Take Another Road

Kym, Katrina and me our last morning at Laguna Mar

Kym and Katrina enjoying tropical rain.

As we made our way towards Tamarindo we weren't in any hurry, which made it easy to do a little exploring. We had the  opportunity to just take our time and stop wherever seemed intriguing. We started by stopping at Azul Plata, a German Restaurant located just north of Playa San Miguel. When we arrived at the restaurant, after driving quite a distance up a steep, rocky driveway, we found it was just someone's house that had been turned into a restaurant. We asked if they were open and the German owner and his wife said yes and promptly handed us a menu. Realizing, we were the only visitors there today and possibly the whole week, I assumed we would be waiting awhile for food. But low and behold, we were promptly brought homemade garlic bread that was amazing. Only 10 minutes later our food came; pizza, potato pancakes and a German dish of homemade noodles and some sort of beef medallions. I was in awe, I had no idea German food was so good (I have probably told Kayla 20 times now that we need to go there!) Just as we were paying our bill, October reminded us of its reputation and we were faced with a downpour of warm rain.

Climbing the waterfall.
If Caylin was here, she would be at the top.

We drove for about 10 minutes before the rain stopped and we were met with beautiful blue skies; gotta love tropical weather. But the blue skies came not a moment too soon because we found a waterfall on the side of the road and we all got out to take advantage of the photo opportunity. We did a little rock-climbing to get towards the top and posed for the picture, promising my dad we wouldn't fall.

Waterfall photo

Katrina and Dad posing in a waterfall

Punta Islita Hotel pool

After making out way down the slippery rocks, we were back in the car heading north along the coast. Normally, it isn't possible to take to coast from September to December, but since we haven't had much rain we decided to try. We made our second stop at Punta Islita  Hotel just to show Kym and Katrina the swim up bar that is right on the beach. While at the pool, we met a great family from New York who ended up going the next day to Costa de Oro to help Kayla and Victor release some baby turtles.

Then once again, we were on the road. We made it to the first little surfer town, Samara, around 2:30, perfect time for some ice cream and refreshments. We decided we wanted to spend time in Tamarindo today so refrained from walking around town and headed north.

Passion Fruit Hotel Pool

Passion fruit flower

Our next stop was in a small town called San Juan, where we stopped and looked at the Passionfruit Hotel. As the name states, there were passionfruit everywhere as well as other flowers in the well groomed gardens. After wandering around for a little while, the hotel owner recommended we head down to the beach to watch the sunset before we got back on the road.

When we arrived at the beach, we were met with Caribbean blue water and course white sand. Upon second look the white sand was actually little bits of coral. With this knowledge, I was sad we hadn't arrived earlier so we could snorkel in the bay. However the sunset didn't disappoint.

Sunset over the peninsula.

And again we piled into the car hoping to make it to Tamarindo in the next hour. When we arrived my dad surprised us with a room at the beautiful Daria Hotel. We were all every ready to eat at this time so we quickly ran up and put our stuff in the hotel before walking around town. We decided to eat at a little beach-side restaurant that had its tables right in the sand!

We ordered a few tapas including a beautiful Caprese salad that had a rose shaped tomato. We asked the waiter about his happy hour specials that had ended just minutes before. He said that since we were celebrating Kym's 21st  birthday he would honor it. The menu said buy one get one free and there was a list of 10 drink options. Kym ordered a Mojito and I got a Margarita.

Happy 21st Kym!

Minutes later the waiter returned with 4 drinks.  2 Margaritas AND 2 Mojitos! We realized that that apparently Costa Rica happy hour is the same as Mexican happy hour; everyone gets 2 drinks!

After a great meal and yummy drinks, we wandered around town before calling it a night, with plans on getting up early to enjoy the buffet.

Screaming Boat Drinks!!!

Thursday morning at 4AM, my dad and I left my sisters sleeping in the hotel room, while we headed down to the beach to check the hatchery. When we got to the house, we found Victor and his friends drinking coffee. They had driven through the night to get back to the house, so they offered to release the 4 babies that had hatched since the last patrol. About 20 minutes later, Kayla and Ingrid woke up to go to help with the fisheries and since we had a car we drove them down the beautiful road to the estuary.

Showing off the pretty shell I found.

After dropping them off we headed back up to Laguna Mar for breakfast, where I got bacon for the first time in over a month! It was so good and something I have missed. After breakfast, we piled back into the car and headed back to the beach. I took my family to check out to the tidepools that were located at the rocks just a 1/2 a km away from the house. We found all sorts of beautiful shells and bright colored crabs. We spent an hour there before returning back to the house.

Katrina, Kym and I posing for a picture at the rocks

Crab at the tidepools

When we got back to the house everyone was getting hungry. So Ingrid, Kayla, Kym, Katrina, my dad and I climbed in the car and we drove to the restaurant on the next beach over for a little  lunch of sautéed shrimp and a traditional plate of rice with shrimp. While waiting for our food we heard the barking of a howler monkey troop. We walked around looking for the family of monkeys. However, we only found one, but Kym was happy . She had been hoping to see one since she got off the plane.

Another pose on the beach.

