Family Fun in Nosara

We met Ian's family at the airport the evening of Feb. 17th and spent a decadent night at the Hilton. The next day we took a shuttle to Nosara and moved into the house that we're staying at for the next two weeks. It's awesome. Ian's mom, dad and baby bro have the upstairs and Ian's Nana, Uncle, Sister and us have the downstairs. Ian, Uncle Cam and I have been surfing and the rest of the family will follow suit today. We're been relaxing, enjoying the idea of stying in one spot for two weeks. We've been going out for dinner and having drinks on the patio. There's a Coatimundi that comes by and we feed it bananas and howler monkeys in the trees. This place is rad. Ian's outdid himself last night and got stung by a huge scorpion. He was trying to pick it up and the scorpion was having non of it. Apparently it hurt like a hornet sting. He's feeling much better today. I lost the new camera in the ocean yesterday, so that wasn't very much fun. It got tangled in the leash when I was trying to teach Ian's sister to surf and got yanked off my wrist. At least we uploaded all of our pictures. I guess we just gotta buy another one next time we're in SanJose. Times up on the computer, gotta run now.

Liberia

Having fun in the city. Watched a lot of TV in our hotel room, enjoying the luxury of it and of a private bathroom. Today we were out by 9am and had breakfast. We wandered around town and bought some sun glasses and perused the shops. We had to check out of our room by noon, but the hotel let us keep our bags here as we don´t have to meet Ian´s parents at the airport until 8ish. We went to the mall and saw Avatar again. It´s soo good! It must be super amazing in 3-D. We had some beers and more mixed seafood ceviche for our afternoon meal and now just chilling at the hotel, counting down the hours until we meet the family.

Pics of Nature Hike to Cabo Blanco

Ian caught a brown vine snake. I have no idea how he spotted it, it looked just like a twig. But the snake hunter won and got a hold of this pretty specimen. Ain´t she a beauty!

Cabo Blanco beach at the very tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.

Us on the Quad. So much fun to drive!! It was my first time and I like it!

A chucharra Ian found in our sink. They make crazy loud buzzing noises in the jungle. We heard these all througout our hike but couldn´t see them. Just figures Ian would find one in the sink.

Mal Pais to Liberia

So it finally happened.... We got sick from the food. Except we made the food ourselves then stuck it in the fridge in an unsanitary bag, so really, there´s only us to blame. We spent the day rolling around in bed, running to the bathroom, sleeping and reading. Rick and Katie came by to visit us quite a few times, brought us gravol and earplugs. We wouldn´t have survived without them. It was nice to have a day to do nothing though.

The next day we were back at it. Up early to meet Rick and Katie to surf at 6:30am. Then the 4 of us rented 2 ATV/Quads for the day. It was awesome. I´ve never been on a Quad before. Ian scared the crap out of me with his driving but that´s nothing new. We went to Cabo Blaco, which is a nature reserve right at the very tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. It took us about an hour to get there. We hiked along a 4.5Km trail to the beach. On the way we found lots of lizards and howler and capuchin monkeys. Ian caught a brown vine snake, which was super exciting. The beach was so beautiful. The water was at least 5 shades of tourquoise and there were pelicans and terns diving into the water to catch fish, and frigate birds trying to steal the fish the other birds caught. After well deserved swim at the beach (oh man, was it a sweaty hike there) we had a light lunch (still feeling the effects of the poisonous food) we had an even sweatier hike back. It took us 2.5 hours to get to the beach and only 45 mins to get back. We were all drenched through.

I got to drive home, which had it´s exciting moments but I got the hang of it in the end and was reluctant to let Ian drive again, eventhough it was his turn. Ian, Rick and Katie went out for a sunset surf but I was too bagged to even try so I layed on the beach and took pictures of the sunset with Ricks fancy camera.

Today we travelled to Liberia and got in to town at about 2pm. Rick and Katie headed to Playa Samara and we hope to meet up with in a few days. After a wonderful long cold shower, we hit the town and had a expensive and super fantastic meal. We had mixed seafood ceviche with octopus, baby shrimp, prawns, muscles, clams, pollock, onions and other stuff in a malt vinegar and pepper sauce. It tasted like the cockles my mom and I eat when we go to the markets in Wales. We also ordered a plate of Langostinos, which are giant craw fish in a garlic butter sauce. Needless to say my hands and face were covered with the carnage when we were done.

Now we are relaxing and watching TV in our hotel and tomorrow we head to the airport to meet the family.

Mal Pais

The beach in Mal Pais where all the surfing magic happens.

Ian with his best friend.

Luch time. Mmmmm, sandwhiches.... rum.... coke.... juice......

Rick catching a gnarly ride sans board, body surfing in Montezuma.

Pics of Montezuma, Costa Rica

Me at the top of the first big waterfall, those little coloured dots are people below.

Me jumping of a cliff.

