Bosque Del Cabo
1/23/2019 – 1/27/2019

We got up nice and early, had breakfast at the hotel and took our preordered shuttle to the Sansa Terminal. Whoa, what happened here? Expecting the same small nondescript building we’d been to before instead there was a modern light-filled domestic terminal! Crazy. We checked into our flight and went through security (security now even!) and then were amazed by the high tech faucets in the bathroom. Well, first perplexed, then amazed. The air dryer is attached to the faucet! Too much!

Our flight was nice, very smooth and it’s so nice to see the landscape through the window. We arrive in Puerto Jimenez, wow it’s hot! Our luggage was “checked” by the overenthusiastic German Shepherd puppy the police there had. He had no leash skills and truthfully was way more interested in his handler’s tennis ball than checking for drugs. Maybe he was training? Cute anyway.

The Bosque Del Cabo driver was waiting for us, and he whisked us away with a quick stop at a grocery store so Mark could get a soda. The road is indeed much improved, less bumpy although it’s still a dirt road. We got to Bosque, got our ginger lemonade welcome drink and got walked to our house, Casa Teka. The guy kind of made fun of me for asking about puma sightings (not common) and we settled in. Nice little place in the jungle! We hung out there for a while then went back to the lodge for lunch followed by a short hike on the flattest trail. Enjoyed the grounds, and then went on a night hike before dinner with Phillip where we saw lots of spiders (lots of spiders, there are so many spiders) and frogs. Baby banana frogs on a leaf by the pond and this one frog that’s supposed to scream like a banshee if you pick it up but sadly Phillip did not do it. Ethics…

Dinner was nice except they sat us off by ourselves which did not make me happy. I’d already spent three days with my family, we were sort of out of new things to talk about! I told the staffer that and then we were sat with other people the rest of our time.

That night the howler monkeys decided that the trees around our house were a great place to set up and perform their nightly howling ritual. I cannot express to you how freaking loud they are when they’re close. All night long…. fortunately the rest of the nights they only kicked in right before dawn.

Monday, 12/24

Got up at a regular time for Costa Rica (early anywhere else) and had breakfast before we headed down the Pacific Trail. Good lord it was hot once we got to the beach! No shade and we weren’t yet acclimatized at all. But the tide pools were super cool. There were tropical fish and puffer fish and weirdo sea slugs but the biggest score was the little octopus that Charlotte spotted that we all got to terrorize, uh, handle before we had mercy and released it. So cute! The walk up was brutal, sweating buckets. We had lunch and then the girls and I got ready for the tour Genevieve had booked us on, waterfall rappelling. Now she described this tour to me as a fun hike up a gentle waterfall. So we drive down the hill and to our HORSES. I do not like horseback riding at all. Genevieve was looking a little worried. I got on my horse, and the poor thing looked terrified. The guy said he’d just bought her and thought she’d been abused by her previous owner. I felt guilty I didn’t weigh less. We started off up this super steep hill. For a person who does not like horseback riding this was very uncool. Genevieve is looking more worried about what she’d gotten her mom into. Then we get to the waterfall. Oh good lord. Straight down a cliff on ropes through a raging waterfall. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t do this. I say as much and the guide says oh don’t worry we’ll do it together. Now that sounds even worse. Genevieve went first, and then Charlotte and then it was my turn. At first I tried to go fast because I was feeling pressure to clear the area for the family of four that was waiting behind me (also the fasted way to be done), but then I slowed down and started enjoying it.  Key to this sort of thing is to realize you aren’t climbing down but rather only using your legs to keep yourself off the cliff. The one thing I wanted to sure wasn’t going to happen was that I wasn’t going to have water dumped on my eyes because of the super specialized super expensive contact lenses I wear. At the bottom it was like a fire hose was blasting on my face. The girls were terrified I’d be mad, but the contacts stayed put and the whole experience was a lot of fun! The looks of relief on their faces when I turned to them with a big smile and said it was great…..

Now I had to ride my poor terrified horse back down the steep hill but she did fine until we got to the field where a young male horse decided she was the bees knees and started pursuing her and she actually was kicking him with me on her back! I was like “Uh, that one horse is bothering my horse” and the guides ran him off. We rode back up to Bosque in the back of an open pickup (such rebels!) and then got ready for happy hour and dinner, this time at a table where we talked to the other guests.

