Tortuga Y Tortugita!!

Yesterday (Monday) was a pretty amazing day. We met up with our friend Jenkay at Playa Grande as scheduled on Sunday. We stayed at a place called Faro Arriba (Lighthouse Up). It wasn’t really a light house but it was a pretty cool building with a private pool.

We headed out to the beach and Jen and I went for a walk while Damon tried his hand at boogie boarding. We had some tasty brews while we watched the sunset.

Yesterday Jen went for a beach walk and a boat ride to Playa Tamarindo and Damon and I decided to try some of the options offered at our hotel, Hotel Las Tortugas.

We rented a canoe and spent a couple of hours paddling around a nearby saltwater estuary while the tide came in.

Of course it started pouring rain almost as soon as we got out on the water- fortunately it was a warm rain. We were able to check out some side channels and saw a caiman which was pretty neat. The highlight was having a crocodile pass right in front of our canoe.

After a yummy lunch at Waltini’s (Hotel Bula Bula) we went and hung out at the pool at our hotel with Jen while Damon and I waited for our surf lesson. Our instructor was great- giving helpful tips while we were on dry land and calling reminders to us as we practiced riding whitewater. We were both able to stand up a few times (I made it up on my first try!) and it was a really beautiful afternoon with a gorgeous sunset and great waves for learning how to surf. Jen got some great rides on a boogie board- a great afternoon was had by all.

If that wasn’t all great enough, we had a reservation to check out some nesting leatherback sea turtles in the Playa Grande Marine Turtle National Park. The night before they hadn’t spotted any turtles so we showed up with a deck of cards prepared for a long wait while guides roamed the beach looking for nesting turtles. Miraculously after about 5 minutes they told us that we would have to see the introductory talk later because a turtle had been found and she was ready for us to go and observe her. We got to watch as the 1.36 m long turtle finished digging her nest, laid about 60 eggs, and covered her eggs back up. Some biologists and volunteers were there to count the eggs, tag the turtle, and take some specifications on her. If that wasn’t cool enough, as we were walking back to our vehicles a baby turtle which had just hatched was making it’s way down the beach to the ocean. No cameras are allowed at the turtle nesting so I don’t have any pics of that- but it was really awesome.

A couple of photos that I wasn’t able to get uploaded before. Sunset in Manuel Antonio.

The view from our bed at Milarepa, Malpais. (Thanks for the tip, Colleen!)

And a howler monkey that was passing by the hotel while we were getting ready to check out.

An iguana feeder in Playa Tamarindo (why have a bird feeder when you can have an iguana feeder??)

We’re heading up into the highlands tomorrow- checking out Arenal Volcano for a few days, meeting up with my cousin Carlyn, checking out the cloud forest in Monteverde and then getting ready to head back stateside on Tuesday. If Damon’s theory holds true (10% of every vacation sucks), then we have some bad days coming up- the past week has been pretty great.