I Broke Twelve Toes

I broke twelve toes today… well not exactly 12 toes but it feels like I broke all of the toes on my feet after a day of walking, and hiking up hills in flip flops. We woke up around 8:30 today, went to breakfast at the hotel and then hopped onto the bus down to the park. The Doctor wanted to take another walk through the park in hopes of seeing howler monkeys and another sloth. He does love his sloths.

We got down to the park, the Doctor drank out of a coconut and we found a path that we had not discovered in our previous visit. We were hoping that it wouldn’t have as many people on it and we would have the opportunity to see more wildlife. Well, apparently our eyes are not as good as our guides and we walked all the way to the end of the path and halfway back before we spotted a single animal. However, about halfway back after I broke 5 toes, we heard a rustling in the trees and when the Doctor looked up he spotted a sloth slowly moving down the tree. We broke out the video camera, and digital and started taking pictures, as people passed not noticing the animal above them. Once we got our fill of the sloth (they are slow and rather boring to film after all) we moved back to the main path in hopes of seeing more monkeys. Unfortunately, no monkeys were spotted.

We approach the beach where we saw the deer and decide to set up shop for a bit. This was a very peaceful beach on Sunday when we came to visit, but today it was a bustle of activity. We set up, put on suntan lotion, and head into the surf for a bit. The waves are still rough and we get thrown around a little bit more then we expected. As the waves threaten to get our electronics wet we return to our towel and decide to head off. We walk down the beach a bit and decide to take some pictures of the rocks as the waves hit. Of course I make the Doctor climb some of the rocks so I can take some pictures. Once again a beautiful scene, there have been so many of them over the past few days in Costa Rica.

We continue walking through the park, not spotting many animals but enjoying the trip. We then emerge on the main beach, and decide since the tide is low enough to venture out to Playitas, a more secluded but beautiful beach down the shore about twenty minutes on foot. The waves are crashing in but they are not nearly as high as they were the day before. As we approach the cross over to Playitas over the rocks we notice that we are going to have to scale the rocks and venture through the waves in order to get over. We decide to take a chance and though a difficult task, we conquer the rocks and make it to the other side. The force of nature is tremendous on this side of the rocks as the waves pound the shore at several different angles. The waves are over fifteen feet tall on this stretch of beach and while we venture into the waves for a bit we are thrown around violently and decide that it would make sense to head back to the hotel. The only problem is as we look over to the rocks the water is over our heads, we can’t escape. We would have been stuck at the beach for hours with the exception of this nice foreign couple who offered to show us up the trail to the road.

They say the trail is a little steep at the beginning but it’s not too bad. As we begin we are climbing a vertical wall of rock (yeah not too bad my butt), we make it up that stretch (once again in flip flops) and then they tell us not to look down because it is a straight fall about 200 feet to the rocks below and we have to cross a path that is only about 12 inches wide. I pass the backpack off to the Doctor who is a lot less accident prone then me and somehow make it across. A few more obstacles and we are up on the road, of course that doesn’t mean the fight is over because roads in Costa Rica are not much more than dirt paths. After about a twenty minute uphill walk I exclaim, “I think I broke twelve toes today” the Doctor is confused!

Tomorrow sadly is a travel day… until then Pura Vida

Pictures are up on the travelblog... www.travelblog.org/bloggers/gregandjon