Homeward Bound

Puerto Jimenez in the early morning. We were on our way to catch our flight back to San Jose.

I made a friend with one of the many, many stray dogs in town. This pup actually followed us to the airfield and tried to clamber up the stairs to the plane to come with us.

National Park: Day Three

A big ol' spider making her home in the Sirena ranger station.

A white-face coati.

I like this tree clinging to the cliff above the beach. The tide is way in, which made the hike back a bit sporty in some places.

A spider monkey.

This was about as close as we got to spider monkeys... maybe twenty feet, vertical.

This is behind a smallish waterfall on the hike back, where we stopped for a late lunch. There were a few deepish pools to swim in, and I took advantage.

Coconut milk.

Riding back to town in the collectivo.

The airstrip at dawn.

Stranglemonkey trees. I love the exposed root systems.

Tapir tracks in the sand.

Crocodile footprints!

Kate's smiling, but I'm not acting like I'm having a good time. I am! Really!

Lianas climbing the trees in the rain forest.

A macaw.

Crocodile sunning itself along the Rio Sirena.

Looking for sharks. They could be see as the tide comes in, filling the mouth of the river. You could see their fins poking out of the water when the wave troughs rolled past them.

A tapir, with a radio collar, sleeps in a mud wallow during the mid-day heat.

A medium sized skink.

A vaquero on the road to the national park.

Starting along the beach.

Many skulls of monkeys, tapir, and other creatures. There are some deadly snakes in formaldehyde, and pieces of a whale's spine.

Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

We drank the water untreated. Yeah. We're that bold.

There was a waterfall and kettle pool about four hours into the hike that made for a nice swim.

The pool. At its deepest it was eight or ten feet.

Footprints in the sand. We're almost to the ranger station at Sirena.

The entire peninsula is ruled by crabs. These red ones were incredibly fast and difficult to catch with your hands.

A sloth.

Hi sloth!

He had a runny nose. You could see it drip from where we were standing. And, as would be expected, he moved quite slowly.

Walking along the airstrip to Sirena station. The beach is behind us, and the strip is maybe a kilometer long.

The porch of the ranger station.

This macaw hung out at the station quite a lot. A ranger said it was a she.

Making friends.

Coveting Kate's black beans and rice.

Still coveting Kate's dinner.

Another sunrise over Osa bay.

An infant, his mother, and Elliot play on the beach at dawn.

Elliot and the infant's mother make tracks in the damp sand. The tide is just going out.

Elliot shows off a small fry.

Elliot shows off what has been his home for the last seven months. It's been all over South America, and was shipped from Columbia to Panama. Apparently you cannot drive from South to North America, because FARC controls a part of the country that it is unwise to pass through.

Kate is using her skills to make nice with Eliot, the son of a British/Kenyan couple who were camping up the beach from us. That's their Range Rover with a tent on it in the background. We were sharing Oreos at this point, which is always good for making friends.

I got up and rode the second wave I ever tried!

Brother and sister are both excellent surfers. For real.

Kate takes a mid-day siesta, post-surfing.

A bat colonized the top floor of the cabana we rented for two nights, when we'd had our fill of sand and howler-monkey wakeup calls. The bat was discovered while Kate was napping.

Kate was not all that pleased he was there.

A very large toad.