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San Jose drinking establishments

We met up with our friend Imke from Xela and had a few drinkies. Ended up sharing a table (and shots) with about 10 Costa Ricans – some of the friendliest (and most generous) folks I ever did meet.

Upon hearing that we’re on our honeymoon, 3 lovely ladies furnished us with celebratory shots of guaro – Costa Rica’s national spirit made from distilled pure sugar cane molasses.

That's hit the spot

View from bus window

Here we are up in the mountains again. We’re staying in a small place called Santa Elena which is nestled in between 2 vast cloudforest nature reserves. Moisture from the Atlantic Ocean hits the mountains and condenses on the thick vegetation of the jungle canopy. It drips down through the trees giving the impression that it’s raining 24/7.

We took a guided tour of the Monteverde reserve at the crack of dawn this morning. It’s notoriously hard to see any animals given that most of them are (a) small; (b) camouflaged; (c) nocturnal; and (d) way up in the trees. However, we had a lucky day and an experienced guide and we managed to spot (and even photograph) quite a few beasts.

Hummingbird

Toucan

Orange knee tarantula

Loo brush caterpillar

Quetzal

We also spent a few hours by ourselves hiking the trails and avoiding kamikaze tarantula hawk wasps.

Suspension bridge

Cloudforest canopy

In the evening we headed off to see some jungle frogs at the Santa Elena frog pond. Our guide filled our brains with froggy facts and toad trivia.

Costa Rican Tree Frog

Tomorrow, the long winding journey back to the capital city. New book to start so quite looking forward to the 5 hours of peace.

Catalina Island can be reached in about 45 minutes by boat from Playas del Coco. There are no reefs here, all the life exists on and around the volcanic rock. We had 3 amazing dives.

Ol' blue eyes

During an otherwise pleasant and ordinary evening meal I made a discovery so disturbing as to make me shudder. It was not the sudden shock of something presenting itself and assaulting the senses. No, it was the slowly emerging sense of realisation borne out of something that at first appears to be perfectly normal until the moment the background begins to melt away and your focus tightens to reveal the sheer horror that has been staring you in the face all along. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the rotting udder hanging basket.

There were others hanging all round the balcony holding flowers in various states of decay

As is clear from Lauren’s beaming face in the photos, we had an absolute blast. The river Pacuare is rated as one of the top 10 whitewater rafting spots in the world and in 4 hours we covered 20 miles of the river involving 6 sections of class IV rapids. I had my camera with me in the raft but naturally I seldom had the chance to pull it out – being otherwise occupied with desperate paddling and gripping the boat with both legs in an attempt to prevent myself from being flung into the rocky waters. There was some stunning scenery along the banks of the river and interspersed with the rapids were some beautifully tranquil waters which gave us the chance to stretch our legs and take some snaps.

Lauren's reaction having ridden through our first tricky section

Calm before the storm

I couldn’t take a photo of the actual rapids but here’s a photo taken from the tour operator’s website of one of the class IV sections. It gives you an idea of the kind of action we were seeing.

Paddle fast, lean in and pray you don't fall out

Man, were we sore the following day!