84. We Have Visitors, again!!!! Part 2

Wednesday 6/8- Since the fishing trip was rescheduled for today, Ramie once again brought me to work early so he could be ready to go on the fishing trip early this morning. Unfortunately, once again, the weather didn’t want to cooperate, and the captain let Ramie know that they couldn’t go offshore again today. What a bummer! There wasn’t another day that they would be able to reschedule for, so Steven wouldn’t get to go fishing on this trip (I guess they’ll just have to try again on a future vacation).

Suddenly, about mid-morning, a pretty big storm started to come through the area. We are used to getting rain, but crazy wind doesn’t typically happen. For about 30-45 minutes we had heavy rain, strong winds, and severe weather which is very rare for here. From work at Geiner’s I could hear trees falling and breaking, the rain was coming down sideways (fortunately not into my door or window) and there was a lot of thunder. Later I found out it was a very similar situation at our house (even though it’s only a few miles apart, the weather on each side of the river/mountain can sometimes be very different.) Ramie said that with the heavy rain up the mountain, they watched the creek going from it’s normal slow flow (only a few inches of water) turn into a rapidly rushing river that came almost up to the top of the bank (still far below the level of our house, we should never have to worry about any flooding from the creek rising that far). The storm lasted a couple of hours and once it was over, Ramie, Taryn, Steven & Will were ready for their next adventure.

Ramie here again! Once the storm was over I decided it was a good time to show them around our little town. We packed in the truck and I gave them a tour, sadly there were trees down and flooding from the storm we just got, but we made it all the way around town and we were hungry. It was about lunch time so we decided to go meet Dana and eat lunch at a little place near Geiner's house where Dana was working. Kinsu is a cute little outdoor restaurant with great food and reasonable prices and is a fantastic place to go if you want to try authentic food but also have members of your group who would prefer to stick to more traditional offerings. After we ate we brought Dana home and she decided to work some more using the hot spot on her phone. The rest of us decided we would head to Playa Ventanas so the vacationers could check out the sea caves. We hung out on the beach, we played in the ocean and then we explored the caves. Will had a blast playing with the hermit crabs, making a moat and burying them. It was getting to be late in the afternoon so it was time to head home and get some dinner!

Before dinner though Ramie showed them how to open coconuts and let them try as well.

Oh and before I go I just want to mention that we checked the rain gauge and discovered that we received over 8” of rain today, which explains all the flooding.

Thursday 6/9- Today we planned an adventure that Ramie and I hadn’t even been on yet, so I took the day off work so we could all go together. Today we will be going on a Sierpe River mangrove tour. This is one of the excursions that we have heard so much about and we’ve been wanting to check out ourselves for quite some time. About an hour drive South of Uvita there is a section of river where you can take a boat tour and see all kinds of wildlife. We set up reservations for a morning tour, so we got an early start (well, not early for us really because I’m always up super early) and headed South for our tour.

Before we hit the road Uncle Will decided he was sick of riding passenger so he told Ramie to sit in his seat and he would do the driving. 

Its a little small!

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea! Look at that expression!!! 

 

 

We got to the small town of Sierpe and didn’t have any trouble finding the place where the boats were waiting for the tours to start. When we were checking in, we discovered that there are also other tours that leave from here to places like the Osa Peninsula and Cano Island, both which are really only accessible by water and have even more fantastic wildlife opportunities. Maybe we’ll do those one day too. But, today was the mangrove tour. 

 

Its a beautiful day for a boat ride

We checked in and then waited around for a while until our captain and our tour guide were ready for us. When we were finally called to board our boat, we discovered that the 5 of us got a private tour to ourselves today. Well, that was unexpected and very cool! We hadn’t even left the docking area yet, and we already saw our first wildlife- a crocodile! It was swimming around right out in the open area where all of the boats were getting ready to leave for the morning, note to self- don’t reach into the water! After motoring around nearby looking at the crocodile and a few different species of birds, we then pulled right up to the river bank to a tree. The tour guide pulled a seed pod off of the tree and started opening it up. This was a mangrove seed. He told us a little bit about these trees and their seed (which looks kind of like a clam and not really like a seed). The trees live in and very near the edges of the rivers and provide habitat to many different types of animals and birds. We also learned that these rivers are tidal, which means that when the tide is coming in, the water can be somewhat salty from the ocean, and the mangrove trees can survive in that salty water. There are 7 types of mangrove trees in Costa Rica, and 6 of them are present in this area. 

Mangrove seed pod

What will we see along the river?

