Our trip was so interesting, we did so many different things, met lots of interesting people, ate great food, it’s impossible to pick just one thing. And while I have to admit it’s nice to be home and no longer sharing a room with a 6 year old who rises with the sun, I would move back to Yandup Lodge permanently if they’d have me, even without internet or phones, even if it meant sharing a cabin with Ari again. That place is as close to heaven as an atheist like me can believe in.
Here are some of my pictures of our trip:
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1. Did you know that pigeons like to party in Costa Rica too? The town centre, in San Jose, is much like Trafalgar Square, pigeons everywhere with little kids running through them causing them to flutter away…
2-4, 8. Photos taken from the rental car while driving through the mountains on our way to the beach on day two before getting side tracked by the waterfall.
5-7. From the path to the waterfall, an anthill, a funny cup shaped mushroom and leaf cutter ants. I could have watched them for hours-and was grateful to have an excuse to stop and rest for a while. They’re really amazing, and seem to work cooperatively, sharing loads and helping each other at the entrance to their nest.
9. A giant bell in San Jose.
10, 11. Mountain scenery on our way to Selvatura Park in Monteverde. There were giant purple hummingbirds that were squawking at the other birds, being very aggressive and pushy.
12. Shannon on the zipline. This was super fun and kind of scary. The dudes that lead us around were awesome, reminded me of the Sherpa guides in the episodes of the Simpsons where Homer decides to climb Mt. Everest. What an amazing job to do that all day.
13. Ari and I being dingbats in our zipline duds.
14. This is the first sloth I saw in CR. She was behind our hotel in a tree, just lumping around. I went back and waved at her several times, showing her to another hotel guest who said that in Germany they are called “slow and lazy”. Huh. Shannon didn’t believe she existed, but this picture PROVES IT.
15. Mt. Arenal. La Fortuna was named as such because the lava flowed down the other side of the mountain. I really loved it there. I loved our hotel until the ‘laundry incident’ that pretty much wrecked it.
16-22. Sloth rescue pictures from Aviarios del Caribe. Most of the babies there are of the 2 fingered (nope, we say fingers nowadays, not toes) type as the 3 fingered babies are very fragile and don’t survive long on the ground without their mommies. This place was great, I could have happily spent a lot more time there talking with the woman that runs the place.
23. The beach we went to after the sloths. This was the place where a local man, recognizing me as a tourist, excitedly pointed out a squirrel in a tree. A squirrel, for real…
24. Graffiti in San Jose near the museum that we went to that was shut down. Skinheads are everywhere, I guess.
25. Dave and I agreed that this building was actually aggressively ugly. Like the architect was specifically asked to design something ugly, did it and then was asked to make it uglier. Man.
26. A seemingly deserted island off the Kuna Yala territory in Panama-I’d live there.
27. In Latin America, Diet Coke is called Coke Light.
28, 29. Beaches. Snorkeling. A starfish held by a nervous child.
30. A funny picture of Shannon and Ari. You can barely see her, but you can see her best friend.
31. Yandup. Go there if you can. The people in Playon Chico are so amazing. I’ll always remember my new friend Ocho Anyo…
32. Panama City from our 24th floor hotel room.
so glad you had such an amazing trip!!!
it looks so beautiful and peaceful…and I am dying of jealousy that you got to hang out with baby sloths!!!!!!!!
Um…laundry incident?
Ok, so the day that Shannon, Dave and Ari went white water rafting, I stayed at the hotel for some chill time. Dave grabbed our 2 bags of filthy clothes and dropped them at the front desk and was told (at 10am) that they’d be ready in 2 hours. I spent the day wandering around, watched a movied, whatever. They got back around 3, so I went to the front desk and asked about our clothes and was told 2 hours. Like, ok. So Ari and I went back 2 hours later and was told to wait a couple minutes. So we sat and played on the computer for about 40 minutes until I finally said hey, wtf is going on? And he was like, oh, they’re still wet, it will be another hour at least. WHAT?
So I went back to our room and told Shannon who said that he had NO dry shorts/pants to wear to go out to eat in, so I went back again and asked for one pair of men’s pants which they produced easily and quickly, clean and folded. But where were the rest of our clothes? Not ready yet.
So anyway, Shannon got dressed and went to the desk and by the power of his beard, immediately got all our clothes. He thinks that the scale wasn’t there-they actually charged him for 5kgs of clothes-these are summer clothes, a week’s worth for me and Ari and a few things for him, there was NO WAY they weighed that much.
I was so angry and frustrated and furious about this that it wrecked how I was feeling (ie, GREAT) about this hotel and will only recommend it very reluctantly to anyone traveling to that area in the future.
Sounds like it was an amazing trip. Can you guess which picture is my favourite? Hint: the pigeon. I love that they’re everywhere.
Lindsay: it’s not the only one I took, haha. I’ll do a Latino pigeon entry soon.
omg the sloths. so cute!
btw feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square has been illegal since 2000. There are hardly any there now.
Okay. Selling my goats and moving to the tropics to rescue sloths.