Nicoya Adventure - Part 1

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This week's blog update will be split into a couple of different entries so that each spot on our 4-day tour of the southern Nicoya peninsula gets its due. Before we left on Thursday morning, the boys enjoyed being on vacation with Steve as their school celebrated the nation's Independence Day. This mostly involved playing catch in the yard and going out on errands, while Nancy went into the clinic every morning. She and Christian (the Costa Rican doc) really seem to click in their approach to medicine. The big news on the clinic front was heavy flooding in the area, which left about 2 inches of water on the clinic floor - and finally forced the clinic to close to patients. Fortunately, there were about 10 volunteers - so the cleanup went pretty well.

One of the big highlights was receiving our first piece of mail, which came from our friend and St Paul neighbor Peter Wildcrea! Because he was the first to successfully send us something, he wins the grand prize: 1 week's free room and board at our house in Costa Rica - the catch is that his parents have to figure out a way to get him down here!

OK, enough of the in-town stuff. On to our adventure.

Day 1 involved driving the 2 hours to Puntarenas, the big port town on the "mainland" side of the Bay of Nicoya. We missed the 10:30AM ferry by about 10 minutes so we killed some time while we waited the 2 hours for the next one. Kyle and Sam purchased hats from rival soccer teams (Saprissa = the dragons, La Liga = the lions) and we all walked on the beach. The ferry ride was a bit surreal as the coastal clouds/fog, the overgrown islands and inlets, and the pelicans and pterodactyl-looking frigate birds all combined to create a scene out of Jurassic Park. We arrived in Paquera, drove the car off the ferry, and drove to Tambor.

There, we walked on a black sand beach that seemed to stretch forever around this enormous cove. The boys found lots of cool shells (and a little crab) and enjoyed watching the local young men play a vigorous game of barefoot soccer on the beach. Then it was into the water - their first time swimming in the ocean. The slope was incredibly gradual so it was perfect for kids. Kyle and Sam loved trying to ride the waves as they came in, and even got used to the strange taste of salt water in their mouth. Then it was back to the hotel (called Costa Coral) for a much-needed dip in the pool and then dinner.

The next morning, Kyle and Steve woke up really early so they decided to walk down to the beach and watch the sunrise (the angle of the cove means that you look east over the water). What they didn't expect was the unbelievable noise of several unseen howler monkeys chatting back and forth in the trees. The big part of the day was leaving at 8AM right from the beach on a small boat (just the 4 of us plus the captain and his first mate) for a 30 minute ride to Isla Tortuga off the coast. On the way there, we spotted a whale - sadly, it did not make a re-appearance so there is no photo. The island was beautiful - white sand ringed by palm trees. Apparently, it gets very crowded during the high season, but there were only about a dozen of us there for most of the time. So, we all enjoyed swimming in the ocean and then going over to a big offshore rock to snorkel. The boys were champs - figuring out the whole breathing thing and not freaking out when water seeped into their masks. They loved all the different types of fish - especially when they devoured the "bait bread" right in front of them (Sam says he even touched one). After a delicious lunch prepared by our crew - complete with a visit from the island's resident pig, our 4 hour stay was over and we rode back to the shore, but got caught in a mid-afternoon downpour.

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Comments

[susan moss]

So great to see your home and read about the ways in which you are settling in. Tom and I were in Miami 2 weeks ago spending time in Little Havana. that's our latest adventure. I am back in a small Spanish class with a Chilean teacher. its good but nothing like immersion. Muchas bendiciones sobre su familia, su trabajo y sus experiencias en Costa Rica. Susan Moss