Since Keith and I were there 12 years ago, we have always talked about moving to Costa Rica. Now, that we've finally been back, I vividly remember why. This place is amazing.
After a few delays, we finally made it to San Jose, CR but we still had a bit of traveling to do. To get to Drake Bay for the first week of our vacation, we still had a flight, taxi, and hour long boat ride to get there. The flight had maybe 8 seats, 4 of which were occupied. We had amazing views of the mountains and coast of Costa Rica, including whale tail beach-we had been there 12 years ago!
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Once in Drake Bay, we settled in to Casa Hoizontes, a small family run guest house that was our home base for a few days of kayaking around Drake Bay. Galiano Kayaks is based in British Columbia but in the winter they guide tours in Costa Rica. Genius! Our guide was Zach and for the rest of the week it was pretty much just the three of us kayaking around the rivers, coast, and beaches of Drake Bay.
If you've heard anything about Costa Rica, it might have been about crocodiles. Rivers full of them...why are we kayaking and swimming in rivers? According to Zach, yes, most rivers probably do have crocodiles, especially where they flow into the ocean, but they are small and won't bother anyone. The rivers with the big crocs, people know about them and avoid them. So we took his word for it and still have all our fingers and toes!
We had a lot of amazing experiences in Drake Bay, but there was one day that was my favorite: We get up early and kayak to a beautiful beach. From there, all Keith and I know that we are going to do a bit of a hike and maybe do a canoe ride up another river-Ok, sounds good.
So we hike through the jungle to another beautiful beach, this one with the ocean on one side and a river on the other. The ocean side has pretty big waves and is one of the prime surfing spots in Drake, so we jump into the river to cool off and swim a little.
There is a little hut by the river that Zach said was where we could maybe get a canoe ride up Rio Claro (one of about 100 Rio Claro's in CR). There was a two hour tour just taking off in a few minutes and we were just in time-great! Richardo, the owner, was very clear about what we all should be wearing and what we should bring: No hats or sunglasses. Only wear swimsuits....um why? What are we doing? I'll tell you what we're doing-jumping off a cliff into the river before we ever get in the boats, that's what!
The canoe ride is beautiful and short. Finally I realize the point isn't the canoe ride, but playing in the river. We get to a point in the river where we all get out, jump off boulders, and float down the river.
Eventually we float down to a spot where we start climbing up a waterfall and the whole place is pretty magical!
Wow, Ellen! That sounds like such a fun day! I know, right! But it gets even better!
After the boat ride, we have a little lunch and coffee, then go for a short hike to, yup, another beautiful beach. BUT on the way there we are surrounded by a troupe of capuchin monkeys! They are hilarious and they are everywhere!
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Capuchin Monkeys! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.
So we go to the beautiful beach and I promptly fall asleep for a bit. I'm woken up right in time for us rush back to the beach where we took off for the canoe trip. We had to get there in time to release the tiny sea turtles that had just hatched that day into the ocean. I couldn't believe that we actually got to hold tiny, incredibly strong sea turtles! Go, baby sea turtles! I hope you survive!
Releasing sea turtles from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.
From there it's a kayak back to Casa Hoizontes for some beers on the patio and a delicious dinner, but we couldn't stay up too late! We had to be on a boat at 6am the next morning to get to Corcovado National Park. Finally time to see some sloths!
The day at Corcovoda was amazing and we didn't only see sloths! We are all four species of monkey that are native to Costa Rica: squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, spider monkeys and howler monkeys. Here is one of the spider monkeys we saw...or me getting busted by Keith for eating the whole bag of chips!
Hanging out with monkeys in Corcovado National Park from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.
Squirrel monkeys are pretty much impossible to take a picture of since they never stop moving, this video is pretty crappy too! Oh, well! They're still adorable!
squirrel monkeys! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.
We also saw tapirs. One sleeping and and mom and baby drinking in a creek. The tapirs are so much bigger than I expected and such odd creatures. They look kind of like pigs but are somehow related to both the horse and rhinoceros.
And yes, we saw sloths! This one was a mama and her baby. Only her baby moved. For barely a second I could see the cutest little baby sloth face, then it was time to nap again! Not the greatest picture, but there will be so many more sloth pics to come!
This doesn't even come close to everything we did in Drake Bay. One other interesting experience we had was the Night Tour with Tracy. It was creepy and scary and full of spiders and snakes (spiders I'm fine with-but snakes-NO!). And the tour was amazing. We meet Trap Door Spiders and scorpions and poisonous frogs and yes, snakes (not poisonous!) and I would absolutely hight recommend it to anyone, even if you're sacred of spiders.
Well, I can't believe 2 things. One, how long this is already and two, that I actually thought I could write about 3 weeks in Costa Rica in one post! I barely made it through just one week! So sorry! There will be more!
There are a ton more pics and video in Flickr, and I'm just now noticing that the link to Flickr on the blog is broken-I'll fix that!
Time to go feed the very pregnant sheep and goats and meet Keith for a beer after a hard week of not being on vacation. More to come!
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