Costa Rican Adventure

If you love listening to the sounds of nature day and night (and occasionally interacting rather unexpectedly with nature), enjoy outdoor activities and don't need travertine floors, air conditioning and chocolates on the bed (which would melt in no time, anyway), the Osa Peninsula is the place for you. If you will scream bloody murder if you find a toad on your patio or a crab in your sink, perhaps you should try plan B (try Puntarenas and other "south Florida" parts of the country where there are high rise condos and nature has been pretty much silenced).

We stayed in Dos Brazos for three nights before spending five nights in Drake Bay (both are in the Osa Peninsula). Dos Brazos is in the heart of the rainforest, Drake is on the beach and also near rainforest. We went on nature hikes, went scuba diving at Cano Island, took a canopy tour as well as several kayaking adventures down the cayman infested Drake River. At Drake, scarlet macaws flew by and landed in almond trees. And swimming daily in the near-90 degree Pacific was pure heaven. In Dos Brazos, I walked around after dinner with my flashlight photographing all the different frogs and toads around, since the rains were bringing them out (and I have always been a frog fanatic). And other than getting bitten by fire ants and photographed naked by my husband while I was enjoying a waterfall, I thoroughly enjoyed hiking on the nearby trails which were very nicely maintained, well marked and adjacent to the Corcovado National Park.

What I love most about travel is the unexpected surprises. We didn't expect it to take 10 hours to drive 200 miles, for example (or to be driving on sinuous mountain roads through pouring rain, dense fog, and across rivers and over bridges where the planks rocked and creaked as we drove over them). Or to have a French Canadian man who seemed to have left his sound mind in Canada cook us a delicious sea bass dinner in an outdoor seaside kitchen that was so weathered, it looked like it hadn't been used in 10 years. Or to have crab legs wiggling out of the orifice on the side of the sink (we filled it with tissue the first night, then resigned ourselves to tapping on the sink after that to let the crab know he needed to retreat and not display his creepy hairy legs while we were brushing our teeth). Or to climb up platforms hundreds of feet high and slide down cables over the towering trees of the rainforest canopy when I'm terrified of heights (by the time I considered chickening out, it was too late). Or to crack open green coconuts we picked from trees to slurp the milk because we were so thirsty from our long walk on the beach. But all of these events really happened and along the way, we met so many amazing people like Steve, Ian and Dina who made our rainforest adventure so much fun! And naturally, now that I'm back, I'm pondering the next adventure...