Heading back to the USA

We just spent the last 2 weeks in Jaco, a coastal community on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. The area is known for its surfing and beautiful beaches, both of which we took advantage of!

View of Playa Jaco

Mike, the kids and I took surf lessons with Del Mar Surf School. Great folks! All four of us were successful in getting up and catching several waves; of course Travis and Piper were the best and we ended up renting a couple boards after we took lessons and spent many hours on the South end of Jaco Beach catching waves.

 

We spent New Years in Jaco there and it was great watching all the hotels on the beach try and outdo each other with fireworks.

One afternoon we went out sailing, snorkeling and fishing with Neil of Kayak Jaco. He has a trimaran that we took out of Herradura….Mike caught a Skipjack Tuna (aka black tuna) and a Sierra Mackerel, and Travis caught a Giant Hawkfish. We threw the tuna back (Neil said those ones aren't very edible) but we kept the other two for a tasty dinner. Probably the funniest part was that I gutted and filleted the fish while dressed in my sarong….luckily the ocean is great for cleaning up! We stayed out until sunset then had a nice dinner in Herradura.

T and Capt Neil with a Giant Hawkfish

We spent several days at Hermosa Beach, boogie boarding and shell collecting, with a HUGE highlight of seeing over 50 baby green sea turtles get released from the Turtle Sanctuary there. That was so incredible watching the little guys head out into the sea and the gorgeous sunset.

Hermosa Beach

Another surprise was finding a "hidden" beach you can only access at low tide… It's different than many other local beaches in that it was white sand from ground coral, rather than brown or black from volcanic material.  The best part about this beach were the endless FOSSILS scattered around the shore!  It will be interesting to see what the baggage weighs in at when we go to check in at the airport :)

Fossils on "Secret Beach"

 

Before we left the beach we did our requisite tourist trinket shopping, picking up some things for ourselves and friends, then headed back to the much cooler climate of the Atenas uplands.

We head back to Alaska tomorrow….it it -40F in Fairbanks…..it is going to be a rough change from the +90F at the beach!

Beach Time

Arrived in Jaco today, we all LOVED playing in the ocean. Hard to believe this is the same Pacific that we catch halibut and salmon out of!

Tomorrow we'll be looking into surf lessons....

Playa Jaco

Mike & kids catching waves

Costa Rica - Christmas Vacation

We've been in Costa Rica for 7 days and already had several adventures.

We spent a couple days at Grammie and Grampa's house in Atenas recuperating from the 20+ hours of flying time from Alaska. Time in the sunshine watching birds, butterflies and playing in the pool was excellent jet lag therapy.

Woodpecker at Grammie's Feeder

Butterfly in the bosque (forest/jungle)

 We then headed to the mountain community of Monteverde, famous for their dairy production. It was settled back in the 1950's by Quaker conscientious objectors of the Korean War. It has now become a center for Eco-Tourism and birdwatchers. It is a cloud forest ecosystem and as such can often be rainy and wet. The mountain road is infamous in Costa Rica for being nasty, but we were lucky that it wasn't very wet and was totally passable in our rental van with 2 wheel drive.

Cattle drive on the road to Monteverde

The kids and I went horseback riding the first day. It was a beautiful afternoon, we road past coffee farms, saw several nice vistas of the community, a few birds (motmot & toucanets) plus a sloth. The kids did GREAT, especially considering that neither of them has ever REALLY ridden a horse. Travis thought it was cool that the guide called him a vaquero (cowboy).  :)

P on "Cosmos"

T on "Johnny Walker"

Monteverde Sunset

The next day we headed up to Selvatura Park for a canopy tour and zipline adventure. Piper was pretty apprehensive at first about the heights, but she did great. Travis had no fear at all, he especially liked the three story drop Tarzan Swing. I did that too, but I screamed a lot more than Travis.

Selvatura Canopy Tour

T after Tarzan Swing

P on zipline

Whole Family after zipline tour

We rounded out our time at Selvatura with their butterfly & hummingbird gardens. Unfortunately most of their butterflies had recently died off due to a bad tropical storm that had moved through the area and dropped the temps too low for the "flutter-byes" as Piper likes to call them. The hummingbirds were quite cooperative though and we got some great pictures.

Piper the hummingbird paparazzi

Before leaving Monteverde Mike and the kids toured the cheese factory, which they really enjoyed. We picked up some yummy cheeses and caramels to take back to the USA with us. 

Monteverde had some GREAT restaurants….The Tree House (built around a REAL giant tree), Tramonti (excellent pasta), El Marquez (seafood….SOOOO good) and the fanciest mochas/ hot chocolates ever.

We are back in Atenas now…..Feliz Navidad!