Monkey raid

We should have known better.....Eileen and I went out for lunch today and left the shutters open on the house. When we came back there was sugar all over the counter. We found the container outside, sitting on top of the shutters. The sugar seems to have been the only casualty though, so no big loss. What really should have tipped us off was the abundance of monkeys this morning. There are howlers everywhere, as well as spider, squirrel, and white faced. I've got some piercing video of the howlers in action from pretty close range.

Howler in action

All played out from the howling

The connection speed isn't great down here, so I'm going to save the video for home. They were in fine form today.

While I was watching the howlers, a nice group of toucans came through and gave me some nice silhouettes for picture taking.

Finally a good shot of a toucan

Woodpecker from our morning walk

I want to call this a pileated woodpecker but I know that's not the right. I looked it up before lunch, and now down on the beach, I'm drawing a blank on the correct name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch at Encanta la Vida

The girls are testing out the collectivo system this morning. We're going to taxi into town tomorrow, but they want to restock, thus it was only Eileen and I for lunch today. We went up the road a short distance to Encanta la Vida, we'd stopped there on our walk this morning and made a reservation. They only cook one item for lunches, and today it was chicken fried rice, fries, and salad. Nice meal, pleasant setting, and they offered me seconds, which I took.

Now we're sitting down on the beach, reading, blogging, and watching the tide go out. Little bit of a breeze down here, something that there has not been very much of. Still haven't seen a mosquito yet either, maybe the cicadas eat them, haha. They're too busy rubbing their legs together to eat anything. Tomorrow it's off to PJ for the boat tour, then a late lunch in town, some touring around, grocery, beer, wine restocking, and home. Tonight is pizza night at Martinas

 

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More hiking

Like they say on Biggest Loser, " I got my burn today", and for once for me anyway, it doesn't mean that I got the next shade of red in color. We've been putting on the miles along the trails here. After breakfast this morning we followed the trail, locally known as a road, down to Playa Matapalo. This is probably the nicest walk, apart from the waterfall hike, that we've been on. It's popular, we met up with two small groups that were being led by local guides.

Sloth with baby on her stomach

The highlight on the hike had to be a sloth that was slowly working her way down a tree to the ground. Apparently, they descend to the ground about once a week for a bathroom break, then it's back up to relative safety. These animals really move in slow motion. It's hard to see in the photo, but there is a baby clinging to her stomach.

We also had our first good look at a group of howler monkeys but my pictures didn't turn out that good. I've played with the camera since I got back and am now ready to try a few different things to counter balance the back lighting.

 

 

 

Dylaina and her sloth imitation

 

 

Playa Matapalo

White faced monkey

For lunch today we headed up the hill behind us to Lapa Rios. This is a very "eco-lodge" kind of place, with a stunning view. We passed by a group of white faced monkeys on the way up the hill.

 

 

Lunch at Lapa Rios

Lunch at Lapa Rios

Fish of the day was Sea Bass, one of my favourites. I had fish tacos and the girls all had a fish sandwich. Pricey, a bit over cooked, but still pretty good. We had planned on taking their hiking trail back to the waterfall for a swim, but when we asked about a map for the self guided trail, they told us that the trails were only for house guests......guess if we want the waterfall again we'll have to come back in on Wiliams trail through the stream.

From the viewing platform at Lapa Rios.

Nothing planned for the rest of the day. Tomorrow the only agenda item will be pizza night at Martinas. The day after is our boat trip and a grocery re-stocking. The pantry is getting lean and the grocery list is growing.

I hope these pictures are coming through OK. I'm cutting the files size back to about 640k, just to help with the upload. I did look at the published blog yesterday and see that I have some spacing issues that don't show up in Blogsy when I'm doing up the draft version.....

