This morning, I left my apartment in the dark at 5am to go on a day trip to Rio Celeste. I had a guide named Michael who picked me up and took me on the 2.5 hour road trip. He was young, but super nice and did a really good job with the trip. He asked me if I wanted to speak in Spanish or English. I chose Spanish, so I essentially got free Spanish lessons all day. It was really good practice.

Rio Celeste is a famous national park in Costa Rica because the water is a beautiful turquoise blue color. There is aluminum in the water that reflects the sun and gives the water color. It was cloudy today, so the water wasn’t as bright as it is in sunny weather, but the river and waterfall are in a cloud forest so sunshine is hit and miss. There is a lovely trail going to the waterfall, then more trails that take you through the forest. It was a pretty good hike. There is a long staircase going down to the waterfall. Once you’ve taken pictures, you have to go back up. There were stairs in other places too.

Rio Celeste is in Tenorio Volcano National Part. The waterfall is on the volcano and there are three volcanos in the area. There is another river that runs into Rio Celeste, and it bubbles in places with heat and sulfuric gas that come out of the ground. It’s a beautiful area, but it smells pretty strongly in places like rotten eggs because of the sulfur. The picture below shows the point where the two rivers converge. You can see the color change between the clear, sulfuric water and the aluminum water.

There were quite a few people out hiking the trails today. A lot of people from San Jose, the capital, bring their families. It’s an inexpensive way to visit a natural area. I also met a French guy who took a picture of me with my guide, so I got to practice a bit of French. The only draw back to this area is the bugs. There is a variety of insect that my guide called chiggers. They aren’t like chiggers in the US. They are more like large gnats. When they bite, they take a chunk out of your skin and leave you bleeding. Fortunately, my guide had some bug spray that worked really well, but I was bleeding in several places before I got it sprayed on.

After we left the park, we drove around the area looking for animals. There’s a lot of wildlife diversity in the area. We didn’t see any animals, but it’s a beautiful area with striking geography. You are surrounded by three huge volcanos covered in vegetation. Along the way, we came across a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. I had seen pictures of these, but I had never seen an actual tree and I didn’t know they grew in Costa Rica. They are amazing! They hardly look real! I couldn’t get a good picture of the one I saw, but I’m posting an internet picture below.

For lunch, my guide took me to a fantastic, family-owned restaurant. It was an open air restaurant in a forested area and there was a small trail behind the restaurant. I had a traditional Costa Rican dish called a Casado. I ordered mine with fish but you can get other meat, usually chicken. It’s beans, rice, meat, salad, fried plantains and Costa Rican cheese. It was delicious! I don’t usually like fried plantains, but even these were good. The region we were in specializes in raising tilapia and dairy cows. So the fish was fresh and the cheese was made in the region with milk from local cows. I don’t know how to explain Costa Rican cheese. It’s good, has a mild flavor, but is a little rubbery. Picture is below.

My guide had been looking for sloths during our drive. This region of Costa Rica has a lot of sloths but they are hard to see. They are basically little gray fur balls that curl around gray trees. On the way home, on the side of a busy road, my guide spotted one. I have no idea how he saw it high up in a tree while driving the car. It was impressive. We pulled off the road in front of a run down house with a sort of run down looking guy with no shirt on out front. He started waiving at us, and we weren’t initially sure whether he was friendly or not. He ran into get a really dirty shirt, while I took the binoculars to look at the three toed sloth. When he came back out, he invited us into the yard because there was another sloth lower in a tree with a baby. She was all curled around the baby, so I couldn’t see the baby or get a good picture but it was cute. The owner of the junk-filled yard then offered to give us a tour of his property because sometimes there are toucans in the area. He had a small dirt path behind the house that ran beside a river. We carefully avoided the cow maneur, climbed under a barbed wire fence and entered a small wooded area. I didn’t understand most of this guys Spanish. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t speaking well-educated Spanish that you learn in school, but he was really proud of his trail by the river and his small wooded spot. He likes to fish in the river in the evening. He seemed mostly lonely and was happy to have people to talk to and appreciate a place he loves. It was nice of him to invite us and I appreciated the tour. I also love sloths!

I made it back to my apartment around 4pm. I was messy, covered in bug spray and bug bites, so I decided to go swim for a little while. I think the salt water helps with bug bites. The ocean was really choppy today with sizable waves. It’s fun to be in the water with waves rolling in, but it makes for rough swimming. You have to decide quickly whether to jump above the wave or dive under. Otherwise, you get water up your nose. When I got back, my landlady brought me a box of strawberries grown by someone she knows. That will be part of my breakfast.

