We landed on a small airstrip in Puerto Jimenez on the Osa Peninsula, on the southern Pacific side of Costa Rica. We were met by the people from Laparios and served coconuts to drink. Really fun. Even Bennett liked them. After stopping to say hello to the hotel owner (Gustavo was the GM here for 3 years), we took a very bouncy jeep ride into the jungle for about 45 minutes before arriving at Laparios.

We were literally staying in the middle of the jungle. I never got used to the humidity. Everything is damp all the time. You sweat everywhere constantly. Sometimes there is a breeze that makes everything much more pleasant. I have gotten 10-15 mosquito bites. No one else has seemed very bothered them thankfully -- and that is only consistent with my history. I must have very sweet blood.

 It is like luxury camping in a fancy yurt. There is a full bathroom with fancy shower and two sinks. Beautiful beds under mosquito nets. The bottom third of the walls are bamboo, but the rest is screened with no windows. There is a private deck with furniture and a hammock, and an incredible view of the ocean. There is even an outdoor shower (though only cold water). And ceiling fans -- life saver. It is fancy roughing it. With the humidity, I will ready for our fancy hotel next week, but it is a cool experience. The birds and monkeys make great jungle noises and we have sighted a lot of fun animals -- scarlet macaws, toucans, iguanas (mating even!), a sloth, quite a few monkeys, lizards, hawks, and other birds. Mark and Jackson took the night hike last night and saw a very poisonous large snake -- frightening!

Friday when we arrived, we had a late lunch, and then went down the beach. It got dark at 5:30 so it was a short trip but the kids had a great time until Jackson got stung by a jelly fish! That hurt bad! Mark peed on his leg -- both Mark and Gustavo said that is "what you do". It hurt really bad for several hours. After some Advil and aloe vera, it was much better though. We had a little bit of a scary hike back up to the road through the jungle to meet the car to take up back to the resort. After showers, we had a nice dinner and went to bed exhausted. The food here is really good. Cucumber-cilantro soup, fresh fish, yummy salsas and salads -- very gourmet and amazing, especially for being in the middle of the jungle.

Saturday after a delicious breakfast, we went on a waterfall hike. Incredibly difficult, especially because we had to carry Paxton and Sarah on our backs. Luckily after about 30 minutes, Gustavo offered to take Paxton for me. I would NOT have made it carrying him. We hiked for 3 hours up and down, and across a small river with a pretty swift current more than 20 times. We saw two waterfalls. Mark and Gustavo went swimming in the pool under the second waterfall. They helped Jackson and Bennett get over to the waterfall which the boys enjoyed. It was all a little stressful for me as the mom because they kept warning us of snakes and other poisonous things, plus the rushing water. I was glad they were adventurous but would rather not have watched. :) It was a long, arduous hike and I was so proud of the kids. Bennett and Jackson were troopers and walked the whole thing. Many times when we crossed the river the water came up past our knees. Bennett was so brave. We all had walking sticks except Paxton & Sarah, and we should taken one for them too because they always wanted to hold them, but we really needed them. We were all exhausted and starving at the end but it was a great adventure.

Spider Monkey

Black Hawk

Mushrooms

Lizard

Green Parrot

We came back to have lunch, then rested a bit in our room. Gustavo watched the kids at the pool while Mark and I took a yoga class a deck overlooking the ocean, from an older man named Stig. It was very relaxing (a welcome change from yoga with Tony Horton & P90X.) and one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Gustavo only had to rescue Paxton from the pool once, when he fell in while he was helping Sarah with her swim vest. Scared him pretty bad, but it turned out okay.

We were all going to go on the night hike but Bennett was really tired, understandably. So I stayed behind with the younger kids, while Mark, Jackson & Gustavo went on the hike. It was a crazy circus trying to feed them all in the restaurant while there were people there watching a slide show about wild cats (interesting though). We got through the tantrums about the strips of basil in their cheese pizza and headed back to our room. They were pretty wound up and I finally had to hold Paxton while he cried himself to sleep. Mark and Jackson got back, and Sarah had fallen asleep on her own. Mark sat with Bennett until he fell asleep then the three of us had dinner with Gustavo at the restaurant. Another delicious meal. (I'll do another blog post of pretty food pictures.) Mark and Jackson told me about their exciting hike where they saw lots of snakes, including an extremely venomous one called a Fer-de-Lance that was in the path and coiled up on them and made even the guide very nervous. I was glad not to be there! (Sharon would have freaked out!!)

Sunday we woke up at 5:30 to the howler monkeys that seemed closer today. We got dressed for church and ate an early breakfast. (The kids have had a hard time with the kitchen because it is SLOW -- This is not a place where you are meant to hurry, so even ordering cereal took a long time. And then the cornflakes came with mixed fruit on top which none of them wanted.) But the yogurt and granola was so good. And Mark, Jackson and I love all the tropical fruit. Mark and Jackson are in love in with passionfruit juice smoothies. Jackson is loving all the pineapple. He has been extremely adventurous with all his eating, order from the adult menu at every meal and trying (and liking) almost everything.

We took the jeep ride down to Puerto Jimenez and said goodbye to Gustavo who had to fly back to San Jose to meet with his boss tomorrow. We took a boat ride across the Gulfo Dulce to a little town called Golfito where the church’s website said that a branch met at 9 am. The boat ride was beautiful. The water was so peaceful. We unfortunately did not see any dolphins but we looked. Paxton did not like the wind in his face so he hid his face in my arm for much of the trip but the rest of the kids enjoyed it. 

