Last Blog from Costa Rica :-(

This will be my last blog from Costa Rica (I think).  It is amazing how fast the time went by.  Some days it seems like I got here yesterday while others feel like I have been here for  years.  Below you will find some pictures of my last day in Puerto Viejo as well as some pictures from my white water trip yesterday!

This is a picture of Andrew and I at the tasty waves restaurant after we had finished eating our tacos!  My last day in Puerto Viejo I spent a lot of time at the beach as well as just riding up and down the coast looking at the sights and taking an easy.

Here above and below you can see where we ate dinner and had a few cocktails looking out on the harbor and the beautiful sunset we had!

Above you can see a picture of my room at Hidden Jungle Beach House.  Notice the nice mosquito net over the bed because the mosquitoes here are very mean and even with the net at night my legs got eaten alive.  Below you can see the house itself.  The first level was just a very large kitchen and dining area.  The second floor had a small living room with a television as well as 4 small rooms for guests.  The third floor is Lisa (the owners room) where she has a view of the beach but we were not allowed up there.

On Monday morning they finally picked me up at my hostel and we went white water rafting.  This was the same river that I rafted earlier this summer but since they have had so much rain the river was completely different than before with many new rapids and beautiful waterfalls.  I am sitting in the back right looking at the photo. 

This was one of the about 10 different waterfalls that we saw.  This river is ranked as one of the top 5 scenic rivers to raft in the WORLD.  I knew it was beautiful but I didn't know that it was in the top 5 in the world.

This was the wonderful lunch that we had on the river.

This is my favorite part of the entire trip.  This is towards the end of the trip and is a beautiful canyon with a nice bridge going across it.  Here we all were able to hop out of the boat and just float through this beautiful canyon.  Sadly though the power company in Costa Rica is trying to put a dam in right here due to the natural canyon which would just ruin this beautiful place and would prohibit the white water rafting.  

I arrived into San Jose at 7:30 last night and was so exhausted.  Today I am getting everything packed up as well as going into downtown San Jose to do some last minute shopping and to take my last look around the city.  Tomorrow morning I am going to be picked up at 8:30 for my ride to the airport.  I depart San Jose at 12:45 and should arrive in St. Louis about 9:40 if everything goes as planned, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.  Will see you all soon!

Puerto Viejo Day 2

This morning I got up early to go to the farmers market in town.  I was there by 8 am but I guess it started at 6 am so I missed getting the things that I wanted but had a good time never the less looking at the market and the varying items they sell. 

After going to the farmers market I went back to the surfers beach and just sat for about half an hour since I was early to the Jaguar Rescue Center tour.  Here at the rescue center their main focus is to take in any animal that needs help and to try and get it back out into the wild as soon as they possibly can.  Some animals though they know will not be able to survive in the wild so they keep them at the center for people to see and visit to help educate the public.  They didn't have any jaguars today when I was there but it seems like everyday they get new animals as well as release animals back into the wild.

Here is a red eyed tree frog.  Although the frogs are not brought into the center hurt or anything here at the center they have a large pond devoted solely to amphibians and provide them with the habitat they need to successfully reproduce.

Here is an ocelot they have at the center that is about 7 months old.  It was brought in my someone with a large wound on its head.  They believe someone tried to hit it over the head with a bat but they do not know for sure.  Whatever the case the cat had a brain injury just like any person would have so the cat is here undergoing some rehabilitation.  The cat by this age is supposed to have amazing balance as well as hunting skills but since its injury it has a hard time doing basic things like walking around and such.  They have been working with the cat for a few months now and say that it has made some great improvements and they work with it everyday but they are not for sure if they will be able to eventually release it back into the wild or not.  With all the animals they want to make sure the animal will be able to survive by itself in the wild before they ever think about releasing it.

Here are some pictures of the two and three toed sloth.  I just like how they have a perpetual smile on their faces.

