Never a dull moment!
Costa Rica continued to thrill and amaze once I reached the Pacific side. Dad and I totally took advantage of every minute we had together, exploring the jungle, the beach, and the ocean. It was non-stop action!
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| A view from a bridge on the road to Dominical. There were probably 20 giant crocodiles hanging out in this river. It was crazy. Our cab driver, Paul Johnny (a rather unique name, no?) stopped here so we could sneak a peak. |
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| And then this guy was waiting for us at the rental house. Not as big as a crocodile, but you should see him eat pieces of banana! Ferocious! |
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| Our first outing was to the Hacienda Baru nature reserve, where we got to observe nature from many vantage points. Here's Dad taking a really hard look at something (actually, this picture was totally posed, he wasn't looking at anything!) |
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| The coolest butterfly ever! I forget if it's called an Owl Butterfly or an Owl's Eye Butterfly. It's hard to tell from this shot but it's huge...like the size of a small bird. And the inside its wings are a beautiful bluish-purple color. Me encanta. |
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| We picked "tree climbing" over the zip line because we figured it would be a good way to ease into our stay in Dominical. Little did we know we would be climbing a 100 ft tall giant, using ropes and other climbing gear. It was freaky. Here we are at the top (where we hung our for an hour or so looking around and being one with the jungle). |
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| This is a shot after I repelled down. You can just barely see Dad up at the top there...that's how high up we were. It was a little scary. |
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| This guy hangs out in trees all day. Show off. |
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We grew to really love our insect friends that would visit at night around the house. This is a giant locust or grasshopper that would cling to the screen by the porch. It's probably 4 inches long.
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| This is the strip in Dominical over by the ocean. The rest of town wasn't much bigger than this. All the surfer-hippies hung out here selling their macrame or whatever. Dad and I had fun mocking them behind their backs. We're so mean! |
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| There's Dad actually becoming a surfer-hippy! Hang ten, dude. |
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For our next outing: a horseback ride to the Nayauca waterfall (located on a family farm outside of Dominical). These were the trusty steeds waiting to be mounted. Don't they look depressed?
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| The waterfall. It was giant (hard to tell from this photo maybe...I guess I should have included a person for scale). There was a huge swimming hole at the bottom, too. It was a little slice of paradise! |
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| Here we are at the end of the ride. You can't tell from this pic, but I actually got kicked by a horse on the way back (luckily is was just a "soft tissue" injury, according to the doctor that just happened to be on the trek with us). I'm actually sort of disappointed that I didn't get a cool bruise out of it. My shin muscle is still swollen, though, a week later. I probably deserved it. |
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| Our last adventure was a dolphin tour in the marine park in a neighboring town. We filled my memory card trying to capture the dolphins that were frolicking all over the place (lots of blurry ocean pics), but this was the money shot! There were some Swedish (I think) people on the boat that kept saying "fleeper!" |
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| The tour included a bit of snorkeling, too (in Costa Rica, they really know how to do it, man). My first ocean snorkeling...pretty awesome. |
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| There were a bunch of caves along the coast that looked like this. Cool places for pirates to store their treasure. Nice icing on the cake after an already great day out on the water! |
