Spending time in Liberia - Feb. 27 and 28th

So, yesterday Guillermo and I just hung around our hotel.  We considered it a free day, where we had absolutely nothing we HAD to do except go eat lunch and dinner.  The day was mostly cloudy and that was nice.  There were fireworks again around noon for the Tope celebration.
Today is Monday and now we're feeling like we have to get started with packing up again, since we drive on Tuesday to San Jose for our flight to Panama on Wednesday.
But before we head for San Jose tomorrow, we are going out to Santa Rosa National Park to have lunch with Fernando and Eva, and to celebrate his birthday on the day HE celebrates his birthday when there is no February 29th.
So, we spent most of today packing up our suitcases and fixing a suitcase up to leave with Fernando while we're in Panama (Air Panama allows much less luggage on their planes).
Here are some pictures of the hotel we've been staying at in Liberia:

Vacation over for Fernando and Eva - Feb. 26th

It was still raining on and off this morning.  After having breakfast at the hotel, we packed up our stuff and in between rain showers got all our stuff in the car.  This picture was taken this morning of our cabin, there is even a little rain drop on the picture!  Fernando is sitting on the porch, we are waiting for the hotel people to come pick up the key to the cabin.

These pictures weren't taken this morning, but they show the view we had from the cabin.

Those horses in these two pictures liked to come into the yard of the cabin, and one night they were by our windows, making their horse noises!

It was still raining when we left the cabin at around 10:30am and it wasn't long, as we were heading back down to Liberia, before the rain stopped and the air started getting warmer.  Looking back at the mountains, we could see that they were totally enveloped in clouds and rain, but down by Liberia it was sunny and dry and hot.

We got a hotel room in Liberia, unloaded our stuff and then Fernando suggested we walk into town to watch the Tope, which is a celebration held in the Guanacaste area.  There were fireworks going off and lots of horses everywhere.  We finally found a good place downtown from which to watch the parade and we enjoyed looking at all the different kinds of horses and their riders parade by.  After the parade, we had a quick lunch and then Fernando and Eva had to leave to go meet one of their assistants at the agreed upon place of the local grocery store.  He got the car from the hotel, they loaded up the assistants luggage and groceries for the team for a week and then drove to Santa Rosa National Park to drop them off.  Later in the evening, Fernando and Eva came back to our hotel and we celebrated Fernando's birthday with a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant.  

After dinner, Guillermo drove Fernando and Eva back to Santa Rosa National Park and then it was just the two of us again on the way back to the hotel. 

Day 3 in the mountains - Feb. 25th

Today we didn't get up as early because the trail we were going to take this morning wasn't very far from our cabin.  We went out on the trail after breakfast.  This trail has 3 hanging bridges along the route and the hike is fairly easy and through really nice forest.

There is a tree in the middle of one of the bridges with a platform and that's where Eva is in this picture.  Ooooh, there were lots of little biting insects while we were on this platform.

We did the bridges trail in the morning, went into the town of Bijagua to have pizza for lunch and then went back out on the bridges trail in the early afternoon.  Our prize sighting when we were on the trail in the evening was a Kinkajou!!  It was too far away for me to get a good picture, but here is a picture Guillermo took of us excitedly either watching the Kinkajou or taking a picture of it.

It was a nice leisurely hike that evening and when we were done with the trail, we walked along a little road near the Heliconias hotel to see what we could see along that road.  We DID see a Toucan near that road and the clouds in the distance were really impressive.  We had NO idea that we were seeing the beginnings of a prolonged rain heading our way.

The picture above was taken from the road by the hotel.  When we got back to the cabin, we could see the clouds really building everywhere.  The evening before we had watched the rain passing by way off in the distance and we watched the same thing this evening except all of a sudden we couldn't see into the distance anymore and we realized that the rain was probably headed our way.  And sure enough, we could hear the rain falling hard in the distance and pretty soon it was right on us.  It rained on and off very hard and when there was a good break, we got in the car and drove back into Bijagua to have dinner.  The rest of the evening and all through the night it rained sometimes quite hard and the wind was also very strong.

Day 2 in the Mountains - Feb. 24th

We got up early today, got ready for hiking, drove to the hotel to have breakfast and then we got back in the car and drove to Tenorio Volcano National Park.  This trail is quite long and we had done part of the trail last year in a sometimes driving rain before deciding we weren't having fun and giving up.  Well, this day was nice and sunny so we were happy to see that this time we'd have a nice hike.

Fernando and Eva at the start of the hike.

Our prize find on this hike was seeing an Umbrella Bird!  I didn't get any pictures, but Fernando and Eva did.  It was quite exciting, even though it was a female and the colors weren't there.  We even saw this female Umbrella Bird dive down to the bottom of a tree, catch a lizard and then carry it up to a branch.  Then we saw her slap the lizard against the branch several times before eating it.

One of the highlights of this trail is a Blue Lake.  

Some pictures of us at this Blue Lake

This is the river as it flows away from the Blue Lake

Another highlight of this trail are some thermal springs, which I didn't take a picture of, but they're just to the right where all the little rocks are.  There were people swimming in them, but we didn't.

