls will return to Playa Grande one day with their families to see an offspring of the leatherback burying eggs of her own.

We are thankful for this turtle, for the horses we rode, for the beautiful beach, and for each other. Though life in Costa Rica is never smooth sailing, it has been a life-changing experience that we will always treasure. What a Thanksgiving!

Caribbean calling

By the time we hit mid-October in the rainy season, we are all desperate for sunny skies and warm, dry breezes. The girls had off a few days from school at CDS, so we fled the waterlogged valley for the beautiful Caribbean.

It’s hard to decide what to blog about this trip—there were so many small moments we’ll always remember, yet journaling them all would fill pages. With that in mind, here are some highlights of our time on the coast and a photo album (best viewed as a slideshow) of the first few days of our trip ...

We set out on a sopping wet Thursday morning. About 20 kilometers north of San Jose, we drove through the mountainous Braulio Carillo National Park, an area beyond lush—it’s a gorgeous tropical rainforest with rushing waterfalls, flowers, and towering trees.

Once we came down from the mountains, we bid a big ADIOS to the rain! The rest of the trip was relatively flat, taking us over numerous rivers and past bunches of banana plantations, where the fruit hung in blue bags from tree after tree. The scenery wasn’t like anything we’d seen yet in Costa Rica, but then again, the Caribbean is different from the rest of the country in many ways.

Though just a few hours from the central valley, the Caribbean seems worlds away. The coast is still relatively undeveloped and, because it was so remote for so long, has its own unique culture. There are reserves of indigenous peoples here, and many of the area’s inhabitants are descendants of Jamaican immigrants who came to work on the railroads and banana plantations. These immigrants shaped the culture, and the area has a Jamaican flavor in its music (plenty of reggae), food (much spicier and less-Tico), language (some speak an English-based patois which I find harder to understand than Spanish), drug culture (yes, we smelled marijuana while walking down a beachfront street in Puerto Viejo), and even style of dress (plenty of dreadlock-sporting Rastafarians here).

Eventually we passed the port city of Limón. This is where the container ships come in and where our household goods first landed in Costa Rica. Limón is the largest town on the country’s east coast—a rough-looking place that ships millions of pounds of bananas to the world each year. It’s not much of a tourist destination, and we drove along the city’s edge to the south, along the coast.

We passed by Cahuita and drove into Puerto Viejo, then another eight kilometers to Punta Uva. It’s an understatement to say the drive is bumpy and jarring from Puerto Viejo to the south. The roads here are “paved” in tiny sections—most of the road is dusty and full of rocks and massive potholes. This is hands-down the worst stretch of driving we’ve ever done in Costa Rica. Our trusty RAV4 took quite a beating on this trip.

Finally, we reached our hotel (a compound of single-story buildings with four rooms apiece) and headed right to the beach where we spent much of our time during the next few days. This is said to be one of the best beaches on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and was refreshing and clear. There was plenty of coral and fish for snorkeling, and—perhaps most fun for everyone—we got to play with a lot of CDS families we know who were also escaping the valley for drier climes and beautiful beaches.

Our first night we had dinner with our friends the Irlenborns at Maxi’s in Manzanillo. Maxi’s is a popular hang-out about five kilometers south of Punta Uva, and the drive is on a two-lane road lined with dense jungle. The restaurant sits at the dead-end of a tiny town and the last settled area in Costa Rica before entering a wildlife reserve that encompasses a few kilometers between Manzanillo and Panama. We had good food and lots of fun with our friends in addition to spotting a bunch of geckos on the ceiling and a few cats prowling around, too. (We noticed there were a lot of cats in this part of the country, actually, which I loved since I still miss my buddy Charlie.)

Sleeping was comfortable since we stayed in one of the few places on the beach with air conditioning. (No mosquito nets for us!) I still woke up each night though to the sounds of howler monkeys traveling through the jungle. I’ve mentioned these vocal animals before, but it bears mentioning that the calls of a troop can carry for miles and are loud enough to wake me out of a sound sleep.

We had breakfast at the hotel’s open-air restaurant each day. One morning while eating her eggs, Erin spotted a sloth across the path near our room. Sloths rarely come down from their treetop homes, so this was a great surprise. We walked over to watch the three-toed creature s-l-o-w-l-y pull itself with its hands over the land and up the giant tree right outside our room. It was a fortunate opportunity to see this.

A few times on this vacation we drove into Puerto Viejo, which is truly Caribbean—steamy, sandy, and laid-back. It’s really hot in this surfers' hang-out, and people take life more slowly here. Between Punta Uva and Puerto Viejo we saw a lot of people walking and riding bicycles, nobody in much of a hurry to get anywhere.

