Little vacation over

Well, today was the last day to spend with Fernando and Eva.  Since the hotel we stayed in last night didn't offer breakfast, we walked to a little bakery to have breakfast.  While waiting for what we ordered, we got some entertainment we really could have done without.  White Throated Magpie Jays like to hang around some of the restaurants here, and this little bakery is one of them.  We observed a jay swoop onto a table and grab a packet of sugar and fly to a line that was hanging above the table next to ours.  The jay then proceeded to open this packet of sugar, and every time he pecked at the packet of sugar, some sugar would rain down onto the table below where people were sitting.  When he emptied that packet, he flew in for another, but this time he took the packet to a tree where he promptly lost it when he tried to position it on the tree better.   He flew in a third time, getting something else off of someone's table.  We didn't really see him again after that.  Here's a picture of him.

The drive back to Samara was long and dusty again in parts.  When we got to Samara, we emptied the car and went to have lunch at a nearby French restaurant.  Tacos at a French restaurant?  Well, they tasted interesting and not too bad, really.  Fernando had shrimp pizza, which looked like a better choice.

Fernando and Eva took off around 4 back to Liberia.  They will spend the night in Liberia because Eva has a flight to catch tomorrow for Iowa City, where she will be for 3 weeks analyzing her data in a lab there.  She will come back to Costa Rica at the end of February.

January 30th

It was a shame, but we checked out of that nice little casita the next morning.  That was one rough night for some of us.  After breakfast, we checked into another hotel  and we'll see if this next place is any quieter....

After putting a lot of our stuff in the hotel's reception area (because it was too early to get into a room), Guillermo, Eva and Fernando took off in the car for Cabo Blanco Reserve.  I decided to pass on that little excursion since it is so hot and humid outside and the hike in this reserve is 8 kilometers long.  Most of the hike (they told me later) was in a beautiful shady forest, but there was a lot of climbing up steep steps.  So, all in all, I was glad I didn't go, and they said it was probably good I didn't go either.  They left at around 8:30am.

So, to pass the time while they were gone, I went up to the hotel's terrace which was on the third floor.  It was nice up there - several tables, sofas, hammocks, a TV and internet access.  The view from the terrace was over a little park in Montezuma and I could see the water through some of the trees.  The first two hours on that terrace were spent catching up on computer stuff.  Then I walked into town, went to a little store and then walked to the beach and sat there for a while watching the people playing in the waves.

By then it was around 11:00am.  I went back with the laptop up to the terrace and did stuff on the computer again.  At around 12:30, I was thinking they'd be coming back from the park at any time.  At 1:30, I decided to go back into town to buy the newspaper and get an ice cream to eat.  Then it was back to the terrace to do things on the computer.  At around 3pm, I went back into town to look through the little shops just to see if there was anything interesting to buy.  But I made sure to look at things that were close to the windows, so that I could see if their car passed by.  And sure enough, I hadn't been in the stores longer than about 7 minutes when I saw their car trying to pass by on the crowded streets.  I rushed out and followed their car back to the hotel where all they wanted to do was get into the room and take a shower.  They loved the walk through the reserve and said it was very pretty, interesting and very hot!  They saw lots of birds and monkeys but did not walk out to the island that is across from the reserve.  Here are some pictures Guillermo took out there:

They found a good place to rest and eat snacks after their long walk to the beach.

The beach looking in one direction......

...and then looking in the other direction.

So, after their showers, we had lunch and then came back and rested a while.  We didn't do much the rest of the day but in the evening we went back to the ocean view place to enjoy a little drink while listening to the waves crash on the shore.  The food may not be all that great there, but the drinks were just fine!  From there, we walked to another restaurant to have dinner.

The rooms at this hotel were a little quieter and there was also A/C in the room so the night was a little more pleasant.

Friday January 28th and Saturday January 29th

January 28th

When we took off from Samara on Friday, we drove pretty close to the coast as we headed down the Nicoya Peninsula.  We stopped to take this picture of Playa Islita, but it didn't come out too well, since the sun was in a bad spot.  But it was absolutely beautiful.

And here are some pictures we took when we got to Playa San Miguel and took an evening walk along the beach.

There were tons of these all over the beach, and some were light blue.  We have no idea what they are.

 The sunsets are always so pretty.

January 29th

 Waiting for breakfast at our hotel in the morning.