This picture shows where the river gets its blue color.

One of the fun bridges along the trail.

After seeing the Blue Lake and the thermal pool, it was time for a break!  We are relaxing for a while at an overlook.

Caught Fernando with a mouth full of popcorn.....

This was the view from the overlook.

We really had good luck on the hike this time because in contrast to the very heavy rain we had last year during almost the entire hike, this year it didn't start raining until we were getting close to the end of the trail.  So we hiked once again in rain, but at least we were able to do practically all of it in good weather.

Once we were done hiking this trail, we drove about a kilometer up the road to a little home that has two rooms for people to stay in and they also serve lunch.  So, we had lunch there on a nice covered porch.  The food was delicious, the surroundings were pretty and we got some good rain while we had lunch there.  All in all, very nice.

We took it easy the rest of the day, stopping by a grocery store on the way home for some snacks.  That evening we ate dinner once again at the Heliconias hotel and then turned in for the night.

Aahhhh, cooler weather for 3 days! Feb. 23, 2011

We've been in the mountains of Costa Rica and what a world of difference.

We had our last breakfast this morning in the Bed and Breakfast we stayed in for our last week in Samara.  At our place setting was a big bag of homemade popcorn!  Little did we know how useful that little gift would be in the coming days!  After breakfast, we said our goodbyes, Guillermo picked up our rental car then we loaded it up and started on the drive to Liberia where we would be meeting Fernando and Eva.  Eva just got back to Liberia from Iowa yesterday and the two of them were waiting for us to arrive at their hotel.

When we got to their hotel, we unloaded our biggest suitcases and we stored them in the hotel's office, along with two of Eva's bags.  Then we drove back out towards the airport where the car rental office is so that we could put Fernando also as a driver on the car and then we ate at a nice open air restaurant before heading up to the mountains and Tenorio Volcano National Park.

It's not too far of a drive to the National Park from Liberia, but along the way, as soon as we felt the air was cooler outside, we shut off the car's air conditioner, opened the windows of the car and how nice it was to be in cooler weather!  We drove to the Heliconias Hotel, but they had told us we'd be staying in a cabin, so they gave us the keys to it and we drove over to our little place.  We took all our stuff out of the car, placed it all inside the cabin, then decided to do one of the smaller hikes around the Heliconias Hotel.  Before we went out on that small hike, though, one of the employees wanted to take us a short distance on another trail to show us an owl that was in a tree so we went with him and sure enough there was a Crested Owl sitting in a tree.  His back was to us, but he had his head swiveled around keeping an eye on us.

After hiking the short Heliconias trail, we had dinner at the hotel and then drove back to our cabin for the evening.

Enjoyed our last day

Here are some pictures of our last day in Samara.  We spent a lot of the day on the beach, which was nice.  First we had lunch on the beach and the tide was way out.  But we could tell it was slowly starting to come in.

This is where we had lunch.

The view from our table

I'm in the dress that I had my eye on for weeks.  We finally bought it a few days ago.

Guillermo watching the waves and the dogs romping around in the water.

Dogs have a great life here.....

So, I don't know if you can tell, but in the above pictures the tide is out and there is lots of sandy beach.  When we walked back to the beach in the early evening, we were impressed with where the shoreline was then.  It was a BIG difference!

This picture is taken from the same table where we ate lunch.  The waves are a whole lot closer.

There's always a dog enjoying the waves.

With this picture you can really see how there is no beach at all now.

Guillermo took this picture of me and then I had to run up to escape the water.

Guillermo also almost got wet here, too!

Getting in more beach days!

It's amazing how nice being so much closer to town and the beach is.  It's nothing at all to walk to the store now to pick something up.  And we've been to the beach every day since we moved.  We walked on the beach at night on the 17th, 18th and 19th, when the moon was at its fullest (full moon was on the 18th) and the beach was soooo beautiful in the moonlight.  And it was amazing how far out the tide was!  On the 20th, we walked to an Argentinian type restaurant on the beach and had some good grilled meat and fish with key lime pie and chocolate mousse for dessert!  We noticed towards the end of our meal that there were lots of hermit crabs crawling around in the sand around all the tables.  We thought that was interesting.  On our walk back to our place, either the moon hadn't come up yet or it was too cloudy, but the beach was a lot darker that night, and not as spectacularly beautiful.

Every day since we've been at our new place, we eat one of our meals on the balcony.  And it's usually banana and peanut butter, guacamole and chips, tomato slices, juice and fruit.  Then our other meal we go out to eat somewhere.  Breakfast is provided where we're staying.  So, tonight for dinner we're going to try another beach restaurant......  you know, I think we're going to miss doing that.

Tomorrow we start packing up and day after we leave Samara and head for Liberia where we will meet Fernando and Eva.  We look forward to going into the mountains with them for 3 days - yay, cooler weather!!

pictures of our new place

This is that nice hammock that is right outside our room.  I've spent quite a bit of time in it!