Tuesday, 12/25

Christmas Day! We donned our special shirts we brought for the occasion, but I think we were the only people who even acknowledged the day! After breakfast we picked up our packed lunch and headed down on a hike to the other side of the cape to the Golfo Dulce. It’s a lot of stairs down but not as steep as the Pacific Trail. Once down we had to walk a while to find the nice beach, and passed a lot of houses and saw lots of scarlet macaws. Once on the beach we looked at the hermit crabs and had lunch and a flaw in our planning emerged. We had not packed anywhere near enough water, and we still had the toughest part of the hike left. Charlotte and I walked along the beach looking to see if there was any kind of restaurant or anything we could get water from but no luck. A nice family from San Francisco asked us what we were looking for and we told them and their young adult son took us to the very nice house rental where he gave us some water (I must have drank four glasses right there and Charlotte did too before we filled up our water bottles). Thank you San Franciscan family! On the way back we stopped at the waterfall/swimming hole that was a little bit up along the path, and then headed back up. Mark was struggling until we got him to drink the bottle of water. Amazing what dehydration can do! The trail opens up to the tropical garden where our house was and we were so happy to see it!

Once back in the house, we heard an awful banging coming from the kitchen (only the bedrooms are closed off). Mark said “maybe it’s a moth” (yes he really did say that) but the girls and I had a pretty good idea what it was. Sure enough, I peeked into the kitchen to find our scared old man coati staring back. We all got away from the stairs and Genevieve climbed over the bar and scared it out that way. It’s all good!

We headed to the pool and then back to get ready for dinner. That night at the happy hour Genevieve (newly 18) had her first legal drink! It was a very nice unChristmas Christmas!

Wednesday, 12/26

The girls and I got up early for a bird tour with Carlos, then we met Mark at breakfast. The day before the people who took the afternoon bird tour had seen a potoo, and Genevieve became obsessed with seeing one. Carlos said he would take us after breakfast (he knew where one was) but then someone booked a tree rapelling tour with him and our tour got moved to the afternoon. But while we were hanging out at the house after breakfast Mark discovered that we could release baby sea turtles that afternoon and so he scheduled that tour instead. So no potoo. But turtles!

We left after lunch with a couple of other families to the Osa Conservation Turtle rescue. We had to don their ill fitting rain boots for the hike to the beach. I don’t really recommend hiking in rain boots if you can help it. We got down to the beach where they have the relocated turtle nests and she showed us the turtles that had hatched that morning. We checked the other nests for any new hatchlings and found a few. Our guide was particularly excited about the green sea turtle that had hatched, the other ones were all leatherbacks and the green sea turtle is indeed prettier. Then we waited for it to get a bit cooler, and for the sleeping hatchlings to wake up. Once it was time, we released them and helped the ones that were struggling to get a bit closer to the water. Of 800 hatchlings, only one will make it to adulthood, not good odds at all. Once we had released our turtles we started to head back and our guide was heartbroken to find a natural nest that had hatched earlier in the day and the turtles had cooked in the sun before they could make it to the water because a log had fallen across their path. She checked to see if there were more turtles in the nest and there were 55 more live hatchlings! So we got to release those as well. This time an eagle was watching us the whole time, so we got to be of use. She said if she’s all alone the eagle can make off with one or two hatchlings before she can stop him, but with all of us there the turtles were safe.

After all the turtles were in the water we hiked back, then rode back to Bosque. Very fun day! And another nice dinner with interesting people.

Thursday, 12/27

Awww, we’ve got to leave! After breakfast we went on a short hike around the grounds and spent some time on the overlook before packing up our house and heading out to Puerto Jimenez and Cabinas Jimenez. Uneventful drive down the hill, and we checked into our large air conditioned room. Cabinas Jimenez is a lot more built up too! We organized our tour of Finca Kobo and then headed out to get money from an ATM and get lunch. The village is still pretty much the same, and I do like an authentic Costa Rican village! We ate at a nice seafood restaurant and I ran into the family that went waterfall rapelling there. Small world (or small village). We caught our ride to the chocolate plantation and had a good tour there and especially enjoyed the fondue afterwards! After the tour the girls went into the bay area in front of the hotel (it was a mud flat earlier but had filled in the water by then) and then we headed down to the end of the road to watch the parrots head to the tree to roost. Lots of parrots! And a tree with flowers there were very non descript but smelled great. We headed to dinner at PizzaMail.it which was as good as I remembered. Killer spaghetti carbonara and the Italian woman who was on our dolphin tour last time was still working there (I think she’s the part owner). And back to the hotel for bed.

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