Semana Santa Part 3, Playa Negra and Cahuíta, Costa Rica

So, I´ve gotten even more delayed on my postings, but better late than never.  Here are the highlights from Part 3 of my Semana Santa vacation this year: Return to Costa Rica!

For our first few days back north of the border, in Costa Rica, we stayed at Brigitt´s place in Playa Negra, Limón, Costa Rica.  As the name says, it was a beautiful beach with black sand (playa-beach, negra-black).  The hostel was a 30 second walk from the beach, and next door to two small, relaxed sodas (open air restaurants) where they had pura vida service with a smile and reggae music at all hours.

When we got to the beach the first time, I learned about a rule Samanta has for her beach adventures.  When she gets to a new beach, she has to walk the length of the beach, so we went on a nice walk across all of Playa Negra.  The beach had nice, calm waves, and an assortment of broken branches, shells and coconuts scattered on the soft black sand.  The beach itself was calm and cool with the music playing in the background, from all directions.

The nice part about Playa Negra is that it is calm, but within reach of the more touristic sights in the area.  While in the area we went to the Sloth Sanctuary in Puerto Viejo. 

In Costa Rica, there are two Sloth Sanctuaries, one in Puerto Viejo and the other in Monteverde!  They are run by the same family, who had a student at the Cloud Forest School for most of the 2nd semester (When we saw him, it was cute, he seemed disappointed that the teachers found him on his vacation).  When we went to the sanctuary in Puerto Viejo, we saw dozens of sloths, many of whom have been in the sanctuary for most of their lives, because they would not be able to survive on their own in the wild.  The ones that can survive are rehabilitated and returned, but monitored, so they have a very high survival rate for the sloths that return to the wild. 

My favourite part of this leg of the trip though, was Cahuíta National Park.  We went to the park twice.  Once just for a walk, and the second time after snorkeling, we decided to walk back through the park.  The park, a long stretch along the coast is home to many different species of plants and animals.  We were able to spot several groups of howler monkeys (one seen below), capuchín (White Faced) monkeys, lizards of various species I cannot remember how to spell.  Amanda was also able to identify several types of bugs and birds.  

This picture played in perfectly for an inside joke with one of the student teachers back a the Creativa

On the first walk, I fell through an anthill.  I was just walking and suddenly, my right foot was about 2 feet into the ground.  Luckily the ants didn´t attack my leg too badly, they didn´t even bite.  I was sorry I destroyed their house.  

Those were the highlights of the last part of the Semana Santa 2011 for me!

Hopefully I´ll be better about the next few blog entries.  However they will not take place for the next week as I will be on my next adventure-- NYC, Philly and DC