You can sleep when you're dead.

Our time in Casa Kumbaya had come to an end, but our adventures in Costa Rica weren't over yet.  I made up a batch of my banana breakfast bread, and loaded the sleepy kids into the car very early in the morning.  Chad had booked an intense finale of a week for us, and it began with a drive to Drake Bay. 

The drive to Drake Bay was beautiful in the early morning. 

We met our boat on the beach.

These tour guides document the wild life they see as part of an attempt to make this area a reserve where fishing would be illegal.  They used a microphone to listen for Humpback whales in the bay, but no one was singing that morning.

We were able to see a few large pods of Spotted dolphins.  We even tried to get in the water near them, to see if they would choose to swim with us, but they were not feeling friendly.  The water was beautiful and emerald blue, and lovely to swim in. 

The guides spotted a shrimping boat in the distance, and we drove towards the flocks of gulls and boobies to see what the shrimp boat had left behind.  

We found thousands of small bottom-dwelling fish, floating on the surface of the water. The shrimp boats drag their chains and nets along the bottom of the ocean, scooping up fish, and destroying the ocean floor as they go.  They drag all the fish on board, pick out the shrimp, and then throw the rest of the dying fish back into the ocean.  It seems like a lot of destruction to collect a few shrimp.  Maybe I wont be eating shrimp anymore. 

We stopped for lunch near a waterfall, and spotted more dolphins in the area.  

It was a nice long day on the boat.  It would have been even better if we had seen Humpbacks, but it was pretty awesome nonetheless. 

That night, after we checked into our hotel, we met up with "The Bug Lady" for a night time bug tour.  This woman is so knowledgeable about bugs,! Her boyfriend and fellow tour guide was equally knowledgeable about frogs, birds, and other wildlife.  It was just us and one other family with small children in our group, so we were able to go at the kids pace, and we saw tons of awesome wildlife.

This was one of the first things we stopped to see, and also one of the strangest.  This is a cricket which was infested by a tiny spore.  The spore takes over the nervous system of the cricket, even supplies its host with antibiotics and vitamins, so that it is healthy before the spore kills it.  The spore entices the cricket to climb high into a tree (not a natural instinct of the insect) and once high enough, the spore kills the cricket.  The crystalline structure of the spore explodes out of the skeleton of the cricket, spreading more spores to the area below.   Apparently crazy health-nut people eat these spore-y skeletons for an energy boost.  Weird.

We were really happy to see this Red-Eyed Tree frog before we left Costa Rica.  We had seen one before, but in the day time when it was sleeping, so we couldn't see its beautiful colors. 

Our guides had raised these baby tree frogs from eggs they had rescued from the side of a swimming pool.  They released them near where we found the adult tree frog.  Although they look brownish now, as they grow, they will take on the coloring of the adult Red Eyed Tree Frogs. 

This Bolivian Walking Spider is one of the most deadly spiders in this part of the world.   We didn't get very close.  It does look an awful lot like the big spider we found in our house a few weeks ago.  Eewww. 

The fact that our guide could find Trap Door Spiders like these seemed incredible to us. She claimed that if you look hard enough, you can just see the crack of the tiny trap door against the hillside.  After she propped the door open with her chopstick, the camera-shy spider quickly closed it back tight.  

Seems like such a happy beetle.

This is a Tail-less Whip Scorpion.  It was about the size of an adult woman's hand.  I know that because our crazy tour guide picked it up!

This Net-Casting Spider was one of my favorite things we saw.  She sets trip wires and then sits completely still through the night until an insect walks by.  She then, quick as lightning, stretches her small net-like web, and snags her dinner.  We watched her finish making her net, and stretch it to test its strength. 

The next morning, after my first hot shower in a month (sooooo nice!) we had breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast I left by myself on a snorkeling trip that Chad had booked for me as a birthday gift.  It was both fun and strange to leave my 4 traveling companions for the longest amount time since arriving in Costa Rica. The boat I was on was for both snorkelers and SCUBA divers, and drove us about 30 minutes away to Cano Island which is a private nature reserve. 

The water was clear and clean, and I asked our snorkel tour guide, who actually got in the water and snorkeled with us, if he could help me see some sharks.  Sure enough, he pointed out a pair of White Tip Reef Sharks in the deep water below us.  They were about 6 feet long, and not the least bit curious about us.  Later on, we went to another dive site where we saw 6 or 7 more reef sharks, about the same size, which we were able to get much closer to. When I dove down I could get about 10 feet away from them, at eye level.  Again, they were not at all interested in me, but I loved seeing and swimming with them. We saw a large 12 legged Crown of Thorns Starfish which our guide explains eats the coral. There were box fish and various types of Surgeon Fish. There were lots of small, simple jelly fish in the water that didn't sting if you swam into them. We saw lots of other beautiful fish, most of which I have forgotten the names of.  The coral was not bright or colorful as I have seen it in other places, but the fish were great, and the water was crystal clear. It was a beautiful morning of snorkeling, and the sharks were the highlight for me! Remind me to buy an underwater camera for the next time I swim with sharks. 

