Day 8 - Monday 3/11 - La Fortina to Playa Herradura

We were up at 6:15, packed, dressed, put our luggage out at 7 before going down to breakfast. We loaded on to the bus and headed out at 8 for the long drive to Los Suenos Marriott at Playa Herradura. The sun did come out but we ascended and descended into clouds before we got halfway there. There were fields of produce and an area where ornamental plants are grown for export. Most fences use trees for fence posts. They are pruned periodically and make for an interesting sight. We went through lots of small towns with many schools and sodas (what they call the small neighborhood restaurants).

San Ramon was a larger town with a lovely church and an interesting school called Escuela Jorge Washington with a carving of the quarter likeness of George Washington over the entrance. We made a quick pit stop there at a very large souvenir shop with an amazing garden on the hillside behind the shop.

Then we headed toward the ocean. It was a much drier landscape with lots of beautiful produce stands. We stopped at noon for lunch at Restaurante Nambi in the town of Tarcoles - another tourist restaurant with a buffet. As we arrived they were having a 2 girls/1 guy dancing show. I thought it was rather a feeble attempt at "Las Vegas". The buffet had pasta salad, green salad, rice and beans, arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), plantains, small boiled potatoes, baked fish, and some sort of strips of beef cooked in a sauce. The neat thing was the tamarind juice which most people disliked, but I really enjoyed.

At 1 we boarded 3 tractor drawn carts for a 20 minute ride to a boarding area for a ride on the Tarcoles River. We saw some neat lizards, especially the Jesus Christ lizard. Most of the birds we saw were common to Florida - spoonbill, various herons, egrets, jacana, osprey, snowy egret, and the magnificent frigatebird soaring overhead. The river is full of crocs, and we did see one that was really 16' long and came quite close to the boat. Grackles are considered a pest bird, and we saw plenty of them. I really liked the black necked stilt and the spotted sandpiper. We meandered down a mangrove creek where I saw some neat looking crabs. Then we headed back to the landing.

We drove a half hour to Los Suenos Marriott arriving at 4. It is a huge property on the edge of the Gulf of Nicoya and the Pacific. Check in took a while, but we got to our room. It is very humid and hovering between warm and uncomfortable. Bill and I walked the grounds and sat under a large tree out by the large beach. There was lots of hotel security at the boundary of the hotel and the beach.

Dinner was at 7:30 and was really quite nice. It was outside on a covered terrace and was a served dinner. We started with a caprese salad. This one was a huge tomato sliced thinly with the cheese in between each slice, so it looked amazing. Then it was cut into quarters from the top down with a sprig of basil on top. I had ordered blackened sea bass (which really wasn't blackened). It came with some delicious polenta, cooked spinach, and mashed potatoes. For dessert we had a passion fruit cheesecake which I didn't love. We made it back to the room at 9pm. I wrote in the journal and hit the bed.

Day 9 - Tuesday 3/12 - Playa Herradura

The alarms went off at 5:30am, dressed, and went to breakfast. This was a really high class breakfast buffet with Bill declaring his waffle the best ever. I had some cereal and a banana and an egg Florentine on a polenta round. It was quite good. We had to sign a receipt even though it was included in the room. The charge was $55 for the two of us for breakfast!!!!!

The buses took off for Manuel Antonio National Park at 7am - a one and a half hour drive. Cathy R and I talked cameras. We passed lots of hotels - some huge - that have never been completed due to the construction bust. We passed lots of African palm fields which replaced bananas after banana companies had labor problems in the 1950s and left the country. These palms are used for oil. We even saw truckloads of the basketball-sized spiny fruit that was in an Amazing Race challenge season 4.

We arrived at the entrance to Manuel Antonio at 8:40. The crowds were enormous. Everyone needed a potty break in the 2nd world bathrooms. Women had only 1 stall so it took a while. A local woman named Karen joined our group as our spotter and guide. She did an amazing job!!! As soon as we entered the park, a white-faced Capuchin monkey played in the trees down low right in front of us. Then we saw a neat tree iguana. Spotting animals in this dense forest is not easy. The trail was a .8 mil loop with the first half on a rock and dirt road about 15 feet wide. Most of the crowd went straight to the beach, so it didn't seem horribly crowded.

Karen found us a really cool zig-zag spider on his web and then a paper wasp nest high up in the canopy. We saw our first sloth which photographed as a dark blob high in the trees. The big sightings were some red-backed squirrel monkeys moving quickly from tree to tree. Just a bit farther we saw another sloth high up and I got a few better shots. Our next sighting was of 3 proboscis bats asleep high in a tree. I really loved seeing the green vine snake that was along the road. It was a really thin, solid bright green snake about 5' long. He almost came down on to the road towards us, but Karen herded him back into the woods where he moved quickly away.

Another really cool sight was a mama mantled howler monkey with a baby. I got a fairly decent photo of them since they were on a limb that was more open. We finally (after only a half mile of fantastic sightings) reached Manuel Antonio beach where many in our group were going to swim. However this beach was closed due to a croc sighting there that morning. So we continued to another close by beach, Espadilla Sur, where many in our group went for a swim.

