Surf's Up

We've been in Playa Grande for a few days now. The beach is gorgeous and not very populated. It is supposed to be the rainy season in Costa Rica but we aren't seeing many signs of rain.

We've been playing in the ocean at least once a day. It is amazing how you can be standing in shoulder high water, that is suddenly at your waist as the approaching wave sucks the water around you into it. The "backwards" current can get pretty strong for some of the larger waves and we try and stand our ground against the current - not always successfully.

But stepping back a day or two...

Before we left Monteverde, we visited a butterfly garden. They had different gardens set up to represent the different altitudes of the country. It was pretty amazing to have all these butterfly flying around our heads and landing on our hats and shoulders.

Our drive to the beach was pretty uneventuful. We managed not to get lost (which is truly amazing considering the lack of signs in this country). The hotel here is right on the beach, although we can't see it. The hotel is at the section of the beach that the turtles use for nesting, but they won't nest if there is lots of light. So the hotel was built in such a way to keep light from the beach. It is not turtle season at the moment though so we haven't seen any. The nice thing about being so close to thwe beach is as soon as we get too hot, we just stroll to the beach and dive right in.

This morning we took a canoe into a salt water estuary. The trees growing in the estuary are growing right out of the water. There will be a whole island of trees with absolutely no visible soil - just roots of trees show. We saw lots of different birds, but no crocidiles (not sure if that is a good thing or not). I haven't downloaded any of those pictures yet - sorry!

Iguanas and lizards are common sights on the side of the road and around the hotel as are angry monkeys throwing fruit at you if you stand under their tree. We've finally figured out why our rental vehicle had dents on the roof. :)

And I keep forgetting to mention how brave I was. I saw a tarantual in the cloud forest! Granted he was in a hole and all I could see was two of his huge legs, but still. I didn't squeal or anything.