Barrys Aventuras de Costa Rica: May 2015

Quetzal in Monteverde

Hola! I have been very busy recently with fun travels around Costa Rica! Also, the internet is out most of the time because it started to rain a bit so the power goes off a lot which causes the wifi router to need resetting. Right now I'm tethered to my iPhone and using a very slow connection. It will probably take a few hours to upload one or two pictures...

The upside to rain, however, is that there are fireflies lighting up the night! and the dust is settling and the trees are budding! So grateful for all of these things. Plus, it is slightly less hot.

My parents came to visit us - we picked them up at the airport and the kids were SO HAPPY to see them. We took them straight to Rincon de La Vieja after they had been up all night on a redeye flight. We drove to our cabins so they could rest a bit before we went and cooled off in some pools in a nearby river. Everyone had a great time jumping into the cold, clear water (quite in contrast to Nosara's warm and murky rivers). We then treated them to one of the two local restaurants near Rincon - in which the only vegetarian option consisted of rice, beans and "salad" -literally a piece of lettuce and one slice of tomato. Yum.

We spent the next day at Rincon and took a walk past boiling water, bubbling mud, and lots of strangler fig trees for the kids to climb. I finally saw my first Blue Morpho butterfly! They are iridescent! I saw this as a good omen.

We drove back to Nosara the following day, after visiting a gorgeous waterfall just outside of Liberia. Highly recommended (Llanos de Cortes Cataratas). This was a nice reprieve from the heat! Unfortunately for my parents, we unwittingly chose the hottest and dustiest time of year for them to visit Nosara. Rah Rah was not amused. We did manage to have some fun snorkeling, kayaking the Nosara River, and playing "futbol" with Graham. After spending a few ridiculously hot days in Nosara, we were all ready for the cool mountains. We travelled to Monteverde to explore and meet up with more friends and family.

Monteverde is absolutely beautiful. The air is so cool that pine trees can grow! We stayed at Los Pinos cabanas - a perfect place for families. They have a garden where you can harvest fresh salad for dinner, hiking trails, and a playground for the kids. It was cool enough that chocolate didn't instantly melt so the kids were able to do a belated chocolate easter egg hunt.

People come from all over the world to see birds in Monteverde, and Nana hired the best bird guide around. With Danilo's help, we saw some of the coolest birds in the world at the Cure Cancha reserve. He uses his scope and our iPhones to take close up pictures of all the beautiful birds. He found for us the famous Quetzals, one of which was spotted long after our tour was suppose to end. He was so passionate about his job that he took us back out into the jungle to find the bird. We also saw toucans, hummingbirds, a woodpecker, and so much more. We saw so many Blue Morpho butterflies that I lost count. I still never did get a good picture of one though, so I'll have to keep traveling to the cool mountains in search of them.

Graham was our lucky charm, he was so excited to see the Quetzals that I think they may have showed up just for him. He loves birds, frogs, snakes, spiders. Maybe he will be a wildlife biologist one day. Nearby at the Childrens Forest we also saw a Bell bird, which makes the most lovely clear bell sound! Graham was our lucky charm here too had helped us find it.

While in Monteverde we also took the kids and my 71 year old aunt Lois zip lining!! Lois has such a great spirit and "can be talked into anything", including zipping through the treetops even though she has a fear of heights. She is awesome. Amara of course was in heaven. She was the first in line for the "tarzan swing" - which is basically a free fall with ropes attached. She LOVED this tour. Other people kept looking at her and saying "well, if she can do, I shouldn't be so scared!". We loved Monteverde so much we didn't want to leave. It was so nice to be cold enough to wear pants, and to have to use a blanket at night.

We left Nana and Rah Rah and the rest of the crew at Monteverde - from which they drove south to take a 5 day kayak trip and planned to meet up with us after. When the kids and I stepped out of the car back in Nosara, one of the first things we noticed was that it had rained, and there were fireflies everywhere! Absolutely amazing transformation. 2 days of rain and the fireflies return and the trees start to bud out.

After everyone returned from kayaking, we spent a few more days exploring Nosara before they had to return to the US. This time Amara was the lucky charm, and she found us her favorite bird of Costa Rica, the Roseate Spoonbill. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time, but they were beautiful, and apparently somewhat rare because the policemen driving by stopped to take pictures of them.

It was so wonderful to have family come visit us! Thank you Rah Rah, Nana, Linda, Bob, Lois and friends Michelle and Collete. Thank you for the good chocolate, the Beechers cheese, the chokecherry syrup, almonds, books and
the movies! We were all very sad when everyone left. The kids especially loved sharing their jungle experiences and when we see something new they are sad you are not here to see it too!