I had brought my suit (Bill forgot his), but I just didn't want the hassle of changing from a wet suit back to dry clothes. The non-swimmers hunkered down on logs in the shade and tried to cool off. It really was bloody hot. When I went 10' to take a photo of our guides, a capuchin monkey unzipped my backpack, grabbed the plastic bag with my swimsuit and took off thinking there was food in the bag. Bill tried to stop it by swiping my hat at it but was unsuccessful. Luckily when the monkey discovered no food, he dropped the bag 5' away.

After a half hour at the beach, one of the guides, Jeff, led the non-swimmers back to meet the bus. There were a few vendors on the beach where the buses were, so I got a green coconut to drink, and Bill got a shave ice. The guy was hand-shaving the ice with an interesting tool. Bill and I both enjoyed our treats as a way to cool off.

A few more people arrived, and our bus took off for the Anaconda Restaurant a few miles down the road. Once again it was an open air restaurant high on a hill overlooking the Pacific. I got a watermelon smoothie recommended by Bernal. For lunch I got a warm fish wrap which was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had. The tortilla was fresh, the fish was fresh and tasty, and it also contained cream cheese, avocado, caramelized onions, and lettuce. The whole thing was grilled and then some wonderful sauce was drizzled over it. I ate the whole thing. The other two buses had arrived, so we were way ahead of them. After our plates were cleared, a waitress brought me (and only me!) a Tres Leche!!!! I had been bugging Bernal that I really, really wanted one, and so far no restaurant had it. I was ecstatic. It was soooooooooooooo good that I didn't care that I was the only one eating a dessert (and I didn't share!!!). In a few minutes the others got dessert menus, but no one in our first group ordered the Tres Leches. I did learn later that others down the table ordered it and loved it!!!!

We left for the hotel at 2pm. I was on the right side of the bus to get some pretty mountain photos. I also got a photo of dead palms. After about 25 years when the palms are no longer producing, the trees are injected with some kind of poison made from oranges, and the trees die. A whole section of dead trees/fronds made a neat photo.

We also saw a small pond with lots of wood storks and spoonbills. We got back to the hotel about 3:30. After going to the room, I went out to the unused massage huts to empty my shoes of sand. On the grass by the walkway was a cool looking ctenosaur.

We got cleaned up and went to dinner at 7. We sat with Cathy and Bill R, Judie and Stephen G, and Bernal. We had a lettuce corn salad. I had a small filet with ratatouille, and rice. For dessert we had some kind of crustless lemon meringue pie. Having dinner a little earlier was nice which gave us some time to relax.

Day 10 - Wednesday 3/13/13 - Playa Herradura

The alarms went off at 6:30am, and we were at breakfast by 7. I had oatmeal with a banana and a wonderful pork tamale. I also had a small piece of frittata that was okay. The bus pulled out at 8 for Carara National Park, about a half hour away. On the roof of the hotel we saw a kiskadee - a gray fly catcher. It was building a nest in a palm tree. We were on the trail at 8:30. It was a warm, humid hike, and we did manage to see a few things in this forest.

First was a howler monkey sleeping on a branch in a great viewing position. A bullhorn acacia was an interesting bamboo like straight tree with huge thorns. Ants live in these thorns and have a symbiotic relationship with the tree. When the tree is disturbed, the ants come flowing out to defend it. Another interesting tree was the cajones tree whose large round fruit come in pairs like cajones.

A great sighting was the pale-billed woodpecker, a large black and white woodpecker with a huge bright red head. The Ceiba tree was a huge tall tree with an amazing top spread out like an umbrella. We did see a troop of Capuchin monkeys leaping around, but there was no theft today. An interesting iguana was resting on a limb near the trail. As we were on our way out, our guide spotted a white ghost bat on the underside of a large leaf high up in a tree. We left the park at 10:15 before it got unbearably hot and drove through the town of Tarcoles where Bernal thought we might see some scarlet macaws. No macaws, but we did see an old man riding an ox cart. I spotted a sign on the side of his cart saying "Photos for Tips".

When we got back to the hotel at 11, I wandered the grounds and spotted an amazing variegated squirrel that I had missed photographing on Monday. It has a very gray back and an amazing copper colored stomach. Lunch at noon today was a special meal on tables set up in the shade outside near the ocean. It was a buffet with fresh chunks of both tomato and avocado, a mango ceviche (tiny chunks of mango and tomato marinated in line juice), cajun potatoes (thin sliced potatoes with maybe some paprika or red pepper sprinkled on them), rice and vegetables, fried chicken breasts (quite good), and beef/onion skewers with chimichurri sauce. Dessert was fresh pineapple, papaya, and watermelon along with a coconut flan.

At 12:30 I went to the business center to write emails with yesterday's journal. Back in the room we changed clothes and headed out to go ziplining. There were 15 of us who chose this activity over a canopy tram tour. We left at 2:15. No one in our group had ever done this before, so there was some trepidation along with anticipation.