On Friday at the beach, we met up with our friends the Muelas family from Spain. We snorkeled and swam with them, and that evening the eight of us had reservations at a fabulous restaurant in Cochles called La Pecora Nera—a mouthwatering taste of Italy on the edge of the Costa Rican jungle. Many travel guides and travelers agree that this beautiful, open-air restaurant has the best Italian food in the country. The owner is this exuberant, young Italian guy who was not only our chef but also part-time waiter who advised us—with a flourish—on what to order that night. It was a long, leisurely, and fantastic dining experience with a family whose company we truly enjoy.

The following morning we walked along the hotel path that leads to the main road. Surrounded by jungle, we saw blue morphos (love them!), turtles, crabs, and birds. The foliage here is so thick and wild, Dan commented that a person wouldn’t need to walk far into it before he or she might never come out.

Of course we parked ourselves at the beach after the walk for hours of swimming and relaxing in beach chairs under the palm trees (ah, heavenly!). We went to lunch with our Spanish friends that afternoon and, while there, decided to extend our vacation to do something unique, adventurous, and amazing. That story is to come in the next blog entry and will tell of one of our most memorable days here in Costa Rica!

Manuel Antonio in March

Our first spring break destination outside the valley was Manuel Antonio—both the park and the town. We visited the park last Thanksgiving, and it was so amazing we had to take my parents there, too.

Our lodging was a private villa on a cliff with a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, framed by a canopy of trees that’s home to tropical birds, sloths, monkeys, and lizards. We enjoyed relaxing on the deck and listening to the surf as we soaked in our surroundings.

During our stay at the villa, my parents got a taste of authentic life in Costa Rica. Their suicide shower wasn’t working until the last day of our visit (after a handyman came to replace it) and the power in Manuel Antonio went out several times—once while we were dining out (thankfully by candlelight). These snags, which would be unexpected and unacceptable in the US, are common here and a reminder that we live in a developing country.

Boogie at the beach
To get to the beach—just a half mile from the villa—we drove down a path of indescribably rough terrain (four-wheel drive required!) and parked on the sand at the bottom. I’ve never felt ocean water at such a perfect temperature, and swimming was a welcome activity each afternoon since Manuel Antonio is hot and humid at this time of year. Dad rented a boogie board, and nearly all of us had a go at wave riding.

Horsin’ around
Our first night we ate dinner at a large, open-air place in Quepos called El Gran Escape (The Great Escape), which, in its former life, was both a brothel and a cervecería (place to buy beer). An authentic tope—or horse parade—was happening in the main street just outside the restaurant. In this festive atmosphere, Costa Ricans proudly display their high-stepping horses while others cheer them on and music plays.

Manuel Antonio National Park
Sunday was spent at the national park. We arrived early to avoid crowds, see the animals before their afternoon siestas, and enjoy hiking before the equatorial sun blazed too hot. The last time we visited was at the end of the rainy season when we crossed the water in a boat to reach the park; this time, nearing the end of the dry season, we walked through hot sand to reach the park’s entrance.

We loved showing Mom and Dad what we’d learned on our last visit, and it was great to see some new things too—like the tell-tale turtle tracks on the beach that Dad spotted. We also tackled a new, more difficult trail for hiking: Punta Catedral (Cathedral Point), an outcropping of land that was once an island but now connects to the mainland by a natural land bridge. This hike of about an hour took us up a steep incline through dense jungle. It was a challenging (and sweaty!) climb, but it was so beautiful and unique, it was worth it—especially when we saw the view of the ocean, far above the surf pounding rocks below.

More monkeys
We saw plenty of wildlife on our trip, both while in the park and elsewhere. A highlight was the huge troop of squirrel—or titi—monkeys as they migrated past our villa early one morning. These fun little monkeys are incredibly cute as they swing through the canopy, gripping branches with their tails and then launching their small bodies to nearby trees. They’re also a vulnerable species, so we felt very lucky to see so many—including a few mamas with their babies firmly attached to their backs. Many monkeys ran across the roof of the deck, and one peered over the edge to get a closer look at us. (A capuchin monkey had done the same thing the day before, with his eye on Erin’s ginger cookie!)

While we heard howler monkeys several times throughout our travels, these noisy creatures did not wake us in the middle of the night with their roaring, as they did on our last trip to the area.

Isla Damas
On Monday morning, we toured the protected inland waterways of the Damas Island estuary. We traveled with our knowledgeable guide Eduardo to the sleepy town of Isla Damas, just north of bustling Quepos. There we boarded a canopied boat for a morning trip through a unique ecosystem nestled in a lush mangrove forest.

We made our way through a maze of narrow channels of brackish water surrounded by amazing African palms, loads of plants and trees, and impressive red and black mangroves. We saw a variety of marine birds, crabs, lizards, and even the rare-to-spot silky anteater napping in a tree. But the best—no surprise here—were the playful monkeys who came right up to our boat and jumped on the roof, let us touch their hands, and provided fantastic entertainment for their human guests.

