Day 3:

-I told you I'd get back to this eventually -

We took a guided beach tour around the resort. Saw lots of interesting birds, shells, crabs, etc and got burnt pretty bad by the sun. I can't remember us doing much else until it got dark.

I forgot to mentions Brett and Shawn, a married couple who were there from Atlanta. Nice folks and we teamed up with them several times while we were there. Shawn, by the way, is a woman. She has a twin sister named Heath. I asked her why they haven't axe-murdered their parents yet.

Anyway, Jon and I, Mark, Elizabeth, Brett, and Shawn went to Playa Ostional to go see sea turtles. It was night; we hired a guide who didn't speak very good english so I finally stepped forward and used some of my embarrasing Spanish skills and I actually understood more than I thought I could. We walked along the beach and there were dozens of sea turtles laboring up the beach, digging holes, laying eggs, then plodding back to the ocean. It looks like damn tough work. We also saw baby turtles laboring towards the ocean.

The residents of Playa Ostional work in conjunction with Costa Rica's national park service to protect the turtles. In exchange the residents are allowed to harvest some of the eggs. This makes sense as so many turtles come up to this beach they tend to dig up each other's eggs so by harvesting them at least they go to good use.

So now that I broke out of my shyness of speaking spanish, I spent most of the rest of the trip interpreting for everyone. All I can say (and maybe I have before) is that Costa Rican natives are very nice and patient people. They also all have really nice teeth, so that says something for their health care system.

Day 4:

Not much going on today; I tried to hunt iguanas for a photo but all I got was one iguana's ass. The resort finally got its pool filled so we went swimming. We drank, we ate, and Elizabeth and I went turtle hunting on the resort's beach at night while Jon, Mark, Brett and Shawn went back to Ostional to drink beer at a local bar.

I forgot to mention that the road from the resort to Ostional is a lot of fun. For most of the trip from Liberia to the resort any bridges we encountered were in bad repair. From the resort to Ostional (which lay further down the same road) it was 'bridges, what bridges?' and you have to drive through the streams.

It's no big deal, if you aren't certain just wade out there. If the water never gets above your kneecap, it's safe to cross.

Later on: finally, I get to swim in the Pacific!