February 25, 1998 - Wednesday

Flock of Red

I woke up to the sound of crashing waves at 7:30. The other people eventually woke up and we got our things ready for our hike to the waterfall. It's the same waterfall that I went to last year - La Carata. The waterfall is right next to the Carara Biological Reserve. The air felt hot and muggy as we drove out of the Punta Leona complex. Elizabeth stayed behind because she didn't want to hike that much so she just hung out at the condo, enjoyed the pool and light beer.

A Tico manned the entrance this time instead of the French Canadian guy. We hiked down and slowly approached the waterfall and ignoring the two trails to the natural pools described on the map. As we approached closer to the waterfall, we heard the squawks of the Macaws. We looked up and saw two Scarlet Macaws in flight to one tree, and then another trio appeared and landed on the same tree. They started chatting noisily amongst themselves and more Macaws flew in and joined the gathering. I've never seen so many before - there were about 15 to 20 of them. John took some pictures with his camera but they were too far for me because I didn't bring my zoom lens this time.

We saw an older couple while hiking, but they stayed behind to watch the Macaws. After reaching the waterfall, we each started munching on our sandwiches and enjoyed the view and the sound of thundering water crashing against the large rocks. Fabio and John took a swim, but the water was too cold for me. I saw some shrimps in the water but that's pretty much it.

We left and went to the second trail for the natural pools. It was the same pools that I was in last year. At a different trail that branched off was another large pool containing very large barbs or minnows, ranged from 2 inches to 8 inches. I've never seen fish here before so it was pretty surprising. I also found some more shrimp and fresh water gobies as I explore the various bodies of water.

Hike from Hell

After an hour or so, we were ready for the long, slow hike up. I left first because John and Fabio were still getting changed from their swim. I had to stop 4 times to catch my breath on the way up and finally made it, barely alive. I'm began to question whether or not if it's my age, physical conditioning, or a combination of both because I've never felt this bad before... well, except when I ran cross-country in high school. I sat at a taxi stop, huffing and puffing as the two Ticos laughed at me. I was surprised that John and Fabio didn't catch up to me yet. I waited for a while and next to appear were an American couple. The lady made it first and it took another 5 minutes until the guy showed up. John finally showed up and the only thing he managed to say the Tico was "water". He drank about half of the water first before moving back on the path to bring the water to Fabio. They eventually showed up again and we went back home after that.

John said the hike up was much worse than the Grand Canyon hike was because the air was so much more humid and warm. After changing and showering, and waiting about an hour for John and Fabio to get ready, we drove into Jaco for dinner. Jaco is a small surfer town, which consists of just a large strip of small hotels, stores, shops, and restaurants. We stopped by a seafood restaurant with a lot of people, and I ordered Lobster with Jumbo Shrimp for $12 - a bargain in U.S. standards. Like I said before, lobster is almost as good as sex :). After we left the restaurant, we went to a place for ice cream/sorbet. Elizabeth saw a girl across the street tossing her hair and she assumed that the girl was a whore/prostitute looking for tricks. As we walked to our car and had a closer look at the girl, she had a spread of jewelry on the ground, sitting there, selling them. Elizabeth was a little embarrassed about her assumptions. We got back after that and sat on the porch and watched the stars again before one by one, we all turned in.