This is a baby howler monkey that was dropped off when it was found abandoned by its mother and was brought here to the center.  The lady carrying the monkey is one of the owners of the center.  If this baby monkey was to be in the wild it would be with its mom 24 hours a day until it is a few months old.  So she has the monkey with her everywhere she goes and she is its new mom.  She has to feed it every 3 hours so she takes it home with her and takes care of it like a newborn baby.  She said she has to do this until it gets older so that it will be strong enough to put with the other older monkeys.  A very large part of the center is monkeys due to many different reasons but one is that there are a lot of people who take monkeys from the wild and keep them as pets which is illegal so when they are found they are brought here.  They help retrain the monkeys and take them out into the forest everyday.  By taking them out into the woods everyday they learn valuable skills from each other and then every once in awhile when a wild monkey troop comes through they pick up a couple of the centers monkeys which is the goal of their monkey program.

After the wonderful 2 hour center tour I rode my bike another 30 minutes up the road to Punta Uva beach.  This is a beautiful beach with the jungle growing just about right up to the edge with the crystal blue waters.  Since it is the weekend there were a lot of locals on the beach and it was crowded so I didn't stick around too long there.   

This is another part of Punta Uva beach just about a 10 minute bike ride further up the coast.  Here there were not as many waves but once again it was full of people.

Here is the wonderful little bike that I have been riding around the past two days.  It is great because it only has one gear and has a great big basket on the front to carry everything I need.  It seems like everyone around here rides bikes around so it is pretty bike friendly and it is so flat you can ride anywhere you want to go with minimal effort.

This was a very small little beach side restaurant that I found on my way back from Punta Uva going back to Puerto Viejo.  It was an amazing chicken sandwich with fresh lettuce, onions, and mushrooms on it.  To wash it down I had a wonderful mora (blackberry) smoothie.  Before I leave I need to figure out how they make the fruit smoothies so wonderful here. 

On my way back by the surfers beach this little old man had his truck loaded down with different fruits and vegetables for people to buy so of course I got some wonderful rambutan which I was not able to find at the market this morning.

Here is a picture of the bakery I have been going to.  The have some delicious breads and pastries here that I have been eating for breakfast!

 This evening I went to a beach side bar to get some drinks and eat dinner.  The best part about it was that it was right on the beach so I was able to see the sunset (which wasn't nearly as beautiful as last night).  They also had this pretty cool band playing.  Below you can see my wonderful homemade chicken tacos and french fries!

Tomorrow is my last day here in Puerto Viejo so I am probably just going to chill on the beach most of the day and then get my stuff packed up to go to San Jose.  Only 4 nights and I will be back into town!

Puerto Viejo Day 1

Below you are going to see pictures of my first day (yesterday) here in Puerto Viejo.

 This is a picture of me standing on black sand beach which is just a short 2 minute walk across the road from the house that I am staying at.  It was interesting because although the sand on the right was black the sand closest to the water was more tan and white colored.

 This is a picture of Playa Cocles which is just a short bike ride down the road from Puerto Viejo.  This beach is the one everyone refers to as the surfers beach because this is where everyone goes to surf and to learn how to surf.  In this photo you can also see the very small little island.

 Here you can see me on the left playing/ swimming around in the water.  Here they have very bad riptides so we couldn't go out very far.  Also when all of the locals started getting out of the water and all of the surfers started to show up I decided that I too should get out of the water which was just about the time the waves started picking up.

 This is where we ate lunch yesterday and I loved that it was pretty much right on the beach and a very chilled atmosphere.  Their specialty is fresh tacos and cold beer. 

 I just thought this sign was funny, not one you would see everyday.

 Here is the amazing fish taco that I ordered.  The tortilla was hand made with freshly caught fish as well as fresh cabbage, onions, avocado and a homemade sauce for the top.  It was so delicious!

 This is the harbor in Puerto Viejo home to just a few small boats.  The town sits right on the water and many of the bars and restaurants sit right down near the water so you have a beautiful view of everything. 

 I decided I needed a good picture to help me remember this beautiful place and the amazing almost 3 months that I have been here.

 There was a lady that had a small hut set up on the beach (you can see the ocean to the left) who does hair wraps as well as braids, so of course I had to get my hair done and you can see my new look below.  Now I actually look more like a local, or a wanna be tourist, I'm not for sure which.

