Adventures in Pura Vida: Puerto Viejo Day 2

Today we had an early start with breakfast of fresh fruit, toast, homemade marmalade, and bruschetta and coffee of course. We were picked up by the snorkeling tour at 8. We were the first ones picked up, followed by two Spanish couples and a Danish man. After a pit stop in the main office in Puerto Viejo we were off to meet our boat in Chauita National Park. This time the boat was small and we went to two shallow snorkeling locations. The water was a bit cloudy (lots of storms yesterday) at the first site but we were still able to see some amazing coral and fish. The trick to snorkeling is pretending you’re a fish and waiting. The pretending you’re a fish is so that you enjoy the swimming process as much as the looking, because it is cool to just be under the water and feel the currents moving you around like sea weed. The waiting is because when you first get there you’ve scared away all the fish, plus they’re sneaky and fast, you’ve got to catch them when they least expect it. We probably spent an hour at the first location, and we were pretty much left to explore at our own pace. I found several good coral spots, but some of them got a bit shallow. The underside of one of the waves pushed me down onto the coral and I scraped my knee (coral is actually really hard), but since I was in the ocean it healed in no time. Since you have no peripheral vision in goggles and everyone was distracted by different things we quickly got separated. I didn’t really mind, since I had my camera and I wanted to look at the coral. Plus we were close to the shore so I could walk back on the trail if worst came to worst. Devon, however, was no so pleased, she was worried that our group had gone on to the hike without us but they hadn't we had just wandered further than they did. We swam back to the boat once we realized that the rest of the group was back in. We took a short trip up the cove to a different part of the reef. This section was less sheltered and was much clearer since it was deeper and there was less sand for the storm to have stirred up. We all hopped out of the boat (minus Daddy and Mommy, they wanted to take a break) and swam off after our guide. Since the water was clearer he was able to lead a tour of the reef, showing us the different species of coral and fish. There was more fish in the deeper coral, and you didn’t have to worry about bumping into in which was nice since the waves were stronger here. I actually really liked the waves, the moved you along the coral while you floated and I felt like one of the fish, since the water was moving us together. We spent another hour at the second site and afterward took a short boat trip to Chauita point for a snack and to start the trail. The beach was shallow and the water was clear, it was a good point to stop for our break. Afterward we headed out on our 3.5 kilometer hike back to the park entrance with our local guide. Our walk was very nice (minus the fire ants, my nemesis in nature), we had the beach on one side and the jungle on the other. We saw both three and two toed sloths, howler monkeys. Iguanas, birds, a snake, and several of the golden orb spider (their web is a globe and it reflects gold sunlight).

We also stopped for a 20 min swimming break on the beach about halfway through. It was a very leisurely excursion, we were never rushed from one thing to another and both our guides took the time to point out all sorts of little things; a very tico style tour. We got to the front of the park at about 2 and signed the guest ledger. We stopped by the market to get a light lunch of granola/chocolate pieces in yogurt, crackers (They had the sodas brand!!) and powerade. The only annoying thing was that the girl at the front didn’t seem to know how to work a calculator to add up the costs, she told me the price, then said “wait wait” spent 8 min adding it up again and then showed me the same price. Here the problem wasn’t a language barrier, but a math one..

The excursion company took us back to our hotel and we had a short siesta/reading break on the porch for an hour before, daddy, Devon and I packed up some chairs and books and went to the main beach. Devon and I both walked on the beach and did some reading. We left at sunset to come back and shower for dinner. We had asked Sonia for recommendations since they had done so well with the ones from last night. Following their directions we went to a restaurant called Pura Gula which is a restaurant with a local changing menu that serves local organic food. The design their menu around the ingredients they can get from local farmers, so it’s always changing. Mommy got the fresh tuna, I got sea bass, and Devon and Daddy got the shrimp with a blackberry vinaigrette salad. It was all delicious. Everything was so fresh and flavorful; it was literally caught that day and walked over to the restaurant. For that little sweet taste afterward (a meal just isn’t complete without it, I’m becoming krisiti!) Devon and I shared a chocolate brownie with freshly made whipped cream. I think I could live off of milk and whipped cream… tomorrow a chocolate tour and off to Arenal!

I took pictures of everything that moved underwater, and many that didn’t, since I had no idea how the pictures would come out!