We arrived at Vistas Los Suenos, at 2:30. We signed our waivers and got suited up with all the rigging, gloves, and helmets. Forty of us piled into a truck pulled by a tractor. It was like being in a cattle car. We rode for 15 minutes on a bumpy, terribly dusty ride to the top line. There were 11 lines coming down. We had our instruction briefing:

1) Right hand goes on cable way behind the pulley

2) Left hand grasps straps down from the pulley

3) lean way back at least 50 degrees as far back as straps allow (I had trouble with this one!)

4) cross ankles and pull knees up.

Breaking is done by the hand holding the cable by pulling down on the cable not clenching it.

The gloves are made of leather and have 3 thicknesses. One rests the right hand on the cable, letting the cable flow freely which keeps one from spinning. On each platform was one guy that both caught us coming in, dismantled the harbingers, moved us around the platform, hooked us up again, and sent us off.

We were all a little intimidated by all of the instructions, and our first few lines were quite awkward. My problem was remembering to lay back. Bill found the zip-lining to be more work than fun. For me, it was an experience I was glad to have had, but I didn't find it that thrilling. I also felt it was an activity where one was flying so fact that nothing interesting could be seen.

A photographer took photos of everyone during the trip and sold photos at the end. One printed photo cost $20, but a CD of both Bill and me (19 photos) was just $30. Of course I bought the DC. That will be fun to see when we get home.

We got back to the hotel at 5:30 and had to be cleaned up and ready to head for dinner at 6:30. Dinner was at Villa Caletas, a lovely boutique hotel, in their dining room Anfiteatro. Villa Caletas was about a half hour away perched on cliffs overlooking the pacific. Unfortunately it was dark, but the restaurant was lovely. We sat with Bill/Cathy R, Ross/Karen A, and Steve and Donna B.

We started with mango smoothies. My appetizer was creamy fish croquettes with a lime sauce on a mixed green salad. For my entree I got mahi mahi wrapped in plantains served with orange/ginger sauce, jasmine rice, and vegetables. Bill got pork tenderloin. For dessert we both had chocolate Madagascar terrine served with rhum sauce (ie chocolate mousse).

We got back to the hotel at 9:15. I packed up and wrote in my journal. Bill will pack in the morning before we head back to San Jose.

Day 11 - Thursday 3/14/13 – Herradura to San Jose

We got up at 6:15 so we could finish packing and get our suitcases out before 7. We went down for breakfast and sat with Bill and Cathy. I had cereal and an interesting and tasty dish. The Marriott had taken a tall, skinny shot glass and put cottage cheese on the bottom, then tiny diced plums, topped with a banana puree. After we figured out how to eat it (tiny spoons would have helped), it was really quite good.

The buses were loaded, and we were on our way to San Jose by 8. The drive was much shorter than I thought because we were at the Gold Museum by 10. I wanted to walk to the Mercado (central market), but no one would go with me. So I went through the Gold Museum, taking a closer look at what I had missed on Tuesday 3/5. I also left the museum early to take some photos around the Cultural Plaza. I especially liked my photo of an elderly gentleman selling lottery tickets. The government gives out licenses to the handicapped and elderly to sell lottery tickets, and they get a portion of the money they collect.

We left the museum at 11:20 and drove to San Isidro, arriving at Siba chocolate plantation and restaurant at 11:50. We were welcomed by Julio and George, 2 friends, who founded the company. It was rainy, misty, and much cooler when we arrived, and we were seated at tables in a lovely covered porch area with fireplace.

Bowls of diced avocado and tortilla chips were placed on the table and then a lovely spicy tomato soup was served for us to put the avocado and chips in. That was really tasty and great to serve on a cool, wet day. Next was a buffet with a bean, tomato, lettuce tortilla in a red sauce. There were also fixings for a salad: onions, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, and lettuce. For dessert they served small squares of a corn cake with whole corn and coconut topping with some lime zest. The lunch was quite good.

When the plates were all clear, we were each brought a plate with 8 pieces of chocolate plus a roasted coffee bean. Then Julio started the chocolate lecture by hacking a cacao pod open and letting us suck the seeds. George had to break in periodically to keep Julio on track, but both men were quite informative. They finished by showing some of their products wrapped in cacao paper. George demonstrated how some of their stuffed chocolate is made. Many people bought lots of chocolate. Bill bought a box of 9. It was a delightful final activity.

We left Siba at 2:45 to head back through San Jose to our hotel arriving about 3:30. We were thrilled with our new room because it was much closer to the lobby. We had our final dinner as a group. It was a buffet in a separate room. Everyone decided it was a lovely ‘alternate’ trip. Email addresses were collected, and we all went to our rooms to get ready for early morning pickups to the airport.

The trip home was uneventful. Our heads were spinning with all that we saw and did. Even without the ship sailing (which we hope to do in December), we had an amazing time.