Day 10 -
Wednesday: At Mary's insistence, we did a local zipline tour.
Then, in the afternoon, Mary, Martin and Jan flew an ultralight with
a local pilot. It was the cutest little plane you ever saw, and lots
of local traffic stopped to watch as they landed.
Martin about to
takeoff in the ultralight. The "wing" on top is powered
during
take-off, then auto-rotates for the rest of the flight for stability
and lift;
vertical landings are possible. Wow.....this was cool!
Day 11 -
Thursday: We went on a kayak trip with local guide Popo down the
Rio Oro, into the estuary, and finally into the open ocean. After
some serious paddling, we made it back to Playa Carrillo. We stopped
at a beach along the way, got lots of good nature information, and
caught up on lots of local happenings.
Popo's son takes a
break while paddling on the Rio Oro before entering the estuary leading to our exciting
and beautiful ocean kayak trip, as Robin scans for
birds and
crocs in the jungle.
On our short walk
home we saw a huge crocodile just down the road from Dave's house
(!!), and there was a little phosphorescence in the water when we
later returned to the beach to wash off our bug bites. We have
learned that the ocean water seems to kill the local chiggers, so
we're spending more time in the water.
We found out that
the restaurant just up the road from Dave's is both excellent and
inexpensive.
The beaches we visited
were gorgeous; perhaps the finest in Costa Rica
was visible from Dave's front porch, and provided us with body
surfing,
snorkeling, and a multitude of beautiful shells which will soon
become
art in the capable hands of Mary.
Day 12 -
Friday: At Mary's insistence - again! - we did another zipline
tour, this one in Nosara. This tour was much longer than our last
one and everyone had a great time, except that Dave stayed home to
take care of all sorts of business at his house.
During the
previous day's kayak trip, we had heard from Popo that there was an
"arribada" (a whole bunch) of turtles coming to lay eggs at Ostion.
Supposedly, 8,000 turtles per day were arriving. So we drove there,
asked for directions, and were told that the turtles only come in at
night! We went down anyway, to eat lunch, and fortunately one turtle
obliged us by coming to the beach and laying her eggs. Hundreds of
turtles swam in the nearby estuary, waiting for nightfall. A local
said he had come down the night before, and the beach was solid with
turtles. Holes were everywhere, as were empty shells from where the
local vultures had unearthed and eaten turtle eggs.
We ran across this
giant sea turtle on day 12 as she began to dig in before
laying her eggs. She appeared unconcerned about our presence.
Some of us did a
little snorkeling in the evening. We saw bright blue, almost
luminescent fish, sergeant majors, and other colorful sea life.
Particularly interesting were some puffer fish and a couple of
juvenile barracudas.
Day 13 -
Saturday: We made our way back to the Liberia airport, where we
were reunited with our wayward blender and its pal the mattress pad.
But it caused bag searches on the return trip, too! Delays getting
through Immigration and Customs almost made us miss our flight back
to Albuquerque, but Dave's persuasion got us on the plane.
Zipline Canopy Tours:
Ziplines start
with steel cables strung from platforms. In Costa Rica, the cables
run through and above the rainforest. You sit in a climbing harness
suspended from the cable by a pulley, backed up with webbing and
carabiners, and ride the cables from platform to platform. Everyone
is equipped with a leather glove for braking, and is clipped into
something at all times, with guides doing all the clipping in.
We first did the
Arenal Canopy Tour, near the Arenal Volcano. It was a rainy day. The
platforms were located very high up in very tall trees, and the
rides were spectacular - long, high, and fast. The only slight
downside was that the rain loosened whatever lubrication had been
applied to the cables, and transferred it to us as we zipped along.
We ended up dirty, though happy.
Jan above the canopy
on one of the medium length sections of ziplines
found in all three of our canopy tours. Our speed was so high
(up to 40 MPH) that we easily got to our forward destination unless
we panic braked. Each tour had up to 12 zipline sections. We
tried forward, backward, upside down, and multi-partner glides.
Our next zipline
tour was closer to Dave's house, in Samara. This was a family
business and was charmingly funky. Our friendly young guides, who
wore flip flops and surf shorts, served us pineapple, watermelon and
cookies midway, on a swaying and somewhat rickety tree platform. We
heard but could not see the guides' brothers installing a new line
nearby, in the jungle. The rides were fun, moderately fast, and
mostly within the forest canopy but with some great ocean views. The
descent from the final platform was a fast rappel / fire ant dodging
experience.
The last zipline,
Miss Sky Tours, was near Nosara and the sea turtles. Cables were
attached to concrete pillars rather than trees, so we started and
ended every line on land. We soon learned that starting on land
gives the advantage of a running start, to add some speed. These
rides were the longest, going from side to side of a canyon, over a
river. Very beautiful.
In fact there are
ziplines closer to home, for example:
We wonder if they
have the same appeal as the rainforest canopy tours.
Back to Part 1