After my snorkeling trip, we packed back into the car, and drove towards Quepos for the night. We stopped to say hi to the crocodiles along the way.  They were still there, under the bridge, lazying the day away. 

We realized this, the biggest crocodile on the beach that day, was missing a hand.  I guess it takes hard work to become the biggest. 

After a night in Quepos, we hurried along our way to San Jose.  We have so successfully avoided the capitol city, that we've missed a few attractions - like the National Gold Museum, that we wanted to see before we leave. 

San Jose is crazy, bigger than Salt Lake, and has every American fast food restaurant you could expect to see in the states. We even saw a Five Guys. It was hard to find a restaurant that wasn't American fast food. We were there on a Saturday, so there were lots of people out shopping, many with their kids buying school clothes since kids here go back to school next week after their "summer" vacation.

This McDonalds was huge, 2 stories, and had a separate window for desserts.

We decided on  a little convenience store / restaurant that had some fresh salads and veggies, and a pizza for the kids. They also had these cute little juice boxes that made us feel at home. 

The National Gold Museum

The next morning, after church we stopped at the LDS Temple in San Jose.  It was beautiful and small and the guard let us walk around the grounds.

We headed North, about 45 minutes outside the city, to the Poas volcano.  It seemed a lot like Park City.  It was cooler than the city, and much more rural, but not too far away. We had a beautiful view of San Jose and the surrounding suburbs from the volcano. 

There was a small visitors center with info on volcanoes and a few artifacts from earlier times. 

The trails to the crater were pretty and well maintained. 

There was a beautiful misty fog that settled in as we walked, making the twisted trees seem mysterious and exciting. There was a nice layer of moss on everything. These pictures don't even come close to doing this place justice. It was beautiful. 

When we got to the second crater lookout, the fog and clouds were so thick that we couldn't see a thing. We took pictures anyway. 

After the volcano, we checked in to our funky little hotel - El Churrasco.  We only stayed one night.  We wanted to be close to the fantastic hotel and gardens we would stay at the following night ... The Peace Lodge. 

This traditional ox cart is a symbol of Costa Rican agriculture. Carts like these used to haul coffee from the farm to the marketplace. 

When we were living in our first area, we met a family from Canada who told us that their last night in Costa Rica they were going to splurge and stay at a place called The Peace Lodge.  We checked it out and decided it would be a great last night for us too.  It wraps up a lot of the fun things we've seen in Costa Rica, and puts them in one spot.  It was fantastic.  

The Peace Lodge is a hotel, and a garden, and an animal reserve, and they have a couple of restaurants and 4 or 5 waterfalls.  Lets start with our room. 

The Peace Lodge is near the Poas Volcano, in the mountains, and stays cool all year round.  It is often a little rainy, that same beautiful misty fog that we saw at the Poas Volcano was here too. This fireplace was very inviting in this cool setting. 

Our porch had a little Jacuzzi tub.

The bathroom was the star of the show. There was a second jacuzzi tub, with a waterfall that you could turn off and on that ran behind the tub.  The skylights let in lots of natural light for the plants surrounding it.

To the left of the tub was a waterfall shower.  Because 1 waterfall just isn't enough. There was also a regular shower, and a water closet with a toilet and a bidet.  The kids had waaaayy to much fun playing with the bidet. 

Our room was called the Heliconius Sara, and this is the butterfly it is named for. 

Our view of the gardens and forest.

This is the pool area... more waterfalls and hot tubs.

This little pool had trout that you could fish for, and they would cook them up at the adjacent bar. 

All of the animals that live at the Peace Lodge are rescue animals. In Costa Rica it is illegal to keep any wild animal or bird as a pet.  If they find animals being kept as pets, they confiscate them, and if they cannot be returned to the wild, they come to nature reserves like this one.  The Peace Lodge has many varieties of birds, 2 varieties of monkeys, snakes, frogs, and a large jungle cat exhibit.

The bird house is a large tunnel that gives the feeling of being outdoors, but also offers these birds protection. These birds could not live in the wild, either because they cannot hunt for themselves, or they have been handled by humans for so long that they are not afraid of us as they should be.

The White Faced Capuchins were much more interactive than the Spider Monkeys. 

There was also a Mariposario - a butterfly house - which was awesome.

We watched this butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. 

We were able to help release many of the butterflies that had emerged from their chrysalises that day. It was so fun to hold the butterflies, watch them up close, and then watch them fly off. 

