We have a visitor!!!

We sailed down to Quepos, Costa Rica, and spent a few nights in Marina Pez Vela (means sailfish). The single most expensive marina we have ever stayed in, $3.50/foot plus utilities and taxes. But it was also the nicest marina we have ever been in in terms of restaurants and stores on site and just overall incredibly attractive. They even have a concierge that helps with everything: in our case getting a rental car, getting laundry done ($65 for 26 pounds!) and the paperwork cha-cha with the local port captain. 

This area is really interesting as they have vast palm oil plantations. In the 1940s, the United Fruit Company was dealing with a major banana disease so they switched all of the bananas here to palm oil which turned out to be much easier to transport and better suited to this area. 

Our daughter Paige came to visit for a couple weeks. She flew into Costa Rica and will leave out of David, Panama. Costa Rica doesn’t like the idea of travelers not having a return ticket out of the country so Paige was pulled aside at the boarding gate in Mexico City and had to explain how she is sailing to Panama and then returning to the US. In addition to her return ticket issues, she was also pulled aside at security and told she was not allowed to bring the paddle board tie down straps in her carry on. Frustrated because LAX allowed it, she unwillingly had to watch them take the item from her. We had loaded her down with two bags packed full of boat goodies, the most important being a Dometic freezer. Our built-in freezer just can’t keep up with the load in this heat and it gives us more cold storage overall. Power consumption should go down as the new freezer is so much more efficient and the old one is now an extra fridge on low power. 

We all piled into the rental car (Bella too!) and headed up to La Fortuna/Volcan Arenal in the northern part of the country and spent a couple days at the wonderful Arenal Lodge. The bartender found a green eyed tree frog that decided to jump onto John’s shoulder and then Paige’s head! 

Did the hanging bridges excursion which is a well-maintained path through a jungle gorge with a number of bouncy hanging bridges as much as 100+ feet off the ground and 300’ long. Just before crossing one of the longest and highest bridges there was a tremendous crack and then crash as some giant tree collapsed and fell down into the gorge. Was not in danger of damaging the bridge but they did stop everyone for a couple minutes while they inspected things to make sure… Had a fantastic day, saw a couple of snakes including an eyelash viper, a baby boa eating a snail, a few monkeys and a variety of birds.

On the third day, we finally got to see the very top of the volcano emerge from the clouds. (The eruption that John saw 30 years ago ended in 2010 so the entire cone is now lush and green.)

Our drive to and from La Fortuna was exciting. The roads were narrow 2 lane roads (sometimes a narrow single lane). Mostly paved, stretches were dirt and extremely steep. We seem to always find the tertiary roads on our maps. Paige has the greatest eyesight as she consistently spotted Toucans in the trees. We made several u-turns for animal spotting.

After returning, we moved the boat around the corner from the marina to Bahia Biesanz. Discovered we could not get into the adjacent Manuel Antonio national park as they limit the number of visitors per day. Next available was days away so we walked up and over the peninsula to the beach that eventually leads to the park. Saw lots of Capuchin monkeys and another pair of scarlet macaws. Then took a boat tour in a panga up one of the nearby rivers and saw more monkeys, a boa in a tree and a sloth (finally!) high up in a tree.

Have been enjoying rambutan fruit from roadside vendors, very affordable. Even bought a bottle of Vino de Coyal from the least sketchy roadside stand we saw. It is a fermented beverage made from the sap of the coyal palm tree. It’s allowed to ferment naturally for at least a week and is a sweetish milky clear drink best served cold. It’s hangover is reportedly dreadful even though the beverages itself is low in alcohol. Quite enjoyed it.