 

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Waterfall hike

We'll start by backing up to yesterday. We came back from the beach about mid-afternoon and hung about the house, with a couple of beer and showers then headed down to road to Martinas for supper. It was about a fifteen minute hike on the road until we got to this roadside bar that we'd past on the way here the day we arrived. There were about twenty people there, almost all ladies. Turned out they were having a baby shower for the cook. Lyn was one of the women there, and she soon joined us at our table where we all had a beer and a nice chat. The nights menu soon got put up on the board, the highlight being either fresh tuna or mahi mahi. Dylaina loves fresh tuna but was afraid that it would not be cooked right, she likes her tuna rare, but when Betty ordered the mahi mahi, she decided to go for the tuna. The food arrived pretty quickly and when Dylaina cut into her tuna, her eyes lit up and she just said "It's cooked perfectly..." Betty, Eileen, and I all had he mahi mahi, and everyone thought heir meals were fantastic. Far above the expectations that you have when you sit down at a roadside bar like this.

Martinas bar

The Super Bowl was on, but quite honestly, hardly anyone was paying much attention to it until Beyonce came on at half time. The guy that seemed to be controlling the TV cranked up the volume so that most of the Osa penninsula could hear it. Oh well, the show didn't last too long. We headed back shortly after half time. The road on the way back had hundreds of crabs crawling across it, many of whom were now road kill. Apparently they go down to the ocean to lay their eggs and then head back up into the rainforest. There were dozens of them around the house when we got home too. Very colorful little guys.

Crab on the road

Bonus when we got home was that there was no cicada activity. Not sure why, but there was none of them around. They are still here and very active today though. Got up early this morning, no surprise there, had our breakfast and then William came along for our morning hike. We headed back towards Martinas, and then headed up the stream that we had crossed last night (foot bridge). The rain forest was incredible, and impossible to capture on camera. Just the vastness of green and the enormity of everything around you.We did not see any impressive mammals, but there were some interesting little creatures like this spider and her mate.

Female spider in her web, with her tiny male mate

The female in the picture is probably about 2 1/2" in length.

We saw a couple of poison dart frogs that were both pretty tiny, one black with green spots and one black with an orange stripe. By then I'd switched lenses on the camera and did not have the reach required to try a photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was quite warm walking in the rain forest but at the end of the trail there was a pretty little waterfall with a nice pool at the base. We all came prepared, and in we went for a refreshing dip.

Preparing to get cooled off

 

The girls having a dip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were gone for about 2 1/2 hours and when we got back the house was getting cleaned for us. They do this for their guests every three days or so. We had planned to get Leda to come and prepare supper for us tonight, but we've postponed that for a couple of days until we go back to town and re-stock. We've eaten a lot of the ingredients in the one dish that we were going to get her to prepare.

Boa Constrictor near the house

Right after we got back from the hike, we had two visitors, first Lyn came and asked if we would consider moving down to Casa Linda; they're going to ask those guests if they would move up to our place which is a bit more secluded. They want to try and relocate that couple with the 10 month old baby that isn't very happy about being here. We said sure, but they're still waiting for a decision from the other couple. The second visitor was William again, who told us that a big boa constrictor had just been seen down by Casa Bambu, which is about 200 metres away. He was stretched out pretty good, but I didn't get a good picture until he'd curled up in a tree root. In the picture, his head is just peeking out in the very center, you can just see his one eye. He was about six feet long.

Chicken on the bbq tonight and lunch planned for up at Lapa Rios tomorrow, that's a resort that is up on the hill behind us. The girls hiked up there yesterday and found the view to be stunning.

 

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Cicada warfare

We noticed a few cicadas the first night, coming in the windows, attracted by the lights in the house. Yesterday though, they came out with a vengeance. Hundreds of thousands of them up in the trees, all rubbing their legs together constantly during the daylight hours. The hum was driving Eileen crazy. As we sat down to supper and darkness fell, there was silence. Then a few started appearing in the house. Rather than ignoring them like we did the first night, out came the egg flipper and down started to go the cicadas. After supper we went out to the deck and played cards. It had clouded over and then started to rain quite hard. Turns out cicadas don't like the rain, and when it started they headed to the house in droves. We closed up the shutters, killed off the last of them and carried on with our card games. It rained hard all night and then in the morning it was pretty quiet. We'd thought that maybe the rain had wiped them out, but they've stared up again about mid-morning, although they're a lot less vigorous this afternoon. Down here on the beach, it's pretty peaceful.