Valley bound
After three nights, we left tropical Manuel Antonio for Santa Ana. The ride home was scenic and uneventful (always a blessing!), and we were glad to return to the cool, breezy valley we love.

Click here to see a photo album of our trip (best viewed as a slideshow). ¡Pura vida!

Monkeying around on the day after Thanksgiving

Read the blog before or after viewing the pictures—you choose. Here's the photo album for day two of our Thanksgiving vacation (I recommend the slideshow).

We woke early on our first full day of vacation—around 6am, which is when we normally get up here in Costa Rica. Everyone’s first thought was to head for the beach to check for creatures in tide pools and shells to take home. We especially wanted to find sand dollars after noticing the large collection of sand dollars the owners of the bungalow had displayed in a bowl on the table.

It took a while, but I found the first sand dollar. Then Dan found one, then both of the girls…it seemed suddenly that they were everywhere and we were the mighty sand dollar hunters, all aiming for the most treasures. Erin found six at once! We walked the beach for two hours and returned to our cabin with a full pail.

After a filling breakfast of eggs, gallo pinto, and empanadas in our little kitchen, we headed south to Manuel Antonio National Park—one of the top destinations for anyone visiting Costa Rica and something we’ve been anxious to see since we first learned we were moving.

On our way we crossed a couple of wild bridges (see the previous blog) that had our hearts pounding. After one bridge crossing we saw a family selling pipas (coconuts) with straws stuck in them.

We also saw a couple of guys—at different times—cruising the highway on bikes and wielding their long-handled machetes. We nicknamed these fellows Grim Reapers on Bicycles.

After passing some great landscape and small villages, we entered the beach town of Quepos and made our way up the hillside into the absolutely gorgeous Manuel Antonio. Dan and I loved this drive, where the windy road is lined with eclectic shops, restaurants, and hotels. A few times we noticed authentic streets signs telling drivers to slow down—each accompanied by a silhouette of a person, dog, sloth, and monkey.

After a few miles we came to the end of the road. Here the sides of the street were lined with cars and vendors on the beach. The road made a loop, and there was a beach at the end and a small tree-, rock-, and mud-filled parking area. Unbelievably, this was the lot for those visiting the park. It was certainly a different experience from visiting a national park in the United States—no maps to purchase, no gift shops, no commercialism. Frankly, we weren’t even sure we were at the park at first.

To get to the park itself, one has to walk across the beach and then can choose either to wade through the Camaronera stream or take a small rowboat to access the rainforest of Manuel Antonio. We weren’t in beachwear, so we took the boat (thankfully one of the guides in the boat kept bailing, since there was a leak). At this point we had also decided to spend the extra money ($20 each) to have a park guide with us. Our guide’s name was Henry—he was a Tico who spoke good English and carried a telescope. Without him and his trusty scope we wouldn’t have seen a lot of what we did.

Incidentally, it is about $7 for a non-resident tourist to enter Manuel Antonio, but for us (we’re now official, card-carrying residents!) it was only about $2 each—a cheap price to visit a park with fantastic beaches, beautiful rainforest, and more than 100 mammal species.

We hadn’t even entered the park when we saw our first monkey in a tree. And once we were in the park—WOW! On this day we saw monkeys, several kinds of lizards, sloths, coatimundis, a kingfisher, bats, giant grasshoppers, even a crocodile! You can see pictures of all these cool animals and plants too (beautiful palms, guava trees, banana leaves, the poisonous manzanillo trees that burn if you touch them, bamboo…) on the online photo album. The pictures truly are worth a thousand words—I can’t do justice to how amazing this experience was.

Of all the animals, the monkeys undoubtedly put on the best show. At one point near the beach we ran across a monkey who had stolen a package of crackers from someone (naughty monkey!). His monkey buddies were chasing him through the trees trying to get a snack, but the cracker monkey did not want to share. When he dropped a cracker and the guy next to me picked it up, the monkey got mad. He was behind Erin and me, and when Dan told us to turn around and we saw this creature baring his teeth, we jumped (but then I got a great picture before I beat a hasty exit!).

Another neat creature we saw was the Jesus Christ lizard, aptly named because he is so fast he can literally run across the water.

How about the howler monkeys? They were probably at least a mile or two away when we heard their bellowing, and wow was it loud!

Unfortunately we did not get to see a toucan on this trip; apparently they are rare to see other than in January and February when they are nesting.

We hiked for about two and half hours until we decided the girls’ legs were wearing out and it was time to get something to eat. We had the most incredible time on our first trip to Manuel Antonio—and still can’t believe we saw all these animals in their natural habits.

