I loved how we were greeted in Spanish, and I got so far as to ask the waiter how he was and he answered 'Pura Vida', and then he quickly switched to English. We chose our own table and had an easy view of the sign out front. All of the seats are on the second level, up a winding metal set of stairs.
The view to my right is of the tree. It definitely looks different in the pictures online- they were taken at night with sparkling lights all around so it seemed very romantic and fancy. It could be romantic at night but it's not a place you would need to dress up for.
I had ceviche as often as possible this trip and I officially decided it's one of my top 5 favorite foods.
Since we broke free from the all-inclusive mixed drinks, I finally got to try a Guaro Sour, which is made with local sugar cane rum called Cacique (that's the brand name). It was so delicious. If I were a food blogger I would have needed to take notes on the flavors and all that, but I'm not, so I didn't. It was refreshing.
And just look at that perfectly huge piece of raw fish right there. My mouth is watering now.
At this point, I started waxing philosophic about how this was the most fun I've ever had in my entire life and how cute Bean is and how we are so lucky in our lives and I'm so glad I'm not pregnant because I wouldn't have been allowed to do the Mega Combo yesterday or eat all this raw fish or drink this delicious drink, and how I felt like myself again- finally. Literally, we were sitting there and I looked at him and it was like I hadn't seen him in a very long time. "Hi," I said. "I've missed you."
Bean got some sort of sandwich that he ate every morsel of. I ordered a platter that was filled with local style food. It was huge as you can see! When the waiter dropped it off, he patted my shoulder and said, "Good Luck!" My favorite part was the ribs and the yucca sticks.
Then I looked to the left, just over Bean's shoulder and saw our first rainbow of the trip!
My first thought was it was caused by the light rain from earlier, and my second thought immediately following was that maybe it was a sign. There's a term used for babies that come after a miscarriage/loss called Rainbow Babies. I thought the term was corny but I think I'm starting to understand. My rainbow was at that exact moment. If we have another kid- great- but I know another thing that fulfills me too, and it's traveling and learning about the world.
At this point, it's about 3pm and we have over 2 hours to kill before our night hike, which meets in the center of town, which is right across the street. So we got another drink and dessert and just kept sitting there enjoying it.
There was a family from Canada at a table near us with a teenage daughter. They were having fun together, and the mom was clumsy- she knocked over her menu and then dropped a little piece of paper with the wifi password on it down onto the street below. The dad ran down to get it and it was just funny to see how they interacted with each other. I thought that didn't look so bad.
When the bill arrived, it was for a little over 40,000 colones. Perfect! We have 50,000! And then we noticed that the bill also had US dollars listed, in the amount of $78! We spent $78 on lunch!!
We were so stunned had a range of mixed emotions: amazement that we spent that much, humor that we still had no idea what the exchange rate was, and relief that the money we took out of the bank was not $1000 after all. It ended up being $96 that we took out. The exchange rate was 520 colones for $1.
Bean needed to use the restroom before we went on our hike, and we still had about an hour, so we went back to the room. I decided to play around with the camera and enjoy the view.
I think I should work on framing and getting rid of random things in the edges of the pictures but the scenery was just so beautiful.
The night hike was at the Children's Eternal Rainforest, run by a nonprofit group that preserves the local vegetation.
We had a few minutes to enjoy the sunset before we started off.
The hike was about 2 hours, and was very boring and creepy being in the dark with only flashlights. I don't really care about seeing night time animals, except for sloths. Since I did a report on them in the 4th grade and made my brother dress up as Seymour Sloth and hang from a tree in our backyard, I have had it on my bucket list to go to the rainforest and to see a sloth. Technically, the side of the mountain we were on is not considered the rainforest. But here are the pictures of the animals we did see.
A tarantula which the guide had to know was there because he started poking with a stick and it came out for a few seconds.
Some kind of bird. We saw lots of birds sleeping in the trees.
I asked Bean to take a picture of me next to this huge cool tree. First he took a picture of only my torso up close, and then he took this one. I took the picture of the whole tree, that I imagined in my head with myself standing next to it. To his credit, it was very dark and hard to see.
This was creepy: a snake in the tree.
And finally, a frog. Exhilarating.
The hike was just us, our guide, and a couple who sounded like they were speaking Dutch. The husband was translating for the wife, who mostly just smiled. We had to wait around in the parking lot for a van to bring us back to the middle of town. I forgot to mention earlier that the van driver who dropped us off gave us very fast instructions in Spanish about where to go and I was the only one who understood. The same driver picked us up and our tour guide asked if we had seen the sloth on the way in.
I got so excited but said that we hadn't and he told the driver where it was so he was able to pull over. And here's the sloth we saw! They are nocturnal so it was awake. I took lots of pictures but these two are the best. You can see his long claws here.
And he turned his neck! Just like I instructed Seymour Sloth to do! haha. We watched him eat some bugs out of his fur too. So awesome.
At this point, it was not even 8pm but we were exhausted. We went back to the hotel, got into bed, put on some crime show that was the only thing in English and fell asleep. I liked how the bed had an actual comforter instead of just a sheet like at the other hotel, but the mattress was so uncomfortable, not to mention my injury made it hard to get settled in since laying on my back was not an option.
The sun is up early in Costa Rica so we knew we didn't need an alarm to make it to breakfast before our next adventure!
0 comments:
Post a Comment