Tomorrow is the last activity I have planned. I’m going dolphin watching and snorkeling again. Hopefully the water will be calm enough for snorkeling. I’m posting pictures below. There are several, so I’m going to try doing a slideshow this time.

I had so much fun snorkeling and dolphin watching yesterday that I decided to go back to the tour shop today to set up some additional tours for the rest of the week. I had planned to do horseback riding, a nighttime turtle watching trip and another snorkel trip. When I got there, I noticed that this tour shop also does day trips to some other parts of Costa Rica, and they look amazing. I talked to the tour guy and he recommended that I do an overnight trip to a national part at Rincon then spent the following day at the Arenal Volcano. I told him I wanted to think about it, but I went ahead and booked horseback riding for this afternoon. I spent all day trying to decide what to do about the overnight trip. It’s very reasonably priced, I would have a private guide, and overall, it seemed like a good deal. But, it’s also a lot of time driving to various locations. It would be about 5 hours each day in a car. So, I’ve decided to do a single day trip. I’ve never been to Rincon so I’m going to go there, see the waterfall and do some hiking but still be back at my apartment by supper. I think that will be fun and less exhausting than the two day trip.

I went horseback riding at 3:30pm. I probably should have asked how long the horseback riding trip was, but it was already 3:30 so I thought it couldn’t be that long. As it turned out, it was three hours of the slowest riding I’ve ever done. My horse was big and beautiful. His name was Canelo (Cinnamon), but he was in no hurry to get anywhere. I spoke to him in three different languages and none of them had any effect. He also preferred to walk in the weeds as opposed to the road, which meant he kept running me into trees. At one point, my guide yelled “watch out, that one has thorns,” and sure enough, it was a beautiful, flowering plant with some pretty solid spikes on the stems. I had to do some sophisticated acrobatics to avoid being skewered. It also rained on us for a significant part of the trip. It started raining fairly soon after we left. My guide was an elderly guy missing some teeth, he seemed unbothered by the rain, and assumed that I wouldn’t be bothered either. He noted that it was raining and we kept on going into the forest. I don’t actually mind the rain and it made things cooler so I was okay with that. After three hours, when it started raining again, I was feeling less okay about it. I went for a run this morning, then did weights, then did three hours of riding. I think every part of my body will hurt tomorrow. It hurt to sit down in my chair for supper tonight and I doubt that situation will improve by tomorrow.

Even though the horse riding trip was too long, we went on some beautiful trails that I didn’t know existed here. If you know where to look, you can find some really amazing trails, but you need to live here to know where they are. My guide took me up on some huge bluffs overlooking the ocean. It was foggy and raining and beautiful. At one spot, you look down and there’s a huge section of volcanic rock that looks like it just flowed into the ocean. The water around it is clear and blue. My guide said it was a good place for fishing. He likes to fish. We also briefly visited a turtle hatchery. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any baby turtles but it was neat to see the effort to increase turtle populations here. My guide didn’t speak English, so I got some good Spanish practice. He seemed to know everyone we met along the way. He grew up here, so he probably does know everyone.

I’m completely exhausted again tonight, but overall it was a good day and tomorrow I’ll go set up my trip to Rincon. I’m hoping to go there on Wednesday. I’m posting a few pictures below. I had already been rained on by the time these were taken.

When I got up this morning, I had no plans and I wasn’t sure that I’d have anything to post tonight. I had one picture of an iguana on my animal cam, which was not interesting at all. The raccoons didn’t even come back last night! Since I haven’t gotten any good pictures, I decided to try exploring the woods behind my apartment. I found some plastic chairs in the yard, I tossed one of them over the concrete wall behind the apartment and climbed over. The woods looked pretty thick, but once I got in, I found some trails and clear spots. By accident, I came across a trail that someone has cleared relatively recently to get big equipment into the woods. I think the property is for sale and it looks like someone is planning to build something. It’s fantastic for me because there is this really nice trail that goes up to the top of a hill with a beautiful view of the ocean. From there, I was able to climb some other hills and do a bit of exploring. I’m not sure whether the area is currently being cleared or had been cleared in the past and is just starting to grow back. It’s a really neat way to get safely into the woods, as long as I don’t get caught by whoever owns it. I set my animal cam up back there and I’m hoping to get some better pictures. There were animal tracks in the mud. I also want to explore the trails early one morning. I’m more likely to see animals then. I saw some howler monkeys this afternoon but they were high up in trees above town. I’ll have a better chance of seeing them in the woods in the morning.

