12/27/2005 - Curu Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica

The parents came to visit for Christmas week. We had a fantastic visit! They flew into San Jose and rented a four-wheel drive SUV. In order to meet up with us they drove an hour from the airport to Puntarenas where they caught the car ferry that transported them to Playa Naranja. At Playa Naranja they then exited the car ferry and had a short quarter mile drive to the Oasis Hotel for their week long visit. The Woodduck and crew were conveniently anchored at Playa Naranja at the end of the dock belonging to the Oasis Hotel. So, for an entire week we were all nestled in one tidy little spot, our own little paradise in Costa Rica. This gave us ample time and convenience to visit and do lots of exploring! You would think that we are getting enough adventure out of just sailing around on our sailboat, but our excursions are a bit limited without having wheels. The roads in Costa Rica are lacking. End of sentence. Costa Rica is about 60 years behind the times in road construction. The roads connecting city to city sometimes don't even exist and the ones that do exist are lacking.... lacking pavement but loaded with potholes. So, all of this provided for an adventure all of its own.

One of the excursions we went on was a visit to the wildlife refuge in Curu, Costa Rica. This was spectacular. Within a few minutes of walking the nature trail we spotted wild coati, iguanas, howler monkeys and white faced capuchian monkeys. At the end of the tour we were treated to a home cooked meal from the family that owns and runs the refuge. This meal was especially memorable as we were seated in a cage so that the wild animals (i.e. the monkeys) were not tempted to join us for our meal. Also very memorable, was the fact that we thought we were getting treated to an enchilada lunch... but we mistakenly heard them say enchilada.... actually they said enselada... meaning salad. Oops! Okay, so our Spanish is not so good. Anyway, lunch was yummy, enselada and all.