The Pacific Coast

We stayed in Playa Samara for five days. We went down to the beach most of the days and swam and walked and collected shells. It was very beautiful. It was shaped like the letter C and there were big rocky cliffs on both ends. The beach was smooth and yellow and the waves were amazing. People were surfing all around and they were cool to watch. One person looked like Obi Wan Kenobie in Star Wars. The town was not very big, but had a lot of restaurants and things to buy. The helado or ice cream was very, very, very good. We went to 2 different places to get it. One was Restaurante Coco and the other was an ice cream parlor. Both were muy rico! We also swam in the hotel pool and we met a nice girl named Hannah from Costa Rica and her parents.

We left Samara and headed south to Manuel Antonio also on the coast. The roads around MA were great. They were twisting and turning and up and down because there were many cliffs along the ocean. You had to be careful crossing because of big buses crashing around corners. We stayed at the Blue Monkey (Mono Azul). It was very nice. It had a great restaurant with an awesome breakfast burrito and free coffee all day for mom and dad. There were 3 pools there but we only found 2, so maybe they were exaggerating.

There is a national park right nearby that we walked into. We say animals really up close. Here is a list of some of the animals:

Baby sloth

Adult sloth

Howler monkeys

Capuchin monkeys

Squirrel Monkeys (they are endangered)

Coatis

Agoutis

Raccoons

Hermit crabs—there was a whole beach full of them and you couldn’t tell who they were until they moved. But if you were patient, you noticed the whole beach moving.

Fiddler crabs—these were so fun to chase. I almost caught them but they are so fast!

There are some beaches in the park that you have to hike to and it is almost impossible to get there because it is so steep and the trails are sometimes washed out and there would be no trail. At these beaches they were deserted, no one was there…just monkeys and crabs and us! Later we went to a closer beach and there were many people and we put our stuff under a tree like an umbrella and a raccoon and then a capuchin monkey tried to take our food. The monkey was hanging out in the tree above us. The waves were so much fun. They were not white cap waves, they were hill waves and you could be carried by the waves in and out to sea, but not too far. We met 2 girls at the beach named Allison and Emily. It was really fun telling stories and floating in the waves.

We had a TV in our room and we watched all kinds of show from the United States but in Spanish. We could still understand some of it. We started drinking a lot of Sandia batidos con agua, which is like a smoothie made with watermelon and water. They are muy rico and refreshing! They are also good with pineapple and mango and banana with milk.

After Manuel Antonio we drove inland to San Gerardo de Rivas way up in the mountains. Part of the road was very steep and bumpy, all rocks and we needed four wheel drive to get up. The area is very mountainous and the biggest mountain in Costa Rica, maybe Central America is there. We didn’t climb it by maybe next time. It is very hard to climb and it rains a lot and gets very cold. We only stayed one night but hiked around and saw the cloud forest mountains. The towns up there are very small, but they still have a football field and there are crazy rivers and many boulders. The hotel we stayed in was built on top of a giant boulder and the rooms were made of rocks. They grow coffee up there and you see these big bins where they collect all the coffee beans (they have to pick them by hand) until there are enough to fill trucks. I can’t imagine how those big trucks get up the hills.

The next day we drove back to Orosi and stayed in the hostel owned by our language school. The hostel is so much fun. A hostel is a place, like a hotel, but people share a kitchen, a dining area, living area and bathrooms. And there are quiet hours and everyone gets to hang out together. Hostels are great. We met a family at our hostel and there are 6 of them. They are from France and there are 3 boys, 1 girl, and parents. Their names are Maxime, Lucas, Hugo, Lilou, and the parents are Lydia and Stephane. They are so nice and we played with them all afternoon. We played cards, we taught them spoons, and ran around in the street. We are excited about being back in Orosi. We went for a hike Sunday morning and found a little town where we watched a football game. That’s what people do on Sunday. It was very muddy and fun to watch.

 Yesterday our French friends and our family hiked to the river and the natural hot springs and beach. It was so much fun. At the beach we swam and swam. There were rapids on both sides of the beach, but we swam across the river to the other side and all the rocks. You could feel the river pulling you along and you had to swim hard. At first, dad and Stephane carried Lilou, Ceallan, and me. But then, we started doing it on our own. We would all swim at the same time, all 10 of us. I loved it, even though I got sunburned. We are so happy to be in Orosi and to meet new friends.

