Category: Costa Rica

We were on a bit of a time crunch now to get to Panama. So, we scooted on down south to Bahia Drake (pronounced DRAH-kay), where we once again met up with our friends on Kini Popo. Drake is on the Osa Peninsula, which has its own weather systems. The books describe the two seasons here as wet, and wetter. It was definitely that…

We headed in towards shore and decided to check out the estuary to see if there was a place to tie up the dinghy rather than go through the surf and do a beach landing. We found an awesome eco-resort with their own dock who were very welcoming and let us tie up. We returned the favor by sitting in their open air bar with some mojitos just as it started pouring rain.

One of the reasons that we wanted to stop at Drake was that Isla Cano is not far off shore and supposed to have spectacular diving. But, as we were approaching Drake from miles offshore, everywhere we looked was green, silty water. Because it is the rainy season, there is so much runoff that the silty, brackish water travels miles from shore and sits on the top of the water column. Concerned that there would not be too much visibility until perhaps we were fifty feet down or so, we nixed paying to go out there. (Dan and Susan eventually went out there after we left, so hopefully we’ll here the water clarity was better than we thought at the time!)

Diving off the table, we decided to see what else we could do in Drake. The little town was great with dirt roads and small outfits offering eco-tours. Mike and Dan disappeared into one of these little shops and came back to tell us that we were signed up for a Canopy Tour the next morning. If you don’t know what a canopy tour is, you are in good company. It is a series of zip lines that take you over the canopy of the rainforest.

The next morning we piled into the back of a pickup that took us down those dirt roads and even through a (shallow) river (apparently the bridge was out), until we arrived at the Corcovado Canopy Tours. Corcovado is a national park of rainforest that covers most of the Osa Peninsula.

Once we were suited up in our helmets, harnesses and gloves, we marched off into the rainforest to ascend the first of THIRTEEN platforms that would take us high above the trees. Mike had the GoPro, so we got some great pictures and video of the four of us flying over the rainforest. It was so much fun, and a great way to see the rainforest from a completely different perspective.

The next day we decided to take some of the trails that began right outside the eco-lodge and headed along the coast into Corcovado. We were doing so much hiking at this point, that a few hours traversing mud and rocks was not all that physically challenging but allowed us to really take in the beauty of our surroundings in nature. I know I’ve said this before, but it is amazing how much healthier a lifestyle we have here on the boat!

We had packed as much into Costa Rica as we could in two months, but we really had to go. We said goodbye to Kini Popo and departed for Golfito. Golfito is the last port of entry in Costa Rica and where we had to check out of the country.

Our sixty mile trip to Golfito was an all day trip, as there was no wind and we were fighting an adverse current. We arrived in Golfito at dusk, just as the rain came pouring down. It was hard to see through the rain, as I stood on the bow looking for hazards and trying to find the anchorage. But, we were able to anchor just fine and get a good night’s sleep.

The next day we set off to provision for our passage to Panama and to see all the officials to check out of the country, as we planned to leave early the next morning. Those plans changed a bit when the immigration official told us we had to come back the next day. But, we got our groceries and filled up with diesel. The forecast (and season) did not look great for wind, but we had to go. Topping up with diesel was an imperative.

After finding the immigration office, customs, the bank (to pay for the exit zarpe) and the port captain the next morning, we finally had our zarpe to leave Costa Rica. We pulled up anchor around noon and departed for the three day journey to Panama! But, more on that next time…

~katie

I’m a bit behind on the blog, but I have a few posts to catch you up…

After leaving Islas Tortugas we spent a couple of days at Bahia Herradura reprovisioning and getting some laundry done. Then, we were off to Punta Quepos. We really wanted to go to Manuel Antonio, which is probably the number one tourist attraction in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful National Park and wildlife refuge right on the water. I had visited Manuel Antonio over 15 years ago, but Mike had never been there.

You can anchor at the park, but you get charged for anchoring. The fee wasn’t really the problem though. Because we would be anchoring inside the park, you are supposed to get the permit and pay the fees before you get there. In order to do that, you would have to go into Quepos, bus over to Manuel Antonio, pay the fees, and then move the boat from Quepos to Manuel Antonio. That seemed a bit ridiculous to us, so we decided to anchor around the corner about 6 miles away at Punta Quepos.

Punta Quepos was a beautiful little anchorage away from the town of Quepos. In order to get to the small beaches around, you either had to hike in or come by boat. The first day we were there the anchorage was nice and calm. We had a fun time paddle boarding around and checked out the beaches. We asked some locals who were renting kayaks on the beach how we would get to Manuel Antonio. They said we could hike out, walk to the main road and easily catch a bus. So, that became the plan for the next day.

We dropped the dinghy in the water the next morning and rowed to shore. The “hike” out of there was definitely that, with a rough and ragged trail up to a road. From the road we started walking in the direction we were given to get to the main road to catch the bus. What we didn’t know was that this was about a mile and a half of a windy, uphill road. By the time we finally made it out, we were a hot, sweaty mess.