  

 

The Peace Lodge also has a hummingbird gallery with lots and lots of brazen little hummingbirds. They are not shy, or at all nervous about being near people.  They buzzed right past our heads, and darted in circles around the kids who were hoping they would land on their noses. 

After a while the guides put covers around the hanging hummingbird feeders, and passed out these hand-held feeders so that we could get an even closer look. I took WAY too many pictures. 

The frog house and the snake house were pretty cool. I liked that it felt like a garden rather than a zoo.  We had to be patient and look hard for the frogs. 

A sleeping Red Eyed Tree Frog

The snakes were in cages, thankfully!

This is the Fer de Lance, the one that I was so afraid of when we found the Boa on our roof.  They are incredibly deadly.

An eyelash viper.

There was a 'traditional house' with these oxen and the traditional coffee cart and information about traditional farmers in Costa Rica. 

The Peace Lodge covers a large area that includes a series of waterfalls.  The trail is nice and paved and mostly downhill.  They have a shuttle at the bottom to bring you back to the top, so you don't have to climb very many pesky stairs.  It was really nice with our group of kids.  Violet never likes to take the easy route.  She creates her own path.  

The coati mundis were waiting at the shuttle stop for tourists to beg from.  

And then we visited the cats.  Peace Lodge has Margays, Jaguarundis, a Puma, and a pair of Jaguars, all confiscated pets.

This Jaguar seemed to want to play with us. She was very pretty...

she was also a very good climber. She ended up playing tug of war with Chad for a while.  She must have been someone's pet for most of her life, because she seemed so ready to play. 

We enjoyed a swim in the pool before dinner. As we swam, the rain started and the clouds settled in. 

We ordered room service, but the food was so expensive that we just shared 2 dinners and a salad.  It was all very delicious and cozy next to our fireplace. 

The next morning we walked through the lovely fog to the breakfast buffet.

Luckily the hotel provides umbrellas for the guests. 

These pretty little birds watched as we ate breakfast on the covered porch.  

We didn't have a long time to hang out in the gardens before our flight, but I talked the kids into a small hike.

Michael wasn't too happy about hiking. Maybe he gets it from his dad. 

Our last stop before check out was to see the Toucans.  The Peace Lodge has 3 varities of Toucans - Rainbow Billed, Chestnut Mandibled, and Emerald Toucanets.  We had so much fun holding and feeding them and watching them hop around.

A Rainbow Billed Toucan

An Emerald Toucanet

A Chestnut Mandibled Toucan like the ones we saw in the Osa Peninsula.

"Bob" gave kisses for bird food. 

This is Stan, the grumpy Toucan. He doesn't like people. 

The Peace Lodge was an awesome way to finish our adventure in Costa Rica.  It was like a grand finale to an awesome fireworks display.  

Since we traveled on Rewards Miles, we had an awesome 2 days of airports and connecting flights that stood between us and home.  We flew from Costa Rica to Miami the first day, then from Miami to Dallas Fort Worth, and from Dallas to Salt Lake City.  It was a lot of flying.  The kids did pretty well, all things considered.  Lots of movies helped a lot. 

Home again, home again. Jiggety-jig!

My mom and dad picked us up from the airport and brought us to their house for a bowl of nice warm stew, which was nice because it felt really cold in Utah. 

  

Our sweet neighbors were kind to welcome us back as well. 

And just like that we were back to our "normal" routine.  Costa Rica is only 1 hour ahead of Utah time, so there wasn't much jet lag.   Michael was so eager to go back to school the next day and see all his friends.  He even made a Red Eyed Tree Frog valentine box for his Valentines Day party. 

Everyone was so happy to see Grandma and Grandpa.  Ella and Violet got used to the cold weather in a hurry as they scootered around the neighborhood with my mom.

Everyone asks if it has been hard to get back to "reality". In some ways it feels like we never left.  It seems like that happens any time I go somewhere... I wonder if it really changed me or if I'll go right back to the way things were.  I miss a lot of things about Costa Rica.  I miss the open-ness of our lives there... we didn't have school to wake up in time for, or scouts, or piano lessons or play groups or any of the really good responsibilities that fill our days. We could really do what we wanted, when we wanted. It was nice to see Chad so much every day.  I miss the ocean and the animals and the feeling of learning and adventure that was present in even the most mundane moments lounging around lazily under a tree full of Scarlet Macaws. But I love that i have hot water in my faucets and shower again.  I like going to the grocery store and finding my favorite foods, even if it is a little harder to find Mexican CocaCola. And I do think that the experience changed us a little bit.   I'm ready to de-junk my house because I survived 3 months with a LOT less. I like that I miss the feeling of being in the rain forest, and I hope that feeling encourages me to go back there soon. And I hope that I can find the adventures that are here in Utah, waiting for us. Because Utah is a pretty awesome place too.