Guillermo spends a lot of time right there in that chair looking at the birds that fly through here.

And he also reads quite a bit!

It's nice out on this porch, and it's way cooler than being in our room during the day.

Living in a new place now

Well, we moved yesterday to a place closer to town.  We stayed at our old place until a taxi came for us around 12:45pm.  So we were able to watch one more episode of Lost, which we really enjoyed.
It's better in this new place.  There still is no free wireless, but at least the lady is letting us use her cable to get to the internet.  We worked out a deal where we could do that 3 times a day, so that is nice.
This new place is a bed and breakfast, so we got breakfast served this morning and it was a great breakfast!!
Our room is on the second floor, and we enjoy using the balcony which is just outside the room.  We sit out there practically all day.  Only thing is, well, since it's a bed and breakfast that means other people could use the balcony too.  And they did last night.  There were people sitting right outside our room until about 10pm.  Made us feel uncomfortable to be inside our room with the windows open, but since it's so hot, we had no choice but to keep the windows open.  Fortunately the people here so far have been good, and go to their rooms at 10.  One guy stayed in the hammock until 11pm - and that hammock is right by our window!!!!  But he was quiet and did leave at 11 so I guess we can live with that.
But it is nice to be able to walk to everything so much faster now and in this heat, that's a BIG thing.  We had lunch again at a little place on the beach and it was fun watching the seasoned surfers and the amateur surfers out there in the waves.
Hopefully I'll get some pictures tomorrow......

Quick update

We still are without internet where we live, so this is being updated from an internet cafe.  It´s just not the same with strange people all around in the same room.....

Anyway, yesterday was Valentine´s Day, and Guillermo and I made a reservation the day before at a neat looking restaurant right on the beach.  So, yesterday we arrived at 7 and they gave us the best table closest to the beach and it was really nice.  The view was fantastic, even though it was dark, we could see and hear the waves crashing.  We were sitting underneath palm trees, in the sand.  We enjoyed a nice fish dinner with 2 excellent desserts.  And of course a pina colada and a beer!!!  It was a very nice Valentine´s Day dinner!

Tomorrow we move to a new place here in Samara - a place ALSO without internet.  But at least we´ll be closer to the internet cafes.  That will help.  We have about 10 more days left in Costa Rica, and then we fly back to Panama.

No internet

Well, we´ve been without internet since about 2 in the afternoon, so this evening we decided to go back into town and use an internet cafe.  We are really hoping we get internet back tomorrow, since we are on it almost all day long!!!!!

A view of the wetlands and we're moving soon...

Here are a few pictures of the wetlands that are fairly close to where we are living.  It's nice to walk over there and the wetlands themselves are very interesting.

The white bird with some pink on it is a Roseate Spoonbill.  It moves its spoon shaped bill around in the water like a vacuum cleaner.  The white bird on the left is a Great Egret and the two brownish birds in the center are Wood Storks.  We're not too sure about the bird that is next to the Spoonbill.

The walk to the wetlands is through a forest which is nice and in the wetlands there always seems to be something interesting to see.  The ONLY thing about the wetlands is the road along the edge of it is dirt and inevitably several speedsters will come along on their motor bikes or cars and kick up tons of dust.  There are some people out there who are considerate and they slow down when they pass by us.  But that is rare.......

Well, we've been in this little house now for a month, and in 5 days we move to another place here in Samara and we'll be in that new place for about 10 or 11 days.   The new place we're moving to is one block over from the main street in Samara so we'll be closer to stores and to the beach.  That should be good because it seems to be getting hotter here.  Even our walks to the store in the early morning make us get sweaty.  We just hope we're not going from the frying pan into the fire by taking this new place but we don't have many choices here.

The pros of where we're living now are a few, but the cons are many.  We just hope that the pros of the new place we're going to will be better and more abundant than the cons.

After our 10 or so days in the new place, we will drive back to Liberia and maybe we'll get to see Fernando and Eva for Fernando's birthday.  We shall see.  Then, March 2nd, we fly back to Panama!!

Howlers making their presence known

The Howler monkeys seem to be making quite a bit more noise lately, especially in the mornings.  And we did have a Howler come really close to our little place yesterday - he came down low on the tree branches.  Guillermo went out and got a few pictures of him.

I guess the monkey was checking out that guy with the little black box in front of his face. 

Then, the night before, we found this grasshopper (locust) on the front porch.  It's the same kind of insect that Fernando has on his photo blog.

Then Guillermo tried to pull it off the hammock, but it dug its heels in and could not be budged.

We also ate lunch yesterday at a little lunch-counter-type restaurant where apparently a lot of German people like to hang out.  It's right around the corner from us so walking there we don't have a chance to get TOO hot, since it is close.  It was nice hearing German spoken and talking with the other people at the counter.

We'll probably watch the Super Bowl today, if for nothing else than to check out the commercials.

Here are some birds we've seen around here lately.  Turquoise-Browed Mot-Mot on the left and on the right is a Black Headed Trogon.