We stood on the corner for a minute looking for a bus when Mike suggested we try and hitchhike. We’d had pretty good luck with hitchhiking in Costa Rica so far, so it was worth a shot. Immediately a car pulled over and we piled in. Our new friend was a 20 yr old college kid from New Jersey named Mohamed who was on vacation by himself and also headed to Manuel Antonio. He seemed glad to have the company, and so off we went to explore Manuel Antonio.

It is amazing how many people visit this little park, which is a well protected piece of rainforest that opens up onto a beautiful beach. It is also a wildlife watcher’s paradise. We saw all kinds of monkeys, sloths, iguanas, coatis, raccoons and birds. There are beautifully marked trails that take you to waterfalls and overlooks that give you fantastic views of the ocean.

After roaming around in the park for a few hours, we grabbed some lunch with Mohamed and invited him to come back to the boat with us to hang out for the afternoon. We hung out for a while and Mike jumped in the dinghy to row Mohamed back to shore so that he could find his hotel before it got dark.

I was starting to think that it was taking an awfully long time to get him back to shore when Mike suddenly appeared and said, “We’ve got a problem…” Apparently, when they were about 20 feet from shore (in about 7 or 8 feet of water), Mike suggested that Mohamed take his phone and wallet out of his pocket and set them in the dinghy, so that when they jumped out to pull the dinghy ashore they wouldn’t get wet. (There was a bit of surf on this beach and we definitely got wet getting in and out.)

When Mohamed went to pull the phone out of his pocket, the rental car key flew out and plopped down in the ocean. They quickly borrowed a mask from someone on shore, but they weren’t having any luck finding the key. So, Mike rowed back to grab his mask and fins. I grabbed mine as well and we headed back to shore.

All three of us began frantically diving down looking for the key. The main problem was that because of the surf, the sand and silt were stirred up and there was zero visibility that close to shore. We would dive down and really were only able to see the bottom when we were a foot above it.

Mike and I looked at each other thinking this was a pretty futile exercise. It was a needle in a haystack, and we had no idea what Mohamed was going to do if we didn’t find this key. He had rented the car in San Jose, hours away, and all his luggage was in the car. So, we had to find the key.

Just when we were about to give up, I made one more dive down and Voila! The key magically appeared on the ocean floor a foot away from me. I popped up and yelled, “I found it!” Mike and Mohamed both looked a bit shocked, but we were all pretty ecstatic that it turned up. Mike kept shaking his head at me the rest of the night saying, “I still can’t believe you found that key…”

So, the moral of the story is, make sure I’m around if you lose something in the ocean. Just kidding…

~katie

After a few fun days in Tamarindo, we decided to head south to Bahia Ballena in the Gulf of Nicoya.  Bahia Ballena was about 90 miles south, so we left in the afternoon on an overnight passage.  The wind did not really cooperate with us, so unfortunately we motor-sailed most of the night.  We had to dodge a squall and a fleet of fishing boats, but otherwise the passage was uneventful.

We still hadn’t had much luck fishing in Costa Rica, so we were pleasantly surprised to catch a Sierra as we were coming into the anchorage at Bahia Ballena.  It was definitely the largest Sierra we have caught.  I would have snapped a picture, but between Mike trying to get the fish on the boat and clean it and me steering us into the anchorage, we had our hands full.  But, that fish made some great ceviche and fish tacos that we shared with our friends on Kini Popo who joined us on the trip.

Our first night in Bahia Ballena brought some pretty good rain overnight.  We didn’t think the storm was all that intense, but it must have really come down over the land.  When we woke up the next morning, the entire bay was brown and full of debris.  In fact, we woke up to a clunking sound on our hull and realized large logs floating in the bay were hitting up against the hull.  The rivers on land of course wash out into the ocean, and this storm dumped a ton of silt and plant debris into the water.

Mike and I had read about a small town called Montezuma not far from where we were that had a cool waterfall hike, so we set off to try and find it.  We pulled the dinghy on shore and walked into the little town of Tambor to try and catch the bus to Montezuma.  Apparently the storm had knocked out the electricity in the entire area, so no stores or restaurants were open.  But, we found some nice people around town to give us information on the buses and give us some change, because all we had were large bills.  The information we got from the locals was that the bus didn’t necessarily arrive at a particular time.  It all depended on when the ferry arrived in Paquera from Puntarenas.  The bus waits for the ferry passengers and then begins its route around the peninsula.  So, it was possible that we could have to wait a couple of hours for the bus.