Yesterday was sunny all day, but you know it rains a lot here, and it stormed and stormed last night. We love you all and will write soon.

Leaving Orosi

We left Orosi on Saturday at 7 am. Our last week of school was the most fun. Ceallan and I made lots of friends and the ladies at our school gave us lots of treats. We hiked with our teachers to the river and a natural hot spring. We had to hike through coffee fields and it was really fun. The sun was really bright and it was so warm. The hot springs were really warm. The weird thing was that it was right next to the big cold water river, so you could be in both warm and cold at the exact same time.

On Saturday we dropped off Ella and Alyssa at the airport and they looked sad. Ronny (from our first hotel in Alajuela) picked us up and we stayed there that night. We got a car and the next morning we drove north to Sarapiqui, where Meghan (my uncle’s friend) and her family live. They have an eco-retreat alongside the Rio Sarapiqui, which is a beautiful and fast water river. If you went into the middle of the river you could have fun being pulled away by the river’s rapids. The road we took was unbelievable! At first it was a very calm drive through farm land as we drove up into the mountains. Then it began to get rough. It was like driving on the moon! There were big craters and giant boulders and landslides and sometimes no road at all. I shouldn’t even say “road”, I should say trail. There were actually two ways to go, the calmer way that went through cities and our way. But of course, Dad was driving and he likes to be a risk taker. It was kinda fun but also seemed a little dangerous. There was a huge waterfall that we stopped at and it was really beautiful and you could see rainbows over it. The road hugged the side of the mountains and on the other side were cliffs, and if you swerved you would be a goner. But the views of the mountains and valleys were incredible!

Once we got to Meghan’s, the bridge to their place was out (at least to cars) so we had to hike in a little ways. Their place was so cool. They had a great kitchen and bar and hang out place and a gift shop. Everything was open to the world, except it all had a roof. We stayed back in the jungle where you could hear howler monkeys in the morning and birds. There were lizards and little neon green and black poison dart frogs. At night we had our own natural mosquito protection—BATS! The bats at night would swoop around us while we ate and later as we slept. You see, some bats lived in our house up in the ceiling. When we would wake up in the early morning, lying in bed, we would see bats flying around our rooms, over our beds and heads, eating their late night snack.

We hiked in the jungle and we got a little muddy. There was a great swimming hole in the river, just below some rapids. There was a nice little sandy beach. The second day we went for a chocolate tour (another one). It was awesome. To get into the reserve we had to cross another hanging suspension bridge and it was really long. And best of all you could rock it. I love that. We ate cocoa in three different ways. We first had hot chocolate, which we could add different flavors like chile, corn meal, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon. I chose the corn meal and vanilla and it was the absolute best. It did not taste like corn, it just tasted like fantastic and fresh hot chocolate. It was so fresh because we had just roasted the cocoa beans and ground them up. Next we tried creamy liquid chocolate and finally we had fresh chocolate bars that were shaped like dog paws, turtles, leaves.

Every morning we eat rice and beans all mixed up together. This is called Gallo Pinto, which means spotted rooster, and it is so good. And we would usually have eggs and sometimes fresh homemade corn tortillas. We also have lots of fresh fruit like papaya, pineapple, and watermelon and fresh squeezed juice. Mom’s and dad’s favorite was the pineapple juice. Sometimes we would have pancakes and bacon.

Our last day there we went…WHITE WATER RAFTING! We went down the rapids of the same river we swam in, the Sarapiqui. It was so much fun. We went down really, really fast water and there were sometimes BIG rocks and BIG waves. Our guide was named Jose and he was very nice. We sat right in front of him so that he could always see us and be extra safe. Sometimes we would have a swim break when the river was calm. But it only lasted for 30 seconds or a minute because then big rocks and rapids would come. Halfway through we had a break with a snack of fresh papaya and pineapple and delicious watermelon. I ate the watermelon and pineapple. There was a 15 foot cliff right over the deep water river. I jumped off all by myself and we have pictures. The water was cool but that was just fine because it was a hot day. There were three different teams and a couple of kayakers who were our safety patrol. When we would pass a boat we would all do a water fight and splash each other with our paddles. Then we got back and dried off and went to a farm, sitting in the back of a big farm truck. It started to pour down rain while we were in the back and we all got soaked. But Meghan and her kids (LLuvia and Aiden) got wet and really muddy. At the farm we had a big lunch of fried fish, cabbage salad, fried plantains, fried yucca (like a hashbrown), and fresh salsa. Everything was outside under a big awning, and the fireplace and outside stove was really neat. After lunch we went fishing for Tilapia and we used soda bottles with fishing line wrapped around them. They were so hard to catch. I only caught one, but usually when I fish for bass, walleye, perch, or pike, I catch about 20.