I was a sweaty mess after my hike this afternoon, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon at the beach. It was a perfect day to be in the water. The water was warm, relatively clear and the waves weren’t too rough. I’m hoping the salt water will minimize the mosquito bites I got while hiking. I probably need to get some bug spray.

Tonight for supper, I decided to go to a restaurant that I like right on the beach. It serves typical Costa Rican food. I really wanted some fish and this restaurant has good fish. It’s an outdoor restaurant so you get to eat outside and watch the sun go down over the ocean. It was lovely and my fish was delicious! I also had lemonade with mint. Overall, it turned out to be an interesting day. I’m posting a few pictures of my hiking trail and my dinner. I took the daytime ocean pictures from the top of the hill I climbed, but it’s hard to tell how high up I am. In one of the pictures, you can see an island in the distance. I’m pretty sure that’s where I’m going snorkeling tomorrow.

There’s a baby gecko running around on the wall of my apartment beside my bed. I hope it eats ants. I’ve been thinking that I should capture one and let it go in the kitchen, so I’m excited that one has moved in on its own. Maybe it will invite some friends.

I accidentally ordered vegan ice cream today. I’ve really been wanting some ice cream, so after lunch, I found a little shop that said “homemade ice cream.” I didn’t notice until after I ordered that it also said “vegan.” I’m not sure what’s in vegan ice cream. It wasn’t bad. It had a good chocolate flavor, but it didn’t melt. It was cold and mostly had a texture like regular ice cream, but it was scorching hot today and my ice cream didn’t melt. It had a very thick, silky texture, so it must be made with some sort of plant-based oil. I need to look it up. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but it is convenient that it doesn’t melt here.

I checked my animal cam this morning. The little agouti was back but I mostly had pictures of raccoons. The raccoons here are exactly the same as raccoons in the United States, so the pictures were pretty boring. The squirrels are at least uniquely colored, but not so with the raccoons. I’ll post a picture below so you can all verify that the raccoons are exactly the same.

I signed up for a snorkeling trip today. I’ll get to do that on Sunday, so that should be fun. There’s an island close by that’s supposed to have good snorkeling. The trip will be dolphin/turtle watching and snorkeling. I’m looking forward to it, although last time I tried to do a boat trip here, everyone in the boat, including me, got seasick. I think I have some Dramamine that I may take ahead of time and I’m hoping it will be a better boat or calmer water. The water around the island is supposed to have a good variety of fish, octopus, rays and other animals so I’m looking forward to going.

I got up at 6:30 am to go check my animal cam, get breakfast from the bakery and lift weights before class. I’m not usually a morning person, so I’m completely wiped out tonight.

So I had a series of small mishaps today. Nothing serious, just some minor annoyances. It poured here last night. Apparently there is a leak in my roof because I woke up at some point with water dripping on me. The leak must not be really serious because it didn’t last long, but it kept me up for a while. I need to tell my landlady so she can get it fixed before the rainy season. I went for a run this morning and the humidity must have been 95%. It was like breathing through water! I still had a good run, but I was drenched by the time I got back.

Yesterday, I bought some bread and delicious raspberry/pomegranate jelly. It’s a unique combination that goes well together. I had some for dessert last night and more for breakfast this morning. After breakfast, I left the bread on the kitchen cabinet. It was in a wrapper so I assumed that would be okay. When I got back from Spanish class, it was covered with millions of ants. The ants are terrible here. You can’t leave food out at all! And they bite! They are tiny, but for their size, they have quite a bite. So, tomorrow I have to go get more bread and keep it in the refrigerator.

I checked my animal cam this morning. I had a few pictures, but they aren’t really clear ones. I think it’s an agouti. An agouti is a small rodent that eats fruit. The picture is below. The rain probably kept other animals away and my cat food was soaked this morning. I put out some watermelon and more cat food this afternoon, but it looks like it’s going to rain again tonight, so I may not have much luck. It’s the dry season, so it’s unusual to have rain like this.

I spent some time at the beach and had Spanish class, but it was a slow day otherwise. I’m getting ready to eat supper and have some chocolate and tea. Hope everything is going well for you all!

