Bookworm Press

On the third day of our stay in Costa Rica, we spent a leisurely morning enjoying a breakfast buffet with the most wonderful tropical fruit–pineapples, mangos, papayas–and many other delicacies and, of course, delicious coffee. In addition, we took a dip in the pool.

The rest of the morning, we were resting in front of our cabin, when, OMG, the following happened. First we thought we were hallucinating. After all, sloths are in forests and though there are lots of trees around the property of the hotel, we didn’t expect this little guy to just appear out of nowhere. He climbed down a tree, then slowly (it’s a sloth after all) crawled to the next tree, climbed up again, then down again. After that we saw him approach the next cabin, climb up the wooden rocking chair, down again, up the second chair, and then disappear. Shortly thereafter, the maid who was cleaning the next cabin, came over and motioned us to follow her. And there was Sammy (we named him in the meantime), curled up next to a chair in the corner, taking a nap.

One of the staff of the hotel came by with a long stick. I thought he was going to poke Sammy, but he only held the staff above the animal. Sammy grabbed on to the pole with both paws (or whatever you call the “hands” of a sloth) and the man carried him away toward the denser forest.

It was quite an experience and here is a video of Sammy. As you can hear from the noises we made, we were very excited. This was definitely one of the high points of our stay. I mean how many times do you have a sloth right in front of your bedroom, unless you live in the jungle? Unfortunately, the video is too large to put directly into the post, so here is the link to it!

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=8B7DD27C54709B7D%2130440&cid=8B7DD27C54709B7D

After the sloth adventure, we were booked for another excitement–Kayaking. When we decided on the tour, I said I had done this many years ago. Well, as I found out, that wasn’t true. I had been in a canoe once not a kayak. Then again, they are similar. Our driver and our guide took us to Arenal Lake, where we boarded a kayak for ourselves and the guide paddled in a different one. It took us a while to get the rhythm going, but we managed not to hit each other on the head with the paddle or splash each other. After a while, we were able to move in a fairly straight line. It was hard work, but also a lot of fun.

Lake Arenal is a man-made lake that provides electricity for the area. It’s also a nature resort with lots of water birds–we saw a few American Egrets and other birds. Our guide said there were crocodiles near an island in the lake. We thought he made that up. During one of the following tours, we did in fact see crocodiles, so perhaps it wasn’t a joke that they are in this lake as well.

Above is our guide, looking very amused at our attempts at kayaking!

In the background, the ever-present Arenal Volcano!

Stay tuned for further Costa Rican adventures–real crocodiles, and the scary adventure of ziplining! More to follow.

Hello dear Blog Followers, Friends, and Family!

My friend Diane and I went on a nine-day-long tour through Costa Rica. It was our first time in this country that everybody we knew, who had been there, raved about. They were right; it is a truly magical place. Interesting exotic animals–sloths, monkeys, bats, just to name a few–friendly warm people, excellent food, gorgeous landscape, jungle, beaches, cloud forests. It was an intense time and I’m still trying to absorb the many impressions.

Let’s start with some pictures. Since my flight from Los Angeles and Diane’s from Cincinnati arrived several hours apart, we were met at the airport separately by a representative of the travel agency and driven to our first hotel in the Arenal area that was three hours away. Passing through customs was a breeze with the help of our “welcome person” who taught us three words we needed to remember during our vacation. Sadly, I forgot two of them but the most important one stuck with me: Pura Vida, which is used everywhere and means something like “Life is good.”

On the way to our hotel, Mountain Paradise (and a paradise it was, indeed!) next to the town of Fortuna in the Arenal area, I had my first cup of the famous Costa Rican coffee at this little coffee shop/gift store.

Our hotel in Fortuna was a real gem, situated on a hill overlooking the gorgeous landscape and the Arenal volcano in the background. We had our own casita. There was a swimming pool with wet bar and a waterfall on the property. In fact, our bathroom had both a normal shower and a waterfall shower, which was more fun than practical, but we truly enjoyed it.

Our Casita

The day we arrived we spent relaxing and enjoying a delicious dinner outside with a wonderful view of the Arenal volcano.

The next morning after enjoying a scrumptious buffet breakfast, we were picked up by our personal guide who accompanied us on our tour through the Arenal National Park. It was a warm day, interrupted by a few cloud bursts–May is the end of the dry season, but rain showers are frequent albeit short already during this month. It was a wonderful hike, during which we discovered tiny but poisonous snakes on trees (I can do without snakes, thank you very much, but fortunately our guide knew how to spot them). Other animals that we enjoyed more are the many different kinds of birds, some sloths hanging from the trees, and so-called holler monkeys (they really do holler!). In addition, there was a enormous variety of exotic plants and colorful flowers.

This plant above is called “Blood of Christ.” The population of Costa Rica is mainly Catholic, including a variety of other Christian groups, so Christian names abound.

More pictures of plants animals and the ever-present Arenal Volcano (which once destroyed several villages but hasn’t been active for many years). The hike brought us to a place with a wonderful view of the volcano as well as Lake Arenal (a man-made lake we’ll be visiting the following day).

That fur ball above is one of the Holler Monkeys. He was quite far away and therefore somewhat out of focus.

Our friendly guide on the right who knew the names of thousands of plants and animals. It was his first tour after college and he was really great!

Lake Arenal

This is at the bottom of the volcano with Lake Arenal in the background. I just took off my yellow rain poncho after one of the short downpours that are so typical of this area. Now, we need sunglasses again.

On the way back, we enjoyed scenes of the always green, fertile landscape of this area. It reminded me of Switzerland. In fact, as someone told me, Costa Rica is sometimes called “the Switzerland of Central America,” because it’s so green.

The next day, we went on a Kayaking tour on Lake Arenal. But before that we had a close encounter with a sloth by the name of Sammy. Stay tuned for more!