The Inbetween

Happy Birthday to Me!!! I am 34. No big landmarks this year... just middle of the pack thirties. It was a pretty good day, all things considered. We had almost the whole house packed up, because it was also moving day. After we loaded up the car, the kids gave me presents that they had picked out. Violet gave me a pretty beaded hair pin, Ella picked out a purse because she had seen me looking at them, and Michael gave me a foot from an ancient pot that he had found on the beach.  I had wanted to find one, and when he found it, he had kept it a secret all week.  He was pretty proud of himself!  Chad gave me a bracelet I had been eyeing, a set of wooden bowls, and a snorkel trip when we arrive in Osa Peninsula. I felt loved and happy and spoiled.  We said good bye to our cozy mountain house, and went to breakfast. 

This was a self pic of Ella that I found later. I like it a lot.

If you are ever in Rio Piedras, Costa Rica, you should eat at Cafe y Macadamia for breakfast. It was sooooooo good.  It is a restaurant owned by some people who also own a Macadamia nut farm.  All their baked goods had macadamia nuts in them, and the back patio, which looks out over the lake, and is surrounded by orchids, was covered in Macadamia nut shells.  Our breakfasts were beautiful and delicious, and we wished that we had found the restaurant sooner.  

After breakfast it was time to hit the road.  We had decided to stay 2 nights in Nosara, on the Nicoya peninsula, just to see what all the fuss is about.  Nicoya is one of the more popular tourist attractions in Costa Rica, and also a favorite among Costa Ricans getting away for a long weekend.  It was supposed to be about a 3 hour trip.  It ended up being longer for us.  Here are a couple of the things we saw along the way.  I love watching for street art while we are driving from place to place.  I liked this series a lot.

We missed our turn off to go to Guatil to buy pottery.  If we had made the correct turn the first time, we wouldn't have ended up being rear-ended in a 4 car collision.  No one was hurt, and we were clearly not to blame, but we still ended up waiting on the side of the road for honestly 4 hours while the traffic police and insurance investigators did their thing.  It was a long hot afternoon. We would have had a really hard time understanding what to do, and what was expected of us, if it had not been for the 2 men in the yellow jeep behind us. They were Costa Ricans, but spoke English as well as I do.  They translated for us when we didn't understand the police officer, and helped us avoid a problem with the insurance man realized that our rental car's registration had expired 4 days earlier.  They stayed an extra hour until we were ready to go.  They were seriously amazing!

This was the only damage done to our car.   The yellow jeep behind us didn't have any damage at all.  The Audi behind them was damaged the worst.  The black car at the end was going too fast, and possibly bumped everyone else in to each other.  

Ella found a puppy, which helped the time go by a lot faster.

Waiting for the traffic police. 

We finally made it to Guatil.  It is a small town, off the beaten path, which is completely devoted to making pottery the way their ancestors did.  

This man showed us step by step how the clay is mixed, and the pottery is made. The clay is made from a mixture of soil from a special mountain, and iguana sand from a special beach.  It is hand mixed.  He showed us how they throw the pots on their own funny hand turned pottery wheels. This wheel was made from the inside of a ceiling fan, a gear from a car distributor, and the hot plate from an electric stove top. 

He used a small, dried corncob to pull the clay up.  

He made the whole pot in about 2 minutes. It was really cool. 

This is some of his finished work.  We bought a little pitcher that I forgot to take a picture of before he wrapped it up nice and tight in bubble wrap.  It is really pretty. 

By the time we made it to Nosara it was dark, but we could still see that it hadn't rained in this area for a long while.  The dirt roads coughed up dust every time a car traveled down them, to the point that every tree and street sign was covered and unrecognizable.  We missed a couple of turns because the street signs were so covered with dirt that we couldn't read them. Even at night it was sweaty hot. But we found a couple of cool bugs as we walked in to our hotel, and a frog on our back patio, and that lifted everyone's spirits considerably.

The next day we went to Ostional beach, and we were excited to find it was low tide.  We love tide pools!

A small lobster.  Too bad he wasn't bigger, or we could have had a really nice lunch.

We call it a puffer fish. I'm sure she has a more specific name.

A baby octopus. 

A tide pool full of awesome shells.  Most of these had been claimed by hermit crabs.

We are calling it a sea slug. We really should find the correct names for these things. 

This guy hung out with us while we ate lunch at a little nearby soda. He even took bread from the girls' hands.

The sunset was beautiful, and being in the water after the sun went down was cool and nice.  We played here for a while and then drove back to Ostional to see if we could find an Olive Riddley Sea Turtle laying her eggs. Just a week ago there had been an "arrivada" where thousands of sea turtles arrive together and lay their eggs over the course of a few nights.  The largest arrivada on record included 500,000 turtles over the course of a week.  People who have seen it, say that you are literally tripping over turtles on the beach.  We were unlucky, and didn't find any. 

On the road again. Next stop: Quepos, near Manuel Antonio National Park.  But first, a quick stop to count crocodiles under the bridge.  We got to 45. They were fatty-fat-fat crocodiles.

Our hotel in Quepos was really nice. Our favorite feature was that they had a great restaurant right next to the pool.  The kids swam, while we waited for the food, and we all swam again as soon as we had eaten.  My little fishes are getting pretty good at swimming. Ella can swim across the pool the long way by herself, and Violet can swim about 6 feet as long as Chad and I are close by. 

Our least favorite part of the hotel was that the Jacuzzi was kept cold, on purpose.  Huh????

Some cool restaurants near Manuel Antonio park. This one had a pizza oven made with recycled glass bottles.

This restaurant had an entire airplane inside.

Manuel Antonio is like the Disneyland of Costa Rican National Parks. It is packed with people and guides and vendors.  Luckily, it is also packed with animals.  Since we only had a few hours to spend here, we paid a little extra for a guide, and we were richly rewarded. 

A helmet-headed iguana

This Eyelash Viper was seriously right next to the main path (maybe a foot and a half away from where my kids could have been walking).  He is poisonous, although not often deadly.  

A howler with a baby on her back.

We are pretty sure this is the daddy Howler.  Just a guess.

A white-faced Capuchin in a papaya tree.

3 sleeping fruit bats

A baby sloth.  We were able to watch this cutie for a while in the telescope that our guide had.  He was fluffy squishy teddy bear cute. This was the first time we've seen a baby sloth.  His mother was right behind him in the tree. 

At the end of our hike, there was a beautiful beach, overseen by protective Capuchin monkeys. 

On the shorter trail back to the car, we saw this Mexican Porcupine. He was apparently very itchy, as he spent most of his time scratching.

We didn't see any crocodiles, but we liked that they were there, somewhere. 

After another couple of hours in the car, we finally made it to the Osa Peninsula.  Our first views of the Golfo Dulce were beautiful, and as if on cue, a pair of red Macaws crossed over head.

This is our house!  The owner has named it "Casa Kumbaya". It is right on the beach.  It has no exterior doors.  Most days we love it. 

We have come to accept insects as our welcome committee.  This big grasshopper was waiting for us inside the bug netting on Ella's bed. Welcome to our new home!!!!