Friday, July 5, 2002  

Mark didn’t want to get up today.  Genevieve, however, did, so I got up with her and we went to the beach where she played with the shells.  The beach at Playa Tambor isn’t much but it is great for searching for seashells.  After that we went to play in the playground and look at the scarlet macaws they have there.  It’s sad–the macaws have clipped wings and can’t fly very well.  Once you’ve seen them in the wild it’s really clear what they’ve given up.  Genevieve also had a fuss made over her by many Costa Rican women.  “Que linda la bebe!  Que preciosa!  Que perfecta!  Es una muneca! (and my favorite) Que gordita!”  She just lapped up the attention, it got so she expected it and was almost offended if people didn’t rave about her.  She also thought every Costa Rican was called “hola” because whenever one talked to her we said “say Hola” which she would do but then when they left she would say “bye bye Hola”.  Silly girl.

We returned to the room, told Mark that he’d better get his lazy butt out of bed and Genevieve and I were going to breakfast and he’d better not still be in bed when we got back. Breakfast was fine, (Mark met us in the dining room), and afterwards we headed out to Montezuma and the Cabo Blanco Reserve.  I had been to Montezuma previously and remembered that thebeach was crawling with hermit crabs (which of course Manuel Antonio also had but our trip was too rushed before to know that) and big toads and that I’d seen a turtle on the road.  This time no turtle, and sadly no hermit crabs either (on the plane later I talked to a woman who said they were still there just at night and early morning).  The town was alot cleaner and built up though (it was much smaller and camp-like before).  We walked on the beach, bought jewelry from a stand, had a pizza lunch and bought Genevieve a book at a little store where they also gave her a balloon.

Then we embarked for Cabo Blanco.  We took a wrong turn early on (lesson learned–never assume that the good road is the one you want) but a farmer on an ATV was kind enough to lead us back to Montezuma and point us in the right direction. This road was bad bad bad.  Hilly and muddy.  Finally finallywe made it to the reserve, and the ranger pointed us on the trail we wanted (NOT the hard one, he knew that right off!).  We saw monkeys and a little frog, and when I stopped to show Genevieve a caterpillar (“touch it, caterpillar?”) after about a few minutes a bird who was hiding right next to us either got sick of waiting for us to leave or decided that we meant no harm, and walked off,startling the heck out of me.  How much else had we missed?  We heard howler monkeys but weren’t able to see them (we’d also heard them the night before at the hotel).

After our hike we looked at the water for a while, thenheaded back on the fine road to our hotel.  The resort was super crowded, apparently it is THE place for weekender San Josean families.  We went to the pool (too late for towels) and then to dinner, then back to our room and sleep.

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