Blogs from Dominical, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 3

A very early start today, with an hour's drive south to our start point where we embarked on a boat for a long cruise. An hour down the river through mangrove forests, seeing crocodiles basking on the muddy banks was followed by a very bumpy ride through the waves of the Pacific for another hour, eventually arriving at a remote beach on this reserve. A walk through the forests saw coatis, macaws, termites and leaf cutter ants, bats in a huge hollow tree and laots of huge forest trees and palms. The forest floor was covered with many hermit crabs and exotic seeds, including coconuts which our guide opened for us to eat. A waterfall in the middle of the forest was very popular as a swimming and genral cooloing off place, while the second group ... read more

Hello all! Today we all went zip lining through the jungle treetops, as high as 150 feet at the top. We were surrounded by sloths and on the ground by Coatis. Plenty of large ants and hornets, as well as large spiders and lots of termite nests. Today's bait was Callum who volunteered to demonstrate the action of the jaws of a soldier leaf cutter ant (these used to be used as sutures for wounds). The guide demonstrated how the ant's jaws gripped together a wound using a pinch of skin on Callum's hand (no damage caused !). The zip lining involved swathing ourselves in harnesses and helmets, which in 30 degree temperatures was quite a sweat (especially for Dan). After lunch a lazy afternoon round the pool with a water polo game (the girls claimed ... read more

Day 2 - Cooking and Travelling to Dominical. We started out day with an easy wake up at 8 am, whether or not that is actually a good time for most teenagers we're not too sure and i'm sure most of the parents are surprised their child knows what 8 am is. We set off at 9 to start out on our cooking lesson. We had some time to spare in the beginning so we wandered around their gardens, seeing the butterflies, lizards and interesting insects. We then had corn, garlic, onion, pepper, corrinandor ( please dont bully us for our spelling) chayotes..(some type of costa rican squash). It tasted great with chicken. we then got back on the bus and travelled for 4 hours down to our next hotel in dominical. It is very beautiful ... read more

Its about 6 oclock and I am sitting on an enormous tree in the middle of what is now a desolate stretch of rocks and wet black sand relfecting clouds above, otherwise known as a beach. Sitting there gazing into sky in front of me, clouds illuminated orange, blue and purple, waves crashing in the distance, and beams of gold shooting through the air. This was a sunset to beat all sunsets, close to the one I watched in keywest a few years back. Reminissing of the last two days events and remembering the joys I had on this trip thus far. Thoughts of being stranded at the bus station for 4hrs yesterday listening to the ever rotating groups of preachers that would post up when the crowd grew to standing capacity, or hords of dogs ... read more

We had arrangements to stay at the Mango Moon for only one night, as doing so would break up our drive to the next destination. It would also allow us an opportunity to spend some time in a particularly popular Costa Rican park, Manuel Antonio National Park, where much wildlife is known to be seen. In the morning, this was our destination. Here is where we encountered more tourists than anywhere else on our trip. Most of them were with guided tour groups delivered by the myriad of buses and vans that were stopped at the park entrance. We quickly realized how grateful we were not to be a part of the cattle herd, just not our style : ). Instead, we chose the self-guided tour which allowed us to stop and go whenever and gaze ... read more