Vacaciones!

My time here is split into three chunks: session A, vacation week, and session B. Session A I had a class and my internship. Session B I only have my internship, and a whole lot of free time to enjoy Costa Rica (and yes Dad, study for the MCAT). But mostly to enjoy Costa Rica :) Anyways, here is a selection of photos from my trip. I didn't take a considerable amount, but I will try to tell the story as well as I can. 

Our first stop: Cahuita. Cahuita is in the eastern province of Limon which is also the Caribbean coast. This picture is from when we got there and had a full meal gazing out on the national park's Playa Blanca. We had the fortune of meeting up with profe Kim Hernandez and her family, with whom we traversed the famous Playa Negra (black beach) which was just a short walk up the coast. 

We only stayed in Cahuita for one night because it was fairly cloudy there and we wanted to hit the road because we had a lot of destinations in mind. We took a bus to the Costa Rica-Panama border, crossed with minor difficulty, and bussed to the islands of Bocas del Toro without getting ripped off by anyone! The picture above is from the balcony of one of the hostels we stayed at.

If you didn't know, that banana you are eating right now while enjoying my wonderfully presented masterpiece of a blog (chiste) probably came from Central America. Whereas driving through the fields of North America you would see rows and rows of Wheat, Corn, Grapes, Apple trees, etc; here there are hectares and hectares of bananas (and coffee plants) all over the place.

And here is a major shipping port for Chiquita bananas in Panama, if you didn't believe me.

One day in Bocas we went to this lovely beach which is appropriately named after all of the WILD starfish that are there. They are pretty crazy, they were swimming all over the place. While we were there it started to pour rain, so we hid our stuff under our rain jackets and jumped in for a swim! Later on we went to a different beach and were wondering why nobody else was there as we were having fun body surfing, until we realized we were covered in algae and smelled really bad. That left a scar on my swim suit for the rest of the week. 

The first day in Bocas we rented bikes for US$1.50 per hour and biked around to a couple of different beaches for two hours. It was pretty awesome.

Here is a shot I get when we were taking the ferry back to the mainland in Panama to head back to Costa Rica. This was taken at about 7a.m.; after that we took a 4 hour bus ride across the country to David, another several hour bus ride to the western/southern border of Costa Rica, and another short trip to Golfito on the inner shore of the Golfo Dulce that touches the Peninsula de Osa. Fun fact: when I left Panama I only had about 78 cents left and my debit card didn't work in Panama to take out more money if I needed it. Thank you God!

The next morning we took another ferry to Puerto Jimenez on the edge of the Peninsula de Osa. We were sort of running low on Colones too, so we decided against staying til the next morning to take a bus to the inner-national park or renting kayaks or hiring a guide. Instead, we took a little adventure to a river nearby that was supposedly loaded with crocodiles.

Well, we saw one. While we were sneaking around the forest trails trying to avoid spider webs, we heard this giant noise of water rushing and a huge chomping noise that kind of freaked us out. Then we went out and saw this guy just floating around waiting for an unfortunate bird to land close enough to him. Austin had the great idea of throwing stuff at it to get it to move closer to us. It sort of did, but then he went underwater and we couldn't see him beneath the glossy surface so we thought it best to leave.

There was a tooooonn of Scarlet Macaws everywhere. They are beautiful, but they crow like an old witch. Their lifespan is about 25 years and they mate for life, so they always come in twos. You're probably thinking, "HEY, THAT GUYS BY HIMSELF" well good job on your math. I cropped the picture. 

That same day we went up to San Isidro de El General, and the next morning we bussed up to the BEAUTIFUL beach of Manuel Antonio. These Iguanas were all over the place, and they were pretty neat.

After spending a whole day on the beach, we were wiped so we went to bed at like 8:45. Actually we went to bed by 9 every night because we were so tired from traveling and activities. Doncitos. The next day we went into Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio and we saw some wild stuff. This is a dead baby venomous snake that Austin spotted on the trail. Red touches yellow, kills a fellow; Red touches black, venom lack. Fortunately/unfortunately we couldn't find his mommy.

We were discouraged for awhile because all we could find were spiders and ants, but then when we took a trail to one of the beaches we spotted a whole bunch of these little guys! They had no fear, and were doing all sorts of tricks for food and attention.

One of the beaches of the national park. Beauteous. There were little monkey footprints in the sand, and we had just left went suddenly...

...There was this super loud noise like something from a horror movie! I looked up and there were probably 20 howler and white-faced monkeys just hanging out up in the trees. They had been watching us this whole time! Creepers...

While we were leaving the park, we spotted a few of these little guys galloping through the woods. I think it's called a Picote or something like that. Apparently it's the cousin of ant-eaters. We also saw a few sloths and, of course, a ton of iguanas and lizards--all of which are on my facebook album. If you want to hear more about my trip feel free to ask me!