American Crocodile

Once we learned about the trees, then we started off down the river. We were all constantly on the lookout for animals, and as anyone saw something, we pointed it out to the tour guide who would tell us more about it. The tour guide was definitely much better at spotting the wildlife than the rest of us were, and there were many things that we had a hard time seeing even when he was pointing it out to us. Throughout the tour, we saw many types of birds, squirrel and capuchin monkeys, turtles, snakes, crabs, giant grasshoppers, iguanas, basilisks (also known as Jesus Lizards because of their ability to run on water) and even baby crocodiles. As we got close to the turn-around point in the river we even saw a pig- it was in a pen, and clearly belonged to the people who lived nearby, but we can say that we saw a pig on our river tour!

Squirrel Monkeys hanging out

Baby Crocodile

Scarlet Macaws

Land Crab

I believe this is a Juvenile Tiger Heron

Giant Red Wing Grasshoppers

This little pig might be going to the market

In total, the tour lasted about 3 hours and we got to see some neat animals, including many that Taryn, Steven, and Will otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see during their time here. Once back on shore, we ate lunch at the restaurant there, then headed back North to Uvita. It was still early enough in the day when we got back that we took them on another adventure.

A bit of a rewind to yesterday: Ramie tried to take them to a hidden waterfall that Loren showed us on one of our prior vacations here, but we had received so much rain that the river crossing to get to the waterfall was impassable. 

Ramie checking the depth and speed of the water the day before. It was not safe to cross

Also yesterday, checking out another area and the path to it was flooded

Today, even though the water was still flowing pretty quickly, it was low enough that we could cross without worry. When we got to the waterfall, though, we discovered that the water was still rushing way faster than we had ever seen it before. There was no way we were going to be able to swim in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall or try to climb it today. One wrong step, and you’d be swept away for a very bumpy (ie. rocky) ride down the river. There was also a river crossing here at the waterfall that leads to some small villages, and eventually to San Isidro (we have never gone that way before). This river crossing would have been impassable today. We walked around and took in the sights and sounds of this rushing waterfall before heading back home for the afternoon.

You can see the road that crosses the river from this angle

Friday 6/10- Back to work for me, but since today was their last day here in beautiful Costa Rica, Taryn, Steven & Will had just a few more things to check off of their list. Ramie brought them souvenir shopping here in Uvita to find any last minute must-have items to bring home, as well as seeing just a little bit more of the town that we now call home. They also had to get their Covid tests to return to the US (no longer required as of Sunday 6/11, they just should of stayed a few more days) Of course, they took the opportunity to relax and enjoy the pool for as long as they could as well. 

Will loves his bugs and critters so Uncle Ramie caught a gecko to hold.

Sometimes it was faster than him and would run and jump around on him. Uncle Will loved it!

We wanted to go out for one last dinner together, so we decided to go to the Don Roger restaurant, where we had gone with Taylor & Dylan, to see the beautiful sunset  ocean view. This truly is a spectacular place to go sit for an evening; from before sunset all the way until it gets too dark to see, the view is incredible. I highly recommend it and if you are ever in the area, plan for at least one dinner here. You won’t regret it!  

Ramie found a dog he wanted to take home! It was awfully cute

 

Taking it all in and enjoying family time!

Rain clouds over Whales Tail

After dinner, they weren’t quite ready to go home and start packing yet. I mean who really wants to end a vacation? So it was decided to make a stop at Whale Tail Brewing. Ramie and I hadn’t been there in quite a while either, and we had only been there once since their big remodel, so we were interested to go check it out. We heard that they have a big back patio and live music on the weekends now, so we were interested to see what that was all about. We found a table on the covered patio just about the time it started raining and enjoyed a couple of beers. 

Like father like son!

After enjoying our beverages, Will was getting tired and they did still have packing to do tonight, so we didn’t stay out all night like I’m sure the guys wished we could have. The last night of vacation is never fun, and there were plenty of sad faces when the suitcases came out and started getting re-filled.

Saturday 6/11- Sadly for all, the vacation week has come to an end, today was the travel day back home for Taryn, Steven & Will. As is the theme when people come to visit us, today was another early morning. Ramie would be taking the 3 of them back up to the “exchange point” so they could take the shuttle the rest of the way to the airport. Even though their flight wasn’t super early, the drive from here to the airport is 3.5 hours on a good day, plus you have to be there a couple of hours early to check in, so it makes for another long travel day. I said my goodbyes before they left the house, I was staying home today to work for my “other job” since my weekdays are full of my main job. 

Taking in one last view of the ocean

Looking for Uncle Ramie and Uncle Dana's house and saying Good-bye to Costa Rica! Until next time!

The vacations always go too quickly, both for our visitors, and for us. It was sad to see them go, but I think they enjoyed their stay. Hopefully they will come back to visit us again, and hopefully after reading their story you’ll decide to come visit us too! 

Oh and I feel I have to explain the Uncle Will, Uncle Dana thing that you may have noticed. No it was not a typo. When Will first started learning to talk he started calling me Uncle Dana, so I called him Uncle Will. Now its just a thing and we all giggle about it!

Pura Vida