For our late lunch/early dinner, we visited a unique restaurant called El Avión (The Plane). The eatery is centered around a Fairchild C-123—an aircraft previously owned by the CIA that played a major role in the scandalous Iran-Contra Affair of the mid-80s. The owners of the restaurant bought the plane in 2000, disassembled it into seven sections, and shipped it to its current location in Quepos on the side of a cliff. Here it has become part of this restaurant with tasty seafood, frequent animal sightings (we saw monkeys and a mama and baby sloth), and breathtaking views of the ocean and rainforest. There is even a small bar inside the plane’s fuselage.

The girls really liked this place—they had straws with cute little paper fruits in their drinks, which was totally cool, they said. The food was excellent and we had fried calamari with a fruity-ginger sauce for an appetizer. Lauren liked it quite a bit and was shocked when I told her calamari is seafood (I didn’t go so far as to tell her it’s squid).

After returning to our bungalow, the girls enjoyed playing on the beach, while Dan and I relaxed and admired the brilliant sunset over the ocean. Everyone fell asleep early again—another busy day was to come.

Beach bound

Early on Saturday morning we met up with our friends Norbell and Amalia to travel to a couple of beaches on the Pacific. Our friends were very generous to offer to let us follow them on the way there so we'd learn the route. We now know we can make the trip without getting lost (there aren't exactly road maps in CR, but that's another blog entry in itself).

Shortly after we began driving we were traveling switchbacks through mountainous country. As we drove, the landscape became more tropical and lush, with amazing flowering trees, waterfalls, beautiful views, and quaint small towns. There's one short stretch of drive that had too many drop offs for my liking (and not a guardrail in sight), but to a non-height-phobic person, the roads were good and travel was fine. (Can't forget to note that at two points on our trip we drove around a pair of oxen pulling a cart. Maybe it was the same pair, actually; they're not exactly fast moving.)

In Orotina (in Alajuela province, about an hour west of San Jose), we stopped at a roadside restaurant for some breakfast. Lauren had toast, while the rest of us had eggs, bread, and some wonderful gallo pinto (spotted rooster), a very traditional Costa Rican dish of rice and beans that I'm going to try making myself this week.

While we waited for the food to come, Norbell and I made a quick stop at the pharmacy for some motion sickness medicine for Erin, who was green after our windy trip up and down the mountain roads. An interesting note about buying medicine in Costa Rica is that you can purchase it by the pill. I bought eight doses of medicine for Erin for about 50 cents. (Fortunately, Erin felt much better after a good meal.)

Shortly after leaving Orotina we pulled off and walked the bridge over the Río Tárcoles (on the edge of Carara National Park) where we saw massive crocodiles below, sunning themselves. We'd like to come back to this spot during the dry season when the water isn't so high, because we've heard you can sometimes see dozens of crocs at a time (we probably saw about eight).

As we were walking back to our car, we saw a flock of scarlet macaws flying in the park. This is something I have been looking forward to ever since I learned these lapas rojas live in Costa Rica. The birds fly in pairs (apparently they mate for life) and we could see the brilliant red in particular shining in the sun. Lauren noted that they have the primary colors. What amazing birds. I hope someday to get even closer to them and share my own photos on this blog.

After another 30 minutes or so we arrived at Punta Leona, a resort built into the rainforest. We drove in on a brick road through gorgeous canopy, including a few areas where the dense growth of bamboo made a tunnel for us to drive through.

Our first stop was Playa Blanca (White Beach) which has tables under shade trees on a walkway and then the white beach below big, bending palms. Behind the palms the terrain goes up and you can see nearby residences on the cliffs which must offer an incredible view of the water and the Nicoya Pennisula which is across the Gulf of Nicoya.

We've heard that there is some fun snorkeling here during the dry season, though the water was murkier than usual because of the heavy seasonal rains. We were still able to see fish (though nothing too colorful) swimming around as we headed out into the water. We saw a few hermit crabs and more macaws, too.

As we were leaving Playa Blanca we saw a white-nosed coatimundi at the table, foraging a meal from someone's leftover table scraps. (I was actually shocked when I walked up to a table and saw this racoon/monkey-looking animal sitting on one bench eating and Lauren was on the bench next to him just watching. "Mom, look at this guy!" Thankfully she wasn't his idea of a good snack.)

After this we visited a beautiful swimming pool and then another beach where we had a pizza for late lunch (we were nearly joined by an iguana that we saw on our way to and from ordering the pizza). We left in late afternoon before the clouds really started rolling in. The girls and I think we saw a couple of monkeys in the trees on our way out of the resort, though Lauren started saying the monkeys were wearing shirts and boots and pants. (I think we all know who the real monkey was on our trip.)

Lastly, what trip during the wet season would be complete without a downpour? We were in the rains (especially heavy as we entered the valley) from this side of Atenas to home. Still, the rains didn't dampen our day.