Quite a day, for sure!

Today was filled with lots of interesting stuff!

The first thing we did was head from Liberia to Palo Verde National Park. We had a good highway up until about 30 kilometers from the park, and then it turned into a dirt road that in some places was quite tricky! We drove down to a river there, can't remember the name of it, and from the banks of the river we saw this incredibly huge crocodile. Must have been at least 10 feet long! That was exciting! It was a very hot day, but it felt good to be by the river. At least there were no mosquitoes. We eyed the little boat that was docked where we were standing, but decided against getting in it. We could just see ourselves miles downstream all of a sudden.

After enjoying the river, we drove back up the road and stopped to walk a boardwalk that stretched out over a swampy area. We saw several different kinds of birds from there, and as we were getting ready to walk back, we saw a huge hawk in a far off tree. We think it was a Great Black Hawk, but it flew off before we could get a perfect look at it. This boardwalk itself was worth the drive into the park. From the boardwalk we climbed an observation tower that was really flimsy, and not all that easy to climb, but we did it! And after all that effort, we felt it wasn't WORTH the effort. But it was kind of fun to do that climb anyway, even though we didn't see a thing from up on top.

There were a lot of birds in this park.

Tiger Heron

Can't see them in these two pictures

The view from the rickety observation tower.

So, then it was getting time to head back out of the park.  The rough roads made it a long drive but we finally got back to the main highway and stopped along the Corobici River to have lunch.

Then we were on our way to Puntarenas.  After several twists and turns down the streets of Puntarenas, we finally found where the ferry dock was and we got in the line waiting for the ferry. We had about a 30 minute wait until it was time to get on. There was a truck full of pigs also waiting to get on the ferry and we were hoping our car wouldn't be behind it. Only one person can drive the car onto the ferry, so I had to get out and walk onto the ferry, and from there I waited for Guillermo to drive on. They loaded the truck with the pigs, and it turned out Guillermo had to park about 5 cars behind the pig truck, so that wasn't too bad. (It's funny, but while standing on the ferry waiting for Guillermo to drive on, I saw a little blue car drive on and the driver was told to wait right below where I was standing. The guys inside the car had to wait quite a while to find out where they would park, and it looked like they were getting a little impatient. At that point, I had no idea that we would be getting to know those guys and be very grateful for their friendship.)

When Guillermo finally got the car parked and found me, we spent quite a bit of time trying to find a good place to sit. We walked all over that ferry. Some places, people were smoking and other places the smell from the pig truck was just a little too much. We finally found a place that we felt comfortable with and waited for the ferry to take off.

The ferry ride took one and a half hours.  It was only during the last 45 minutes of the ride that I struck up a conversation with the two guys sitting behind us and it turned out one of the guys, Christoph, lived 3 miles away from where Andrew works!! He knew exactly where Jet Aviation was and everything. Christoph was from Germany originally, and is now living in Costa Rica. So, we spent a lot of time talking about Europe and Austria and Costa Rica and just marvelled at how weird it was that he knew about Pratteln and Basel and all that.

We didn't know it at the time, but Christoph and his friend, Estevan, turned out to be our guardian angels, because they asked if we knew where we'd be staying in Montezuma and when we said we didn't, they recommended we stay where they were going to be staying. You know, just having met them, well, we were just a little wary, but we said that's a possibility so they suggested we follow their car off the ferry. At first, we told them we'd find the hotel ourselves, still not sure we were even going to stay at the place they were suggesting. By the time the ferry docked though, it was dark and starting to rain. As Guillermo and Christoph went below to get the cars, Estevan and I stood on the deck with the other people waiting to get off. It was dark, and starting to rain harder, and I mentioned to Estevan that maybe it WOULD be a good idea to follow them to the hotel. He called Christoph and let him know and when Guillermo and Christoph emerged with their cars from the ferry, we all found each other and we followed Christoph's little blue car out of town. It is such a good thing we decided to follow them. In the dark, and with all the rain (a lot of it VERY heavy), it would have been REALLY REALLY hard for us to do the drive by ourselves. Then, as luck would have it, we also ended up being Christoph and Estevan's guardian angels!!!   About 8 Kilometers from the hotel, the boys pull into a gas station. We followed them in there, thinking they were just running low on gas, but it turns out one of their tires got punctured in one of the many huge potholes in the streets we had been on and trying to avoid (sometimes unsuccessfully). After spending some time at the gas station trying to take off the tire and getting nowhere (and the whole time it continued to rain really hard), we realized now we were there to help THEM. So, they had no choice but to leave their car there at the gas station, and they rode with us the rest of the way to the hotel. So, it turns out they not only helped us, but we were their guardian angels too!

The hotel we stayed at that night was very very nice, and we had a WONDERFUL dinner there. Our room is beautiful, and they told us there's a nice view of the ocean from our room, and sure enough, in the morning, we could see the ocean from our balcony.

We just felt so lucky to have met those guys, and to be led in the dark and the rain to such a nice place to stay.