We just arrived in Samara after spending 10 days back in Nosara. We spent the whole time with Marc and I heading to the beach in the morning, he surfed, I body boarded. Then back for lunch, Yoga at 12:30, back for an afternoon hangout by the pool or visiting with Alexa, our neighbour at the hotel, then back to the beach in the evening.
On our last day in Nosara, we decided to donate our yearly travel donation (I give to a local organization on each trip) to a monkey sanctuary. I had met the couple who run the place, Steve and Vicki when I was looking at buying property earlier on. They rescue orphaned howler monkeys after their mom's get shocked from the hydro lines. Very sad. The babies are often burned from the electric shock, sometimes they lose limbs, and they are always traumatized and dehydrated. And they do a lot of work trying to get the local power company to insulate all of its lines. So off we went to give them our money.
Lucky us, after meeting Marc for the first time, Vicki led us into the large rehab habitat to see the monkeys (they also had a baby racoon). The habitat is a huge 15 foot high cage that keeps the babies in and keeps the boa constrictors out. It has numerous trees in it, kennels where the babies sleep and feel safe, places for shade, water, sun and food. It must have cost a small fortune. It had 2 gates that we had to walk through to prevent escape...reminded me of the petting zoo door system that I used to have at the store...I hated that petting zoo, I loved this habitat though!
It must have been because I have dark hair like their now dead monkey mommas had, but the youngsters completely ignored Marc as we entered the habitat and made a bee line for my head. Within minutes I had 6 baby howler monkeys on me, gripping my hair, riding on my back and curling themselves up in my arms. Their fur is sooo soft, and they wrapped their tails around my arms and neck. I was covered. Then the raccoon wanted in on the action and started climbing up my skirt (on the skirt itself, not on my legs). The little raccoon girl was just a gray bundle of trouble with sharp little claws that kept climbing up me. Vicki had to keep trying to grab her as she scrambled out of Vicki's arms and headed my way time and again.
We got to spend some wonderful time in the habitat getting to play with and cuddle the monkeys. Vicki of course asked that we not post the photos up anywhere public as they rarely let anyone into the habitat and they get so many calls from people just wanting to play with the monkeys. They are slated for wild release so they don't want them to get used to lots of different people.
She and Steve do nothing but pick leaves in the wild to feed the monkeys, build bigger habitats, spend time feeding and consoling the orphaned monkeys, holding fund raisers, writing letters to government officials to try to change how the power lines are set up. They are tireless. They need more money. I'll be setting up a collection box at the store for them this summer.
The next day (Friday) we packed up and headed to Samara a beach town just 45 minutes away to see what was there to see. So far the town and beach are less picturesque than Nosara. The paved road that ends as Samara and doesn't continue to Nosara means that there are LOTS more people here. Jet skiis are present, lots of nosiy bars and restaurants. So we'll hang out here for 6 days. We hear that the snorkling and kayaking are great. Then we head back to Nosara for a concert that we bought tickets to with friends that we made. Marc plans on another surf board rental, he was pretty stoked about the huge improvements of his surfing skill in just the week that we had rented boards previously. Don't you just hate talented people. We'll spend our last 3 days in Nosara until we have to drive up to San Jose to catch our flights home...sigh.
Gotta go, got a kayak to rent!
Erin
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Nosara Boomerang
I just left this place a month and a half ago, and yet here we are again.
We headed to Carrillo after our Scuba adventures in Playa Hermosa. Found our way to the house that we had rented for the last 2.5 weeks of the trip only to discover that it was located in the middle of 3 other houses being built. Hammers hammering and saws sawing 6 days a week from 6 am until 5 pm. We packed our stuff back up, got a refund of our deposit for the house and headed back up the road to Nosara. The lovely lady Alexa whose hotel I had stayed at previously booked us in to a studio apartment next door and here we are. We'll be in Nosara for 10 days before heading back to Samara where we found a condo rental with no construction around it.
We spent a 3 hour boat tour on the Rio Nosara. This is a brackish river that leads out into the ocean and is flooded with salt water at every high tide. Mangroves and other large trees protect the banks and the area is a protected reserve. We got to see so many birds, buckets of herons, parrots, hawks, mot mots and the surrounds were beautiful. We even got to see a basalic lizard run across the water (thus their nick names, Jesus Christ lizzards) The boat had a little electric motor so the animals were not disturbed at all. Marc got some great shots.