Today we drove to Montezuma on Gulf of Nicoya.  The drive to Montezuma took several hours because we opted to drive on a much smaller road that was closer to the coast so that we could see what that drive was like.  The road was a dirt road all the way and twice we had to cross rivers with water in them.  We had been told by someone at the hotel in Playa San Miguel how to approach and drive through one of the rivers and his advice helped.  It also helped that we had a car in front of us which kind of gave Fernando (who was driving) an idea of what the depth of the water was where that car was going through.  It's a good thing it's the dry season here, or we would have not been able to cross those rivers at all.  It being the dry season, and driving on those dirts roads, really made for a very dusty drive.  All along the road, the trees and vegetation weren't green anymore, they were all brown with the heavy coats of dust that were all over them.  It was a nice drive, though because the scenery was nice with lots of valleys with farm land.  

Once we got to Montezuma, the first thing we did was look for a place to stay the night.  We found a very nice looking place with lush vegetation all around.  We even saw a group of Capuchin monkeys move through the trees there.  They were lots of  fun to watch as they jumped from branch to branch.  Here's one of them.

Our little "casita" was up a hill and from the balcony you could see the ocean and hear the waves crashing on the shore.  There was a nice hammock on the porch and all the walls of the rooms of the casita had screens up at the top to let in air.  

After getting our room, we ventured into town and had a so-so lunch at a restaurant with a great view to the beach, but like all "neat" places like that, it seems to be more about the ambience than the food.  After lunch, we drove out on that dusty road again to look at a huge strangler fig tree.  

From there, we drove back to Montezuma and stopped at a section of beach where we had seen a bunch of pelicans in the water.  We walked along the beach there a while, just marveling at all the birds.

I love how the pelicans are riding the waves here.

After that drive, we came back to our casita and rested awhile before going out to dinner at a nice little italian restaurant.  We had some good pizza there!

So, back to our casita.  The fact that the walls were part screen led to part of the problem we had with the casita that night because the casita was right next to a VERY busy road and practically all night long, cars, ATVs, motorcycles, buses and probably anything else with wheels literally roared past our rooms.  Everything that passed always sounded so loud and so close and I guess it was, since the road was right there.  Needless to say, we didn't sleep much that night, although Eva said the noise didn't bother her at all.  Lucky for her that she was able to sleep through that.  

A picture of our place

Finally got a picture taken of how the place looks, from the outside anyway, of where we've been living the past few weeks.

We don't lie in that hammock much, since the two ends are hung too close together.  Not that comfortable.  But to sit in, it's great!

I can hear again!

My ears have been plugged up for about a week, with one of them being worse than the other.  This all started about a week ago, with both ears coming and going out of a plugged up state for a few days.  But about 5 days ago, my right ear refused to open again.  Fortunately I still had the left ear to hear out of, which continued to plug up during the night but I'd get it to reopen during the day.  We went to a pharmacy about 2 days after this all started and got some ear drops, which Guillermo put in my ears faithfully every morning and every evening.  It all seemed like a waste of time, because it didn't seem to help at all and even gave me the feeling it was making things worse.

Well, this morning I couldn't even get the left ear to unplug.  That's it.  We decided to go to the clinic which is a good walk away - in FULL SUN!  We set out early, and it wasn't too bad.  Evidently this clinic (on a dusty road) is a "free" clinic and there were several people there, and only one doctor.  We waited a while, and someone told us the key is, when a patient comes out of the doctor's office, to stick our heads in there and ask if he'll be able to take care of us today.  Guillermo did just that and the doctor recommended seeing another doctor in town, so it was for the best that we were on our way out anyway because a guy came in right about then with his hand all bandaged up and bloodied.  My problem was totally insignificant compared to his and no way would I have wanted to be seen before him.

So, we walked back into town and over to the doctors office (it's getting hotter now) but we're on a mission.  Walking into that doctor's office was such a relief because it was immediately evident that I was going to be helped there by people that seemed to know what they were doing.  That had been my biggest worry.  They checked my ears and said that yeah, my ears were FULL of wax, but that fortunately I had been using the drops, because the wax looked nice and soft and therefore it'd be easy to get it out.

As the girl worked on my ears, I could tell the exact points when wax would fall out, because there'd be this big rushing sound like a roar of wind - the sound of being able to hear again!!  Everything sounded so LOUD!!!  She had to stop and let me rest at least three times while doing both ears, because I'd start feeling dizzy, but then it'd go away and she'd continue.
You don't know how nice it is to be able to hear, until you can't hear.