We hailed a taxi and all climbed in. There were some loud tears at the beginning for various reasons but it soon quieted down. We drove through town a few times until we realized that the church was not at the address on the website. We saw a woman walking down the street in a long, modest “mormon-looking” dress and stopped her. “Are you going to church?” -- Yes. “Are you a Mormon?” -- Yes! There were only 21 people at sacrament meeting, besides us, and of all the people in the town, we just “happened” to run into her! She said she was returning back to her house to get more money for the bus. So we waited for her and then she got in the taxi and told the driver how to get to church! We never would’ve found it without her! Sacrament meeting met outside behind the tiny building. Several branch members had just gone to the temple in San Jose, including Carmen, the woman who helped us. Several of them bore their testimonies about their experience. It was a spiritual meeting. It was fun to talk with the American sister missionary afterwards. She had been there for 6 months and was getting transferred that day. She said there had been missionaries in Puerto Jimenez until about 6 months previously. Sometimes there were members there that met, but she wasn’t sure anymore.

We followed her directions through the neighborhood back to the main road and hailed a taxi. He had a TV in his car and was playing a bawdy music video so Mark asked him to turn it off. He drove us back to the dock. We got some sodas at the supermarket because it was sunny and hot. Then road the boat back across the gulf. Paxton fell asleep leaning against Mark’s arm, and then Mark held him asleep through the car ride home. We saw some diving birds fishing but we didn’t see any dolphins. Too bad!

It was actually sunny and hot on the boat  and in Gulfito. It was one of the only times we have had continuous sun on this trip so far. The heat is smothering because of the humidity so it felt great on the boat with the wind. I got sunburned on my arm, Mark looks a little red on his face and neck but the kids got away with too much. I have been overly cautious with the sunscreen because every website we read warned about how close we are to the equator and that the sun is so much stronger here that you can burn easily even when it’s cloudy, especially those of us who are not used to being in the sun at all.

The car ride was extremely bumpy, tons of potholes in the gravel road as the rainy season is ending. It made me carsick every time. I was amazed that no one ever threw up! You passed a lot of cattle ranches on the drive and Paxton loved seeing the cows. He was as excited to see them as any other animals. When he was bored, he’d ask, “More cows, Mommy?”

Tons of scarlet macaws in the trees

More spider monkeys

White-faced capuchins

After lunch we took the kids swimming in the pool. It was cloudy and almost chilly when you were wet. Paxton doesn’t like getting into the cold water and just runs around the edge of the pool, pulling out leaves or putting more in. He grew tired of it quickly so I brought him back to our room while Mark played with the other kids. He watched Tarzan while I typed in the hammock. They don’t have a TV here or telephones or internet, but to make life easy on us we let them watch the DVD player or play on the iPad. When they all came back we changed clothes for dinner. By then it was impossible to find clean, all the way dry clothes. Everything is damp all the time, even the sheets. And since we left a lot of our clothes at Gustavo’s house, everything is dirty. And the water heater in our room broke and they can’t get the part until Monday so hot showers. Without a bathtub it is hard to bathe the kids well anyway.

Fiery-billed acari

The kids ate noodles and/or cheese pizza again. They were so spoiled there, getting whatever they want to eat. Though they still complained sometimes. Amazing. Bennett really wanted to go on the night hike so Mark and Jackson took him on a short hike on the self-guided trail. They saw a scorpion and a few other things. Bennett was really happy. When we got all the kids settled into bed with Jackson babysitting, Mark and I went to take a hot shower in another building. On our way back, Mark spotted something in the trees. Many people gathered around and after consulting with the staff, we determined it was a kinkajou or a olingo. I ran to get Jackson he could see it. When he finally returned, Mark and I rushed to dinner before the kitchen closed at 9:30. (I learned later that the kitchen had actually closed at 8:30 so they were super nice to serve us.) We have never had faster service. We were exhausted from a long day and went to bed as soon as we were done (and could get Jackson to put his journal away, he was so excited to write down everything that we saw.)

Seagull

All the roofs are thatched liked this

The next morning (Monday) Jackson and Mark got up early to go on one last hike. The other kids were awake with the holler monkeys about 5:30 am, as has been usual in Costa Rica. We packed and ate breakfast. Mark walked Bennett around for one last “hike,” as he was very upset that Jackson had gotten to hike that morning. The car drove us down to the Carbonera School which is the small local school supported by Laparios. We were able to meet the children there. They all introduced themselves in English, and then we did the same. Then they asked Mark some questions in Spanish. We read stories with the kindergarteners for a few minutes, two little girls just older than Sarah. The dentist was visiting the school that day to give them all a checkup and they were working hard to get the generator to work so she could use her equipment. It was good for the kids to see that the kids there were in many ways the same as they are.

Then they drove us down to the “airport,” a little tiny storefront next to the airstrip. Paxton fell asleep on the drive down and slept in our arms until we got on the plane. While we waited, we talked with a man who was the first minister of tourism in Costa Rica and had been at Laparios with us. He and his wife were so nice to us every time we saw them. Very gracious.

Our little flight was full. We enjoyed talking with the other passengers about what they had been doing there. The view was again incredible. Sarah surprisingly fell asleep on the flight. She NEVER falls asleep in the middle of the day. It started raining before we landed and it was a little frightening. I did not enjoy it. Sarah, Jackson & I were in the front row and you could see the pilots. They were flying with only a little Atari looking airplane on a screen, trying to keep it on a line. You have to have a lot of faith in your instruments! But we landed without any problems. (Apparently they have been in business for over 20 years and have never had an incident.)