Category: La Paloma

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Day 6 – Relax at San Josecita Beach

Since we did not feel like we got to spend as much time at the beach as we would have liked, we returned the next day (this time by a 20-minute boat ride instead of another hike) and spent most of the day on the beach. We snorkeled a bit, and found some respite underneath a little tree. The sand was too hot to stand on midday and we were happy to have settled in a little shady oasis.

We got a massage that evening on the balcony of our room to finish our stay at La Paloma. We would leave early the next morning to head north.
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Day 5 – Hiking to San Josecita Beach

We decided to be a bit active but go it alone for a day. We decided to do a hike along the beachfront out to one of the bigger beaches from out hotel. Including stops to take pictures of the tiny beaches along the way, it took us about 4 hours to get out to San Josecita Beach. Given our schedule, shortly after we arrived we hustled back, and without stopping too much were able to make it back in about 2 hours. Below are pictures of the different beaches along the way.

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Day 4 – Diving

We did our second day of diving here – diving both Devils Rock and The Garden – another 2 sites close to Cano island.  We had our camera this day (sadly our battery was dead on our first day diving) so all the shots below are from today.

Moray Eel
White Tipped Reef Shark

Puffer Fish

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Large Grouper (I think?)
School of Barracuda

A few Angelfish

Katherine’s Pink Flippers and a School of Sergeant Majors

White Tipped Reef Shark

School of Jacks

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Day 3 – Corcovado

On day three we took a tour of Corcovado national park with a super smart tour guide who’s name was Walter. Walter used to work for Amazon IT but decided he liked animals and nature better than computers.

Walter, as we would find with many of the naturalists in the area, had a keen eye for spotting animals.

He showed us bats, an owl, red tipped macaws, blue herrings, our first white-faced monkeys and our first sloth!

We hiked up to a waterfall after a lunch where we watched some folks play soccer with goals made out of fallen coconuts. The waterfall was beautiful and we got many really nice photos.
Later that day we would Kayak up the river outside of La Paloma looking for crocodiles and spotting some other wildlife including a yellow crown night herring.
Leaf Cutter Ants Doing Work

Mushrooms

Scarlet Macaw

Katherine, Walter, Michael and a Waterfall

Scarlet Macaw in Flight


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3am Day 3

Rumble Rumble Rumble Rumble.

The bed is shaking as if a kid who is too old to be jumping on it is anyway.

“Is that you?”

“No”

“Earthquake?”

“Probably”

“Should we get under a table?”

“Lets go door jam”
We got up – sauntered to the door and opened it up – looking out into the dark forest – seeing the world shake and the monkey’s screaming. It probably only lasted about 30-45 seconds but we’d later learn the epicenter was fairly close, and it registered a 6.6: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/breaking-magnitude67-earthquak/38648588

Welcome to Costa Rica!
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Day 2 – Diving Part 1

We finished our advanced diving certification here, doing 3 different dives around Cano Island (and hanging on the Island itself in between one of the dives getting a nice view of the national park.)
The diving was fairly awesome as we saw a couple dozen white tip reef sharks, sting rays, a couple of manta rays, schools of barracuda, schools of jacks,  puffer fish, and Moray eels.
Our instructor was an awesome guy named Wilson who worked for Pirate Bay. We had lunch there as well which was quite tasty.

It was a solid day and we were exhausted – we had dinner back at the hotel – where La Paloma does a nice family style dinner. As expected, simple, delicious. For diving pics, see day 4!

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Bug Tour

Tracy – The Bug Lady

Tracy is a bit of a local legend – at least to Drake Bay and the surrounding areas. About 20 years ago she settled in Costa Rica to explore her love of bugs. At some point she met John – a rival bug tour entrepreneur and yada yada yada, they would eventually marry. John and Tracy now do their bug tours together and the two of them are not only incredible at what they do but also still have a passion for it that evokes a bit of envy.

The way the bug tour works is fairly simple – you walk around a pretty natural area somewhere in Drake Bay – ours was fairly close to our hotel on a couple of paths, including the main path to the hotel!

They would each look for something and when a bug or animal was found we would look at it, and get some stories, while the other tour leader would go looking for something else. It was a very nice seamless system that resulted in less ‘looking for things’ time and more ‘looking at and talking about’ experience.

Below are a handful of pictures from our tour. The experience comes highly recommended if you are ever in the area.

Getting intimate with the giant Stick Bug:

Bush Cricket

Preying Mantis


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First Destination Travel

We flew Newark (hour and a half from Philly, we left at 4am) to San Jose and then had a couple hour layover in the airport before catching our first local flight to Puerto Jimenez. The last Drake Bay flight left before we got through customs, so our plan was to fly to Puerto Jimenez, take an hour and a half car ride, a small boat ride, and then we’d be at our first stop. 
The gentlemen who picked us up also brought his 9 year old son who was quite well behaved. Our two hour drive was about as bumpy as they come – instilling the concept of the ‘Costa Rican massage’ roads.
Our Spanish was not great but we managed to chat briefly with our chauffeur.
We arrived to the local town just after dark. We were escorted down to the beach in the dark where we removed our shoes, trekked through a couple inches of water and hopped on the back of a small boat. Our bags were loaded and we were on our way. About 5 minutes later we were docked at the base of La Paloma Lodge where we would stay for the 6 nights. Despite traveling all day – our schedule was fairly busy for the upcoming days!
That night we were shown to our room – a very cute bungalow-esque room with a very pretty balcony.

We showered, and went to go have dinner in the main area. The food was simple, but delightful as we’d come to realize in all the meals we’d eat at La Paloma in the coming days. That night we would be busy as our bug tour would happen right after dinner, and we had to get up for diving the next morning at 6am!