Pura Vida - Our Costa Rican Adventure

The end of my greatest summer has come. We ended our adventure in the reefs and in the jungle but were not able to get a under water camera. There were many beautiful fish. We roughly snorkeled six to seven spots. Government shuts down fresh water daily which makes life not as easy as it could be. Coupled with poor telecommunications and only one ATM in the region I would have to completely recommend the Pacific side for future trips. Our house was nice and our landlords are decent acquaintances. Up to date we snorkeled in the Caymen Islands, New Zealand and in Costa Rica. I hope to have many more experiences such as this with Kelly.

Our house and getting our gear ready.

Its nice on the back but gets tiring quickly. We averaged two to three spots a day.

There was a howler monkey cage. The monkeys wanted to climb on our heads and to play. They were incredibly gentle.

After playing with the monkeys we were introduced to the sloths.

Sloths are big teddy bears and move very slowly. They have three digestive systems and can not absorb food right. They have poor teeth but have been here since the beginnings of time.

I had to say hi to the jaguar again before continuing the tour.

Near by were Toucans.

Owls and a Eagle. I was to busy hanging out with Jaguar to get their names.

We then saw two Cayman crocodiles and red eye tree frogs.

Friendly squirrels jumped on us as we headed to the snakes.

Vipers and Bush Masters. Very poisonous snakes.

It was a very cool experience and the staff takes good care of the critters.

As we near the end of the epoch, lush jungles loom around us. The beauty of the land escalates as the jungle shows us wildlife and adventure. The people are harder edged and long gone is the playfulness attitude of the Tico's from the Pacific. Within this bubble exists its own culture, time seems to be somewhere locked in the 1980's. The jungle strives to retake civilization and communities band together to survive. As mentioned earlier this summer Costa Rica has no standing army and only 60,000 cops. Its in between Panama and Nicaragua and has a strong Colombian drug culture, needless to say there is unrest in Centro Americano. Aside that there is peace and the people are vibrant. Our place is located in Playa Chiquita, right near Panama. Are landlords own the property and live and run one of the highest ranking restaurants in the region.

Going up to the house. The garden around the house has home grown plants for the restaurant, the jungle and many plants. We have local monkeys and toucans in the front yard. We have maids and gardeners which is standard in Costa Rica.

Our house is the green one.

You can say hi to the the howler monkeys in the morning and evening.

Going inside our jungle house is amazing.

Right near the kitchen we have a rock garden with pet grasshoppers the size of your hand.

Upstairs we have the master bedroom wiht a television set and hundreds of dvd's. We have a patio and a second bathroom with a very cool washbasin.

Outside there are many spiders and exotic plants. Walking to the beach means walking through the jungle. The jungle isn't easy to navigate for at times you need to walk over planks and balance on two by fours or the mud will suck you down. There are many crabs and reggae being played in people's homes. Walking to the beach feels like gym class.

Finally after long navigating and watching out for poisonous critters we make it to the beach.

After I get my fill I wander back to the jungle house and play with the critters. We also have toucans.