After about an hour with no bus, we spoke with young woman who got dropped off at the bus stop.  I think she was German, but she lived in Montezuma.  She said that she hitch hikes to  get around and that we’d probably have better luck getting there by trying to hitch a ride with someone.  I certainly would never think to hitch hike in the States, as we’ve all been told since we were kids how dangerous that is, nor would I pick up a hitch hiker.  But, attitudes are definitely different here as we soon found out.  We got three separate rides, pretty quickly, that got us to our destination.  People were so friendly and just wanted to talk to us and perhaps practice their English, curious about where we were from and where we were going.  One gentleman was an exporter of pineapples and one woman owned a hotel.  Super friendly and wanted absolutely nothing in return.

The hotel owner told us how to find the entrance to the trail to the waterfalls once we reached Montezuma, and so we were off.  It was clear immediately the storm was going to have an impact on our waterfall hike.  Not too far into the hike we came upon others doing the same thing.  That’s when we discovered that the part of the trail that is likely a walk over a small creek would instead be crossing a raging river!  There was a guide there who was helping direct people across.  The difficult part was really not the strength of the flow of the water, which was manageable, but the fact that the river was so brown that you couldn’t see where you were stepping.  You had to feel around for a substantial rock to step on and get good footing.  Most of the crossing was not deeper than knee depth, but at one point I was in the water up to my waist.

After crossing the water, there was a muddy trail to follow around to the large waterfall. The amount of water coming over the falls was impressive.  We definitely got the impression that this was an unusual amount of water flowing due to the rainstorm.  Mike hiked up a steep trail to see if there was another part of the falls to reach.  There were falls farther up, but they were impossible to reach given the current depths of the water and the strength of the flow of water.  It definitely was too dangerous to go further, but I’m sure in the dry season there is an even longer hike.

We enjoyed the hike and the falls and eventually made our way back into Montezuma for some lunch. Montezuma is a really cute, small town which looks like it caters to the hippie, backpacker crowd with various hostels, bungalows and surf tour operators.  It looks like it would be a fun place to stay if you are looking for a really laid back town surrounded by jungle and trails to hike.

After heading back to Bahia Ballena, we made a plan with Kini Popo to depart the next morning for Isla Tortugas.  But, more on that next time…

~katie

We’ve had quite a few water adventures the last month in Costa Rica, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to do any inland travel.  We read about the Santa Ana Ice Caves in the Barra Honda Parque Nacional about 1.5 hrs from Tamarindo, so we rented a car with our friends on Kini Popo to check them out.

We arrived at the park, which was absolutely beautiful and green!  I’m not sure if it is technically a rainforest, but that it what it seemed like.  We told the administration that we wanted to see the caves, and they explained that the caves were a drive farther into the park and that we had to have a guide.

We paid the fee and piled our guide, Miguel, into the car with us.  We were pretty happy we had a four wheel drive vehicle because our car barely made it up the steep, muddy and rocky roads.  We even had to reverse and get some greater momentum to make it up one of the hills.

We arrived at another small parking lot where we would begin our hike up to see the ice caves.  The hike was a good workout, especially because the amount of mud that caked to the bottom of our shoes felt like weights we were carrying around.  Miguel pointed out various plants along the way that were used for cooking or medicinally, such as aljillo and anise. We could hear the howler monkeys in the distance but unfortunately did not see them.

We finally arrived at the descent into the cave.  We all had helmets to put on and some very worn harnesses.  Then we saw where we were going to descend!  There was a single guy belaying a rope through a ring attached to our harnesses while we had to go down about a four story ladder.  The ladder looked like old Home Depot ladders that were just lashed together at the joints.  There was so much mud on them that you had to be careful not to slip and had to hold onto the sides rather than the rungs.  We all laughed a bit and said this would not be Cal OSHA approved!

The top of the ladder…

View from the bottom of the ladder looking up…

One by one we made it to the bottom of the ladder where Miguel gave us all headlamps.  The caves were damp and muddy and required some serious negotiating of where you stepped.  But, the scenery was fascinating.  The long stalactites and stalagmites gave the cave its name, as it did look like icicles all around.

We wandered further and further into the cave, admiring the interesting structures and contemplating how mother nature can create something so incredible.  Finally we reached a dead end in a big open part of the cave.  Miguel had us all sit down and together we turned off our headlamps.

Have you ever experienced real darkness?  There was not a hint of light in this part of the cave.  It was so dark that your eyes almost play tricks on you making you think you can see something. We sat in silence for a few minutes just listening to the drips of water echoing from somewhere in the cave.  The dark and silence creates a surreal sensation of almost floating.  I admit I am not really a fan of the dark, but this wasn’t scary.  It was one of those experiences that makes you aware of your senses and makes you feel alive!

We made our way back through the cave to the ladder that we now each had to climb up to get out of the cave and back into the sunlight.  We hiked back to the car and stopped at a lookout where we could see the green valley below the park and the Gulf of Nicoya far in the background.

It was a fun trip to see something unique in nature, and we were all happy to have a day out of the water!

~katie