We also spent a morning walking through the Lagarta lodge's wild life refuge. We got to witness the mating dance of the long tailed manaquin. So fun. These birds are great. The males make friends for life with other males, usually in groups of 2 or 3. When mating season starts, they call the ladies. When a lady shows up, the buddies start dancing for her. She watches them carefully to see who has the best technique and the brightest colours before deciding on a mate. She chooses, they head off the the back seat of a car for a few minutes, then the chosen one returns to his buddies to continue their guy talk. Sometimes animals are so much like humans it amazes me.
Then as we continued on we saw a tree rustling. Our guide thought it must be monkeys so looked up, just as Marc looked down and saw a spotted cat run headfirst down the trunk and away. It was a Marguay. A wild cat a little bigger than a house cat. A very rare sighting. Of course I was looking for the monkeys so saw none of it. Sigh.
I rented a body board here for the week and Marc has rented a Surf Board. A body board is the small child/nanna version of a surf board so is just my speed. Marc heads out past the breaks to catch the waves and I head just after the breaks to catch the white wash. I get ride after ride after ride while Marc paddles and paddles and sits and sits waiting to catch a wave. I love that for once I feel that my lack of skill and coordination is resulting in more fun for me!
We'll be here for a few more days before heading back to Samara for our last week!
Hope that all is well in Manitoba!
Erin
We headed to Carrillo after our Scuba adventures in Playa Hermosa. Found our way to the house that we had rented for the last 2.5 weeks of the trip only to discover that it was located in the middle of 3 other houses being built. Hammers hammering and saws sawing 6 days a week from 6 am until 5 pm. We packed our stuff back up, got a refund of our deposit for the house and headed back up the road to Nosara. The lovely lady Alexa whose hotel I had stayed at previously booked us in to a studio apartment next door and here we are. We'll be in Nosara for 10 days before heading back to Samara where we found a condo rental with no construction around it.
We spent a 3 hour boat tour on the Rio Nosara. This is a brackish river that leads out into the ocean and is flooded with salt water at every high tide. Mangroves and other large trees protect the banks and the area is a protected reserve. We got to see so many birds, buckets of herons, parrots, hawks, mot mots and the surrounds were beautiful. We even got to see a basalic lizard run across the water (thus their nick names, Jesus Christ lizzards) The boat had a little electric motor so the animals were not disturbed at all. Marc got some great shots.
We also spent a morning walking through the Lagarta lodge's wild life refuge. We got to witness the mating dance of the long tailed manaquin. So fun. These birds are great. The males make friends for life with other males, usually in groups of 2 or 3. When mating season starts, they call the ladies. When a lady shows up, the buddies start dancing for her. She watches them carefully to see who has the best technique and the brightest colours before deciding on a mate. She chooses, they head off the the back seat of a car for a few minutes, then the chosen one returns to his buddies to continue their guy talk. Sometimes animals are so much like humans it amazes me.
Then as we continued on we saw a tree rustling. Our guide thought it must be monkeys so looked up, just as Marc looked down and saw a spotted cat run headfirst down the trunk and away. It was a Marguay. A wild cat a little bigger than a house cat. A very rare sighting. Of course I was looking for the monkeys so saw none of it. Sigh.
I rented a body board here for the week and Marc has rented a Surf Board. A body board is the small child/nanna version of a surf board so is just my speed. Marc heads out past the breaks to catch the waves and I head just after the breaks to catch the white wash. I get ride after ride after ride while Marc paddles and paddles and sits and sits waiting to catch a wave. I love that for once I feel that my lack of skill and coordination is resulting in more fun for me!
We'll be here for a few more days before heading back to Samara for our last week!
Hope that all is well in Manitoba!
Erin
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Up high, then down low.
Everything is peachy keen over here. Been too busy to email anyone, which is a good thing. So let me back up a bit and give you the full scoops.
-Pat and Bob and Marc got into Montezuma a day late but none the worse for wear. On their second day at the rental house, Marc and I abandoned them for the day to drive back to Nosara as a primo piece of land came up for sale at a great price. So we drove for 4 hours to get there, looked at the piece of property and put in an offer before heading back to Montezuma. We found out later on that we were being out bid and decided not to start in on a price war. I had been kinda waffling on the buying here idea as during my first 2 weeks here alone I had heard so many stories of second houses being pains in the butt. It was still a dream of Marc's and most probably a decent investment so no worries to buy a piece of property, and wait a long time to build on it. Then over the next 4 days, Marc heard stories from so many people with second houses in Costa Rica. Break ins, people stripping houses of windows, doors, electrical, having to spend half of your vacation fixing up your second home etc etc etc...and he came to the same conclusion that I had...buying and owning a house here is not for us. So, just like that, the plan changed and we were on vacation rather than looking for property! The new plan includes buying a campervan to tour New Zealand, then Australia, then sell and buy another van for South America.
