Blogs from Bahia Drake, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

After a few days in San Jose, Brad and I headed to the Osa Peninsula, where we were promised birds, plants and wildlife. We took a light aircraft flight with the company Sansa to get there – a little twelve seater Cessna something. Though much more pricey than the bus, the flight was 45 minutes compared to the 8 hours on the bus! Besides the time saving, it was a great birds eye view of Costa Rica... the plane rose sharply (and bumpily) over the central valley and mountains, then headed out over river deltas and Parque Nacional Manual Antionio, hugging the coastline until we reached the small Drake Bay airstrip. Though I may have been ashen faced the whole time, it was definitely worth it! We were met at the door of the plane with ... read more

(Things are getting a little out of hand on the journaling front, I've been spending far too much time relaxing & enjoying every moment rather than detailing it, so I am very behind in my duties. I've decided to do some days with just basic bullet points to help jog our memories in the future more than anything else. So, that's where we are with that....) Breakfast: Juice fresh blended (papaya today so incredible), eggs scrambled, toast, coffee. Translated for another couple about setting up a snorkeling trip today. To the dive shop. With Belgians again & another couple from Argentina. Our boat was pretty full with snorkelers that we ended up stopping at two spots before they finally got off the boat (why? I don't know. The first spot was so crystal clear, who knows!). ... read more

Up at 5:10 a.m. Excited to dive! Breakfast downstairs in the outside seating area, but under cover (I'm getting very accustomed to eating outside, it's really pleasant, especially in the mornings). They have the sweetest table settings & made very good gallo pinto, cheese, & eggs with onion. Oh, & really strong coffee. Yeah! It's so cozy & homey here. We walked down the hill to the dive shop that is on the beach. The dive shop office is the living room of Lin's house. He has his room, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen, & a back storage room. That's it. People live so simply with so little. I often wonder why we feel like we need to have sooo much stuff. After we got all our dive gear together we headed to shore to get ... read more

Our flight to Drake Bay was delayed by two hours so we read our books and watched the world cup out of the corner of our eyes. When we finally took off, we were loaded into a flamboyantly coloured propelar plane which was the first test of Amy's fear of heights. We were told that a "taxi" was picking us up at the "airport" when we arrived. The airport was actually a field and the taxi was actually a tractor. Yes, a tractor. The drivers did not speak a word of English and our Spanish did not allow us to say "I'm sorry, you want us to get in WHAT?". So we got in and crossed our fingers! Despite being in a tractor, all seemed fine until we approached a river and the driver kept going. ... read more