This was the BEAUTIFUL sunset last night looking back over the black sand beach and the ocean. 

Last night I went back into town for dinner and had an amazing brick oven pizza.  I had the Hawaiian pizza which was made with fresh pineapple and ham (which I believe was just hot dogs cut up long ways).  The pizza was good but the fresh pineapple smoothies made it so much better!

Unexpected Road Trip

Yesterday morning I had no idea what was to await me.  I was told that I was going to be picked up at 5:30 in front of my hostel.  I stood outside from 5:20-6:30 before finally calling the tour company.  They informed me that they had overbooked the trip and that they would not be picking me up but would gladly refund my money.  This would have not been a big deal if I had not been planning on taking the tour into Puerto Viejo for my 4 night stay there.  Needless to say that I was not happy but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it and the company didn't seem to mind.  In order to get to Puerto Viejo for the evening I ended up having to take 3 different buses and 2 taxis totaling over 12 hours of travel time from start to finish.  At first I was really upset about the whole situation but by the end of the day I knew there was nothing that I could do about it and so I tried to enjoy the situation.  Below you can see some pictures of the various bus trips.

 This was a quick meal that I grabbed in San Ramon when I had a 15 minute break from bus to bus so I got some arroz con pollo, a very common dish in Costa Rica.  It was nice because I was able to take it with me on the bus and ate it for both lunch and dinner since I didn't really have any other option.

 This was a view of the bus on the ride from San Jose to Puerto Viejo (4.5 hr bus ride).  I was in the back of the bus because I bought my ticket so late but it was nice because no one was sitting next to me so I was able to stretch out and enjoy it a little bit more.  

This was the view that made the whole road trip worth it.  The view of the Caribbean!  We went through Limon which is a very large port town here in Costa Rica so there you can see 2 different large boats going out to sea more than likely on their way to the US full of fresh fruit and vegetables.  As we were coming into Limon just about every huge fruit company had a very large center with trucks coming and going with the big shipping crates full of bananas and pineapple mostly.  I arrived into Puerto Viejo at about 6:45 and of course it was pitch black by then so I had no idea the beautiful views awaiting me here!  I talked to the rafting company today and they assured me that I was going to be picked up on Monday morning at 6:20 to go rafting and then they will take me back to San Jose where I will be flying out on Wednesday so I will just keep my fingers crossed that it all works out this time!

La Fortuna- Baldi Hot Springs

Wednesday morning I took a bus boat bus back down to La Fortuna.  It was very hard to say goodbye to my family in Monteverde but I know that someday I may be able to see them again.  This is a picture of me on the boat looking back at some of the mountains.  

 This is a picture of Arenal Volcano, this was about the clearest that I saw it the entire day.

 After getting checked into my hostel and book my tours for the rest of the week I treated myself to Baldi Hot Springs.  

 Here they had about 25 different pools that you could swim in and below you can see some pictures of those.  Here I met a lot of really great people and one lady was actually from St. Louis MO and had brought her granddaughter here for her 16th birthday.  All of the pools were wonderful, some of them were way to hot for me to get into but honestly my favorite pool was the cool/ cold pools since it was warm outside going from the hot to the cold pools felt so good.

 Here you can see the 3 different water-slides.  I went down the two on each side but not the one in the middle.  The one on the farthest right was crazy fast and you flew across the water when you got done with it before you hit the water.  One time down that one was more than enough for me!

 As part of the ticket that I bought I had a buffet dinner included.  Here was my first course consisting of lots of great fruit and vegetables.  Over the next week I am going to be eating as much fruit as I possibly can because it is so fresh and wonderful here!

 This was my main course consisting of a little bit of pasta, potatoes, plantains, and a little bit of fish.  After that I had my turn at the dessert bar (and I forgot to take a picture of that plate).  There they had a chocolate  fountain so I got a huge plate of strawberries and fresh pineapple and smothered it all in chocolate.  After I was done at the Springs I made my way back into La Fortuna back to my hostel which you can see in the picture below.