This is the day that Brandan will tell you he had information overload. Walking through the forest to find animals? Yeah. No thanks, Brandan would say. Follow the path. Beach front straight ahead...okaaaaayyy. He'll keep walking a bit more, but that beach better be worth all this animal stuff. The line that let's us in is backed up. New regulations to control the traffic and the effect on rainforest life has limited entrance to only 600 people a day. (So, if you don't go early, you don't get in.) The Park is also closed on Mondays completely. Hence the crowds...
It was one of those muggy days...you knew you were in a rainforest on this day. And the hike, although much easier to tread than the zipline or horseback treks, was still a stiff mile into the densest parts of the forest.
But we still took time to take in the Howlers...
...the Golden Orb spiders...
...some of our favorite sloooooow moving sloths...
We learned about mushrooms in Costa Rica, too...
...and that 95% are poisonous. Most Ticos will not eat mushrooms in meals, we were told by our guide...which is completely understandable and fine by me. Now, take away my onions and we might have an issue.
A few more Capuchins greeted us with their large traveling family.
Softest powder I've ever touched. Sticky stuff though! Because it was so light it was easy to carry...on your clothes, in your shoes, found its way into pockets and bags...
...and Brandan could have cared less. Salt water stinging eyes? No worries, there's another huge wave coming to knock you over and you'll forget all about the sting.
Aly and I left the boys at the beach and followed the path around to a few other parts of the park. We discovered quite a few lizards eating their manzanillos, the capuchins plotting how to steal from beach baskets of food, and a lot more sand to stowaway for later.
We saw turtle island...
...and we were able to view our hotel just off in the distance.
It was definitely rough getting back and cleaning off all the sand, but i was excited about all the new animal friends we learned about. Brandan enjoyed the beach, Aly was glad to be shed of the sand, and Chato left with "some color" that he would need to complain about later!
I'm still ready to go back.
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