Short post tonight, mostly to explain why I’m not posting interesting animal cam pictures. Apparently, I badly positioned the camera yesterday so it did not take pictures of whatever animals ate the cat food I put out yesterday. I repositioned the camera three times this morning and I think I have the problem fixed. I put out more cat food so hopefully I’ll have pictures tomorrow. They might just be pictures of stray cats, I’m not sure. It’s raining right now so I don’t know how that will affect things. I may have deeper water to wade through in the morning. The rain is definitely not good for my clothes drying on the clothesline on my balcony!

I had a really busy day, but I didn’t do anything too exciting. I found out that my Spanish teacher, Maria, who is about my age, started doing Aerial Silks classes six months ago. Aerial Silks is a form of acrobatics that you do hanging from silk ribbons. Here’s a picture from her blog.

Maria’s young daughter started doing Aerial Silks a few months earlier. On the beach here in Samara, there’s usually a woman teaching Aerial Silks to girls. It’s really neat and looks like a lot of fun. It’s easy for kids because they are like little flexible monkeys. They twist and spin with no trouble. As all of you will understand, this kind of activity gets harder the older you get. Maria decided to try anyway and she loves it. She has ribbons set up at her house now so she and her daughter can practice. I think it would be fun to try. People who are good make it look beautiful and really easy, but it takes a lot of strength and flexibility. Maria says it’s great exercise.

I went to the beach this afternoon to swim and soak up sunshine. It was a beautiful afternoon but not many people were on the beach. There was a tiny little boy out on the beach with his dad. The little boy was stark naked and trying to be brave enough to run into the waves. I don’t think he had a lot of beach experience. There was a French family with two little girls behind me unsuccessfully trying to make sand castles. They were having fun though and the whole family was very elegant. There are some truly beautiful people here. It can be hard on self-esteem. Almost everybody has tattoos and most of them are unique, interesting and well-designed. The woman who made my fruit drink for lunch yesterday has a moon and stars on her shoulder and a very delicate dragon on their thigh. She is very pretty, and the tattoos are eye-catching.

Okay, I guess that’s all I have. I’m posting a few pictures. My breakfast this morning was a chocolate/banana croissant with cheese and strawberries on the side. I also managed to get a picture of a squirrel. The squirrels here are really interesting and multi-colored. This one was committed to eating a gourd in the tree beside my balcony.

I had a fairly eventful morning. Brandon let me borrow one of his wildlife cameras so I can see what kind of wildlife lives in this area. My landlady was really excited about the idea of setting up a camera and sent me seven emails about animals that I might see. Her apartments are surrounded by wooded areas, so that all seemed perfect.

When I got here, I discovered that she has a concrete wall behind her house and there is no way to get around it. She suggested that we rig up some ladders so I could climb over. That would have worked, and I was willing to do it, but there are no trails or even clearings behind her house. I wouldn’t mind clearing my own path, but I only brought tennis shoes, shorts and tank tops to wear here. In most of the US, you can walk through the woods relatively safely. Here, a significant portion of the wildlife is venomous. There are fer de lance pit vipers, eyelash pit vipers, poison dart frogs, scorpions, and a whole range of biting insects. After surveying the situation, I decided to look for another option.

As it turns out, there is a seasonal creek down the road a little ways. I asked my landlady if it was safe to go there and she said she sometimes walks there with her four chickens. I have no idea how she gets the chickens there. You have to walk down a very busy road with no bike path to get there. It seems like a dangerous place for chickens, but they’re still alive so I guess it worked out. She also told me to watch out for crocodiles. During the rainy season, it sometimes has crocodiles, but this is the dry season and there isn’t enough water for crocodiles. Otherwise, she thought it would be a great option.

A small path goes down into the creek bed and it’s mostly dry right now. After exploring a bit, I ran to the store and bought some cat food then retrieved my water shoes from my apartment. I waded up the stream a ways, installed the camera on a tree near a dry spot and made a little clearing for the cat food that I’m hoping will attract animals to the camera. I don’t know if anyone ever visits this creek. Hopefully the camera won’t get stolen and I’ll have some interesting pictures to post tomorrow when I wade back in and retrieve the memory card. I’m expecting a bunch of raccoons and coatis, but maybe there will be other things too. I might add some fruit with the cat food next time.

Samara was without water for part of the day because the city was working on the water lines. I wasn’t sure how long I wouldn’t have water, so I didn’t go swim since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to shower when I got back. That worked out okay because I needed to write a letter of recommendation for a student. I got some useful work done while I was waiting for the water to come back on. My landlady knows someone who grows strawberries so she ordered a carton of strawberries for me. They were delicious once the water came back on and I could wash them.