So we spent 2 weeks in Montezuma, our rental house included daily visits from white faced and sometimes howler monkeys. We had 3 resident bats who kept the area fairly bug free, 3-4 agoutis who we fed daily, hummingbirds who fought over the feeder, bellbirds, trogans, mot mots etc etc etc. As you can imagine, Bob and Marc took a few photos.
Pat and Bob had a great time. we headed to the beach, Bob, Marc and I headed off for a snorkling day and we of course made many trips to the nearby water.
So now that we were no longer looking for property, Marc and I decided to ditch one of our weeks in Montezuma and head up to the mountainous Monteverde cloud forest area. Despite colds that both of us caught, we had an awesome 4 days taking night hikes, day hikes, a coffee tour and tours through reptile houses and frog houses. Very cool and so incredibly beautiful. Too bad for us that we had not planned on heading to this much cooler area and each only had one pair of pants which quickly got dirty and remained thus for our 4 days there. A little cool at times, and a sweater would have been appreciated amongst all of the beach wear that we had packed.
We are now in Playa Hermosa. Marc wanted to get some scuba diving in, and this is the place to do it. And, drumroll please, I went scuba diving for the first time in my life today. They have wonderful "discover scuba" programs here where you get an hour of in pool instruction then they chuck you into the ocean. Super cool. I got 2, 40 minute tank dives in, and went up to 40 feet deep. Marc the ever thoughtful decided to forgo his option to dive deeper, as he already has his Padi, to instead dive with me. It was so cool. We saw TONS of sting rays, eels, a lobster, tons of fish big and small, and on our second dive, SHARKS...which I was less fond of but Marc held my hand so I didn't freak out tooo much.
And there you have it. In a few days we will be heading to Carrillo a beach area down the coast and another rental home. There I plan to tackle Surfing. I'm quite excited.
-Pat and Bob and Marc got into Montezuma a day late but none the worse for wear. On their second day at the rental house, Marc and I abandoned them for the day to drive back to Nosara as a primo piece of land came up for sale at a great price. So we drove for 4 hours to get there, looked at the piece of property and put in an offer before heading back to Montezuma. We found out later on that we were being out bid and decided not to start in on a price war. I had been kinda waffling on the buying here idea as during my first 2 weeks here alone I had heard so many stories of second houses being pains in the butt. It was still a dream of Marc's and most probably a decent investment so no worries to buy a piece of property, and wait a long time to build on it. Then over the next 4 days, Marc heard stories from so many people with second houses in Costa Rica. Break ins, people stripping houses of windows, doors, electrical, having to spend half of your vacation fixing up your second home etc etc etc...and he came to the same conclusion that I had...buying and owning a house here is not for us. So, just like that, the plan changed and we were on vacation rather than looking for property! The new plan includes buying a campervan to tour New Zealand, then Australia, then sell and buy another van for South America.
So we spent 2 weeks in Montezuma, our rental house included daily visits from white faced and sometimes howler monkeys. We had 3 resident bats who kept the area fairly bug free, 3-4 agoutis who we fed daily, hummingbirds who fought over the feeder, bellbirds, trogans, mot mots etc etc etc. As you can imagine, Bob and Marc took a few photos.
Pat and Bob had a great time. we headed to the beach, Bob, Marc and I headed off for a snorkling day and we of course made many trips to the nearby water.
So now that we were no longer looking for property, Marc and I decided to ditch one of our weeks in Montezuma and head up to the mountainous Monteverde cloud forest area. Despite colds that both of us caught, we had an awesome 4 days taking night hikes, day hikes, a coffee tour and tours through reptile houses and frog houses. Very cool and so incredibly beautiful. Too bad for us that we had not planned on heading to this much cooler area and each only had one pair of pants which quickly got dirty and remained thus for our 4 days there. A little cool at times, and a sweater would have been appreciated amongst all of the beach wear that we had packed.
We are now in Playa Hermosa. Marc wanted to get some scuba diving in, and this is the place to do it. And, drumroll please, I went scuba diving for the first time in my life today. They have wonderful "discover scuba" programs here where you get an hour of in pool instruction then they chuck you into the ocean. Super cool. I got 2, 40 minute tank dives in, and went up to 40 feet deep. Marc the ever thoughtful decided to forgo his option to dive deeper, as he already has his Padi, to instead dive with me. It was so cool. We saw TONS of sting rays, eels, a lobster, tons of fish big and small, and on our second dive, SHARKS...which I was less fond of but Marc held my hand so I didn't freak out tooo much.
And there you have it. In a few days we will be heading to Carrillo a beach area down the coast and another rental home. There I plan to tackle Surfing. I'm quite excited.
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