So proud of Rebeca and Fernando

Rebeca sent us this link the other day about a project she is working on.

http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/Tucson-development-paths-and-streetcars-114377594.html

And in case you didn't know about it, Fernando has started posting a picture a day again to this website.

http://santarosa.aminus3.com/

Checking out the wetlands

We had seen on a map we have of Samara that there was an area where there are some wetlands fairly close to us.  So, today we decided to walk over there and check it out.  It was a nice walk and we did see several nice birds along the way.  The end of the walk is out on that dusty road again, and we got several little dust baths.  Most people are considerate and they slow down when they drive by us, but some aren't and they just fly through there kicking up dust like crazy!
Some of those houses near that area, especially those at an intersection of two dusty roads, all of their plants are TOTALLY covered with dust.  Just can't imagine living in those homes.  Then, when it's the rainy season, well, there's no dust anymore, but then they have the MUD.  

We'd like to go back to those wetlands, but next time, we won't continue on the dusty road.  We'll just go back through the wetlands the way we came.  It's a lot more pleasant that way.

Finally found the Thai restaurant

Not much new around here, lately.  We usually walk into town every single afternoon for one reason or another. If it's not to go to the grocery store, then it's to check out the beach or to go out to eat somewhere.  Last night we walked into town to eat at a Thai restaurant we had been wanting to try.  We've been trying to figure out where it is, since we saw the sign for it on our first day here, and hadn't seen the sign since.  Finally, on Tuesday we found someone who knew where it was and decided then to eat there on Friday.  So, we ate there last night and we had a great meal!

There are some wetlands close to here, so we may go check them out this afternoon.......

Nice long beach walk

When we've gone to the beach, we can see in the distance what looks like as far as you can go south on the beach here.  We've said that one of these days we're going to walk all the way over there and today was the day!

We took off around 3:45 - a little early since the sun was still out and hot, but we figured we needed that much time to get there and back.  It was nice, though, because shortly after we got on the beach, there were plenty of clouds around then to hide the sun.  It always looks like it's going to rain, but it has only sprinkled once here, and we've been here 9 days.

Surfing lessons going on out there.  

As we walked the beach kind of changed, and we came to this estuary.  Good thing the tide was going out, we probably couldn't have crossed otherwise.  The ocean is to the right.  After this estuary, there were lots of black rocks, so we had to put our shoes on for a little while.

When we got ALMOST to as far as you could go, I decided to take a detour to check out this neat looking hotel that we were passing by.  Guillermo decided to walk on to the end.  I was impressed with the hotel (but WAY too expensive) and Guillermo was glad he got to as far as one can possibly walk on that beach.  

Really nice sunset on the way back.

When we got back to town, we had dinner at Mama Gui's - a little French restaurant.  

It was dog vs iguana

Today we stayed in all morning, and it was amazing how cool we felt by not going out and getting sweaty!  By the late afternoon, it was hot enough to feel sweaty even without ever having gone outside.
While we were just hanging around at our place, we heard what sounded like a little dog barking outside, so we peeked out to see what dog it was.  And there in front of our place was a little dog giving this really nice iguana some major grief.
We grabbed our cameras and chuckled at the whole scene while we took pictures.  The dog would bark so bravely, but if the iguana moved its tail or swung its head around, the dog would get scared and he'd run off a little.

 When he finally chased the iguana up this tree, he decided to go up after it, too!!

And here's a shot of the beach when we took a walk along it this evening.

Looooong walk today!

In the early afternoon (around 4, when it starts getting bearable again outside), we decided to walk to Buena Vista Beach, which is a little over a mile from here.  That is ONE DUSTY ROAD, the road to this beach.  Whenever a car passed us, we'd be enveloped in a cloud of dust.  It was disgusting!!  BUT, when cars weren't passing, the walk was nice.  We saw lots of Howler monkeys, we saw a young iguana, and lots of parrots.  Here's a few pictures of the Howlers.

This is the road that we took to the beach.  As you can see, it's a dirt road.

There were nice views along this road.

But we didn't take a picture of the beach!  Oh well, there was an estuary to cross, and it was too wide and too deep and we decided to not go through the trouble of getting all wet and sandy.  As we headed back into town, it actually started sprinkling!  Those clouds you see in the picture above were actually rain heading toward us.  It rained enough that we were glad we had brought along our umbrella!  For dinner that evening, we went to a nearby hotel and had pizza and salad.

These are some pictures that Guillermo took with his camera.  This was a squirrel that was by our hotel in Liberia.

And this is a bird called a Turquoise Browed Mot-Mot that was also by that same hotel.

This bird didn't seem to mind people too much.  His territory seems to be right there at the hotel, and we guess he's used to people coming in and out of their rooms and going past his tree with their luggage to their cars.