We made a stop at the office for new shirts!

Mono Congo

Tangas for lunch

Our quick cool off in the pool.

Horses we found hanging out in a giant puddle

We headed back to the hotel around 3 and brought Kayla for her night off. We cooled off in the pool and enjoyed tropical juice, before my dad took Kym, Katrina and I back to the beach. My dad hopped back in the car for the 4 hour drive back to San Jose for a meeting. This meant Kym, Katrina and I got to have 24 hours of sister time.

We started our sister time with an exhumation. My sisters were lucky, the nest had 40 live babies inside and only a couple eggs to open. After finishing the exhumation it was 5, which meant the local all started showing up to help release the babies.

Katrina and her turtles

Kym showing off her turtle

Hatching babies

Babies ready to go!

Kym counting the babies

Me carrying the exhumation to the beach

After a quick snack, we hit the beach at 7:00 with Santos, but sadly, we didn't find a nesting turtle. When we get back to the house Victor drove us back up to the hotel were we got an amazing meal of shrimp and pineapple fajitas, coconut shrimp, steak and of course a boat drink!

Friday morning, Kayla joined us for breakfast where we ate more bacon, before walking back to the beach. The 5km just flew by and before long we were back at the beach.

House special steak

We spent the day opening coconuts, doing exhumations and just enjoying the beach. As we were completing the last exhumation, my dad arrived. So we collected the live babies from the house and to release. It was beautiful watching the 100 babies run toward the ocean as the sun was setting over the ocean.

Drinking coconut water straight from the tree

Kym chopping the coconut

Katrina de-husking it

Me removing the meat

Katrina helping local construction workers release babies

Dona Laura, Don Luis and me.
They brought be a gift because they were
returning to SJ. Its a turtle whistle 

Katrina, Dad and Ingrid finishing the last exhumation

Worried that my sisters had come all this way and wouldn't see a nesting turtle, I called another project who was rumored to be having 12 nesting turtles a night.  The one problem with patrolling at Caletas is you have to walk 2 km just to get to the camp, but lucky for us on the way to the house we found a nesting turtle. We watched her nest and collected the eggs in a plastic bag, we happened to have. We walked the nest to the house and then turned around to head back to the hotel for some dinner. We all need to get some rest because early tomorrow, we are heading up to Tamarindo.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the bike!

SURPRISE!!!!

Today my dad was suppose to arrive and visit me for 2 weeks, after having a meeting in San Jose with the largest cellphone provider in Costa Rica. He is going to hang around in Costa de Oro for a couple days and then we are going to Panama for my visa run. Costa Rica only allows people to stay in the country for 90 days with a tourist visa, so most foreigners make visa runs. A visa run requires you to leave Costa Rica for 72 hours and then when you return your visa is renewed for another 90 days.

All day, I impatiently waited to hear from my dad. He landed at 11:30 AM and I expected to be him here by 4. But hours passed and I still hadn't hear anything from him. My mom even called worried because she hadn’t heard from him either, but the tone of her voice made me think there was a surprise for me. I continued to pace around for another 3 hours, doing odds and ends just to contain my excitement.

Dad's picture of the sunset at the Bridge of Amistad

Same sunset on Costa de Oro

Then around 8PM, I hear Mama barking. So I go outside and find my dad walking towards the house. "Where is the car", I ask him. He promptly tells me that he wasn't sure he was at the right house, so he left it outside. Right then, I see a tree walking towards me and hear giggles. 2 of my younger sisters, Kym and Katrina, were hiding behind a tree branch. I couldn't believe it!!! They both were able to come and visit me and surprised me.

Kym admiring a large avocado from Ingrid

My dad moved the car into the yard and carried in 2 huge suitcases full of goodies for Kayla and I. They included all sorts of yummy brownie mixes, my mom's homemade passion fruit jam, pesto, candies and the list goes on.

Hatching babies

After a quick review of all the treasures, I asked if they wanted to see babies. Kym and Katrina's eyes widened, which I took for a yes. So we headed out to the hatchery. We found that there was one nest that had already come up and the other was hatching. We sat and watched as 30 more babies crawled out of the nest.

Once it appeared that all the babies were up, I handed them each a glove and a bucket and asked them to count the babies. They carefully picked each baby up and placed them in the bucket. Once we had a total of 70+ babies, they carried the babies to the beach. We walked a couple sectors away from the house, to where one of the nests was originally laid and released the babies. The babies saw the white of the ocean's waves and made a B-line toward the mellow surf.  20 minutes later, none of the babies were left on the beach and we walked back to the house.

I packed up my latest care package and then we all headed up to Laguna Mar, where Michael had a cold drink waiting for us. We were escorted up the penthouse room and quickly put our stuff down and cleaned up. Then we headed back down to the bar to get some bocas and an Imperial, Costa Rica's most famous beer (BevMo now carries it in The States now and my favorite is Imperial Silver).

Pineapple shrimp fajitas

We visited for just a short time before deciding to head up to the room and get ready for bed. I think this is going to be a GREAT trip! But I am sad that my mom and Caylin couldn't take time away from school to come. We are going to miss them this trip.