Post Log #2 Tortuguero, Las Palmas

When we were at ILE there were opportunities to take trips to various places around the country to see the sights. Since we had spent a total of 4 weeks vacationing in Costa Rica, we had seen many of the main sights that were close to San Jose. There were, however, a couple of things farther afield that we really wanted to do. One was to go see the turtles!! Their nesting season didn’t coincide with our previous vacations, so when the opportunity arose to take an excursion to see them last October, we decided to splurge.

There are no roads to Tortuguero, where the main turtle work happens in Costa Rica. So, after a microbus ride, we unloaded and got into a boat to take the canals up the coast. There was a lot of wildlife on the trip, so that was a big part of the excursion. We arrived late in the day to the resort (formerly an ecolodge, so take the word resort loosely!), and our guides told us that the trip to the beach to see the hatchlings would be delayed a bit because it was raining. We went to get hot cocoa, asking them to come get us when it was time to go. Well, somehow we didn’t get that communicated, and they went to the beach and saw many hatchlings making their way from their nests to the ocean while we enjoyed our hot cocoa and coffee! Fortunately, when we did go to the beach, we managed to find a nest that had a few stragglers still finding their way to the beach.

The next part of the tour was to go watch a mother make a nest. Around 9 pm we got in the boat to go up to another part of the beach. When we arrived, the guide told us we had to wait at the airstrip, while they went to find a mother. We waited and waited, and had to move under the cover of the small building of the airstrip when it started to rain. Abigail fell asleep on me on the concrete, and finally after about an hour and a half of waiting, the guide told us that we were going back. It was late in the season for laying eggs, and we just weren’t going to see that.
The next morning we were awakened early to the sound of howler monkeys. We headed out to the beach at dawn, hoping to see a mother finishing up, but we did not. We did, however, see the mother’s tracks, which were pretty cool themselves (as seen in photo above). After breakfast we took another tour of the rivers, and saw a lot of wildlife – including sloths, crocs, howler monkeys, a jesus christ lizard and a poison dart frog. We stopped at the town of Tortugera and the headquarters for the turtle preservation organization before making the long trek back to San Jose. It was an exhausting, but rewarding weekend.

One other trip that I had always wanted to make was to the beaches of the Caribbean. So, once again, when we had the chance to go on a school trip in April to see that part of Costa Rica, we jumped at it. The last part of the trip is on unpaved road, but the weekend was spent relaxing at the beach, so it was quite nice. One of the great things about the school trips was that the girls had friends to play with while we were away. Abigail actually went on a different microbus than we did, so she could ride with one of her friends! John and I got to enjoy sitting on the beach chatting while the girls were happily playing.

In the end, I think we all decided that we liked the beaches on the Pacific Coast better, but it was a really enjoyable weekend, and I was glad to get to fulfill that dream as part of our year in Costa Rica. The only bad part about the weekend was that we got a bit too much sun even though we tried to stay off the beach during the middle of the day, and use a lot of sunscreen.

As usual, more photos at http://lafamiliamacy.shutterfly.com/

Post log #1 - Visits from Eversons, Cideciyans, Macys

Besides the visit from the Fettigs last November, we had three other really great sets of visitors while we were in Costa Rica. The first was our good friends the Eversons (Lori, Terry and their son Peter) in February. We were thrilled to hear that Terry had been invited to conduct the brass section of the National Symphony and that they decided to make a family trip of it, since his hotel was paid for by the symphony. We were able to have them over for dinner once, meet them for dinner in San Jose once, and spent the day on Saturday seeing Volcan Poas (which we were able to see – it doesn’t always happen) and La Paz Waterfall Gardens, where there is a lot of Costa Rican wildlife and some beautiful waterfalls. The week was crowned by Terry conducting the brass at the National Theater and included a solo (trumpet) performance by Terry. It was great to hear him play again (I think the last time was at our wedding). An added bonus was that our kids had a GREAT time together.

Our next set of visitors was my sister Lisa and her family, during Semana Santa (Holy Week). We went to a beach which we had visited on one of our vacations. It was in a great little town called Samara, where you can walk to the restaurants and the beach. It also has calm surf (which is rare in Costa Rica), so we were able to enjoy the water with our kids. We headed back to San Jose on Easter, and I took the day off from school on Monday, so I could go back to La Paz Waterfall with them. The kids didn’t like the LONG trip to the beach (about 4 hours), but they didn’t complain much and otherwise had a great time.

Our last visitors were John’s parents, who came to see us very soon after they arrived back from almost a year in Ireland. We were delighted that they were willing and able to make the trip to come see us. We spent our time in the Central Valley, but John’s parents rented a car (for John to drive), so we were able to see some attractions that we never had seen even though they weren’t far away. One was the town of Sarchi, where they make the traditional Ox Carts. Another was Volcan Arenal, which we went to see on a Sunday afternoon in the rainy season, and had a spectacular view. (It is not usually clear enough to see it in the afternoon during the dry season, so needless to say I was pretty excited). We also went to tour a wood factory (that produces most of the wood products that are sold as souvenirs), which John and I had seen on school field trips, but the kids had not, so we all enjoyed that.
Thank you all of you who were able to visit and make our year even more special!
Photos here:http://lafamiliamacy.shutterfly.com/