June 30, 1999

The rain came pouring down heavily that night, on and off. The thatched roof managed to hold off most of the rainwater. I heard some dripping but not much.

In the very early morning the next day, I was awoken by an eerie sound of somebody in pain or something. By the second time it repeated, I realized it was David making the noise, kinda like painfully whining the word "ahhhhhhhhh". After the 3rd or 4th time he made that noise, I realized that he was having a nightmare so I said his name in a very stern and loud voice. He stopped the noise after that and when we finally woke up, he said he was having a nightmare where he thought he was getting some sort of water torture.

We had a variety of choices for breakfast, nothing really authentic Costa Rican except for rice and beans, which I was not about to have. I ordered some banana pancakes with bacon but they were not as good as the banana pancakes I had at Manuel Antonio. There were a lot of birds chirping and flying right outside of the restaurant, overlooking the forest canopy top. I could hear a noisy flock of parrots in the distance, some Toucans at a distant tree, and a pair of Scarlet Macaws passing overhead.

After breakfast, we gathered our stuff and snorkeling gear and headed to the boat that was headed for Canos Island. We had to hop onto the boat in the water and the same young couple came with us. The waves were just slightly rough and I didn't get seasick like I thought I would. The boat bounced up and down on the waves, sometimes hard which hurt my butt, but eventually I put a life jacket under me and it felt a lot better.

David hiked up the hill into the rain forest first while I snorkeled with the young couple. There were much more fish to see here due to the rock formations available around the island and I was visually satisfied by the variety of fish I saw. After snorkeling a bit, I dried off and headed up the hill too to go find David. The path ascends steeply into the hills with a littering of skinks sunning on the path. The environment quickly changed into a lush wet jungle with arial plants and vines hanging from trees.

I met him not far from the trailhead and he was heading back already. He said he didn't find the artifacts left behind by the indigenous people. He was talking about these impossibly large round stones left behind by the indigenous people on this island. The historians and archaeologists never discovered the reasons behind building these stone orbs but they surmised that they were probably for some sort of religious or burial ceremonies.

I hiked past David and walked through moss draped fallen trees. I saw a few Jesus Christ Lizards and snakes on the path. As I rounded a large tree with a crevice in the trunk, the flash in my camera was able to pick out the bats hidden in them. They screeched at me for invading their privacy and I moved on quietly after that.

I found two orbs on the trail and also climbed a very muddy trail to a lookout point that had a view of large waves crashing into the rocks below and the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean beyond.

I headed back to the beach where the ranger station is. I saw on one else on the various trails that afternoon. A lone snake slithered through the forest floor. They had started lunch already and it consisted of some sandwiches and pasta/veggie salad along with some cheese, bread, and fresh fruits. The ranger joined us for a bite to eat. David informed me that he saw a sea snake in the shallows. There was a large hawk perched on a tree above and I was able to get close enough to take a few pictures. I found out later that the hawk hung out at the ranger station because it knows there's food from the tourists there and of course, we did not feed the bird.

We headed back to Morenco after that. On the way back, we saw a large mass on the ocean surface and moved close for an investigation. It looked like two sea turtles but they weren't moving too much, not even when we approached closer. One of the guys said that maybe they're dead, but when we got closer, almost on top of them, we realized that they were mating. Oblivious to the approaching boat, the turtle kept on their mating ritual and finally, when they realized that there were humans close by, they took a fast dive. We had a good laugh about it.

It rained that afternoon on and off and I explored the local trails some more before heading in for dinner. I had the garlic pan-fried fish for dinner again. Afterward, we were shown a small video about the research efforts on the white-faced monkeys at this bio station. We retired after that.