The next morning we had a big breakfast and we were a little sad to leave. We drove to Playa Samara on the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful drive. We drove out of the mountains and towards the coast. Sometimes the fields and plains looked like Africa with green hills behind them. Yesterday we went to the beach, but after a few minutes there was a huge storm and everybody got out. It poured and we got soaked getting back to our hotel. We had a nice hot shower and waited for the rain to quit. We played and talked and then went to a pizza place and they were very nice there. Right now we are just relaxing and it is raining again. But then again, it is the rainy season in Costa Rica. And now we have another adventure in front of us.

A trip to a volcano

This is our last week in Orosi. Yesterday we went to see a volcano, the biggest one in Costa Rica. Our tour guide’s name was Luis and was also our taxi driver that picked us up from the airport. Luis only speaks Spanish so we have to listen carefully and had dad help translate. But it’s fun. We actually stood on top of the volcano and looked into the crater. If it blew up we’d be goners. But it didn’t. I think I felt a rumble from time to time (haha). It has exploded before in 1963 when the President John F. Kennedy was here. The surface on the volcano had lots of black sand, which is actually ashes from the explosion. It reminded me of the time if the dinosaurs. There were three huge craters, nobody could climb into or out of them, they would die if they tried. Ceallan saw big chunks of the volcano, she said they looked like meteorites. After that Luis brought us a snack, cookies, coffee, delicious juice and fresh papaya and pineapple. The pineapple and papaya was so delicious. We noticed an animal that looked like a raccoon with a longer tail that stood up in the air. Dad said it is called a coati. Ceallan saw little baby coati’s following their parents she said they were so cute. The coati’s tried to steal your food, so Luis brought a plastic bag and when the coati got near us he would shake the bag and Ceallan and I made howler monkey noises. That really scared them away. One coati got into a trash can and it looked like the trash can had grown a tail. It found a big chunk of cheese. It reminded me of a raccoon.

Daddy pretended he was a T-Rex and we were duckbills running across the volcano and we pretended to jump into the lake to swim away. The dirt was just like in the days of the dinosaurs.

Ceallan is going to tell a story: one day there was a big mean T-Rex and Ailsinn and Ceallan, two duckbills decided to go see Mr. T-Rex but Mr. T Rex was not that happy today. So the duckbills decided to go for a swim with their babies and the T Rex caught an eye on them. The duckbills swam away. The T Rex started charging after them, flump, flump, flump. The duckbills swam under water. And then the duckbills got away. The T Rex ran into the water but sank down because he can’t swim very well. THE END

After we went to the volcano, we drove back down for about an hour but it was great scenery. Our ears popped. You could see down into the valley and there were mountains all around. We could see many towns, like Orosi, Cartago, Paraiso and even San Jose- which is the capital of Costa Rica. If it wasn’t cloudy we could have seen both oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific from the mountain. So imagine being that tall! After that we went to a woodcarvers house. It was completely made of wood and the staircase was made out of logs and we could see them carving wood. We bought a few carvings because the wood is coffee wood because there are a lot of coffee trees here.

We went to lunch right before school started. Me and mom split a meal- rice, chicken, fried potatoes, and salad. Dad and Ceallan split a casado, which is basically beans, rice, plantains, fish, fried potatoes and a salad. We went to our favorite soda (that’s what they call the restaurants). We like to go there because the waitress/owner is so very nice. She calls us “mi amor” which means my love. She gives us hugs when we leave. Yesterday since it was raining she even called our school to make them come and get us because it was raining so hard. We will miss her when we leave.

When we get to the United States I can show everybody all my pictures. I am working on a really long powerpoint. My friend Grace wanted to me say hi- “Hi Grace, hope you are well!”

Below is a picture of us at the volcano.

Adios, mis amigos….