What a difference there is here between high tide and low tide. At low tide like it is right now, the shoreline moves out something like 100 metres in places where the water is relatively shallow. Betty went fishing for awhile this morning, she now sees why she was getting snagged so often.

We were saying just this morning that we had not seen any of the white faced monkeys yet. I looked out over the deck while we were having lunch and saw one straight out from the deck, right above the yard in front of the house. We headed out to the deck for a look and saw that there was a whole troop of them coming. Probably 20 or so. Most of them eventually peeled across the yard on the dead run, but there were a few jumpers that leapt a long distance to get across the open area. We probably watched them playing for fifteen or twenty minutes.

 

Some of them are relatively cute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some of them are not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is something alive almost everywhere you look around here. We had about six toucans flying about the yard yesterday and today there seems to be quite a few Scarlet Macaw.

Costa Rican turkeys, not sure what the real name is.

Tonight I think we're going to go up to Martinas bar, have supper, and watch some of the Super Bowl. I'll have to check for game time when I go online to post this. Tomorrow I think we're going to get William to take us out of his waterfall hike. They only charge $25 for a group to go, so that's a bargain for a guided tour in the rainforest.

 

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We arrived!

It was a bit of a journey, but when you select a destination that's a little off the beaten path, you have to expect that. Betty and Dylaina were a bit delayed in Toronto, but that wasn't a problem since we were all overnighting in Houston. We got into San Jose a little early the next day, and made it to the smaller airport with a ton of time. The flight to Puerto Jiminez was about 45 minutes late, something about a plane with a flat tire on a runway. The flight (twin otter) was completely full, so they trucked all the luggage to PJ. Somehow, it got brought out to the house in the middle of the night, and we got it this morning.

Our driver was waiting for us at the PJ airport, a quick stop close by for a block of ice that must weigh 50 lbs. It came out to the house on the roof of the taxi. Did our grocery shopping at the main market, something like $450, but the girls figured that half of that was beer, wine, and rum.....oh well we're on holiday.

Up the steps to the main floor of the house, and Wow, pictures just don't do this place justice. There was a message waiting on the table to radio Kirk. He came up to the house and gave us a quick rundown. Lyn stopped in a little later, she'd been up at Martina's for their Friday night whoop up.

The front of Casa Pina, ocean view side.

Comfortable beds, one 3:00 commotion from the Howlers, then it was relatively quiet until they got serious about 5:00. Got up, made coffee, went for a walk. Gorgeous deserted beach about 100 metres down in front of us. Incredible numbers of pelicans, in the water, in the air, and roosting in on big old tree.

Pelicans roosting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once everyone was up and had their coffee, we all went for a walk. There are numerous beaches here, separated by rocky points. They're all connected via either trails or roads, if you wish to call them that. 9:00 at the beach, and is it ever hot. Very little breeze, and bath tub like water temperatures. By noon we now have a bit of cloud and a nice breeze.

Time for lunch, then down to the main house where the wifi is, and we'll see how this goes through. It seemed so easy with all the help screens.....but I find out that you have to be online for that to function...

 

Spider monkey next to the house

 

 

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Pre-amble

Enough with the Monkey Lalas, be they the reptile version or the frozen and shaken version.  This year we're changing things up a bit and are heading to the Osa peninsula at the southern tip of Costa Rica where there will be monkeys of a different nature; Howlers, Squirrels, White faced, and Spiders, not to mention Dylaina.  Actually Dylaina, Betty, Eileen, and myself.  We have a place called Casa Pina rented for two weeks, you can google Casa Bambu if you want a preview. 
I've started the blog a bit early; I'm hoping to take just an Ipad along with us and I want to do a little  experimentation to see if I can work an app called Blogsy, and put up posts on here.  I'm hoping to be able to delete these experiments, but if the next couple of entries here look a bit unusual, well I'm just playing......