Ian in the waterfall, one of the few showers he´s had.

Ian in the hammock, chillin with our favourite drink, Cuba Libre (rum and coke in a can). This was at the hotel we stayed at in Montezuma.

Mal Pais and Santa Teresa

We´ve been in the surf town of Santa Teresa in Mal Pais for the last 3 days. It´s been awesome. The surf is crazy big and there´s lots of people in the water. I´m catching about 1 fantastic ride a day and some other not so fantastic rides. Ian´s tearing it up, having some of the best surf days of his life. Other than surfing, we just hang out, read, take walks on the beach, eat food and just lounge around. Ahhhh, paradise. We meet up with Rick and Katie every so often for a walk on the beach or a surf.

We have a few more days here before we head to Liberia to meet Ian´s family at the airport. Then it´s off to the family party house in Nosara for 2 weeks. Yay!

Sloth encounter - a delayed post

I forgot to write about our up close and personal sloth encounter on our way out of Cahuita a week ago.

We were about 20 mins outside of Cahuita, heading into San Jose, when Nathan spotted something on the side of the road. There was a guy with a bucket of fish and it looked like he was poking something in the tree with a stick. There was a little sloth, about 7 feet up a skinny little tree and the guy was sratching it by with a stick. This littel sloth was clearly enjoying it, he had one hand on the tree and the other was stretched out as far as it could go, to make more scratching surface. Ian went up and scratched him with his hand but the sloth moved up the tree a little bit. When Ian got the stick and started sractching again, he climbed back down and put his arm out again. It was so cute!

Montezuma, Costa Rica

We are now on the pacific side of Costa Rica, in Montezuma on the Nicoya Peninsula.

We spent our last night with Sonja and Nathan in San Jose. We reserved a nice hotel but the pool was closed much to our disappointment. However, the hotel was close to the mall, so Ian and I went shopping for a new camera and backpack. We ended up buying the exact same camera (even colour) as before, so it feels like it never left us. We got a new packpack and an alarm clock. We had a decadent sushi dinner, which was very good, even for Vancouver standards, then went to see the movie Ninja Assasin. It lived up to all of our little expectations. Lots of action and blood, just what we needed.

The next day we took a taxi to the bus station, bus, long walk in the hot sun, ferry ride then another long sweaty bus ride to Montezuma. Montezuma is a really cute little town, mostly built for tourists but still great. We met up with our good friends from Victoria, Rick and Katie, who are in CR for 5 weeks. We went surfing yesterday and caught some nice rides. Today we went to the waterfalls and jumped off some big cliffs (Ian jumped of the biggest, of course). We were the first ones there and were enjoying our lunch of pineapple, mango and beers when the masses showed up. We made friends with some dogs and they followed us the whole way of the 45 min walk back into town. While walking through the forest, the dogs started barking like crazy and chased some white faced capuchin monkeys through trees. It was awesome.

Tomorrow we are heading to Mal Pais and Santa Teresa for a solid week of surf before Ian's family comes down. I can't believe they'll be here so soon. Where has the time gone!?!?!?!?

Oh, The Humidity!

Is it ever humid in the Caribbean right now. You sweat laying down. We´ve been having an awesome few days in Cahuita and surrounding areas. We went for a walk through Cahuita National Park and saw 3 sloths, a capuchin monkey, howler monkies and 2 yellow eyelash palm pitvipers (very poisonous snakes). It was an awesome walk, 7km in total. Then we went on a fishing charter very early in the morning. We met the boat at 6am and headed out to sea. Unfortunately, all of us except Ian felt seasick but we caught enough fish for 2 excellent meals (I say ¨we¨lightly as I didn´t actually catch anything). But we did see dolphins super close, they swam right next to the boat, and nurse sharks and a eagle ray. It was a great time despite the nausea. We took a drive to Bribri to find the waterfalls that Ian and I went to 5 years ago. We found them after getting lost and Nathan having to do some crazy 4x4 driving up and down some crazy steep mud-dirt-rock roads. We had a great swim and explore, it was nice to be swimming in fresh water for a change.

Today we went for a surf day in Puerto Viejo, the next town south. It was a great day, I actually caught a few rides, and so did Sonja and Nathan. Ian´s always catching waves, no matter where he goes. It was great right up until we realize that someone had jimmied the lock on the car and stolen our backpack, complete with camera inside. Needless to say, Ian and I are pretty bummed right now. Wishing I took the time to upload some pics earlier. Oh well, lesson learned. So now we don´t have a camera and have lost all our pics from Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Thankfully, this was our second memory card, so most of the trip was safely tucked away in our packs back at the hotel. We´re going to buy a new camera when we´re in San Jose in two days.

We have one more full day in Cahuita before we head back to San Jose. Sonja and Nathan are going home and we´re going to Mal Pais and Santa Teresa on the Pacific side to meet up with our friends, Rick and Katie. We´ll have lots more pics to take then.