December is here

December may be here, but the weather is anything from frightful.

Last weekend Angie flew home to Greg's wedding, so the kids and I drove south, through Cartago to the mountains. We entered San Gerardo de Dota and noticed the spectacular views. Pictures don't do it justice. We found some fish, this was the monster.

 The fishing was fast, but they were small. Here is something that doesn't happen much. The double!

This weekend we had Thanksgiving in Playa Hermosa (10 minutes south of Jaco). Thanksgiving supper, we sat in a small place called Hermosa vista and ate Nachos and casados for our Thanksgiving feast. It gave me time to reflect and I realize that Thanksgiving is celebrated with food, which definitely plays into the atmosphere, but there is much more to it. The reality is that it celebrates the family, first and foremost.

We enjoyed our experience. It was unique, but it was somewhat bland. It didn't feel like Thanksgiving. It felt like any other day.


We spent black friday on the "black sand". Beautiful beach (playa hermosa). We saw a really cool thing that most don't get to see. A turtle hatch.

The problem is that the hatch happened in the afternoon and it was low tide. As the turtles headed to the ocean, we could see they weren't making it. The distance and the heat of the sand killed most of the turtles. The Costa Rican guy started taking them to the ocean, so the kids followed suit. Problem was they didn't want to let them go. After various reminders, the turtles were finally left to live and die on their own.

After we were all beached out, we headed up to hike to the largest waterfall in Costa Rica. It took much longer than we expected to get there. We had to pass a crew working on the side of the mountain. They were excavating the hill and causing a big rock slide right on the road. The Costa Rican was waving us through, but we could have created diamonds if you stuck coal where the sun don't shine from the pucker. I hit the gas, and we narrowly slipped through the rock slides.

Once we were at the trailhead, Martin informed us that the hike would take around 2 hours. We figured it would be a little too long because it was already 3:00pm (sun sets around 5pm). We did see some cool Macaws. We headed home to our home cooked Thanksgiving feast (chicken, steak, corn, salad).

Next day we spent the early morning at the beach. On my jog, I found a turtle drag where the mother turtle had climbed up and created a nest the night before. You could see the drag trail up the beach. It was also very clear where the nest was. I was very tempted to dig down and see the eggs, but I decided against it.

We headed back to the waterfall around 11am. (Notice the lack of pictures. Angie didn't want to bring her phone. She told us to take pictures in our minds). On the way up the gravel road to the trailhead, at the excavation point like yesterday, there was a bus about the same size as a greyhound. It started to pass the spot and ended up getting stuck. We sat an extra 15 minutes as they tried to figure out what to do. Finally they unloaded all the passengers and the bus was able to make it up.

The hike down to the base of the mountain was uneventful, except the green snake that almost fell onto Alena's head. We swam in the river below the waterfall.  Then we headed up to the waterfall. It was a very treacherous final kilometer with Lucas. There were steep climbs and slippery rocks, but we made it. We sat at the base of the waterfall and literally took a shower from the spray. We didn't get directly below the falls, but if we did it would have knocked you out because of the velocity of the water. We headed back up the trail, still fairly fresh, but by about the halfway point, there was much weeping, waling, and gnashing of teeth. It didn't help that we had planned a late lunch/early dinner, so we hadn't eaten much. By the end, everyone was exhausted. It was a 4 hour ordeal.

Heading back to Jaco, we saw some more guacamayas. We were dying to eat, but as we drove into Jaco, The police turned us around, there was a horse parade. So we went home and literally huddled around a few bags of chips, some refried beans and oreo waffers. It was just like seagulls on the beach. Less than a minute and it was all gone.

Zac and Parker and now regularly getting up on their surfboards. Alena and Aiden even gave it a shot. Both halfway stood up.

Bring on Christmas...The weather outside still won't be frightful!