After I finished my work, I went for a long walk on the beach. Lots of people bring their dogs in all different sizes. They seem to have a wonderful time playing in the water. There are also lots of people here with small children. The kids, even the babies, play in the water and build sand castles. It’s really cute. There are bazillions of tiny snails in different sizes with different kinds of shells. This afternoon, there was also a big flock of brown pelicans and some sea gulls fishing. It’s fun to watch them dive into the water. I don’t know how they see the fish.

Rather than cook my own supper tonight, I decided to go across the street to an Italian restaurant. I got an arugula pizza with pancetta, goat cheese and mozzarella then a lava cake and vanilla gelato. It was good and I have leftovers supper tomorrow.

I’ll post a few pictures of my meal and the creek where I put the camera. Nothing too exciting.

Hello All! I’m in Samara, Costa Rica for the next couple of weeks, so I thought I’d do a few updates. This trip won’t be quite as interesting as some of my others because Covid limits what I can do. Bill also could’t come this time, so you only get updates from me.

I rented a small apartment from a Canadian/American woman who has lived in Costa Rica for the last eight years. It’s a lovely apartment on the second floor and I have my own balcony in addition to a small kitchen. A couple of years ago, a hive of African killer bees moved into the wall of this apartment. African killer bees are extremely aggressive and very dangerous, and they made a giant hive in the wall. The fire department sprayed them with Raid and the wall had to be completely torn out to prevent ants and other creatures from moving in to eat the honey. As a result of all of this, I’m staying in a lovely newly renovated apartment!

My landlady explained that she discovered the bees because she was in the apartment with a man. He ran out of the shower naked with a swarm of bees trailing him. They had come in through the bathroom window. It’s an interesting story, but more information than I needed. Once the bees sting you, they put a pheromone on you that can’t be washed off so the bees continue to attack for days. It was two days before the fire department could come remove the bees so my landlady and her friend were trapped inside by a swarm of angry bees.

The Samara fire department is severely underfunded so all they had were padded suits, Raid, and a step ladder to deal with the problem. The stepladder wasn’t tall enough, so they put it on top of a rickety table. That still wasn’t tall enough, so they put cinderblocks on the table and the ladder on top of that. I told this story to Bill, and he thinks they need to hold a pancake breakfast.

My landlady worked in Mexico for a while and has lived in Costa Rica for 8 years. She speaks the worst Spanish I have ever heard. I think she understands Spanish a little better than she speaks, but her spoken Spanish is spectacularly bad. She has a young Costa Rican guy working for her so I’m listening to a conversation right now. There’s a lot of English mixed in with some of the worst-pronounced Spanish imaginable. She’s definitely a unique individual. Very nice and with an interesting life, but unique.

I started Spanish lessons today. I’m only doing an hour a day plus homework. The lady who usually sells lunch at the school in the truck of her car isn’t doing lunch right now, so I found a food truck near the school that’s inexpensive and has delicious food. I got a falafel salad and a drink made of orange juice, pineapple juice and coconut milk. I’m planning to be a regular there for the next two weeks. There’s also a fruit stand down the street from me with fantastic mangos and watermelons. My landlady has chickens so I have fresh eggs and fruit for breakfast.

I went for a run yesterday morning. It was a really pretty area with wild growing lantanas. Costa Rica needs some bike paths though because I had to keep jumping into the weeds to avoid getting run over by tour busses. There are some serious hills here so it was a good workout! I saw an entire Costa Rican family on a small motorcycle. I managed to rub a blister on my heel yesterday so this morning, I found some edging stones in the yard and used them in place of weights. I did a pretty good weightlifting session on the balcony with the rocks I found in the yard. My family gave me an enormous amount of delicious food over Christmas and now I need to work some of it off. I’m not sorry I ate it though.

People here don’t seem too worried about Covid. It’s unclear whether there are any cases in Samara, but this is high tourist season and there are surprising numbers of people here from all over the world. I’ve heard American English, British English, German, and French and some of the Spanish speakers also seem to be tourists. People wear masks in stores, but yesterday there were volleyball and soccer games going on the beach and the restaurants seem pretty busy. Three people just rode by on unicycles.

I’m headed to the beach to swim in a little while. There was a coati in the yard this morning so I’ll post a picture below. I have video too, but I don’t know if that will post successfully. I hope all of you are doing well and had happy holidays!