I just realized that the following was previously blogged, here, have a variant...
A few minutes checking emails and Facebook was followed by a few blog entries. Expansive views of the surf and the sound of waves crashing created a pleasant ambience for my consumption of massive amounts of strong Costa Rican coffee while I waited for the sun and my son to rise. He finally greeted the day with "My fucking legs are sore as shit." We had done a fair amount of hiking the previous day and I could notice it but I sure wasn't sore. Despite years of relatively sedentary activity consequent to generally engaging in little more than snorkeling and boating the hundred steps that lead up to my house conditioned me a bit for the hills we had been walking all day. My son, Karl is in good shape and bikes forty miles a day and a hundred a day on weekends. Immediately after his pronouncement I felt less out of shape.
We walked down the hill and entered the town of Manuel Antonio. We stopped for breakfast and talked to a fishing guide from California. For $450 he would take us three miles offshore and maybe we could catch some roosterfish. For $900 we could go ten miles off shore and perhaps hook into a sailfish. He laughingly said that for $1,200 he could pretty much guarantee that we would hook into at least one fish. We gave it a miss.
Scuba diving was out of the question due to Karl's head cold and the surf was insufficient for worthy body boarding or surfing.
Brigade after brigade of guides solicited work. It's just a walk in the park. I felt no need to pay $50 for guides to show us wildlife. We have both seen innumerable monkeys, sloths and reptiles over the course of visiting Central America during the last twenty years. Close up and personal encounters are a daily occurence, if a sloth can only be seen as a dark clump, obscured by leaves and viewed through a fifty power spotting scope, I will give it a miss.
The admission fee was ten dollars a person. A wide gravel road meandered gently through the lush environs. Iguanas were spotted in great abundance. Back home in Bocas any living iguana inhabits the tree top. Those that habitate the ground are consumed by the numerous Ngobe Indians that constitute the majority of my neighbors in my jungle neighborhood on the sea.
Toward the end of the trail raccoons sauntered around the ranger station though feeding them is illegal and highly discouraged and there were no trash cans overflowing with edibles. These animals were so well fed that the iguanas near by didn't even give them a second look.
We walked back to Manuel Antonio and caught a bus up to Quepos, six kilometers up the hill. After a little shopping, Karl secured a pair of board shorts and we bussed back to our hotel.
White faced capuchin monkeys scampered, climbed, and roamed on rooftops, tree trunks, branches, rails and trails. A squirrel monkey paid a visit and moved on.
We just walked around and killed some time, looking around, wrapping up the waning hours of daylight capturing sunsets.
A few minutes checking emails and Facebook was followed by a few blog entries. Expansive views of the surf and the sound of waves crashing created a pleasant ambience for my consumption of massive amounts of strong Costa Rican coffee while I waited for the sun and my son to rise. He finally greeted the day with "My fucking legs are sore as shit." We had done a fair amount of hiking the previous day and I could notice it but I sure wasn't sore. Despite years of relatively sedentary activity consequent to generally engaging in little more than snorkeling and boating the hundred steps that lead up to my house conditioned me a bit for the hills we had been walking all day. My son, Karl is in good shape and bikes forty miles a day and a hundred a day on weekends. Immediately after his pronouncement I felt less out of shape.
We walked down the hill and entered the town of Manuel Antonio. We stopped for breakfast and talked to a fishing guide from California. For $450 he would take us three miles offshore and maybe we could catch some roosterfish. For $900 we could go ten miles off shore and perhaps hook into a sailfish. He laughingly said that for $1,200 he could pretty much guarantee that we would hook into at least one fish. We gave it a miss.
Scuba diving was out of the question due to Karl's head cold and the surf was insufficient for worthy body boarding or surfing.
Brigade after brigade of guides solicited work. It's just a walk in the park. I felt no need to pay $50 for guides to show us wildlife. We have both seen innumerable monkeys, sloths and reptiles over the course of visiting Central America during the last twenty years. Close up and personal encounters are a daily occurence, if a sloth can only be seen as a dark clump, obscured by leaves and viewed through a fifty power spotting scope, I will give it a miss.
The admission fee was ten dollars a person. A wide gravel road meandered gently through the lush environs. Iguanas were spotted in great abundance. Back home in Bocas any living iguana inhabits the tree top. Those that habitate the ground are consumed by the numerous Ngobe Indians that constitute the majority of my neighbors in my jungle neighborhood on the sea.
Toward the end of the trail raccoons sauntered around the ranger station though feeding them is illegal and highly discouraged and there were no trash cans overflowing with edibles. These animals were so well fed that the iguanas near by didn't even give them a second look.
We walked back to Manuel Antonio and caught a bus up to Quepos, six kilometers up the hill. After a little shopping, Karl secured a pair of board shorts and we bussed back to our hotel.
White faced capuchin monkeys scampered, climbed, and roamed on rooftops, tree trunks, branches, rails and trails. A squirrel monkey paid a visit and moved on.
We just walked around and killed some time, looking around, wrapping up the waning hours of daylight capturing sunsets.
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