Our hotel in Playa Cocles emailed a brochure before our trip that outlined some activities we could take advantage of during our stay. There were several tours that interested us. One was a free morning nature walk at the hotel and surrounding area. We decided that we would definitely do that one. There were also four other tours for a fee including a wildlife tour that we wanted to check out. All of the tours, including the free one, were led, according to the brochure, by “Jungle Man.”
This is the third post about our trip to Playa Cocles. In this post we describe our adventures with Jungle Man.
Unlike in the US, there are no major holidays between Costa Rica’s Independence Day (September 15) and Christmas. Stores here wasted no time in capitalizing on this timespan to promote consumer spending. You think Christmas displays go up too early in the US? Christmas displays here started going up in the stores on September 16.
We chose to go to Playa Cocles for our October Costa Rican
adventure. Playa Cocles is located on the Caribbean side of the country, in the
south near Panama. It is located between Puerto Viejo to the north and Manzilla
to the south, along an 8-mile stretch of road. This area is attractive to a
more rustic crowd, like backpackers and eco-tourists. We once again chose the
Caribbean side because in San José, October is the rainiest month of the rainy
season, and the Caribbean side of Costa Rica is supposed to be drier when the
rest of the country is rainier. We
scheduled our 3-night, 4-day trip for the last weekend in October.
This is the first post about our trip to Playa Cocles. Getting there and back is an adventure in and of itself, so here are some highlights …
With Veteran’s Day coming up and with the passing of my 94-year old dad, Richard (Dick) Pestotnik, this week (10/30/2019), we thought it only appropriate to share his written account of his WWII experience. This writing is from many years ago. He typed it all by hand and I later scanned the typed pages to create an electronic version. His story fits nicely into the theme of our blog, remember it’s an adventure. This was his great adventure, seeing the world and the war as an 18-year old from Boone, Iowa. – John
For those of you following along on the search for the Witch
House in Escazú …
Monday, John and I were the only two that could make it to
our Spanish class. Our teacher said that we could cover anything that we had
questions about. Well, he opened the door, and you would be correct if you
guessed that we asked about the witch house.
We had searched over the weekend and had pictures to show our teacher of the houses that we thought might possibly be the witch house. He looked at each one and said that none of them were it. He then pulled up a website of houses for rent and didn’t find it there. He probably thought it would be because of what he’s heard about the turnover at that house. Finally, he pulled up Google Earth on his laptop and located the house. There are actually two matching houses, one that the niece lives in (witch house) and the other that is rented right next door to it (haunted house). John and I thought for sure we’d been by there, but as we found out, we obviously had not.
Location of Witch House and Haunted House on Google Earth – surprisingly close to the Uruguayan Embassy
After class, we walked to PriceMart and then walked back to our apartment with one (thankfully light) bag each. The weather was still fine, warm and sunny, which is atypical for our normal afternoon showers during the rainy season. To get from PriceMart back to our apartment in Escazú Village, we have to walk in the neighborhood where the witch house is located. Based on what we saw on Google Earth, it wasn’t going to be too far out of our way, so we decided to find it.
We first turned down the street with the over-the-top, and somewhat
creepy lawn ornaments.
We pass by this house almost every day, but not without shuddering
We then went down two blocks and turned left. According to Google Earth, the houses should be located near the corner. As soon as we rounded the corner, we immediately knew we were in the right place. There were three cats on the sidewalk in front of the house. (There’s that number three again!) I quickly pulled out my phone and tried to take a picture. Two of the cats had disappeared, but one black one remained on the sidewalk.
Obviously we’re in the right place
To get a good picture of the houses, we crossed the street before we passed directly in front of the houses. The witch house where the cats were located is on the left in the picture below. It has the white gate. The haunted house that our teacher was going to rent is on the right. Notice that it does have a sign (for sale) on it. Apparently, no one is living in that house now. (Well, no one that’s living, anyway.)
Witch house (left) and Haunted house (right)
On the way back to our apartment, John said, “Those cats
were kind of small. Do you think they were kittens or just little cats?” I answered,
“They seemed like little cats. Maybe the witch turns the children into cats.”
I sent the house pictures to our teacher and he confirmed we
had located the witch house. During class this morning, he also asked how we
felt when we walked by the house. We told him that we had crossed the street. What
we didn’t tell him was, this isn’t our family’s first encounter with the
paranormal – we know better than to get too close.
Our Spanish teacher gives us homework, and one exercise was
to answer questions that would require us to use the Spanish word “hay”,
meaning “there is” or “there are.” There
were several questions about our city or country, and mostly we took the easy way
out by answering what we knew about Des Moines, Iowa, or the US, because we
still have so much to learn about Costa Rica.
One of the questions (translated to English) was “Are there
many museums in your city?” And, of
course, both John and I gave answers about Des Moines. Sometimes our teacher seizes
a cultural learning opportunity and, in this case, decided to list museums in
the San José area for our benefit. (You may remember he did something similar
when he listed in Spanish the 10+ kinds of milk we could buy, including the
ever popular, buffalo.) So, he proceeded to list museums: Museo
Nacional, Museo de Jade, Museo de Oro, Museo de Arte, and concluded with Museo
de las Brujas (Witch Museum).
This is the last post in the Tortuguero trip series. (We promise!)
The night before our return home from Tortuguero, we went to bed ready for a good night’s sleep before our early morning breakfast and departure.
Almost as soon as we went to bed, we heard a noise outside the cabin. The noise was from an animal, and when we compared notes the next morning, we both used the word “distressed” to describe the sound. John thought it might have been a baby bird, and I thought maybe an insect, but “distressed” we both agreed on.
Our cabin had screened windows all around. The windows had
curtains you could pull across for privacy, but you couldn’t close the windows
to shut out noise. The previous night it hadn’t been a problem – the quiet sounds
of the jungle had been soothing, and the morning noises from the howler monkeys
weren’t an entirely unpleasant sound to wake up to. But, this night, that
distressed sound was keeping us both awake. I began to hope that whatever was
causing that thing to be distressed would be relieved of its misery, either by its
mother, a mate, or a predator, so it would just shut up!
As described in our past few blog entries the first day of our short Tortuguero getaway was an activity-filled 24 hours of new experiences. Our day two itinerary was a little less hectic but included some new experiences as well. Waking up in our screened-in, porch-like cabin in the jungle was extremely pleasant. Per usual, I woke up early but atypically to to the smells and sounds of the jungle. The howler monkeys were accommodatingly quiet most of the night but were now rather animated. I decided to get up and venture down the elevated walkway in search of a pre-six a.m. cup of coffee.
It’s said that turtle watching in Tortuguero (Place of
Turtles) is all about timing. We visited during September, which is one of the
peak nesting months for green sea turtles, so felt there was a good chance we’d
be able to see a green sea turtle nesting. It seemed extra special since green sea
turtles are listed as an endangered species.
But you don’t just wander down to
the beach to see a turtle nesting. Sea turtles come on shore at night to nest.
Access to nesting sites on the beach are strictly controlled at night, and you
are not allowed to wander the beaches at night on your own. So, we signed up
for the (optional) night sea turtle tour on Thursday night, and paid the $40
per person fee. It was worth every penny!
Remember, it's an adventure. 